Potential Performance Bottleneck(s)

[Xanath2511]

I recently purchased a Sapphire R9 280 Dual-X 3GB graphics card to improve my systems gaming performance and have noticed in some scenarios there is a very noticeable performance boost, while in others, I'm seeing little to nothing at all.

One example would be that I can play Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor on ultra settings with smooth performance -- something I could never do before, but when I run Diablo III: RoS, my performance is no better than when I was running with the old card (Geforce GTX 560ti). I've also had some slight hiccups while playing Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and The Secret World. A few of these games are dated at this point, and the pre-sequel is running off the BL2 engine, so I'm not understanding the lack of performance increase unless I am dealing with some sort of bottleneck on my end.

My full system specs are as follows:

ASUS M5A78L-M LX AM3+ AMD 760G Micro ATX
8GB G.Skill Ripjaw Series DDR3 1600 (PC 12800) SDRAM
AMD Phenom II X4 B55 OC @ 3.6GHz (unlocked from AMD Athlon II X3 455 Rana 3.3GHz)
Crucial M500 120GB SSD
Raidmax RX-500S 500w ATX12V PSU
Sapphire Radeon r9 280 Dual-X 3GB GDDR5 GPU

Any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[kn00tcn]

yes, your cpu sucks to put it bluntly

what framerates are we talking though? borderlands i understand, you need to control your aim, but diablo is surely beyond 100fps & doesnt need to be fast, right?

oh & is physx disabled for borderlands?

i'm actually curious what that compares to a q9550 at 3.6ghz, since if i were to replace my dead 4870x2, i would be bottlenecked, but nobody is testing the cpu anymore so i have to go by somewhat equivalent newer ones... but i need to find out which ones are similar to mine... i would be interested in you doing cpu benchmarks & if they're similar to mine, i would now know what a 280 would be like (well i was eye'ing 7970 then 290 then 970, but these are probably a terrible idea until i do a major upgrade)

 

[m&m's]

Your computer should be able to run both Diablo III and Borderlands.

What do you mean by

my performance is no better than when I was running with the old card

Same fps?

I've also had some slight hiccups while playing Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel and The Secret World.

Hiccups can be caused by a slow HDD, what model are you using? And what resolution do you game on?

 

[arbiter]

Since you have an AM3+ board if you want to remove a bottleneck could buy an FX-8000 series cpu and drop it in. that would minimize that issue only a tiny bit at most.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Is there L3 cache on the unlocked chip ?

Can you screenshot CPUZ and post it please.

 

[Xanath2511]

I will get back to you folks with some answers later this evening, I'm at work right now. Thanks for all of your replies!

 

[WaterKewl]

yes, your cpu sucks to put it bluntly

^made me lol.

Blizzard games are notoriously CPU dependent. Also Borderlands is built for NVidia GPUs. That means that it is coded to use PhysX, and NVidia Cuda cores to compute things like bullet holes, flags waving, explosions, etc... Because you have an AMD card in your machine, that load is being handed to your CPU. See the above quote as to why that would be an issue.

You have a good board, just yank the turd out and drop in a shiny new piece of Si.

 

[Xanath2511]

yes, your cpu sucks to put it bluntly

what framerates are we talking though? borderlands i understand, you need to control your aim, but diablo is surely beyond 100fps & doesnt need to be fast, right?

oh & is physx disabled for borderlands?

i'm actually curious what that compares to a q9550 at 3.6ghz, since if i were to replace my dead 4870x2, i would be bottlenecked, but nobody is testing the cpu anymore so i have to go by somewhat equivalent newer ones... but i need to find out which ones are similar to mine... i would be interested in you doing cpu benchmarks & if they're similar to mine, i would now know what a 280 would be like (well i was eye'ing 7970 then 290 then 970, but these are probably a terrible idea until i do a major upgrade)

lol @ the CPU comment. I don't have the console enabled currently for FPS count on Borderlands, and until recently I did have PhysX manually enabled on its higher setting. (have not attempted gameplay since I made the change.)
As far as D3 goes, idling in town I get ~90fps and in large intense boss fights I am dipping way down to ~20-30 frames on some occasions, which is pretty sad.

Your computer should be able to run both Diablo III and Borderlands.

What do you mean by


Same fps?



Hiccups can be caused by a slow HDD, what model are you using? And what resolution do you game on?

I am getting similar framerates while playing D3 on the 280 Dual-X as I was getting with my Geforce 560ti, while playing on close to the same settings.

