Radeon HD 7870 Underperforming?

minimariobros64 · May 22, 2013

Hello, I recently built a PC and the Graphics Card seems to be heavily underperforming. I have checked to make sure everything is installed correctly as it was my first build and that nothing was bottlenecking the card. I get 20-30 FPS in NFSMW2012 when I should be getting quite a bit higher. My Furmark score is 1702 which seems quite low and my 3dMARK score in Fire Strike is 5475.
Does anyone have an idea as to why this is happening?
Help would be greatly appreciated!

Specs:
AMD FX-8320
Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 AM3+ Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 2x4GB 1600MHz
Toshiba 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM
PowerColor Radeon HD7870 Myst PCS+
Asus PCE-N15 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express Wi-Fi
Zalman Z9 ATX Mid Tower Case
Corsair CX 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V
Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer

markwp · May 22, 2013

Furmark is ok for stress/temp testing, but I prefer 3dmark11 and/or unigine for fps testing. Try unigine heaven or valley and see what kind of results you get.

Mark

minimariobros64 · May 22, 2013

I ran both of those Unigine tests on the highest settings at 1920x1080 and got a score of 1065 on Valley and 591 on Heaven.

markwp · May 22, 2013

Your scores do seem pretty low. Latest non-beta drivers? PEGS firmly seated? Bios set to PCIe only?

minimariobros64 · May 22, 2013

I can confirm I'm using the latest non-beta drivers and the PEGS are firmly seated. Bios is set to PEG. Still no change.

smeezekitty · May 22, 2013

Run MSI afterburner and watch your card temps. Make sure the clocks and usage go up too.

Also, how are your CPU temps?

minimariobros64 · May 22, 2013

GPU Idle temps are about 26 C
GPU Load temps are 50-60 C
The clocks and usage go up fine.
The CPU temps are also very cool and the usage is never at 100%
Could it be Windows 7 that's causing the issues?

markwp · May 22, 2013

Agree with smeezekitty - download and use MSI afterburner and/or EVGA Precision X. Check to see if your clock and memory rates change from idle speeds when loads are applied. Also check operating voltages at idle and load.

minimariobros64 · May 22, 2013

I already did post a reply with temps and the clock and memory rates change up to the advertised speeds. The thing I find odd is the gpu usage was flicking from 100 to 0 constantly but the cpu never went above 50%. Also I seem to be getting spikes of perfect performance now?

markwp · May 22, 2013

Your new info regarding the flicking tells me you may have an intermittent issue on the card. RMA time.

smeezekitty · May 22, 2013

It wouldn't hurt to try reinstalling drivers before RMA. Every once in a while it fixes things like that.

minimariobros64 · May 22, 2013

Ok I'll reinstall the drivers once more just to check and then if no luck then send it back. Thanks for all your help

markwp · May 22, 2013

Make sure you COMPLETELY uninstall the old drivers. Use CCleaner or driversweeper to clean up the cruft.

minimariobros64 · May 31, 2013

Sorry for bringing back an old thread

I am currently using the replacement card and am getting same or worse scores using the same tests.

markwp · May 31, 2013

Did you completely uninstall drivers and use driver sweeper and or ccleaner?

Card is installed in uppermost (closest to cpu) slot?

minimariobros64 · May 31, 2013

I used ccleaner and driver sweeper just to make sure and the card is definitely in the top slot. Ebuyer Returns confirmed the original card as faulty. Faulty batch maybe?

minimariobros64 · May 31, 2013

Could it be the motherboard is faulty?

smeezekitty · May 31, 2013

minimariobros64 :

Its not impossible.

minimariobros64 · May 31, 2013

I think I will upgrade to windows 8 from 7 and see if there is any difference.

minimariobros64 · May 31, 2013

Actually... I will try changing brands. Maybe a Club3d 7870XT?

markwp · May 31, 2013

Could be a batch issue - wouldn't be the first time. Anyone you know have a working card that you can try? Just to rule out funky m/b or slot?

I've always used EVGA, Asus or Sapphire cards. Never had a problem. Doesn't mean Club won't work, just my experience.

minimariobros64 · Jun 1, 2013

I don't know anyone that has a desktop XD they all use laptops.

minimariobros64 · Jun 1, 2013

I could get a sapphire for £200 so unless it randomly starts working or I find a fix then I'll send this one back and spend the extra £30 on a sapph.

Cool69rtcharger · Jun 3, 2013

I seem to be in the same boat you are with that hd7870 myst. I got one from newegg a few days ago and it works fine as long as you dont expect it to work full power when gaming normally below 30% load with my fps dropping under 60fps in tf2

this is my valley benchmark for extreme at 1080p= 1280
the card will go 99% load in stress testing but it doesn't seem to care about games

iam2thecrowe · Jun 3, 2013

I would make sure your motherboard BIOS and video card BIOS are up to date. Also I would say there might be something wrong with your power supply and its not supplying enough power. Do you have another psu you could test with? or borrow from someone? I have heard the Club3d cards to be really buggy also, lots of faulty ones, so it could just be another faulty card. If you google 7870xt faulty, there are a lot of articles about it. Maybe return it and ask for a 660ti or 7950, don't seem to be so many bad reports about them.

Radeon HD 7870 Underperforming?

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