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Sapphire Tri-X r290 Performance Problems

Pixeldamage

Pixeldamage

Pixeldamage

Associate
Joined
4 Aug 2014
Posts
11
Location
London
Overview

I bought the Sapphire Tri X r290) from OCUK a couple of months ago but have only just had a chance to play some games. I was getting really poor performance so I decided to do some benchmarks and research.

This card has huge frametime spikes on all games tested (see below). I'm also getting 0xa0000001 and atikdag.sys BSODs with some versions of the CCC (see notes below). This is my first AMD card in about twelve years and I'm really disappointed so far. I've tried everything I can think of and if anyone knows how to fix this then please please help. From reading around the web it sounds like either it's faulty memory on the card or bad drivers (but see below)

Main Issues:

Spikes in frametimes (low fps spikes) which brings overall benchmarks in Heaven/Valley/FarCry 3 etc really low. For example, in FC3 I'm getting in FPS average in the 30s and I'm only running at 1080p. In Unigen's benchmarks I get lows sometimes under 10fps even though most of the time it's high. I've checked out official benchmarks for my card and my performance is severely under par. Even with the exact same benchmark versions and CCC drivers I'm getting way lower fps. This card is meant to be for 4k gaming and yet it's not even performing good enough for 1080p (the monitor I have). My girlfriend even tried playing old games like the Sims 3 and it's really laggy.

AfterBurner logs:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137479361/r290 benchmarks.png

Heaven Benchmarks

CCC 13.11 beta 9.5
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137479361/Unigine_Heaven_Benchmark_4.0_CCC 13.11 beta 9.5.html

CCC 14.6
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137479361/Unigine_Heaven_Benchmark_4.0_CCC 14.6.html

Valley Benchmarks

CCC 14.4
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137479361/Unigine_Valley_Benchmark_1.0_CCC 14.4.html

CCC 14.6
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137479361/Unigine_Valley_Benchmark_1.0_CCC 14.6.html

MiniDump Crash Report

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137479361/minidump crash.png



Specs:

AMD Sapphire Tri X r290 4GB
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 920 @ 2.67GHz (8 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
Mobo: Asus P6T Deluxe V2, Intel X58
Memory: 18432MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 18424MB RAM
PSU: Corsair TX 750W, single 12V rail
Page File: 7470MB used, 31432MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS (windows 8.1)
DirectX Version: DirectX 11

CCC installs/drivers, my notes:

*14.6 beta rc2
-This has BSOD with atapiati errors (AMD process)
-It has some WD optimisations

*14.4
-I was running this (went back to it due to BSOD) Found in FC3 it was giving me only 30fps
-Tried benchmarking on both this 14.6rc2 and dropped back to 13.11 all had no impact on FC3.
-Check benchmarks
- Sound errors .. doesn't see any sound for amd hdtv 14.6 has updates to the hdmi audio driver and the audio driver will now go back up and see if I can put up with the BSODs (so long as the audio is ok )
-Another bsod due to atikmdag.sys (03/08/14)

*13.11
-no improvement in FC3
-this driver was used in benchmarking review of my gpu
-my benchmarks dont match up

Notes

To install drivers I've tried using CCC's full/clean remover (in Safe Mode) as well as DDU. I don't think the issue is to do with left over files. I've even repeated this process several times and one of the last times ran Driver Fusion to make double sure nothing was left over.

I attempted to find all the chipset drivers I could. My mobo maker Asus doesn't have any drivers for Windows 8.1 (for the P6T Deluxe V2). I went to Intel and downloaded what I thought are the right drivers. I also bought a premium version of Driver Fusion since it claimed to find chipset drivers that were missing. Once bought, it installed those drivers but nothing's improved.
 
That's an older CPU

Would suggest updating the Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard BIOS to the latest version first. I wonder if it's a problem there somewhere. Also make sure with GPU-z that it's running at the very least in PCI Express x8 mode when under load.

What hard drive?
 
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That's true, when I got my R9 290x I upgraded from an Intel i7 860 (2.8Ghz Lynnfield) to an i7 4770k (4.5Ghz Haswell).

Even though games are (in general) GPU bound, you need a decent processor to ensure you are making the most of a powerful graphics card.
 
llamadal said:
Sell it on mm and get a 780 then enjoy trouble free gaming
Click to expand...

What part don't you understand he cpu bottlenecked? You going to make someone change out there gpu because you think it's a amd issue?
My advice to you go learn about cpu bottleneck and why a cpu is just as important as the gpu itself.
 
You should be able to overclock that 920 to at least 3.6GHz with minimal effort, it will go up to 4GHz with a little more trial and error.

