Low GPU Usage R9 390 Sapphire Nitro

[Ferrum Master]

I updated the post with the full sized version but here we are again:

Aquinus... you did use vsync judging by the FPS graph.... so obviously... he doesn't use that...

 

[Aquinus]

Aquinus... you did use vsync judging by the FPS graph.... so obviously... he doesn't use that...

Look carefully at the parts of the graph where framerate is < 60FPS and GPU clocks are under 1040Mhz. GPU clocks scale to load, v-sync forces a cap, a CPU bottleneck will give similar kind of behavior.

Here is Diablo 3 with v-sync off. No CPU bottleneck, which means GPU runs at full tilt. I bet you can tell on the graph where I turned v-sync off.

 

[EarthDog]

You guys should play more graphically demanding video games.

 

[Aquinus]

You guys should play more graphically demanding video games.

I got my fill of TW3. I only recently re-installed D3 and Cities: Skylines is just an awesome game. I would be playing Elite: Dangerous in surround but, I'm still waiting for AMD/FD to fix the supercruise bug...

More GPU load doesn't always mean it's a better game. Plus, for certain games that means better IQ settings.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Look carefully at the parts of the graph where framerate is < 60FPS and GPU clocks are under 1040Mhz. GPU clocks scale to load, v-sync forces a cap, a CPU bottleneck will give similar kind of behavior.

Here is Diablo 3 with v-sync off. No CPU bottleneck, which means GPU runs at full tilt. I bet you can tell on the graph where I turned v-sync off.

Gosh you still play Diablo 3? But... actually you have some funny usage spikes... but they do not appear on the FPS and frametime graph... I am starting to think the usage % reading is broken a bit...

You guys should play more graphically demanding video games.

Yeah putting up Star Citizen makes me cry on the stutter fest.

 

[EarthDog]

I got my fill of TW3. I only recently re-installed D3 and Cities: Skylines is just an awesome game. I would be playing Elite: Dangerous in surround but, I'm still waiting for AMD/FD to fix the supercruise bug...

More GPU load doesn't always mean it's a better game. Plus, for certain games that means better IQ settings.

What is funny.. on the 380x I have, I did not see this behavior with Vsync... so while it may be normal, it doesn't happen all the time. Just be careful.

 

[Ferrum Master]

What is funny.. on the 380x I have, I did not see this behavior with Vsync... so while it may be normal, it doesn't happen all the time. Just be careful.

Tahiti acts a bit different than Hawaii... maybe that is why... too much mojo to keep the card cool.

And speaking of stress testing...

I haven't seen the sunrise in years actually... let's see how it runs....

http://store.steampowered.com/app/17300/

 

[MorpHeer]

That's normal with dynamic clocks. See my screenshot again.

I don't think is normal, it affects the fps.

Assassins Creed Syndicate at ultra GPU usage:

Assassins Creed Syndicate with high shadows, SSAO and FXAA GPU usage:

 

[Ferrum Master]

I don't think is normal, it affects the fps.

With limited FPS it is, as long it holds the FPS. You both are using different scenarios.

 

[Aquinus]

Assassins Creed Syndicate with high shadows, SSAO and FXAA GPU usage

Try MSAA instead. Shadows contribute to CPU load as well.

...and stop showing only a tiny bit of the monitor window. Show everything, including framerate, GPU core clock, and CPU usage. GPU usage looks like that when the GPU isn't fully loaded. How many times do I have to repeat myself?

 

[MorpHeer]

The card is a dud I suppose. Something (probably VRM) tells her to quit working as long it starts rolling current. BTW... are your voltages fine? The main rails? This some sort of voodoo stuff going on... a nuke is probably needed.

Okay then the board... B85M-K BIOS 1010? Is that department OKAY? The changle log says dramatic magical term increase performance... it means the board had a serious derp un bios once... The CPU itself on those freqs is not enough for the GPU actually... but not is such a drastic behavior manner.

So upgrade BIOS. Reseat everything, GPU in PCIE slot and RAM... (actually I don't like the sucker, it slow and alone, the board starves from ram speed, not only from the lack of CPU horsepower).

As a last resort... try OCCT... the GPU section, see if it doesn't count artifacts already there, mark the memory test also (2000 is max). If you wish you can test the CPU/RAM domain too. GPU problems reveal itself very fast, usually 10-15mins and an error shows up.



Could you put up a bigger pic please? I don't remember such behaviour on mine 7970, it usually steamed off to the max... but yeah... I did mod the bios and set the power limit so high, that it didn't dare to throttle.

I did MemTest for RAM and it has no problems, 0 errors.

How can i tell if the VRAM is broken ?
Is there a test for it ?
I played ACS for some minutes to see VRAM temperatures:

The voltage on the 12V rails is 11.88V

 

[Ferrum Master]

I did MemTest for RAM and it has no problems, 0 errors.]

I did tell you... OCCT.

Did you update the BIOS and reseat everything... it could be most probably issue too...?

 

[Aquinus]

How can i tell if the VRAM is broken?

You would either visually see artifacts or the GPU would fail to start if VRAM was defective.

