Low Framerates with Good Graphics Cards

[nakihashi]

Hello Tom's Hardware! First off, this site has been an amazing help for most of my computer issues, but I've just run into a problem that I can't seem to figure out, so I thought I'd post it.

I just recently upgraded my computer's graphics cards to two HIS IceQX Radeon HD 6870, Each having 1GB of GDDR5 RAM, and I crossfire them for most games (assuming they support it), but for some reason all of my games are running 30FPS or lower, including Left for Dead 2, Dead Space 2 and even Diablo 3. I tried dropping all of the video settings in each game, but the framerate is unaffected. With my old card, which was a Sapphire (and only 1 at that) I could run everything under the sun with max settings and hitting well over 60 FPS. Could it be the drivers? I've heard that the latest AMD drivers are really crappy, but I'm not sure what to do at this point... 15FPS is killing me in Inferno mode in D3... please help!

 

[bryonhowley]

Well first with Crossfire you still only have access to 1gig of ram. Even though each card has 1gig the system will only be able to use 1gig in a Crossfire setup. As for the 6870 with a Crossfire setup it should be running better than that. What card did you have before that? And did you make sure you removed all traces of the old drivers especially if you were running Nvidia before that. As far as drivers go I am running the latest AMD/ATI drivers and have not had one problem with them so I do not think it is the drivers alone that is the problem.

 

[Earnie]

1st off,I would be posting your complete system specs.otherwise people will just have to guess at things.

 

[nakihashi]

Haha, that would be a good idea, wouldn't it? XD

So here they are:

Graphics Cards (x2) = HIS IceQ X H687QN1G2M Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card (currently crossfiring)

Case = Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Motherboard = GIGABYTE GA-890FXA-UD5 AM3 AMD 890FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

RAM = CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 (running in 1st and 3rd dual channel slots); Patriot Gamer Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model PGS34G1600ELKA (running in 2nd and 4th slots)

PSU = CORSAIR Enthusiast Series CMPSU-850TX 850W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply

Hard Drive = Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

CPU = AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX

And for my last card:
Old Graphics Card (x1) = SAPPHIRE 100282-3SR Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) 1GB 256-bit DDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card w/ Eyefinity

I didn't uninstall the last drivers because they were both Radeon HD's, I just overrode the the old drives with the latest install, along with CCC.

 

[nakihashi]

Oh, sorry, also running Win7 64-bit.

 

[Earnie]

first thing i would do is uninstall the drivers(5000 and 6000 may be different).
Now I know everyone will tell you to use driver sweeper blah blah.me,never have,never will,i just uninstall through ADD/remove programs in the control panel,uninstall caps also.(been running AMD/ATI for over 10 yrs,never had a driver issue myself)
download the latest drivers and install those WITH the latest Cap profiles(12.7 CAP3).

driver and Cap profiles:


http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/windows/Pages/radeonaiw_vista64.aspx

 

[nakihashi]

Awesome, problem solved. Thanks Earnie, you're a life-saver!

 

[nakihashi]

Best answer selected by nakihashi.

 

[Earnie]

Awesome, problem solved. Thanks Earnie, you're a life-saver!

any time!