Low GPU usage in BF3 on 7970 Crossfire

The temperature of the card stays under 70c, so i dont really see how anything could overheat?

My 4870X2 was way over 90c, and it never had any problems.

EDIT: Seems like my VRM temps are fine, around 50c, and the VRM can take more heat then the Core, so no overheating issues.
 
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It's not temps, it's not throttling and it's certainly not a res issue. Please drop that guys. I have no idea why people are hating on 7970 xfire on a 1080p monitor. The only logical theory right now is drivers. I hope it gets fixed. I'm torn between returning it because I can't use it or waiting for drivers. No telling when they will fix it though. :/
 
My bios is relatively updated. I will be putting the newest on tonight to see if that alleviates the problem. Might want to give that a shot simkin if you already haven't.
 
Im gonna submit a ticket there..

One more thing in BF3 i get alot of screen tearing.. its a little better with v-sync on, but not much..

REALLY hope this is just a driver issue.
 
Yeah. It has to be a driver issue. But did you try what I listed earlier? A bios update? Or do you have the latest bios update for your motherboard?
 
Well, I can say without a doubt that I have tried everything. Literally. Still very low usage. Definitely driver issue.
 
Have you pointed a fan/'s at the tail end of the cards to keep the VRM's cool?? Power regulators heat up i bet the cards slow down.
 
As i wrote.. The VRM temp are FINE, 50c, and the Core do not exceed 70c.

THERE IS NO HEAT/TROTTLING ISSUES HERE.. I have a NZXT Phantom with all 7 Fans, its very good ventilation in the case..

my old 4870X2 could reach WELL over 90c, and still work without any issues at all..
 
People really need to drop the "single card can max out BF3 at 1080p" crap, it's simply not true.

I haven't played in a while, but on a GTX 570 I was getting 45-65 fps at high settings with FXAA and no MSAA at 1080p. Raise that to ultra settings with MSAA on and your framerate will drop in half. And then there are all the people (like me) with 120hz monitors who want much more than 60 fps. Crossfire/SLI is perfectly reasonable at 1080p.
 
Raxxath said:
People really need to drop the "single card can max out BF3 at 1080p" crap, it's simply not true.

I haven't played in a while, but on a GTX 570 I was getting 45-65 fps at high settings with FXAA and no MSAA at 1080p. Raise that to ultra settings with MSAA on and your framerate will drop in half. And then there are all the people (like me) with 120hz monitors who want much more than 60 fps. Crossfire/SLI is perfectly reasonable at 1080p.
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Could not agree more! Running at 120 fps is unlike anything else. Makes bf3 seem like a whole new game. If 1080p wasn't enough for these cards it would never drop below 120 fps. But when peoples cards are runing at 60% gpu usage and the frames are only around 70 then there's something else wrong. I really hope the next set of drivers fixes these issues for everyone. Keep sending amd service request in.
 
Some things that have not been mentioned.

PSU issues can cause this. My fps sucked ass just before my last psu took a piss.

Try flipping the crossfire bridge. I mean rotate it 180. The opposite of how it is now.
 
hammerforged said:
Could not agree more! Running at 120 fps is unlike anything else. Makes bf3 seem like a whole new game. If 1080p wasn't enough for these cards it would never drop below 120 fps. But when peoples cards are runing at 60% gpu usage and the frames are only around 70 then there's something else wrong. I really hope the next set of drivers fixes these issues for everyone. Keep sending amd service request in.
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Could be a bug in the game as well.. Kinda like Skyrim. GPU and CPU were low, but so were the FPS.

The unofficial fixes helped that a lot.. and then Bethesda finally released an official patch that did just about the same thing.

Just because it doesn't show up all the time doesn't mean it is a driver issue.

I personally would run with V-Sync on to see if it helps. Sometimes running with it off can screw with game timings and make stuff run really weird.
 
Simkin said:
As i wrote.. The VRM temp are FINE, 50c, and the Core do not exceed 70c.

THERE IS NO HEAT/TROTTLING ISSUES HERE.. I have a NZXT Phantom with all 7 Fans, its very good ventilation in the case..

my old 4870X2 could reach WELL over 90c, and still work without any issues at all..
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Funny that i've read that the reference cards cool the VRMs better as the heatsink is poor on the non ref cards and thats what i'm trying to get to is that it could be the VRM that is overheating.

Hell on my Quadfire setup i see nothing but upper 90% usage on my cards durring BF3 64 player maps using 11.12 drivers and CAP3. And i'm actually using it in tripple-fire mode as the game wont work without crashing with 4 cards.
 
cyclone3d said:
Could be a bug in the game as well.. Kinda like Skyrim. GPU and CPU were low, but so were the FPS.

The unofficial fixes helped that a lot.. and then Bethesda finally released an official patch that did just about the same thing.

Just because it doesn't show up all the time doesn't mean it is a driver issue.