Is it really that hard to accept that this is normal behavior for the GPU? It's not like I'm pulling this out of nowhere either. I'm speaking from experience with my own 390. You would think that would mean something.

Edit: I'm not saying there isn't a problem, I'm saying it's not your GPU at fault. How your GPU is responding to load is normal.

 

[MorpHeer]

You would either visually see artifacts or the GPU would fail to start if VRAM was defective.

What temperatures are normal for the VRAM ?
Using MSAA doesen't help.

 

[MorpHeer]

I did tell you... OCCT.

I did OCCT GPU error check with 2000MB memory used, shader complexity 7, no errors.

This are the reading during the test:

 

[Aquinus]

What temperatures are normal for the VRAM ?
Using MSAA doesen't help.

I wouldn't know. My 390 doesn't have a readout for DRAM temperature.

Once again:

...and stop showing only a tiny bit of the monitor window. Show everything, including framerate, GPU core clock, and CPU usage. GPU usage looks like that when the GPU isn't fully loaded. How many times do I have to repeat myself?

 

[Ferrum Master]

I did OCCT GPU error check with 2000MB memory used, shader complexity 7, no errors.

I guess... it leaves only one option... CPU/RAM department really is not enough. I was living with dual opteron mobo driving GTX280 SLI... I know the pain...

Let's bomb the thread with ultra large res nostagic feeling...

 

[MorpHeer]

I guess... it leaves only one option... CPU/RAM department really is not enough. I was living with dual opteron mobo driving GTX280 SLI... I know the pain...

Let's bomb the thread with ultra large res nostagic feeling...

View attachment 70494

Maybe the CPU is not enough for the latest games but what about the old, not demanding games ?

 

[Ferrum Master]

Maybe the CPU is not enough for the latest games but what about the old, not demanding games ?

The same. The GPU needs data for processing. It just gets in a wall. Call it poor drivers. And seconds support for old games gets only worse. Btw you have a R9 3xx so you cannot use older original catslysts dll's too, as they don't know your card.

Did you mend you board bios btw?

 

[Aquinus]

Maybe the CPU is not enough for the latest games but what about the old, not demanding games ?

Once again, I've explained this already:

You assume that Garry's Mod is capable of scaling perfectly to 4 cores in every situation. I argue that's not a realistic expectation. Cities: Skylines might bottleneck on the CPU but, it doesn't need to utilize 8 full threads in order to do that because of the nature of how the game was written (and what's realistically feasible for a "realtime" application.) There are limits to how much an application can scale to the number of cores given time constraints and latency requirements. Simply put, you can have a CPU bottleneck without utilizing every core.

Old games don't tend to scale well to cores and have their own self-limiting issues as game complexity increases. Garry's mod is notoriously bad because of how physics is handled. Try a game that isn't a sim as sims are known to bottleneck on the CPU because they require a lot more compute than most games.

How does games other than Garry's Mod work out because that has been the only example you've given us so far AFAICT.

 

[OneMoar]

gmod runs like shit no matter what hard hardware you give it is the source engine is trash and gmod is a cluster-fk of patches and hacks and forcing the ancient source engine to do things it was never made todo
nothing to see here move along ....

 

[MorpHeer]

Once again, I've explained this already:

Old games don't tend to scale well to cores and have their own self-limiting issues as game complexity increases. Garry's mod is notoriously bad because of how physics is handled. Try a game that isn't a sim as sims are known to bottleneck on the CPU because they require a lot more compute than most games.

How does games other than Garry's Mod work out because that has been the only example you've given us so far AFAICT.

I tested 3 games, here are the results:

DayZ: 50% CPU usage, very unstable GPU usage, low core clock = 30 fps

COD Modern Warfare 2: Around 900MHz core clock, low CPU usage, unstable GPU usage = stable 90fps (i have stable 90 fps in COD Ghosts also)

Euro Truck Simulator seems to be special, works perfectly (how evey game should work): Stable GPU usage (v-sync off), stable 1040MHz core clock = 180fps ; 80 fps with 400% resolution scale

So it would be awesome if all the games would run like Euro Truck Simulator.
DayZ is unplayable.

 

[OneMoar]

op needs to find a better selection of games
lol every game hes tested is either old or horribly broken when it comes to performance

 

[MorpHeer]

gmod runs like shit no matter what hard hardware you give it is the source engine is trash and gmod is a cluster-fk of patches and hacks and forcing the ancient source engine to do things it was never made todo
nothing to see here move along ....

op needs to find a better selection of games
lol every game hes tested is either old or horribly broken when it comes to performance

I intentionally test old games that are not gpu demanding because i can't run those because of low GPU usage and low core clock.
I don't question gmod is shit but this is not my problem.
If i crank up the resolution to 2560x1600 with VSR the GPU usage and core clock rises.

 

[OneMoar]

I don't question gmod is shit but this is not my problem.
If i crank up the resolution to 2560x1600 with VSR the GPU usage and core clock rises.

the games you are playing aren't putting enough load on the gpu for the scaler to decide to throttle the gpu up AMD's power save scheme does not play nice with older titles
you can try raising the power limit to +20 see if that makes it scale more aggressively
else just install msi-afterburner and configure a two-step 2d/3d clock profile