Radeon HD 7970 : Low FPS and Low GPU Load

[invelios]

I just got a new Diamond HD Radeon 7970 yesterday and installed it. While most of my games seem to have an increase in FPS, so don't seem to have improved at all and are actually getting rather low FPS. The weird thing is the GPU load will still be reporting low in GPU-Z while I'm getting low FPS, so it seems the GPU isn't using all it's power. I've had this problem when playing Elemental Tower Defense in SC2, flying around in Saints Row 3, and in big areas in Deus Ex HR. My Fps actually got below 10 at one point in Elemental Tower Defense. Does anyone know what might be causing the GPU to only report 30% load while I'm getting low FPS? The Specs on my PC are :

Windows 7 64-bit
700W modular power supply
HD Radeon 7970
8 GB Ram
Intel Core i7 870 @ 2.93 Ghz 4-Core 8-Thread
Linked to my HP 2311gt via Dual Link DVI-D

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[esrever]

your cpu is probably causing the drops in sc2 in custom maps. No current day hardware can really take some of those maps.

Other than that, you could try running 3dmark11 and see your score vs others.

 

[joedjnpc]

Could be a CPU bottleneck, 10 fps sounds extremely low though, I definitely didn't come across fps that low in Deus EX.

If you run something like BF3 with V Sync disabled you should see 100% load or extremely close if everything is working as it should.

Normally low GPU load is due to a cap on fps in the game (either through V Sync or config files). Or through a CPU bottleneck not allowing the GPU to stretch it's legs.

 

[invelios]

Best answer selected by invelios.

 

[invelios]

Could be a CPU bottleneck, 10 fps sounds extremely low though, I definitely didn't come across fps that low in Deus EX.

If you run something like BF3 with V Sync disabled you should see 100% load or extremely close if everything is working as it should.

Normally low GPU load is due to a cap on fps in the game (either through V Sync or config files). Or through a CPU bottleneck not allowing the GPU to stretch it's legs.

The 10 FPS was in the Elemental Tower Defence map in SC2, not Deus Ex HR. Deus Ex HR never goes below 20, and that is with Tridef 3D turned on. With Tridef off I still sometimes get around 30 though, even with AA turned off. I didn't think it was the CPU at first cause it rarely goes above 30%, but then I remembered that since I'm on a quad core that I need to look at the seperated graphs for each core, and sure enough when I'm getting FPS drop I'm usually maxed out on one core. Probably need a better CPU, although I'm having trouble finding a better one that matched the LGA1156 Socket that CPU-Z is telling me I have.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey