In desperate need of assistance, any help is much appreciated.

[Guest]

Hello,
So my first problem I got a new graphics card and its a Sapphire Ati HD 5970 and I have had nothing but problems with it. Most games like Mafia II, Crysis (Of course) Far Cry and many others including the old, yes the old, Call of Duty Modern Warfare barely run. FPS is incredibly low: In Crysis I got an average 24 FPS on 1680X1050 and roughly 28 on 1900X1200 resolution. I cant seem to find the problem and am starting to panic and become frustrated. Hopefully someone out there can help me. I am pretty new to this and have limited experience so any advice I hope someone can explain for me what I need to do. Thank you SO much and I appreciate any input.
SPECS:
OS Windows 7 64 Bit
CPU AMD Phenom II 955 Quad Core @ 3.2 GHz
CPU Speed: 3211 Mhz
Sapphire HD 5970 2GB PCI Express Card
Ram DDR3 2GBX3
Asus Motherboard: M4A79T
Cooling System: Unknown but aftermarket. not an issue.
650W Antec
Sata HDD 1Tb 7200 RPM

 

[cyprus1234]

Well im no expert but it could be ur psu it looks like that is the required amount. Not completly sure cause it may not actually use that amount but if it does id imagine you dont have much power for other componets, that and i've read amd phenom II's bottle neck high end video cards not sure if this is true, i have a 965 BE and a 480gtx and it seems to run fine.

 

[cyprus1234]

Oh yea one more thing you might wanna try old drivers like 10.4 see if that helps. GL

 

[Guest]

 

[Guest]

 

[cyprus1234]

Did you try and uninstall ur 10.8 drivers and download older drivers like 10.4? Only other thing i can suggest.

 

[Guest]

Okay so Ill try doing the 10.4...but if my CPU is bottlenecking what can I do to fix it? So its not just me when I say that my FPS in games is incredibly low? My setup should be more than enough to handle high FPS on high settings right?

 

[Guest]

It just seems that my GPU is getting no load...even in crysis with the program running it does go out of 0%...and the max it has ever computed was 30%...very strange.

 

[ortoklaz]

try 10.4+cf profile file,your PSU is very questionable

 

[Guest]

Whats CF?

 

[leon2006]

The recommended PSU for 5890 is 850W. The 650W PSU is pushing it and most likely short. Get a corsair/seasonic 850W (Single high current rail 12V Type supply)

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/ati-radeon-hd-5000/hd-5970/Pages/ati-radeon-hd-5970-overview.aspx#3

 

[Guest]

Oh I see you mean Crossfire okay Ill give that a shot and download the profile. Thanks alot everyone for the help. Keep it comin!

 

[Guest]

I am a little confused though because I have a 5970 and not a 5890...I was told the 650w power supply would be enough. But why would my GPU Load readout never get above 30%? I feel like that is where the problem lies but I dont know much. I just saw on someone elses forumn post that they were getting 0-30% and with the CF profile added started getting a readout of 97% and better FPS. Any thought on that?

 

[darkvader75]

http://hothardware.com/Articles/ATI-Radeon-HD-5970-DualGPU-Powerhouse/?page=11

Power Draw averages only 400 watts for a system running 1 5970. So it is possible that the PSU may be enough, however many PSU's are very poor quality and can't actually handle providing the load the video cards request.

Do you have multiple (Rails) available for 12 volts to the Video card and have different rails plugged into the Video card?

The 5970 will throttle performance automatically if it isn't receiving enough power.

The other and far more rare issue would be if it is in a older PCI express slot that doesn't fully support the card, I am pretty sure that isn't your problem, but one never knows.

There are driver uninstallers available at www.guru3d.com if you need a ATI driver cleaner. A full reinstall of the driver from scratch may help.

http://www.techspot.com/review/221-ati-radeon-hd-5970/page15.html note the difference in power draw depending on the other components in a system.

This review has 500 watts being pulled while the 1st has 400 watts.

I run 3 Evga 260's on 1 1200 watt psu.

The big psu's are actually getting pretty cheap these days. You may wish to look into one anyway.

 

[Guest]

Okay yeah I think I might upgrade my power supply and double check to make sure my PCI slot is the newest one. I doubt it isnt but Ill double check. Yeah with my GPU Load, one is never above 30% but the other is around 90% during gameplay. Its very odd. I did a complete reinstall and reformat so hopefully any left over drivers and such are cleaned out and I have good gameplay again. We shall see. Any more ideas would be great.

 

[firebird]

i would monitor CPU usage as well as 2 instances of GPUz (1 on each GPU) and monitor usage. It could just be a crossfire issue with the game. Some games don't make very good use of Crossfire.

As already mentioned, make sure you install the latest Crossfire profiles.

What does the usage look like in other games?

 

[Guest]

Okay ill give that a shot. I downloaded the profiles for Crossfire and it's not showing up on CCC. I downloaded it as a separate attachment and did a reset but the option doesnt exist. Am I doing something wrong?
I know that there are two GPU's in the 5970 but maybe its not intended to use crossfire? And Ill post my CPU usage shortly. Thanks alot everyone keep it coming please.

 

[Guest]

I think I found a problem. My 750W power supply didnt come with all the cables. Currently the Antec is powering the HD 5970 with one male 8 pin connector (into the power supply) and a 6 Pin connector running from the Actual interior of the supply to the card. So it seems like one of the GPU's is running on dedicated and the other shared. So not enough power is being drawn to that one. So if I buy a new connector that ran from the outside of the box (the connectors along there) to the GPU so that both are running from the dedicated line than it should work. Let me know if that sounds logical. Ill post a pic. Also, if I do buy a new PCI connector should I just get a generic one or should I go through Antec?
One last thing, the eight pin PCI connector thats running from the box (on the outside) is an actual eight pin connector but the part going into the 8 pin connector on the GPU is a 6+2. Would that matter at all? Let me know and thanks guys.

 

[Guest]

Oops I forgot. Should I buy an 8 pin (PSU) out to the 6 pin GPU part or just get a 6 pin to 6 pin?

 

[firebird]

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying about the 8 pin connectors to the card, but as long as your power supply has enough juice on the 12v rails combined you should be okay, and I'm pretty sure an Antec 750 would have at least 54 amps on them.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/279391-28-power-requirements-specs-popular-graphic-cards-guide

If your power supply can do 54 amps, and you have the necessary connectors (even if they are adapters) it should be fine. It's okay if you don't have the power coming directly from the PCI-e connectors and if the card wasn't getting enough power it either wouldn't power up or it wouldn't allow for over clocking but still function.

Your card is Crossfire on a single card and is meant to be used as such.

I had CrossfireX running on a 3870x2 paired with a 3870 at one point running off my 750 watt power supply and never had an issue using adapters for the power. This was before they started doing profiles for Crossfire, so I'll have to defer it's use/setup to someone with more exp, but I'm pretty sure you don't have to do anything but install it.

What do you mean by "I downloaded it as a separate attachment and did a reset but the option doesnt exist."?

 

[Guest]

I mean wiith the 6 pin I have it running off the shared power whereas the eight pin is on a dedicated rail. With the CF profiles, I installed the CCC package and than installed the CF profiles and did a reset. When I restarted and went into CCC, the option for crossfire wasnt there.

 

[firebird]

I'm pretty sure adding a dedicated cable to the GPU vs. an adapter running off a cable that has other things on it isn't going to give you more power as all of the 12v power is shared amongst all devices. I could be wrong though.

Was the option for Crossfire available before you installed the last drivers?