290x and Fan & OC Control

So, now that I have my new 290x (which isn't that loud at 55% by the way) I want to play around with higher fan speeds as well as minor OC.

What software should I use for this?

What software should I use to record FPS in BF4 (low/avg/hi)?

I haven't done any GPU OCing (or CPU for that matter) in years and years and years.


-Todd

Afterburner beta 17 has voltage control, otherwise just use CCC to adjust fan and bump clocks a bit if you want.

You can go into CCC and check off enable Overdrive.
Then slide the fan control to 100%. The fan won't go that high unless it has to, but it can.
I'd then download Afterburner 3.0 beta 17 it will allow VCore increases.
You can OC in Afterburner much more elegantly than the CCC.

Afterburner can monitor everything.
Also if you check off create a log in the settings, it will record min/max/average.
Afterburner will also run custom fan profiles.

Do you need to use the power limit settings in CCC to make full use of the card?
My 290 GPU throttles a lot (in GPU use mainly, there is a little throttling of the clock too), the power limit setting doesnt make any difference when set to +50%.
Overclocking the card changes the clocks but doesnt improve performance, it just throttles GPU use more to compensate for the increased clock speed.
(using an Xtreme III cooler, max load temp is around 50C)

Do you think the latest afterburner will allow me to get higher use of the GPU?

Nenu said:

Do you need to use the power limit settings in CCC to make full use of the card?
My 290 GPU throttles a lot (in GPU use mainly, there is a little throttling of the clock too), the power limit setting doesnt make any difference when set to +50%.
Overclocking the card changes the clocks but doesnt improve performance, it just throttles GPU use more to compensate for the increased clock speed.
(using an Xtreme III cooler, max load temp is around 50C)

Do you think the latest afterburner will allow me to get higher use of the GPU?

Click to expand...

Don't pay attention to the GPU usage as it doesn't really reflect what is happening due to issue with AMD's driver. It will always look like it's throttling no matter what fan/powertune/clockspeed settings you're using. The best way to see if the GPU is being pushed is to watch clockspeeds, as in any CPU limited situation or with V-sync it'll still lower even with fan/temp/power overhead as it's set to lower clockspeed when ever the load lightens. With my current overclock, a power setting of +10% is enough to eliminate throttling due to powertune, and with Afterburner 3.0 Beta 17 the extra voltage can help you get another ~50-100MHz.

Unwinder said:

Guys, in different forums I've seen claims that AB reports wrong GPU usage on 290 cards because it is not supporting new AMD GPUs yet. That's incorrect statement, new versions of AB won't fix it, GPU usage is reported as it is calculated by AMD driver and it is not anyhow calculated internally in AB. So it is not a case of unknown GPU, it is as correct as AMD driver team implemented it. Currently GPU usage sensor implementation inside AMD driver is broken and it may return unreliable data if other sensors were polled immediately before GPU usage. So the amount of wrong data can be minimized by adding artificial delays between polling the sensors, it may be minimized by putting GPU load sensors to the first positions in the list, but the only true fix can be expected from AMD drivers update.

Click to expand...

http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=4700628&postcount=187

I hard to say that the gpu is throttling other then the only way that we see it as we really don't understand it and just say it throttles.

I look at it as Variable Speed just like your car has Variable Speed Timing as it adjust to load demand to keep the best performance .

gpu usage for 290/290x doesn't seem right for me, I can be standing still in the game and I would see fps drop and rise for no reason.

SicKlown42012 said:

Don't pay attention to the GPU usage as it doesn't really reflect what is happening due to issue with AMD's driver. It will always look like it's throttling no matter what fan/powertune/clockspeed settings you're using. The best way to see if the GPU is being pushed is to watch clockspeeds, as in any CPU limited situation or with V-sync it'll still lower even with fan/temp/power overhead as it's set to lower clockspeed when ever the load lightens. With my current overclock, a power setting of +10% is enough to eliminate throttling due to powertune, and with Afterburner 3.0 Beta 17 the extra voltage can help you get another ~50-100MHz.


http://forums.guru3d.com/showpost.php?p=4700628&postcount=187

Click to expand...

Thanks very much for the info.
There does 'seem' to be an issue (not with AB) because if I increase the clock speed and memory speed, in some games I tested there is no comparable increase in fps and the GPU use throttles more instead, according to ABs output.
I've looked to see if it is cpu limited and in some no core is getting near maxed out (ie not above 80% on any core).

I've found 3 programs so far that dont get the GPU use to throttle, Unigine Heaven, Dirt 2 and COD Ghosts.
COD Ghosts is awesome and it wouldnt be unless the GPU was heavily utilised, so it for sure can work brilliantly.

I need to do a lot more testing as the problem may be isolated to just a few programs and I maybe hit on those during my tests.

Nenu said:

I've looked to see if it is cpu limited and in some no core is getting near maxed out (ie not above 80% on any core).

Click to expand...

You can still be CPU limited even though no core is maxed out. Windows will throw threads around so that no core will be completely maxed out, but even spread out that/those thread(s) can only perform so much and games only create a few. AMD's drivers also seem to have a fairly large CPU overhead, so that only worsen things which is why Mantle is so important for them. Even my 4930 at the current speed can run into spots in games where it is the bottleneck.

Also, what target temp and fan cap are you using? Even though you have an aftermarket cooler, powertune, since it's targeted for use with the stock cooler, might not be playing nice due to it misinterpreting the readings. If you haven't already, put the fan cap at 100% and the target temp at 95c. Your card will never reach these extremes, but it would eliminate two more variables to help chase down what is happening to you.

I've been monitoring CPU usage for a long time to see when CPU use becomes a bottleneck for the gfx card and in practically all cases, GPU use doesnt reduce until about 90 to 95% CPU use on "any" single core used by the game.
There have been a few times I've seen it reduce GPU use a little at about 85% single CPU core occupancy (inevitably due to very fast spikes to 100% use that are not reflected in the 1 second updates).
But there may be some truth in what you say, I have an open mind on the issue.

The max temp I have seen is 53C on the GPU, it operates mostly up to 49C. Fans are fed constant 12V so are at max speed.
Fan cap has been set to max and max temp is set to 95C (to be sure they werent influencing this issue).
In case it helps, system memory is at 2200MHz ish CAS 11 CR 1 on a 4.4GHz 2500K, the machine is 24/7 stable.
While there may be a hidden memory bandwidth issue, its not at the lower end of the spectrum.

My observations of memory use and CPU occupancy lead me to believe that when the CPU is waiting for memory, it is shown as occupied.
This might not be the case under all conditions, I havent tried to verify it directly.