Trouble with 7970 CF

[Injen]

Long story short.
I bought two 7970 to run them at CF, even when i only run with PCI-E 2.0 x16 x16. I've done alot of reading and the conclusion was that i would only lose a few fps.

I'm running with a old i7 930 that have been OC'ed to 4.2GHz with HT on. Yes it's old, but it will do for now untill i build a new rig.

Here's some score from 3D Mark11
3DMark Score ~P13500
Graphics Score ~17500
I've compared at some reviews and my scores and almost equal.

Well, on to the problem. The cards runs great so far, but sometimes "ok, many times" when i play games the FPS is dropping down to 70-90 fps, to stay there a few seconds untill i move the mouse or change position/cruch/lay down. This is only tested at BF3 and Borderlands 2. Settings are at max with v-sync on and at res. 1920*1080 on a 120hz monitor.
What's even stranger is that neither CPU or GPU are using 100%
CPU stays at 50%-70% on all cores, and GPU are pending between 50%-80%

I don't know about you guys, but i thought that 7970CF was able to run BF3 to at least 110fps stable, at least at this resolution

What i've done.
*All drivers + AMD Cap + mobo bios are up to date.
*CF bridge are at place and CF are enabled in CCC
*No heat problems with CPU or GPU
*Disabled the graphic cards power saving in regedit

And some specs
*OS: Win7
*CPU: i7 930 @ 4.2GHz HT ON tested with Prime95 at 12 hours
*Memory: Corsair Dominator DHX+ 1600MHz 6GB,
*PSU: Corsair HX 850W PSU

 

[GotNoRice]

What's even stranger is that neither CPU or GPU are using 100%
CPU stays at 50%-70% on all cores, and GPU are pending between 50%-80%

With the 930 and it's 8 logical cores, a game that was making full use of a single CPU core would only show up as 12.5% CPU utilization. Even the more multi-threaded games still only make use of a handful of cores. You will pretty much never see your CPU at "100%" and that doesn't mean anything is wrong.

You would certainly benefit from a faster CPU, especially if you expect to maintain 120fps.

 

[Injen]

Yes, fully understandable. But still, non of the cores are using more then 50%-70% while gaming.
Do i maybe need more RAM?

 

[Brackle]

Turn Vsync off that will make your GPU's and CPU Work alot harder. Basically using Vsync is capping your performance in a sense.

I would also turn off HT, since is lowers gaming performance.

Then I would try to get more out of your CPU (if you have the cooling and PSU power).

Turning HT will allow you to overclock more as well. Try to hit 4.3-4.4ghz if you can.

P.S. this is coming from someone who is using a 120hz monitor as well.

 

[p3sty]

Your doomed I'll take one of the 7970's off your hands . I think you might be cpu limited with cf 7970 's use the render.perfoverlayenable 1 to see gpu/cpu usage ingame on bf3 . I believe bf3 is also one of the games that ht is good to use on.

 

[Brackle]

Your doomed I'll take one of the 7970's off your hands . I think you might be cpu limited with cf 7970 's use the render.perfoverlayenable 1 to see gpu/cpu usage ingame on bf3 . I believe bf3 is also one of the games that ht is good to use on.

HT can also hamper overclocking ability, and adds heat output.

He would be better off trying to get more MHZ over 4 fake cores.

 

[p3sty]

HT can also hamper overclocking ability, and adds heat output.

He would be better off trying to get more MHZ over 4 fake cores.

Your right but thats where he needs to fart around with it run the test I said see whats happening in that game it could be anything. Op also said hes running up to date drivers does that mean hes running the new "better" beta drivers?

 

[Brackle]

Your right but thats where he needs to fart around with it run the test I said see whats happening in that game it could be anything. Op also said hes running up to date drivers does that mean hes running the new "better" beta drivers?

Very true, but if he is CPU Bottlenecked, like you said yourself, HT will not help that. More MHZ Will help that.

P.S. I would like to add, getting the first gen I7's to 4.3+ overclock isnt an easy thing to do. Some chips wont even go past 4.2. Plus you need some damn good cooling, and good PSU, and good airflow....its not easy to overclock them past a certain point (I know should My media PC in my sig is my old system. I did have that 950 at 4.4ghz....but damn it heats up a room easily).

 

[Injen]

Thanks for all the answers guys.
Yes, i always had HT OFF to get a better clock, but a guy "another forum" told me to turn it on. Why buy a HT rig, then not use it he told me... My answer was, why buy a Nvidia card and not use PhysicX Yes, it helped me out on BF3, but that's it. Nothing more. What i've notice that it's only BF3 and Borderlands 2 that i had problems with. Playing CoD Black Ops II atm and i constantly have 120fps "with V-Sync", and then my GPU usage are at 40%-50% while my CPU are at 50%-60% "Yes, i'm running with a 120mhz monitor as i stated in my first post.

So conclusion. BF3 smells and doesn't performe that great neither what.
Anyway. Looking for reviews if i should buy LGA1155 or LGA2011 atm. Leaning towards 2011

EDIT: Never using Beta drivers. To much bad experience with that
And sorry for my lack of English