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I just bought an XFX ATI Radeon HD 4890 1GB video card for my computer. The rest of my specs are as follow:
My Specs:
OS: Windows 7 64-bit Professional
Mobo: Foxconn C51XEM2AA - AM2 Socket - nForce 590 SLI
PSU: Enermax 500W - two 12V @ 22A - two PCI-E 6pin connectors
Memory: 4GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - 4 x 1GB
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2x512KB L2 Cache (Overclocked to 2.889GHz from 2.5GHz)
GPU: ATI XFX Radeon HD 4890 1GB
HDD: (1)Seagate 250GB HDD @ 7200RPMs SATA, (2)WD 500GB HDD @ 7200RPMs SATA
Monitor: LG 22" Widescreen running at 1600x1050
So far I am not impressed at all. Before, I had an XFX Geforce 7950GT 256MB so I thought going from a 7950gt 256MB to a 4890 1GB would be a HUGE improvement. Not so. I am getting rather low framerates for such a high end card (25-50 fps).
I have ran it on Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike: Source, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. As you can see, the only really "new" game is COD. The rest are rather old and should run beautifully on this card. The funny part is that lowering textures and resolution does not improve the frame rate.
I have the latest Catalyst driver (9.11). I removed all old drivers both NVIDIA and ATI using the Driver Cleaner/Sweeper method. I have overclocked my CPU as far as it can go. I have checked the stability and temperatures of my system and they are all well within norm (refer to the following picture for temps and CPU-Z, GPU-Z, and DXDIAG screenshots).
Click the image for a larger version
So far all I can come up with is:
A. My CPU is bottlenecking my video card.
B. I got a faulty video card (I have read many posts where this is the case)
Now, while it may be possible that my CPU is indeed a bottleneck, I don't think it should be degrading the performance in games this much which is why I am also looking at the video as being at fault.
I ran some benchmarks on my system and this is what I got:
3DMark06
SM 2.0 3678
SM 3.0 4883
CPU 1928
Total Score 9046
3DMark Vantage
Graphics 7492
CPU 3166
Total Score P5585
Both benchmarks were run using the free trial version so everything is set to default.
The following is what I have done so far to try and narrow down the cause of the performance degradation:
-----------------------
Test 1:
I decided to conduct a little test in COD: Modern Warfare 2. I ran Fraps to see the FPS. I then created a private match with the map where I normally have the lowest FPS (Scrapyard). Then in there I chose a spot where my fps dropped to it's lowest and made that stop the "designated" spot to stand on when checking different settings. Here is what I found.
In this "designated" spot, the maximum fps I could get was in the 50's (51-58). I got this fps with the following settings:
Resolution - 1680x1050
AA - 4x
VSync - On (I know this is supposed to decrease fps but it didn't so I left it on)
Texture Quality - Extra (max)
Shadows - off
Specular Map - off
Soften Smoke Edges - off
When I turn any one of the last 3 settings on, my fps drops by 8-10. If I turn 2 of them on at the same time, it drops by 15-20. If I turn 3 of them on then my fps drops by 20ish (I get around 30 fps).
Now, I did the same thing but this time turned all the textures to their lowest setting (Low) and set the resolution to the lowest 16:10 resolution (1280x800). With these settings and everything turned off (except for VSync which I left on) I was hitting the 60 fps cap almost all the time (it would go from 51-60). I then stood in the "designated" spot and turned on the Shadows, Specular Map, and Soften Smoke Edges. This dropped my fps to the mid 30's !!!
So now my question is: Are the last three setting (shadows, specular map, soften smoke edges) cpu intensive or is it all handled by the video card? If it's cpu intensive then for sure my CPU is the problem. If not, then there must be something wrong with my video card. A Radeon HD 4890 1GB should be more than enough power to handle all the settings in COD:MW2. Until the 5000 series came out, the 4890 was the top of the line in ATI (after the 4870X2).
I understand if maybe I could not run the textures on Extra or something but getting 30ish fps with everything minimum because I turned on Shadows, Specular Map, and Soften Smoke Edges is not acceptable.
-------------------
Test 2:
I went into Counter-Strike: Source and maxed everything out. I was getting between 30 and 70 fps. I then set everything to the minimum and while the bottom end of the fps range did improve (was going from 40 to 70fps), it still was not anything near what I should be seeing with such low settings on such a high end card.
Any feedback on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the long post but I would rather give you as much information up front instead of going through various pages of questions about whether I installed the newest drivers or made sure to remove the old drivers, etc, etc.
