hd 4850 running like 8600gt! helpp!

[cbevan27]

Hello, I am having a problem with the performance of my recently purchased hd 4850 . Spent the last couple days trying to fix it but no luck yet. On October 8, 2008 i replaced my 8600gt with the sapphire hd 4850. Installing the card seemed to be no problem: deleted nvidia display drivers, turned off power, swapped out cards, attached the extra power cable to card, turned on, windows detected new hardware and installed card, then I installed the newest catalyst drivers. Restarted PC after everything was installed, I open counter-strike: source and do a video stress test to find that I am getting the same fps maybe less than i was on my 8600gt. Go into a server and getting same performance as my 8600gt. Did the same thing with crysis. I've seen videos of people running this card smoothly on very high quality in crysis. Mine is pretty laggy on high and doesn't even give me the option to go to very high settings.

So i guess my question is what do I need to do to get the right performance out of this card?

I didn't change anything in my system bios yet, is there anything i should change?

My motherboard is an, "msi k9n neo-f v3".
http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=downloaddetail&type=driver&maincat_no=1&prod_no=1244
It has 1 pci-e x16 1.0 slot. (all the specs in that link) I have heard that having a 2.0 slot does not give you a great performance boost, about 1-2% on the 4850. So it shouldn't be a pci-e slot problem. My motherboard isnt very new so mabye i do need a new motherboard for this new card?

I doubt that its a power problem. Right before i put in the card i installed a new 600w power supply that works great. 600w is plenty enough to supply power to this card. And like I said, i did plug in the extra power adapter into the back of the card. Haven't had any power error messages. I can manually increase the power using the ati_rbe program if needed. Do i need to configure my motherboard to give it more power since i just installed from a 480w to 600w?

Card is not overheating, its at 40 degrees celsius right now and in game is around 50.

Also i am running Windows XP home sp3, that may have something to do with it but i dont think so.

Help would be veryyy much appreciated, i really have no idea what to do. Havent seen people with the same issue as me.
Thanks in advance

 

[cbevan27]

ok im thinking that mabye its my whole setup thats just holding the card back.
i have a a duel core amd 2.2ghz.
msi k9n neo-f v3.
2gb ddr2

im not sure i thought that having 2 cpu's at 2.2ghz each would be enough to run this card all the way
but somebody suggested to me that it isnt. he told me that a new mobo and a quad core would bring out the beast in my card.
could this be my problem??

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

First of all, make sure you have all your old nVidia drivers out. Download driver cleaner and follow the directions, and make sure the old drivers are gone. Whats the amperage on your 12 volt rails on your psu? At 2.2 itll be slowed down by your cpu, but it should still be better than a 8600 which isnt much of a card. So, its either a driver issue or a power issue. Or even both. Have you tried all yours games and are getting bad results?

 

[cbevan27]

ok i downloaded driver cleaner and cleaned out the nvidia and nvidia wdm drivers then restarted, still no luck =/
to tell the truth im not sure what the amperage is on my psu but this is what i have: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182032
all the specs there.
could it be that my processor isnt fast enough so its limiting it? thats what somebody told me. i have dual core each at 2.2ghz

ive tried counterstrike source....which is getting the same performance almost exactly as my 8600
ive tried crysis....actually runs a bit better than my 8600 ran it
and cod4...no noticeable change in performance

thankyou

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

OK, did you go into safe mode and remove your drivers? Also, your rosewill psu may work, and may not. Tho it says 600 watts, which is more than enough on a good psu, rosewills arent considered "good". Heres what your psu outputs for power : Output +3.3@30A,+5V@55A,+12V1@19A,+12V2@19A,-12V@1A,+5V SB@2.5A
Notice the 12 volt rails, its says 19 amps per rail. When determining the wattage of a psu, you multiply the voltage x the amps, or 19x12=158. You have 2 12 volts rails, so thats 316 watts available total on the 12 volt. Then you have 3.3 volt which has 30 amps or 3.3x30= 100 watts, and finally 2.5 amps on the 5 volt, or 2.5x5=12 watts. Adding it all up, 100+316+12=428 watts total, which is nowheres close to 600 watts. I have a 420 watt Enermax that gives 18 amps on the 12 volt as an example, just 1 amp less than your 6oo watts and added all up on all volts rails is actually more than your 600 watt. Rosewills are crap psu's. That may be your problem, but 19 amps may or may not be enough to get you by with your 4850, either way, good psu or crap , its cutting it close.

I included the psu info in case you cant figure out whats going on, and may have to use a better one, and I also recommend going into safe mode and removing your old drivers as well, because somethings holding your cards performance back for sure, as you should be seeing double the performance over your old card. If you can try using your card in another pc with a better psu, or borrow someones better psu, then youll know if it is or not a weak psu

 

[cbevan27]

thanks for the info on the psu i have little knowledge about how they work at the moment. Mabye ill try out my antec earthwatt 480w psu that i replaced with this rosewill and see if that makes any positive or negative difference.

i did go into safe mode and do the driver cleanup...followed the driver cleaner directions with careful attn to detail. after the nvidia drivers were gone and no luck i re-installed all my ATI drivers and still no luck i really dont think its a driver issue anymore ive been messing with the drivers a lot with no success...however it is still a possibility.

my freind has a pretty good pc, he runs an 8800gts and it rips. either today or tomorrow we're going to try out my card on his pc and install the drivers and everything. if it runs good then i can be sure its not a problem with the card. ill let you know how that goes either tonight or tomorrow

i dont think it should matter but this is the exact card that i purchased http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102770

oh and thankyou for your time and help so far jay

if anybody else has an idea throw it out there lol

 

[JAYDEEJOHN]

NP, glad to help. Let us know how it goes. Im betting its not the card, its somethig else, just havnt gotten to the bottom of it yet.