My primary drive is a Crucial M500 SSD 120gb SSD.

Since you have an AM3+ board if you want to remove a bottleneck could buy an FX-8000 series cpu and drop it in. that would minimize that issue only a tiny bit at most.

Upgrading from my current CPU to an FX-8000 series would not yield a significant change in gaming performance?

Is there L3 cache on the unlocked chip ?

Can you screenshot CPUZ and post it please.

^made me lol.

Blizzard games are notoriously CPU dependent. Also Borderlands is built for NVidia GPUs. That means that it is coded to use PhysX, and NVidia Cuda cores to compute things like bullet holes, flags waving, explosions, etc... Because you have an AMD card in your machine, that load is being handed to your CPU. See the above quote as to why that would be an issue.

You have a good board, just yank the turd out and drop in a shiny new piece of Si.

Thanks for the infos! Will look into a new CPU!

 

[Blue-Knight]

ASUS M5A78L-M LX AM3+ AMD 760G Micro ATX
8GB G.Skill Ripjaw Series DDR3 1600 (PC 12800) SDRAM
AMD Phenom II X4 B55 OC @ 3.6GHz (unlocked from AMD Athlon II X3 455 Rana 3.3GHz)
Crucial M500 120GB SSD
Raidmax RX-500S 500w ATX12V PSU
Sapphire Radeon r9 280 Dual-X 3GB GDDR5 GPU

That processor is a joke for today's standard. Buy another.

My Celeron G1610 alone would outperform that easily. Just for you to get an idea.

Good luck!

 

[Toothless]

That processor is a joke for today's standard.

My Celeron G1610 alone would outperform that easily. Just for you to get an idea.

Good luck!

I ran a Athlon II X4 620 with my GTX660 on AC4 and it ran 45-50fps on medium-high settings. 1080p of course.

Maxed Skyrim on that CPU.

Cranked BF3 up with that CPU.

It was a wonderful CPU.. Until I passed it on (sold the little sh!t) to a friend.

 

[m&m's]

My primary drive is a Crucial M500 SSD 120gb SSD.

Your games are installed on your SSD?

My Celeron G1610 alone would outperform that easily. Just for you to get an idea.

Bullshit, your G1610 would outperform a Phenom II X2 @ 2.6GHz, but not a Phenom II X4 @ 3.6GHz.

Xanath, download GPU-Z, and take a look at the Sensors tab, if the GPU load drops while you have these slowdowns and that your CPU load goes very high (via task manager) then it means that your CPU is bottlenecking your GPU.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

OP can you cut a paste the PM you sent me and chuck it on the forum please..

Its not a shitty chip by the way, there are plenty of shittier ones and yes there are better ones out there.

 

[The N]

i have never used AMD CPUs, but according to your cpu specs, it got 4 core and 4 threads. which equal any intel i5. but may be it wont be that powerful or deliver peformance as intel's 1st or 2nd gen can.

listen, CPU plays vital role in most games especially CPU depandant games. these days 40-60% gaming depends on CPU as well besides. so try to get better CPU, may be AMD's 8350 , i have heard and seen its performance too great and competes with intel's high end cpus.

i recently experience much much smooth gameplay of BF4 on i7 2600K @4.5ghz . before i was using i5 2500K but i was still facing stattering, lagging, dips. but on i7 it runs too smooth like never before. so iimpact really noticeable.

 

[arbiter]

i have never used AMD CPUs, but according to your cpu specs, it got 4 core and 4 threads. which equal any intel i5. but may be it wont be that powerful or deliver peformance as intel's 1st or 2nd gen can.

listen, CPU plays vital role in most games especially CPU depandant games. these days 40-60% gaming depends on CPU as well besides. so try to get better CPU, may be AMD's 8350 , i have heard and seen its performance too great and competes with intel's high end cpus.

i recently experience much much smooth gameplay of BF4 on i7 2600K @4.5ghz . before i was using i5 2500K but i was still facing stattering, lagging, dips. but on i7 it runs too smooth like never before. so iimpact really noticeable.

Problem is specs these days don't mean much, Cause real performance are a different deal. As of now Intel has about a 2 to 1 lead over AMD in terms of performance per core. that 4 core AMD probably only matches up with an i3. Its kinda why I eluded to he should consider gettng an fx 8000 series chip, it would give a boost in most games. AS you pointed at BF4, well BF4 is one the very few games that is coded to use 8 core cpu.