My Specs:
OS: Windows 7 64-bit Professional
Mobo: Foxconn C51XEM2AA - AM2 Socket - nForce 590 SLI
PSU: Enermax 500W - two 12V @ 22A - two PCI-E 6pin connectors
Memory: 4GB DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) - 4 x 1GB
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ 2x512KB L2 Cache (Overclocked to 2.889GHz from 2.5GHz)
GPU: ATI XFX Radeon HD 4890 1GB
HDD: (1)Seagate 250GB HDD @ 7200RPMs SATA, (2)WD 500GB HDD @ 7200RPMs SATA
Monitor: LG 22" Widescreen running at 1600x1050
So far I am not impressed at all. Before, I had an XFX Geforce 7950GT 256MB so I thought going from a 7950gt 256MB to a 4890 1GB would be a HUGE improvement. Not so. I am getting rather low framerates for such a high end card (25-50 fps).
I have ran it on Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Counter-Strike: Source, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. As you can see, the only really "new" game is COD. The rest are rather old and should run beautifully on this card. The funny part is that lowering textures and resolution does not improve the frame rate.
I have the latest Catalyst driver (9.11). I removed all old drivers both NVIDIA and ATI using the Driver Cleaner/Sweeper method. I have overclocked my CPU as far as it can go. I have checked the stability and temperatures of my system and they are all well within norm (refer to the following picture for temps and CPU-Z, GPU-Z, and DXDIAG screenshots).
Click the image for a larger version
So far all I can come up with is:
A. My CPU is bottlenecking my video card.
B. I got a faulty video card (I have read many posts where this is the case)
Now, while it may be possible that my CPU is indeed a bottleneck, I don't think it should be degrading the performance in games this much which is why I am also looking at the video as being at fault.
I ran some benchmarks on my system and this is what I got:
3DMark06
SM 2.0 3678
SM 3.0 4883
CPU 1928
Total Score 9046
3DMark Vantage
Graphics 7492
CPU 3166
Total Score P5585
Both benchmarks were run using the free trial version so everything is set to default.
The following is what I have done so far to try and narrow down the cause of the performance degradation:
-----------------------
Test 1:
I decided to conduct a little test in COD: Modern Warfare 2. I ran Fraps to see the FPS. I then created a private match with the map where I normally have the lowest FPS (Scrapyard). Then in there I chose a spot where my fps dropped to it's lowest and made that stop the "designated" spot to stand on when checking different settings. Here is what I found.
In this "designated" spot, the maximum fps I could get was in the 50's (51-58). I got this fps with the following settings:
Resolution - 1680x1050
AA - 4x
VSync - On (I know this is supposed to decrease fps but it didn't so I left it on)
Texture Quality - Extra (max)
Shadows - off
Specular Map - off
Soften Smoke Edges - off
When I turn any one of the last 3 settings on, my fps drops by 8-10. If I turn 2 of them on at the same time, it drops by 15-20. If I turn 3 of them on then my fps drops by 20ish (I get around 30 fps).
Now, I did the same thing but this time turned all the textures to their lowest setting (Low) and set the resolution to the lowest 16:10 resolution (1280x800). With these settings and everything turned off (except for VSync which I left on) I was hitting the 60 fps cap almost all the time (it would go from 51-60). I then stood in the "designated" spot and turned on the Shadows, Specular Map, and Soften Smoke Edges. This dropped my fps to the mid 30's !!!
So now my question is: Are the last three setting (shadows, specular map, soften smoke edges) cpu intensive or is it all handled by the video card? If it's cpu intensive then for sure my CPU is the problem. If not, then there must be something wrong with my video card. A Radeon HD 4890 1GB should be more than enough power to handle all the settings in COD:MW2. Until the 5000 series came out, the 4890 was the top of the line in ATI (after the 4870X2).
I understand if maybe I could not run the textures on Extra or something but getting 30ish fps with everything minimum because I turned on Shadows, Specular Map, and Soften Smoke Edges is not acceptable.
-------------------
Test 2:
I went into Counter-Strike: Source and maxed everything out. I was getting between 30 and 70 fps. I then set everything to the minimum and while the bottom end of the fps range did improve (was going from 40 to 70fps), it still was not anything near what I should be seeing with such low settings on such a high end card.
Any feedback on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the long post but I would rather give you as much information up front instead of going through various pages of questions about whether I installed the newest drivers or made sure to remove the old drivers, etc, etc.
