widely fluctuating GPU usage in most games on R9 290

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adnan_J_A

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May 26, 2014
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So am getting weird extreme fluctuations in most games (far cry3, watch dogs, BF4, mine craft,...) which are causing fps fluctuations rendering games non-plyable (very noticeable fps drops)

I am getting avg fps 59 , min 23, max 85 in BF4 on a 1366x768 resolution (stays almost the same when I change resolution or put everything on low)

Monitoring results during far cry 3
http://i.imgur.com/4XjkpYl.png?1

however everything is normal when I do benchmarks (also results are normal, fps is normal and almost constant)
http://i.imgur.com/R6FvO5T.png?1

GPU temp
http://i.imgur.com/K4ju4wl.png

fraps fps monitoring different games
http://i.imgur.com/QdkWbDw.png

I did a fresh win7 install on a new partition, installed latest drivers, Mb drivers.

PC specs:
i7 860 @ 2.8
sapphire R9 290 trix oc
1 TB 7200 rpm HDD (6 yrs old)
Intel DP55WG MB
8 GB 1333 DDR 3 Ram
750 W thermaltek toughpower

P.S. I didn't have these GPU fluctuations before upgrading from gtx 470
 
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Deus Gladiorum

Deus Gladiorum

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As I see it, there's one of two possibilities: Either your CPU is bottlenecking you, which is a possibility considering how old it is, or your R9 290X is throttling because it's getting too hot. I didn't see any listing for your temps in that screenshot. Use MSI Afterburner to keep track of your temps and see if it's getting too hot and hence throttling.

UPDATE: Oh sorry, I didn't see the temps listed before for the GPU. They seem to be fine, so I want to say that perhaps it's a CPU bottleneck? In games that are GPU bound, but light on the CPU, how does your rig perform? Does it still fluctuate? Examples of games which are GPU bound but not very CPU-intensive are Crysis 2 or 3 or perhaps Trine 2.
 
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adnan_J_A

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May 26, 2014
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I uploaded the gnu temp, they seem normal, PSU is 750 which i think is enough
 
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adnan_J_A

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thanks for the reply, I'll check trine and report back...however isn't any of the games i mentioned gpu dependent ?
 
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adnan_J_A

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already checked & downloaded the latest driver on intel's site
 
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MostWantedSoulRider

MostWantedSoulRider

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What about BIOS update? Having a latest BIOS version could improve the performance.
 
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adnan_J_A

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Did that as well, still no improvement what so ever
 
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adnan_J_A

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same thing in trine, bf3, crisis 2...am starting to get really confused
 
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Deus Gladiorum

Deus Gladiorum

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Alright, that's very strange then. Battlefield 3, Crysis 2, and Trine are not exactly CPU bound games (well, BF3 can kinda be but it's very optimized) so if the problem was our CPU being a bottleneck we almost certainly wouldn't see it in those games. And yes, those other games you mentioned are GPU intensive, but they're also pretty CPU bound (perhaps with the exception of BF4).

I noticed you said you downloaded the latest drivers off of Intel's site, but you're using an AMD dedicated card. Those are the drivers you want to update. Have you used Catalyst Control Center or some other way to ensure your AMD drivers are up to date? That's extremely important, especially because the R9 290 and R9 290X both had issues with throttling when they were first released. So yes, please make sure you download your AMD drivers. Intel drivers won't do anything for you except keep your Intel Integrated Graphics up to date, and those are pretty useless for a gaming rig.
 
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adnan_J_A

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thanks for the reply, yes i did update to the latest drivers using catalyst...still the same issue, but the weird thing twisting my mind is that benchmarks are totally normal, it only happens in games
 
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b0ll4

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Just last week I bought this model in Germany:
SAPPHIRE R9 290 TRI-X 4GB

I have exactly the same issues that you have. Overall, I almost never get the performance that can be expected from the benchmarks found on the internet. However, I blame the rest of my PC for that, as the CPU etc. are a little older and probably can't keep up with the R9 290. But thats ok imo. I mean, we are talking about 10% give or take less. That seems fine to me.
BUT: in Games. Totally different story. Although average fps again won't be able to match other scores found on the internet, there are two things that are worth worrying:
1. GPU usage fluctuates hugely between 100% and 0% every couple of seconds
2. probably as a result of the above, the framerates vary immensely. E.g. yesterday I played a couple of minutes Bioshock Infinite in ultra settings and run Fraps benchmark. Average FPS was almost 100 which seems fine to me. BUT, fps ranged from 7(!) to 198!!!!!! I'm sure you can imagine that if these kind of framerates switch every couple of seconds, the game becomes almost unplayable, despite the decent average fps.
I have found no solution so far. I just wrote an email to my reseller in Germany (Alternate.de) and asked for advice. If they cannot fix it, I'll probably go with a GTX770, which is most likely not as fast, but I'm sure it will just WORK.

btw: getting the R9 290 to work as it does now, was already quite an effort! Only drivers that finally worked were the new beta drivers from AMD and I had to specifially deinstall the old ones with a tool in safety mode. Moreover, GPU clock was fluctuating wildly and never ever reached its supposed clock of 957Mhz. I had to adjust the performance barrier in the Overdrive tool to +25% in order that it ran constantly at 957Mhz.

My conclusion so far: The card itself is great. Cooling is great. Noise is great. Performance potential is huge. BUT is just won't work properly. Bad job AMD.

Cheers
 
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itsJASPERr

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Jan 6, 2016
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I have the very same problem with R9 285 and your answer might be thev very first one to actually help me. Will try this out later.
 
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Light1203

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same here, i have an a10 7850k,r9 285 and i'm pretty sure the cpu isn't bottlonecking beacuse it never goes to 100% (i even tried oc) i updated the driver,the bios,i tried everything but the gpu usage goes from 0% to 50% and to 100% then 0% 50% ecc.... i don't really know why! all of this becames stutter and microstuttering (even if i have a freesync monitor) hel please....


 
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