Crossfire GPU's only getting 40-60% Usage on certain games?

[xTommy92]

You should also expect a lot more games to start using more than 4 threads because both the new consoles will have 8 cores as standard.

Yeh, that was one thing I was thinking of but then wouldn't a i7 struggle as it has 4 cores?
It is either sell my i5 and get some sort of i7 (probably 3770K) or overclock my i5 heavily. The thing is will overclocking my i5 make much of a difference because I thought the main reason I am bottle-necking is because of Hyper-Threading?

Tom

 

[xTommy92]

Yea that's was my initial thinking when I mentioned the IvyBridge-E 6 cores (but they sure are/will be dam expensive), but looking back OP is only talking about Borderland 2 specifically, so I removed my suggestion.

No sorry, I play all games including Battlefield, Crysis, Valve games etc. Basically don't just play one game, I like to play a variety of new releases and old.

Tom

 

[Marine-RX179]

Yeh, that was one thing I was thinking of but then wouldn't a i7 struggle as it has 4 cores?
It is either sell my i5 and get some sort of i7 (probably 3770K) or overclock my i5 heavily. The thing is will overclocking my i5 make much of a difference because I thought the main reason I am bottle-necking is because of Hyper-Threading?

Tom

i7 is basically same as i5, but with Hyper-Threading (extra 2 logical cores). HT does help in some games, if the game would use the extra threads. If the game only address 4 threads/cores, then having a i7 has no benefit over i5. One thing you have to bare in mind while the extra logical cores can "help" with performance if the games would address the extra threads, they will never be compariable to the performance of extra 2 physical cores.

No sorry, I play all games including Battlefield, Crysis, Valve games etc. Basically don't just play one game, I like to play a variety of new releases and old.

Tom

In that case, try to find a 3770K if you really don't want to spend too much money. As mentioned above, with AMD bagged next gen consoles, it is very likely that multi-platform games (not including PC exclusives such as strategies games, mmos and other games that don't make it to the consoles etc) will address up to 8 cores/threads. IvyBridge i7, or IvyBridge-E 6 cores (when it is out), or sticking with the i5 but try to overclock it higher, it's all down to how you feel toward how much you want to spend, as well as how much faith you have on future consoles will making games addressing 6-8 cores as standard.

 

[LtMatt]

Yeh, that was one thing I was thinking of but then wouldn't a i7 struggle as it has 4 cores?
It is either sell my i5 and get some sort of i7 (probably 3770K) or overclock my i5 heavily. The thing is will overclocking my i5 make much of a difference because I thought the main reason I am bottle-necking is because of Hyper-Threading?

Tom

You don't have hyper threading on an i5, that's only for i7 processors. Basically it means a physical core splits itself in two to become two threads. So an i7 with hyper threading has 4 cores, or 8 threads in total. I'm sure someone can no doubt explain it better than me though.

With an i7 you can turn hyper threading on and off as and when you need it via the bios. Personally i just leave it on all the time as the majority of games i play benefit from it greatly.

What other titles do you play?

 

[xTommy92]

Farcry, Payday, Bioshock, Dishonored, Saints row, Tomb Raider, GTA, Fallout, Splinter Cell and soo many others! xD
I literally play everything, I could go down the whole list but it would take a while.
Games in the future that I am looking to get:
BF4, Watchdogs, Prey 2, The Division, Wolfenstein, Rainbow 6 Patriots, Theif, Titanfall (this especially).

Tom

 

[LtMatt]

Farcry, Payday, Bioshock, Dishonored, Saints row, Tomb Raider, GTA, Fallout, Splinter Cell and soo many others! xD
I literally play everything, I could go down the whole list but it would take a while.
Games in the future that I am looking to get:
BF4, Watchdogs, Prey 2, The Division, Wolfenstein, Rainbow 6 Patriots, Theif, Titanfall (this especially).

Tom

Get an i7. Fire and forget. Although it might not be the case in every title, if your gpu's are only getting 60-75% usage then what's the point in having two of them?

 

[xTommy92]

Get an i7. Fire and forget. Although it might not be the case in every title, if your gpu's are only getting 60-75% usage then what's the point in having two of them?

Exactly, thought about returning my card earlier and just sticking with the one but with next gen coming up I would soon regret it.
i7 it is!
How would an Ivybridge-E or Sandybridge-E compare to a 3770K?
Silly money for a Sandybridge-E but just curious really.

Tom

 

[Phixsator]

B2 scaling is **** tom, my scaling isn't any better and I'm using a 3770K.

Certain titles don't scale well at all, AC series being the worst offender that I've played that's not uncommon to chug along at 35% at times.

