HD 7850 2GB - Disappointed with performance

try overclock your cpu to reduce the bottlenecking effect. plus it is better to use 64bit OS with your system. lastly what is your psu brand?

i dont think OC the CPu will eliminate the problem much... even my aging 4870 is bottlenecked by CPU e8400 ( 4.0ghz ) in recent games. by the time i swap it with 2500K, the bottleneck shifted to the GPU.

Would an extra 2G ram help a bit ? Not sure with the slow cpu, but i saw a big improvement going from 4 to 6. I have a better cpu tough )

It much a cpu bound i think, as other said u may wanna try to O.C. but make sure u know the risk and do some research first.

Could u try increase the resolution / detail to move the work more towards the GPU...

There not much else to do, except u were willing to build new rig..

edit: to use 4+ gig ram u will need to reinstall 64 bit os

Ah, sh.., forgot about that  

His build actually prety well/balanced good combi in it's time..  

Since he tips his balance by change the gpu, not much else to do except up the proc a bit.

I'm somewhat don't agree to add ram or o.c ram, since it DDR2 800 already good for the E8500 (well balaced). It will waste of money and cannot be moved to DDR3 board...  

Not really.If you wan't good performance you should never use single channel memory.That's his main bottleneck.
Get another memory module!!!That should be your first priority.
And then when youve got one you should overclock your CPU.Problem solved.

problem solved? i don't think so. currently he is using 32bit OS. adding more RAM will doesn't mean anything when his current system cannot use more than 4GB RAM (VGA RAM included). btw i assume you're suggesting he was using 1 stick of DDR2 RAM. he does not clarify other than (4x1) so i assume he was using 4 sticks of 1GB DDR2 RAM lol. if he really did get all his RAM 4 years ago i think it is more logical to assume he was using 4 sticks of 1GB DDR2 RAM but we need him to clarify this himself to be sure. also psu can be the culprit if the 500w unit he is using right now are already starts to failing or he simply using cheap quality psu from cheap brand

Hi again, yes I have 4x 1GB Ram....
I don't recall the brand of PSU that I got when I bought the new GPU - it was just the one they recommended in PC world.
Is it really worth all the hassle of installing Windows 7 64 bit to increase the ram capacity (I think I will max out at 8GB whatever and I think my Motherboard only supports DDR2 800mhz anyway).
How about a poll on whether I should build a new rig or look into a complete CPU, MOBO, RAM upgrade?

(I think I already know the answer deep down really)

Yeah, the first one  

to get the outmost of your new gpu going for new build is the best choice. but i you can't afford to do so right now OCing the cpu is one way of reducing the bottlenecking effect that you currently have. but first getting 64bit OS takes priority to fully utilize all your available RAM. if you want to keep your current OS then take out 2GB of RAM from your current system though i did not recommend doing so.

Not done any OCing before - I only have a bog-standard Heatsink & Fan to play with too.
Is it fairly safe? I know you have to go into the BIOS but that's about all.

any tips/settings welcome

Your running your memory in single channel mode on a dual channel mobo, that hurts performance.

Also your cpu is way to slow to keep up with 7850.

I'd say your gpu is probably disappointed more with your computer, than you are with your gpu.

if you were interested to OC your current system maybe you can make a thread in OC section seeking for advice. but for sure you're going to need after market cooler for your cpu. so in the end it might cost you some money but if you don't have the money to get entirely new system right now that it is a cheap way to get better performance from your system

Sorry, I don't know what this means - please explain:
'Your running your memory in single channel mode on a dual channel motherboard'

What can I do to change this if it will help?

I have 4 ram units of 1GB each (so all available slots are used)

so having 2 RAM units of 2GB each would improve performance from having 4 RAM units of 1GB each?

This would cost me £40-£50 I reckon - will the improvement be worth it?

Ideally, since you have 1 4GB stick already, your best option is to get another 4GB stick and put it in the same colored RAM slot. You would need to change to a 64 bit OS to use it, but it would be beneficial in the long run.

got to agree with this; maybe if you give us a budget to work with we can come up with some replacement parts

No, don't buy them. For some reason people thought you're using 1 stick of 4GB, not 4 sticks of 1 GB.

What exactly you don't like in performance? What games are you running at what settings and how many frames per second are you getting?

That CPU should not bottleneck too hard, my friend has E7500 and he just bought GTX 560 - the performance increase was tremendous.

+1.
The performance of the card isn't properly represented with that old system.

The 2gb of ram wont help if the card only runs at 60% capacity due to a CPU bottleneck

Hi - I've tried Saints Row 3 and Crysis 2 so far - the auto configure on saints row put the settings at 'ultra', but it's choppy as hell (don't know the actual fps). Crysis 2 manages to look good when I'm not moving, but becomes almost unplayable at the first sniff of action - jumps around all over the place.

Here's my current spec in case you didn't see the start of the thread:
Intel core 2 duo E8500 CPU
500W PSU
GA-P35-DS3L motherboard
4GB (4x1GB) Corsair 800mhz DDR2 Ram
HD7850 2GB GPU
Windows 7 32 bit

OC your CPU or buy new CPU/mobo/RAM.