Case in point of how specs of something doesn't mean much, if you went totally by specs of a GTX980 and an r9 290x. On paper 290x has 30% more shaders and 2x the memory bus, but when you play a game on both them gtx980 shows it is faster and much less power draw.

 

[Xanath2511]

Is there L3 cache on the unlocked chip ?

Can you screenshot CPUZ and post it please.

I was just looking at CPU-Z after you requested a screenshot and noticed that the L3 cache does not appear to be unlocked (or exist?) Any suggestions or input here?

(I solved the other problem from my PM)

 

[MemeBot]

yes, your cpu sucks to put it bluntly

what framerates are we talking though? borderlands i understand, you need to control your aim, but diablo is surely beyond 100fps & doesnt need to be fast, right?

oh & is physx disabled for borderlands?

i'm actually curious what that compares to a q9550 at 3.6ghz, since if i were to replace my dead 4870x2, i would be bottlenecked, but nobody is testing the cpu anymore so i have to go by somewhat equivalent newer ones... but i need to find out which ones are similar to mine... i would be interested in you doing cpu benchmarks & if they're similar to mine, i would now know what a 280 would be like (well i was eye'ing 7970 then 290 then 970, but these are probably a terrible idea until i do a major upgrade)

Hi there

I'm new here, and I own a Q9550 @ 3,67ghz
So, what would you like me to check?
I think our CPU is about the same performance wise in-game as an i7 930/950 @ stock speed.
I can tell you, that despite what everyone says about this CPU, it is not bottlenecking my SLI setup (GTX470 x2)
In every game my CPU usage is around 40/70% (depending how CPU demanding the game is) and if the game is known to scale properly with SLI my GPU's are both at around 75/99%
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...-benchmark-scores.198888/page-23#post-3224534
If I have framerate problems, it is always because of a lack of graphical power, not CPU power according to my findings.
I can upload a few screenshots from different games if you want to give you an idea.
BTW look at the top left, it shows CPU/GPU usage in-game.

Here's one from:
Next car game: Wreckfest

 

[BUFDUP]

Hi there

I'm new here, and I own a Q9550 @ 3,67ghz
So, what would you like me to check?
I think our CPU is about the same performance wise in-game as an i7 930/950 @ stock speed.
I can tell you, that despite what everyone says about this CPU, it is not bottlenecking my SLI setup (GTX470 x2)
In every game my CPU usage is around 40/70% (depending how CPU demanding the game is) and if the game is known to scale properly with SLI my GPU's are both at around 75/99%
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/t...-benchmark-scores.198888/page-23#post-3224534
If I have framerate problems, it is always because of a lack of graphical power, not CPU power according to my findings.
I can upload a few screenshots from different games if you want to give you an idea.
BTW look at the top left, it shows CPU/GPU usage in-game.

Here's one from:
Next car game: Wreckfest

no way ur q9550 is as good as the 1st gen i7's
I had a QX9770 which was the most powerful LGA 775 Processor i think and it was comparable to the 1st gen i5's such as the i5 750
A 2500K smashes it

 

[WaterKewl]

Spiritual bovine! You people are comparing apples to oranges.

As I said above. Blizzard games are notoriously CPU dependent games, and borderlands is a PhysX enabled game.
For example: In D3 on a R9 270X and an AMD A10-5800k APU with onboard graphics disabled CPU overclocked to 4.44GHz I got approximately 40FPS at my desired settings. At those same settings, with a Z97 and 4690k@4.7GHz, I got 60FPS. Before anyone says that the PCIe 2v3 was a bottleneck for the GPU, no, it wasn't.

Also showing a clip from Wreckfest or whatever that game is, proves absolutely nothing. I don't know anything about the game, but it's not a game that the OP is experiencing issues with. Apples to Oranges. If you want to prove something, launch the games the OP is playing, with a 280 in your system, and evaluate performance levels.
He is comparing the performance of a PhysX game on an older PHysX enabled GPU, vs a newer non-PhysX GPU. Yes, your performance will be worse if your CPU can't handle the load.
For CPU intensive games, there is really no other way around it. Upgrade.

 

[rtwjunkie]

My son's pc has a QX9650 at 3.68, and yes, the chip itself is no match cpu to cpu with any i5 from the sandies onward. Hower, in terms of game-playing, it has not hurt the performance of anything in games on that pc.

Pretty much, the only thing that has ever held it back is the GPU. The cpu has yet to be maxed out trying to keep up with the GPU, be it Crysis 3, or BF3, etc. It only suffers in CPU-bound games like SC 2, or Total War series. But even then it is still very playable.

