HD 7950's unexpected performance struggle?

[blackzr]

My spec is:

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 920 @ 2.67GHz
RAM: 12.0GB
Windows 7 64bit Home Premium
SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7950 OC 3GB


So from my experiences, Skyrim, Farcry 3, and Max Payne 3 run smoothly on my computer with some settings to low. Some frame drops, but nothing serious.

But games like Condemned: Criminal Origin, Assassin's Creed 2, Borderlands 2 and Saints Row 3 seem to be struggling.

For Condemned: Criminal Origin, the frame drops and stuck to 30~40, even at the lowest setting. That goes to Assassin's Creed 2 as well that it drops sometimes from 60fps. I don't know Assassin's Creed 2, but Condemned shouldn't be dropping like this, as it's old game.

For Saints Row 3, the problem is pretty known with this one from my searching. Frame drops as well.

Finally, I have some odd stuffs with Borderlands 2, such as I shoot first time or after not shooting for long time, the game pauses briefly then shoots. Also I had to low view distance because the frame drops. When I had GTX285 before upgrading, Borderlands 2 ran smoothly with all settings on maximum.


So that's all experiences I could remember up to today. What seems to be a problem?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

drivers. get the latest amd beta drivers, they fix some fps & frame latency problems. Also you have a slight cpu bottleneck. Sometimes when upgrading video card i have found myself having to format and reinstall windows to get things running right, especially when switching from one manufacturer to another.
this is a must read for 7950 owners http://techreport.com/review/24218/a-driver-update-to-reduce-radeon-frame-times/3
oh, and i beleive borderlands 2 uses Nvidia's physx, which when switching to an AMD card is now done on your cpu instead of the video card which is much slower. So disable physx in the game.

 

[blackzr]

I installed the latest CCC recently, but I just found out that a new one is just updated on Wednesday. So I'm installing it now.

Now for CPU, I've did little searching and people say i5 works well with Hd 7950. As I've spent money on HD7950, I need to spend lowest budget as possible.

This is what I've found: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

If anyone have another suggestion, I would love to hear it.

 

[Novuake]

I installed the latest CCC recently, but I just found out that a new one is just updated on Wednesday. So I'm installing it now.

Now for CPU, I've did little searching and people say i5 works well with Hd 7950. As I've spent money on HD7950, I need to spend lowest budget as possible.

This is what I've found: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

If anyone have another suggestion, I would love to hear it.

You can not just use that CPU in your current motherboard. You will need to get a new board too. BUT I do not think its necessary, the I7 you have is still very fast.

When you install the latest drivers. Be sure to remove the old ones COMPLETELY, use ccleaner or similar to clean your registry and restart after uninstall and after reinstall.

 

[wdmfiber]

Well if you want a wild shot... this reminds me of a brutal problem I was trying to solve for a guy. Couldn't diagnosis the cause of his low fps. Unbelievably... his video cable(DVI, I believe) wasn't quite seated properly.

 

[blackzr]

Although I'm using HDMI, that's unbelievably alright. On second thought, I might try to connect the HDMI cable properly... just in case

I'm going to uninstall the CCC driver and run ccleaner to clean up.

 

[cookybiscuit]

Assassins Creed 2 (and all of the AC games actually) are known for crappy CPU utilization. For Borderlands 2 make sure you have Physx disabled.

 

[helper800]

drivers. get the latest amd beta drivers, they fix some fps & frame latency problems. Also you have a slight cpu bottleneck. Sometimes when upgrading video card i have found myself having to format and reinstall windows to get things running right, especially when switching from one manufacturer to another.
this is a must read for 7950 owners http://techreport.com/review/24218/a-driver-update-to-reduce-radeon-frame-times/3
oh, and i beleive borderlands 2 uses Nvidia's physx, which when switching to an AMD card is now done on your cpu instead of the video card which is much slower. So disable physx in the game.

He does not have a "slight" cpu bottleneck he has a monumental cpu bottleneck. I have the i5 3570K at 4.2 ghz and a 7950 and i get cpu bottlenecks in games all the time. One example would be World of Tanks, another would be Skyrim with 110 mods, another would be Farcry 3, and Hitman Absolution...

 

[unksol]

You'd need a new motherboard for the CPU.

What is your PSU? (they use about the same power, but still) Have you checked GPU/CPU temps and usage while in game? Could be throttling or bottlenecking. Both very easy to check for. Sometimes new GPUs are faulty.

Id also consider the OS reinstall

 

[blackzr]

PSU is 500w if my memory is correct.

While gaming, GPU temps is 66C according to CCC. Not sure about CPU.

 

[blazorthon]

If you have a decent CPU cooler, you could try a moderate overclock (i7-920 was famous for it's overclocking potential) and see if that helps. If so, then it would give pretty convincing evidence of a CPU bottle-neck. If it doesn't help much at all, then it's evidence of the CPU not being the problem. You could also try testing with Hyper-Threading off and on in different tests. Although rare, I have read of it still sometimes being an issue.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

He does not have a "slight" cpu bottleneck he has a monumental cpu bottleneck. I have the i5 3570K at 4.2 ghz and a 7950 and i get cpu bottlenecks in games all the time. One example would be World of Tanks, another would be Skyrim with 110 mods, another would be Farcry 3, and Hitman Absolution...

lol. Well you might get cpu "bottlenecks" but im sure you get good performance. If you dont get good performance its not because of your cpu, if its anything its AMD's shi**y drivers. Farcry3 is the worst for AMD cards at the moment, very choppy due to high frame latency. I dont know what else you could do for your so called cpu bottleneck, OC to 5ghz with watercooling?

 

[helper800]

lol. Well you might get cpu "bottlenecks" but im sure you get good performance. If you dont get good performance its not because of your cpu, if its anything its AMD's shi**y drivers. Farcry3 is the worst for AMD cards at the moment, very choppy due to high frame latency. I dont know what else you could do for your so called cpu bottleneck, OC to 5ghz with watercooling?

LOL to an extent what you say is true but I have not noticed any frame latency problems with Farcry 3, online its mostly Uplays shitty server's, lag destroys that game.