It's down to Nvidia api code in certain titles that is used to specifically run better on Nvidia hardware.

Gearbox could have done a better job no doubt. Though i think the main culbrit is the PhysX engine.. its horrible. I think its holding the rest of the engine back in Borderlands 2 even when it is on low. That thing should roll over and die. Its not because its Nvidia tech only. Its the fact that it does a **** poor job at something other physics engines can do just as well less of a resource footprint. Just look at the latest developments with Havok.

 

[Drangueos]

Wait... I know that the I5 can bootleneck 2x7950 in crossfire... but that much? 50%???

 

[xTommy92]

Wait... I know that the I5 can bootleneck 2x7950 in crossfire... but that much? 50%???

In most games it does, Just been playing CS: GO and it actually seems worse then a single GPU, both GPU's are working at 30-40%, 180fps. Also when I get into hectic situations it drops to 100fps which never happened with my single GPU.
Seriously need an i7!

Tom

 

[Martini1991]

Can't imagine an i7 doing anything for CS:GO.

 

[xTommy92]

Can't imagine an i7 doing anything for CS:GO.

Surely if my GPU's are not at 90-100% usage on a game like CS:GO (I know they don't need to be) something is wrong as there should not be a bottleneck or am I wrong?

Tom

 

[Martini1991]

I don't disagree you'd be CPU bottlenecked in CS:GO, but does CS:GO use that many threads?
If it didn't, the i7 wouldn't do sweet anything.

I do however think there's something wrong with your system however.

 

[Five.Stars]

This is similar to what I am getting with xfire 7970's on an i7 920@4ghz. Performance on 2 gpu's in most games is similar to with a single card.

What seems to happen is for example, say on a game on single card I am getting 95% usage, when I enable xfire and run same game I will still only be getting a total of 95% usage but split between the 2 cards - ie 48% on card 1 and 47% on card 2. Does that sound like the symptoms of a cpu bottleneck?

I've got a z87 and 4770k sitting here ready to build new system in any case, so I'm hopeful this will solve it. Just waiting to get a bit spare time as need to drain out my watercooling loop etc so quite time consuming.

 

[xTommy92]

This is similar to what I am getting with xfire 7970's on an i7 920@4ghz. Performance on 2 gpu's in most games is similar to with a single card.

What seems to happen is for example, say on a game on single card I am getting 95% usage, when I enable xfire and run same game I will still only be getting a total of 95% usage but split between the 2 cards - ie 48% on card 1 and 47% on card 2. Does that sound like the symptoms of a cpu bottleneck?

I've got a z87 and 4770k sitting here ready to build new system in any case, so I'm hopeful this will solve it. Just waiting to get a bit spare time as need to drain out my watercooling loop etc so quite time consuming.

Exactly what I am getting, sometimes I get GPU1 at 50% and GPU2 at 50%, very strange. There definitely is bottlenecking going on but should it be doing it to this extent?

Tom

 

[Martini1991]

Try a fresh install of Windows, use the 8.1 preview that's about, install the latest AMD beta drivers.

I'd try that before blasting money into an i7.

Five.Stars will likely be formatting I assume, so if he's got any driver problems, that'll be removed, he's more bottlenecked than you are in the majority of games, but even 50/50's still a little low.

 

[wazza300]

it depends on the game

single threaded you should be fine,multithreaded games you will struggle on with sli/xfire

I would look for a second hand 2600k/2700k or 3770k,pci-e3 is only 1% so you won't lose much if you went sb

theres swings and roundabouts with oc'ing,sb soldered/ivy paste but generally the 3770k's tend to be better clockers than the 3570's

 

[xTommy92]

Try a fresh install of Windows, use the 8.1 preview that's about, install the latest AMD beta drivers.

I'd try that before blasting money into an i7.

Five.Stars will likely be formatting I assume, so if he's got any driver problems, that'll be removed, he's more bottlenecked than you are in the majority of games, but even 50/50's still a little low.

Can't use Windows 8.1 as I do not have Windows 8 to start with. I am currently using Windows 7. Wouldn't Re-installing Windows delete everything?

Tom

 

[xTommy92]

it depends on the game

single threaded you should be fine,multithreaded games you will struggle on with sli/xfire

I would look for a second hand 2600k/2700k or 3770k,pci-e3 is only 1% so you won't lose much if you went sb

theres swings and roundabouts with oc'ing,sb soldered/ivy paste but generally the 3770k's tend to be better clockers than the 3570's

What do you mean by SB?

Tom

 

[wazza300]

sb=sandybridge ib=ivybridge

and yes it will delete everything!!!