So, even though CPU is important in modern games, it is nowhere near the bottleneck or critical performance piece the GPU is.

 

[Naito]

So, even though CPU is important in modern games, it is nowhere near the bottleneck or critical performance piece the GPU is.

Yeah, but the CPU in question is slower than even a standard Q9650 at stock clocks. Heck, a stock G3258 is faster than a X4 B55...

 

[WaterKewl]

My son's pc has a QX9650 at 3.68, and yes, the chip itself is no match cpu to cpu with any i5 from the sandies onward. Hower, in terms of game-playing, it has not hurt the performance of anything in games on that pc.

Pretty much, the only thing that has ever held it back is the GPU. The cpu has yet to be maxed out trying to keep up with the GPU, be it Crysis 3, or BF3, etc. It only suffers in CPU-bound games like SC 2, or Total War series. But even then it is still very playable.

So, even though CPU is important in modern games, it is nowhere near the bottleneck or critical performance piece the GPU is.

So what you're telling me, is that from personal experience, that you haven't seen a CPU as a bottle neck in games?
Maybe, just maybe... that's because you have an Intel Extreme edition CPU in the machine? CPUs designed to offer the extreme performance that enthusiasts want, and not to be replaced by the newest architecture 6 months after release, therefore making them worth their very heft price tag.

I don't discount that the GPU is important, but depending on the game, the CPU can be just as important, or more important.
Most games at the moment rely heavily on the GPU.
Except for...
SC2, D3, WoW, CIV5, BF3&4, GTA4, Flight Simulators, Bad Company 2, pretty much most modern RPG, RTS, and free roaming games. Also with my experience in DA:Inquisition, which slams my GPU and my CPU both out to max, I wouldn't be surprised if CPU performance started becoming important again in AAA titles. I'm very curious to see GTAV performance once it hits PCs.

Anyway, to stay on topic, if you're maxing out on a game that was release in 2010 (SC2), how do you think his CPU is feeling with a game released in 2012 (D3)?
The QX9650 isn't even on the same field at his A55, sure they're both processors, but one is trying to get on the farm team, and the other is a starter for the majors.

 

[Blue-Knight]

So what you're telling me, is that from personal experience, that you haven't seen a CPU as a bottle neck in games?
Maybe, just maybe... that's because you have an Intel Extreme edition CPU in the machine? CPUs designed to offer the extreme performance that enthusiasts want, and not to be replaced by the newest architecture 6 months after release, therefore making them worth their very heft price tag.

That is true.

I have experienced many CPU bottlenecks in almost all games around 2008-2010 with an Intel Pentium E2200 and an Intel Celeron D 356 and a 9500 GT.

If you never experienced a CPU bottleneck it is because you are always using a high end CPU, today that would be a Core i7 Ivy Bridge/Haswell and above.

If you go with mid/low end CPU, let's say an Intel Core i3 or Pentium Dual Core X (or even some i5 models in some games), you may experience a CPU bottleneck with a GT 740 or even a GT 730 (i.e. unable to maximize GPU's performance).

 

[rtwjunkie]

@WaterKewl, you make some very valid points! But, LOL, to hear the qx9650 mentioned as a "starter for the majors", is funny. The thing is ancient, and the fact it's unlocked means nothing, bc it was bought used years ago, and won't run stable over 3.68.

Yes, i did mention about cpu bound games that give it trouble, but forgot one you mentioned, BFBC2. That one does max it out.

I merely mmentioned it, bc regardless of what it once was, it is now just an old cpu, one that many times can be outperformed by a q9550, and still for the most part is not as important as the GPU.

 

[The N]

If you go with mid/low end CPU, let's say an Intel Core i3 or Pentium Dual Core X (or even some i5 models in some games), you may experience a CPU bottleneck with a GT 740 or even a GT 730 (i.e. unable to maximize GPU's performance).

Yah, few games like BF series does need a good end CPU similarly, tomb raider requires 4 core strictly to perform great. you need a good end GPU as well besides, for balancing the RIG, so Game can run smoother . when high AA activated, like MSAA, there 2 core cpu flops.

i7 specifically, Sandy bridge performs much better in BF4. no dips at all.

 

[WaterKewl]

@WaterKewl, you make some very valid points! But, LOL, to hear the qx9650 mentioned as a "starter for the majors", is funny. The thing is ancient, and the fact it's unlocked means nothing, bc it was bought used years ago, and won't run stable over 3.68

When compared to OP's CPU. I should have been more clear I guess.