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7870 DCII Only 64% Usage

C

Cecil

Supreme [H]ardness
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Jun 17, 2009
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Traded someone for two ASUS 7870 DCIIs.
Was testing each card by itself. First in my X58 rig with a 550w OCZ ZS PSU that has been running a GTX-580 without issue. Each card would run at 64% load, and very crippled frame rates.

27in 2560x1440 res monitor using DL-DVI.

Deciding to try them in another rig with a Z68 and brand new 850w NZXT Hale82 PSU. Same exact thing.

Undervolted, underclocked the card, and put the power to +20%. Usage went up a tiny bit, but was still getting crappy frame rates (low 30s in Guild Wars 2 vs 60 for the 580).


Anyone else experiance anything like this with 7 series cards?
 
Driver version?

Which game(s) did you test? Have you tried synthetic benchmarks?
 
12.8, plus tried the hotfix for GW2 as well.
Uninstalled all driver properly, and used driver fusion to clean, then installed like I always do.

Tried GW2 and Kombuster GL (MSI logo) and DX11 (full test with all the stuff going on).

Same thing every time.
 
Sounds like the BIOS is bugged. Maybe try finding an equivalent one on TechPowerUp and see if that helps at all.

Contact the seller in the meantime and see if he/she can troubleshoot. Maybe send Asus a support ticket.
 
Think Im going to send them back to the other guy and just get a single 7970. Have a 2560x1440 monitor, so that seems like a better option. Just these cards would look nicer in my rig lol.
 
http://i49.tinypic.com/desphs.jpg


After a couple days of messing around, thats the best I can get it to "work". That was playing around in GW2 max settings 2560x1440.

Ive gotten it where if I lower the stock volts (1.218V) to 1.125V, and set power limit to + 20%, in Kombuster it will now stay at 99%.


However, its getting 22fps, and not sure what it should be getting at 2560x1440 with 8xAA (using the test that has the squares, flags, particals, etc...).


Not sure if the cards are defective, throttling, or maybe just need a new power profile (BIOS flash).


Using a DL-DVI cable. My 580 has none of these issues with any of my hardware. In GW2, in the same spot, would be about 50-60FPS. This card is staying around 45FPS. In reviews Ive seen, they are tied in pretty much every game. Tried getting the 12.8 cap2 driver add on, and it did absolutly nothing in GW2.


EDIT: 580 for refrence.

http://i46.tinypic.com/2h8bfo1.jpg



Though it gets 25FPS in Kombuster too, so it seems the 7870 is running right there. Just dont get why it keeps on throttling in games.
 
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Have you tried to disable ULPS and tried to raise the power limit to +20% (or whatever the max is)? Maybe It throttles itself. I'm no master in hardware but maybe it runs ok in kombustor because that program only uses the gpu and not the memory, and games use both, requiring extra power?
 
I really wish people would stop looking at the GPU usage number, I'm not 100% convinced is even accurate and even if it was, the numbers seem to fluctuate so stop worrying about it. If you have a problem, its not very likely anything to do with the GPU usage.
 
Have you tested this configuration in a game other than GW2? Any reason not to think that its not GW2 & driver related? That's the first question that popped into my mind. You did mention a hotfix for GW2 but that doesn't necessarily address your problem, it could be something else.
 
I get the same with my 7870 hawk in GW2 and Heaven 3.0. clock speed flips between 1100mhz and 450mhz too. powerrtune at 20%. if I oc at all (1101mhz lol) it doesn't drop the clock speed to 450mhz, but gpu usage is still flipping between 64% and 100% every two seconds. the frame rate in GW2 is 122fps at max settings except supersample (in most areas). I just sold my 7950 yesterday. that and my gtx670 got about 30-50fps more in GW2 and had constant gpu usage and stable clocks in everything. my brother's 7850 is also fine and has had not a single issue ever (I'm jealous because I've had some form of crap with every card I had this year) so is this a 7870 issue? I've seen several other posts about the same thing.
 
Tried Skyrim as well. Only have a couple games on this install so far.
Popped the other one in for Xfire, and one will bounce back and forther between 64% and 99%, while the other just sits at 64% only.

As for not bothering to look at that GPU usage, these are the only cards doing it. And you can easily tell when it drops because the frame rate takes a large hit at the same time.
 
This happens to me some times in Tera. For example it would run at the max 80FPS and be at around 75% GPU usage, then randomly it would go back to 800Mhz run at around 30FPS and only use 40% of my GPU.
 
Blkout said:
I really wish people would stop looking at the GPU usage number, I'm not 100% convinced is even accurate and even if it was, the numbers seem to fluctuate so stop worrying about it. If you have a problem, its not very likely anything to do with the GPU usage.
Click to expand...
I agree, sometimes in furmark my gpu's usage drops to 64% but fps is still constant. I think it's pretty meaningless, except from when you actually notice fps drops.
 
Not convinced GPU usage has anything do with some people's issues. I've seen framerates drop in many games during heavy action even with GPU usage at 99% so clearly framerate and GPU usage aren't directly linked. The card itself may not be using 100% of the card's resources either depending on what the game is demanding.
 
Dont know if this thread is still live, I found it searching through google...

I had 1 x MSI 7870 TFIII and I recently aquired a 2nd.

I do not remember if I had this 'gpu load @ 64%' bug before installing the second 7870, but I definatly have it after installing the second 7870.

MSI afterburner shows both cards behaving in the same fashion you describe.

However, looking under GPUZ, both cards are showing a full load (99-100%), the whole time. However, GPUZ also gives some 'off' negative voltage readins when under load too, so i dont know wht to beleive.

I have had to remove one of the 7870s as the temps were ridiculous on the top gfx card, due to sandwiching.

I dont really use this machine for gaming anymore, its just a 'messing about' system. I have been mining bitcoins on it though (just for lols) and I do NOT notice a drop in Mhash/s when MSI AB reports it as '64%' load.

Dont really know what to make of it tbh.

If anyones interested, you can get approx 860 Mhash/s running 2 x 7870s at 1170 core and no other tweaks.

If anyone wants me to, I will install bf3 and see what the fps is like and look for drops in frame rate connected to the mysterious '64%' load thing.
 
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