HD 5670 -> HD 7700 = Same performance?

[slickracer]

Hi. I recently bought an HD 7770 as an upgrade to my aging 5670.

I'm barely seeing any improvement in performance. My games feel a bit smoother and more colorfully vivid, but otherwise, I'm still getting bad framerates in two games that I really wanted to play better.

These are WoW's new expansion and Guild Wars 2. I was getting about 22 FPS on maximum settings in these two games with my 5670, and I was hoping I could get close to 30 with the 7770. Instead I'm skirting 24 FPS with the same settings. Wow!

I made my purchase based off this site's 'Best Graphics Card for the Money'. It offered up the 6670, a small step up from my 5670, as the best card available for about $65. For the $125 selection, the 7770 was suggested. For $60, an increase of maybe one or two frames per second seems steep!

I'm wondering if this is normal or if there's a problem with my computer.

My CPU is an AMD Phenom 9750 quadcore at 2.4 GHz. I've checked my CPU usage during games and it's not at 100%, which I hear is evidence of a bottleneck. Still, I know it's not the best CPU but it's never seemed like it was the problem.

I have 6GB of RAM and Windows 7 x64.

I uninstalled my previous AMD drivers before installing new ones for my 7770.

So far there haven't been any warnings or errors from Windows. Just disappointing framerates.

Thanks for the help.

 

[festerovic]

The 6670 is actually slower than the 5670, but the 7770 is alot faster, or should be in your case. The author of that article says this:
You can use this hierarchy to compare the pricing between two cards, to see which one is a better deal, and also to determine if an upgrade is worthwhile. I don’t recommend upgrading your graphics card unless the replacement card is at least three tiers higher. Otherwise, the upgrade is somewhat parallel and you may not notice a worthwhile difference in performance.
Look at this chart:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

What resolution are you playing at?

Are you overclocking the CPU?

Are you trying to max out the settings? Some settings are optimized for certain hardware - the textures being at "High" or "Ultra" won't cut it on a 1gb card for some games. They need 2 gb. Just an example.

 

[yesimtaco]

There can issue with your CPU bottlenecking your GPU.

 

[maxalge]

Hi. I recently bought an HD 7770 as an upgrade to my aging 5670.

I'm barely seeing any improvement in performance. My games feel a bit smoother and more colorfully vivid, but otherwise, I'm still getting bad framerates in two games that I really wanted to play better.

These are WoW's new expansion and Guild Wars 2. I was getting about 22 FPS on maximum settings in these two games with my 5670, and I was hoping I could get close to 30 with the 7770. Instead I'm skirting 24 FPS with the same settings. Wow!

I made my purchase based off this site's 'Best Graphics Card for the Money'. It offered up the 6670, a small step up from my 5670, as the best card available for about $65. For the $125 selection, the 7770 was suggested. For $60, an increase of maybe one or two frames per second seems steep!

I'm wondering if this is normal or if there's a problem with my computer.

My CPU is an AMD Phenom 9750 quadcore at 2.4 GHz. I've checked my CPU usage during games and it's not at 100%, which I hear is evidence of a bottleneck. Still, I know it's not the best CPU but it's never seemed like it was the problem.

I have 6GB of RAM and Windows 7 x64.

I uninstalled my previous AMD drivers before installing new ones for my 7770.

So far there haven't been any warnings or errors from Windows. Just disappointing framerates.

Thanks for the help.

It's your cpu, you need to overclock the hell out of it, or update.

While the 7770 is a nice card it is literally sitting idle waiting for the cpu to catch up.

 

[rgd1101]

I've checked my CPU usage during games and it's not at 100%

It that for all 4 core? can you break it down by core? And what games? some games do multicore, some do not.

 

[slickracer]

Hi. Thank you all for the replies.

I currently have WoW in windowed mode at 720x576 running at 26 frames per second.

At 1600x900, it's running at 22 frames per second.

After applying 8x antialiasing at 1600x900, it's still 22 frames per second.

Here's what my CPU usage looks like when I'm getting 26 FPS at 720x576.

It has yet to go above 50%. I'm not sure what that means but it's acting like a CPU bottleneck, so maybe that is indeed what it is.

 

[figgyfosta]

WoW is a cpu heavy game, and like already stated you need to OC your cpu.

 

[rgd1101]

check the temperature on your cpu.

 

[slickracer]

While ingame on WoW with maxed-out settings, my CPU is at 46c.

 

[rgd1101]

Could be just WoW, do you play any other games?

 

[slickracer]

I just tested out a few other games.

At absolute maximum settings, XCOM: Enemy Unknown runs at 60 FPS.
Dishonored runs at 50 FPS at maximum settings.
Guild Wars 2 ran at only 25 FPS at maximum settings.

Perhaps MMOs are too heavy for my CPU to handle.

 

[scout_03]

use this to see is the cpu wil give you bottleneck on the game you want to play http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

 

[cuecuemore]

You could easily be RAM bottlenecked ( you say you have 6GB, are you in single channel? And of course this is DDR2) or bus bottlenecked since this is an older architecture we're looking at.