Like the others said you need to upgrade your CPU even 200$ will get you a new board+CPU+Ram that will be better then what you have now.

For just 200$ you can try this

Intel Core i3-2100

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

BIOSTAR H61MGC LGA 1155 Intel H61 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBNT
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Or this

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

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

BIOSTAR A780L3B AM3 AMD 760G Micro ATX AMD Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

you dont need 800 bux for an upgrade. if your psu is of good quality, all you will need is a mobo, ram and a new cpu.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... - cpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... - ram
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=P8Z68-VPRO-PB-R... - mobo
with that setup, you can run any card... hell i run sli 570's with the 2500k without any issues.

eww.... biosuck mobo....

I'd not upgrade anything at all. It doesn't make sense.


First of all, check your CPU and GPU usage during lags. Use task manager with MSI afterburner for that.

http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/overview.htm

Check frames per second with MSI afterburner as well.

Yeah i know! But for 200$ it would get the job done well.

How so?

He is running a decent video card that is easily getting bottleneck badly he needs at least a Pentium Sandy to take advantage of his card.

OP what brand is the psu? ??

I don't but how is it relevant?



That isn't really the case, E8500 isn't that bad. As I said before, my friend has GTX 560 with E7500, and it works just fine with only minor bottlenecking. I wouldn't imagine it to be much different with the OP, it's not Pentium 4 after all. The games should at least be playable.

Curious to know at what resolution the OP is using.

wow, so much changed when i'm sleeping ....  

let me try to catch up..

before u try O.C. new PSU is recommended..

to build a new rig, it doesn't need to bought it together at same times..

u could build it over a month or 3 month (except motherboard, Proc, Ram must be together installed even u don't buy them together) so u could start by buying PSU first.. (with after market cooler if u had extra, but prioritize the PSU)

anyways speed/acceptable/expectation is largely different for everyone.......  

edit: I'm agree if it being choppy/unplayable there something is not right..... As the poster above said the PSU might failing (because of aging)

I'm thinking either psu or drivers. I would like to know if op went radeon from nvidia....

that's actually a good question

Here , http://hd7850.demisia.com/
Performance on i5 750 cpu

If you would like to alleviate your bottleneck without having to upgrade your pc then consider grabbing a second hand Core Quad processor off ebay like a Q9650/QX9650 and OC it.
I was running an E8500 OC with 560ti SLI and ran into a bottleneck on intensive games like BF3. I swapped out my E8500 with a QX9650 added more ram and the bottleneck was gone.
Just another option to consider, not the cheapest but possibly the easiest way to go

sounds like an expensive upgrade for old tech.....almost 300 bux on ebay.
OP said they were ready to upgrade and wanted to know what to do... seeing as how this rig is about 4 years old, im thinking OP needs to go with the earlier suggested 2500k and 8gb of 1600... with the 7850 it would last an equal amount of time.

op should really install 64 bit windows ASAP.
32bit has only 4gigs worth of memory address space available, and since the 7850 has 2 gigs vram on board, half of the address space gets used by that alone, add all the other caches etc and you end up with about 1.5-1.75 gigs left for the system main ram... so over half of the 4 gig main ram is completely unusable as it is.

after that you can start to worry about other bottlenecks

Sorry - weekend got in the way....

here's a few updates:

PSU is a brand new OCZ 500w (bought from PC world at same time as new GPU)

Old GPU was HD4850, so not a problem with switching from Nvidia.


I'm getting the feeling a new rig is in order - any helpful comments on the spec below from Cougar:

ati 1155 Intel i5 3570k Quad Core 3.40 GHz, . 1155 ASUS P8Z77-V LX, . 12GB DDR3 Corsair 1600 (3 x 4Gb), . Creative OEM SB Audigy SE, . Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU Cooler, . DVD+/- RW - 24X (Pioneer DVR-S19LBK), . 1000Gb SATA Hard Drive SATA 3, . 1000Gb SATA Hard Drive SATA 3, . HD7850 2GB, . 23.6 Inch Cougar Extreme 5MS widescreen, . Cooler Master Dominator 690 Pure Black Interior Mesh Gaming Case No PSU, . CiT 700W Black Edition PSU, . Windows 7 Home premium 64 bit

Don't get 3x4GB, of RAM, 2x4GB would be much better (because of dual channel and 8GB is enough anyway). Also, get a decent power supply, your OCZ 500W is MUCH better than CiT 700w one.

But I'd advice reinstalling windows before going and buying a new PC. Your problems may go away, and if they do, you will save a lot of money.

Thanks - do you mean installing the 64bit Windows to replace my current 32 bit?

I seem to remember some advice 4 years back that said that my core 2 duo E8500 had issues with 64 bit (maybe that was with Vista, I don't know?)

Or do you just mean re-installing (I know that was the word you used) my current OS?

Thanks for the heads up on the PSU - I have no clue about those.

Just reinstalling.

thanks