I personally would run with V-Sync on to see if it helps. Sometimes running with it off can screw with game timings and make stuff run really weird.
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Runing with V-Sync on will limit the cards usage since the frame rate is now capped at 60/120 so it dont have to work as hard.
 
Some things that have not been mentioned.

PSU issues can cause this. My fps sucked ass just before my last psu took a piss.

Try flipping the crossfire bridge. I mean rotate it 180. The opposite of how it is now.
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My PSU is a new AX1200. So i dint think its a PSU issue.. i have no issues with anything else.

And flipping the CF Bridge, i tough it only worked one way?


eclypse said:
Funny that i've read that the reference cards cool the VRMs better as the heatsink is poor on the non ref cards and thats what i'm trying to get to is that it could be the VRM that is overheating.

Hell on my Quadfire setup i see nothing but upper 90% usage on my cards durring BF3 64 player maps using 11.12 drivers and CAP3. And i'm actually using it in tripple-fire mode as the game wont work without crashing with 4 cards.
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Its reference cards i have..... And you did see i had 50c VRM temp?


So, no more VRM temp talk, ITS NOT THE ISSUE

;)
 
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Raxxath said:
People really need to drop the "single card can max out BF3 at 1080p" crap, it's simply not true.
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You are 100% correct...I'm so tired of reading that BS, and this comes from someone who has been testing BF3 for months.

There is just no way one card can run the game at Ultra, 4xMSAA, @ 1080p without dipping below 30 FPS.

For me, it depends what map I play...sometimes I get 99% usage on both cards. The lowest Ive seen is low 70s.
 
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Read on another forum that GTX 680 SLi was running much smoother on BF3 compared to 7970 CFX. NO tearing and no stuttering. the guy went from two 7970 to two 680.

If AMD does not get better Crossfire drivers out for BF3, im jumping over to nvidia when they launching their next card, gk110 or whatever comes out..

The 9.55.5 works OK, but still im not satisfied..

Low GPU usage, screen tearing and stuttering., not good.
 
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Have you guys tried changing the FramesToRenderAhead/FlipQueueSize setting up or down using RadeonPro?
 
Well for me it wasn't just bf3. It was in all games. Low gpu usage. Funny thing was that in benchmarks like 3dmark11, it would scale properly and I got the score that was normal for crossfire 7970. Just on games did I get low gpu usage.
 
Raxxath said:
People really need to drop the "single card can max out BF3 at 1080p" crap, it's simply not true.

I haven't played in a while, but on a GTX 570 I was getting 45-65 fps at high settings with FXAA and no MSAA at 1080p. Raise that to ultra settings with MSAA on and your framerate will drop in half. And then there are all the people (like me) with 120hz monitors who want much more than 60 fps. Crossfire/SLI is perfectly reasonable at 1080p.
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x2

So sick of that. Even at 60hz, it is simply not true, let alone 120hz. Some of us want to be able to play on ultra with AA AND stay above 60fps, and a GTX580/6970/7870/7950 simply can't do that.
 
im experiencing this, especially on the more cpu intensive maps like Oman...


my cpu is hovering at ~%90 and my gpus are around %60-70..


its just BF3 being a monster cpu hog.
 
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Is CCC power setting at +20% for both cards? An i7-2600k is not going to be a bottleneck.
 
apehangers said:
Is CCC power setting at +20% for both cards? An i7-2600k is not going to be a bottleneck.
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It might be.

i had my 2600k @ 4.7Ghz running over 90% usage while playing BF3, so thats what i call a bottleneck.. Have a 3930k now, but havent checked the usage on that, but i guess its the same story..

However, i feel the game is running better going from s1155 to s2011, jumping from 4 to 6 cores (BF3 can use up to 8 Cores) and PCIe 2.0 8X-8X to PCIe 3.0 16X-16X.

i dont know, but it feels better now, dont get so low fps drops anymore.
 
its a fact.


7970s are just too much beast for ANY current CPU on a single 120hz screen.
 
Simkin said:
It might be.

i had my 2600k @ 4.7Ghz running over 90% usage while playing BF3, so thats what i call a bottleneck.. Have a 3930k now, but havent checked the usage on that, but i guess its the same story..

However, i feel the game is running better going from s1155 to s2011, jumping from 4 to 6 cores (BF3 can use up to 8 Cores) and PCIe 2.0 8X-8X to PCIe 3.0 16X-16X.

i dont know, but it feels better now, dont get so low fps drops anymore.
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It was probably the pcie 2.0 8x,8x bottle necking your hd 7970 crossfire
 
ish718 said:
It was probably the pcie 2.0 8x,8x bottle necking your hd 7970 crossfire
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I doubt it was PCI-E bandwidth.

Adding two or four more cores makes a huge difference as far as smoothness and playability goes in a couple of games, BF3 especially. You won't really see a difference in benchmarks or comparing frame rate, but you can really feel it when playing, especially on big multiplayer maps.
 
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