 

[Sakkura]

I definitely saw a big difference when I upgraded from a 5670 to a 6850; the 7770 is comparable to a 6850, so your upgrade was similar.

 

[Quaddro]

9750 is a 1st gen phenom series..
a major bug in the instruction make it flaw..

well, hard to overclocking too, very hot cpu and consume huge energy..
(My machine was running with 9750 too.. )

And yes, it severely hold your gpu performance...that's why you barely notice differences betwen two cards..

At least you need phenom II class with 3Ghz++ (well...likely around 3.6Ghz) to feel smooth experience of your new 7770..


Check your motherboard..is it am2+ ?
If yes, then go to with phenom II..overclock it and you'll see the differences

but if not, i suggest to moving to intel, well, i3 sandy/ivybridge will serve your needs..

 

[slickracer]

I checked System Requirements Lab and got this result.

Of course, I know it's just a silly little web application, I just found it funny that I maxed out the bar.

My motherboard is a socket AM2+, so maybe I'll try a Phenom II.

I looked into overclocking my CPU, turns out my Motherboard won't allow it.

I guess for now I'll just turn down my graphics settings and keep this card alive until I can get a new PC, then move it over.

 

[DarkSable]

There can issue with your CPU bottlenecking your GPU.

A-yup. The two games you named are CPU-bound, not GPU bound.

 

[determinologyz]

I just tested out a few other games.

At absolute maximum settings, XCOM: Enemy Unknown runs at 60 FPS.
Dishonored runs at 50 FPS at maximum settings.
Guild Wars 2 ran at only 25 FPS at maximum settings.

Perhaps MMOs are too heavy for my CPU to handle.

Guild wars 2 is horrible optimized cpu/gpu wise

 

[pigletisgod]

Hi. I recently bought an HD 7770 as an upgrade to my aging 5670.

I'm barely seeing any improvement in performance. My games feel a bit smoother and more colorfully vivid, but otherwise, I'm still getting bad framerates in two games that I really wanted to play better.

These are WoW's new expansion and Guild Wars 2. I was getting about 22 FPS on maximum settings in these two games with my 5670, and I was hoping I could get close to 30 with the 7770. Instead I'm skirting 24 FPS with the same settings. Wow!

I made my purchase based off this site's 'Best Graphics Card for the Money'. It offered up the 6670, a small step up from my 5670, as the best card available for about $65. For the $125 selection, the 7770 was suggested. For $60, an increase of maybe one or two frames per second seems steep!

I'm wondering if this is normal or if there's a problem with my computer.

My CPU is an AMD Phenom 9750 quadcore at 2.4 GHz. I've checked my CPU usage during games and it's not at 100%, which I hear is evidence of a bottleneck. Still, I know it's not the best CPU but it's never seemed like it was the problem.

I have 6GB of RAM and Windows 7 x64.

I uninstalled my previous AMD drivers before installing new ones for my 7770.

So far there haven't been any warnings or errors from Windows. Just disappointing framerates.

Thanks for the help.

I have a 560 GTX SC and my games run very smooth on high settings but on World of Warcraft I get spikes where my FPS hits as low as 15-20 FPS (ultra video settings with v-sync and triple buffering enabled and 8x multisampling) and I have a core 2 duo e6600 @ 2.4 ghz. My cpu usage does not get that high either but when I ran some tests I found my video card is doing a lot better than my cpu so it may be bottlenecking. My gpu is scoring nearly 4 x higher in some benchmarks than my cpu.

 

[determinologyz]

I have a 560 GTX SC and my games run very smooth on high settings but on World of Warcraft I get spikes where my FPS hits as low as 15-20 FPS (ultra video settings with v-sync and triple buffering enabled and 8x multisampling) and I have a core 2 duo e6600 @ 2.4 ghz. My cpu usage does not get that high either but when I ran some tests I found my video card is doing a lot better than my cpu so it may be bottlenecking. My gpu is scoring nearly 4 x higher in some benchmarks than my cpu.

Yea the cpu is holding you back

 

[j2j663]

Well I will try not to just beat a dead horse and offer you some extra advice.

So, as already stated WOW is known to be a CPU intensive game which is why you are not seeing the returns on your investment that you want to on the 7770 GPU (which is a a very solid GPU).

You definately need to upgrade your processor. If you are going to stick with AMD for now, then I would suggest going to a Mircocenter if at all possible as they have both the 1045T and the 965 for $90 right now, a hell of a deal for either as an upgrade for you.

Otherwise I would recommend Newegg as they have the 970 (3.5 GHz) or even the 980 (3.7 GHz) which should provide enough CPU power to get you through this generation and maybe even the next generation of games.

However, if you are looking for a CPU upgrade that will help anything more than just games I can only recommend saving and going for an Intel CPU at this point. AMD is still a viable option for just a gaming computer but if you want more of a general computing upgrade you will have to change your platform to Intel.

Hope this helps and best of luck.

 

[scout_03]

if you upgrade cpu check if your board support the 95 watts one or the 125 watts one so you wont buy a wrong cpu that you board could not handle