I have similar issues with my Sapphire Tri-X with the 0xa0000001 errors. I am using an EX58-UD5 and from searching online this problem seems to be an issue with 290 cards running on 1366 motherboards. For me it seems to happen a lot more when watching videos or using flash based stuff on websites. The odd thing is the GPU is stable on the crash side of things when gaming, does it happen for the OP when the GPU is not under any strain?
 
shankly, you are one of the biggest contributors of trash on this whole forum and thus the least qualified person to ever give advice.

While a bottleneck will cause some issues, it certainly wouldn't to the extent he is having.

Kotu has given some good advice on the oc / but the few times I've seen this before it was

1) borked windows after installing a new card, a clean install and a newer beta driver sorted it
2) borked driver issue and was sorted with drivesweeper in the end i think, the first one
3) PSU dying

Good luck in getting this sorted, if you have a friend whos got a system you can chuck that card into to test just to rule it out then that would certainly help.
 
Looking more into the BSOD the error code you getting is 0x124

This
0x124 = increase/decrease QPI/VTT first, if not increase/decrease vcore...have to test to see which one it is

This a good list of error codes here
http://www.overclock.net/t/935829/the-overclockers-bsod-code-list

I would also run Memtest86, RAM is the number one issue when it comes to system suitability damaged ram will give all kinds random BSOD.

Next is that CPU at that speed it will be holding back most demanding games to date. If you trying to run max settings you need 3+ghz on todays games.
 
Just ran these on a single stock 290X.

4930k using 4 cores, PCI-E 2.0, @2.4ghz which is about as close as I can get to the OPs CPU.
c54EdHN.png



4930k using 6 cores, PCI-E 3.0, @4.0ghz to show bottleneck difference.
PqwfHXY.png


OP how is your score comparing to the top picture, with a 290P you should be looking for about 2200 compared to the 2372 I managed on a 290X.
 
Its also worth pointing out though that test will not stress the CPU as much as say BF4 or Crysis 3 for example.

We could maybe find a bench test that will stress the overall system much more and you see the bottleneck much more.
 
I just ran valley with my 290 pcs+ to compare kapps score and got 2528 with a 3770k but the tri x is clocked lower at stock so maybe minus a few points
 
Update

Firstly thanks everyone for your feedback so far.

Kotu said:
You should be able to overclock that 920 to at least 3.6GHz with minimal effort, it will go up to 4GHz with a little more trial and error.

I have similar issues with my Sapphire Tri-X with the 0xa0000001 errors. I am using an EX58-UD5 and from searching online this problem seems to be an issue with 290 cards running on 1366 motherboards. For me it seems to happen a lot more when watching videos or using flash based stuff on websites. The odd thing is the GPU is stable on the crash side of things when gaming, does it happen for the OP when the GPU is not under any strain?
Click to expand...

That's exactly when mine crashes. Usually in Chrome watching video. I'm also getting Atapi (I think / something AMD related) errors when booting into Windows from Standby.

I had my CPU overclocked at 3.8 for Watch Dogs and still noticed issues (but then that game was poorly optimized so not a good benchmark). I had considered the CPU as an issue but in my benchmarks the CPU isn't close to 100% load. In fact often its really low.

I just redid some Heaven Benchmarks using Extreme Tessellation / Everything on highest and logged my CPU. As you can see, the CPU seems to be handling it fine but the Frametimes are still awful. I'm not sure what the FPS should be on this for my card. It's just a test to see where the bottleneck is. I will try FarCry 3 again but I'm pretty sure my CPU was OK on that as well.


AfterBurner logs showing Frametime and CPU usage:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137479361/AB%20logs%20for%20heaven%20benchmark%20CCC%2014.4.png


Settings used to punish my system:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/137479361/Unigine_Heaven_Benchmark_4.0_CCC%2014.4%20-%20Extreme%20Tess.html
 
Kaapstad said:
Just ran these on a single stock 290X.

4930k using 4 cores, PCI-E 2.0, @2.4ghz which is about as close as I can get to the OPs CPU.
c54EdHN.png



4930k using 6 cores, PCI-E 3.0, @4.0ghz to show bottleneck difference.
PqwfHXY.png


OP how is your score comparing to the top picture, with a 290P you should be looking for about 2200 compared to the 2372 I managed on a 290X.
Click to expand...

Thanks Kaapstad. Very interesting to see. I just replied above regarding running the Heaven test on Extreme and posted my CPU logs. Weirdly they don't seem bottlenecked at all (see the logs). Also you asked how mine compared to your Valley one. I posted it in the original post (here's the closest match / using the same CCC version):

Valley Benchmark:
CCC 14.6
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...CC 14.6.html

This one was using High. I'll do one on Extreme and post

UPDATE:
Here is mine using the same Extreme HD settings (but I just noticed I'm on CCC 14.4 not 14.6):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u..._Benchmark_1.0_CCC_14.4 - ExtremeHD 8xAA.html
 
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