• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

Underperforming 5870

Sc00p007

Sc00p007

Sc00p007

Associate
Joined
23 Feb 2009
Posts
1,349
Hi,

I've had a 5870 for a couple of months. Tonight i noticed that my framerate has dropped eg Dirt 2 bench going down from 60 to 49. Resident evil benchmark is significantly down, i am getting about 10 more fps on my gtx 260 in the same system. Farcry 2 averages around 3fps lower than the gtx 260.

I have uninstalled then reinstalled the ati drivers, i have also opened my case and made sure the two power leads are correctly atttched. Still i have an underperforming 5870.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

Phil.
 
whats the rest of the system?


and what res you playing at 9screen size too)
 
The my system is:

Asus p6t deluxe,
i7 920 @4.0ghz
6gb ram
gtx 260
hd5870
Corsair hx850 psu

Tonight i have been using the 22" screen which is 1680x1050 @ 120hz, i also use a 24" 1920x1200 screen but not tonight as a friend has borrowed it.

I know even on the 22" screen that all benchmark results have gone down significantly eg 60 down to 48 in dirt 2. It is now running 3 frames faster than the 260 in farcry at 51 fps 1680x1050 pretty sure at 8aa. It is worse of in resident evil 5 where it is now about 10fps slower than my 260 :s
 
Dirt 2 is probably running in DX11 mode on the 5870 which takes a massive performance hit compared to running the game in DX9/10 mode.

Worse, DX11 offers almost no better visuals compared to DX10 in Dirt2.

Try making Dirt2 run in DX9/10 mode and you'll notice a massive boost compared to DX11 and no graphics quality loss.

Edit: Also make sure you have the latest gfx drivers.
 
raralis said:
Dirt 2 is probably running in DX11 mode on the 5870 which takes a massive performance hit compared to running the game in DX9/10 mode.

Worse, DX11 offers almost no better visuals compared to DX10 in Dirt2.

Try making Dirt2 run in DX9/10 mode and you'll notice a massive boost compared to DX11 and no graphics quality loss.

Edit: Also make sure you have the latest gfx drivers.
Click to expand...

Dirt 2 should still be doing over 60, 49 is terrible for a 5870, i get more than that with a 5850, so id say there is a prob.

Have you checked the temps, as it could be getting to hot that its throttling down, could also try underclocking your CPU a bit (or trying it back to stock), to see if its the overclock thats causing it.
 
Hmm, could be that not enough power is reaching the gpu if all games are affected.

If it's just dirt2 then it should be performing normally according to this Dirt2 benchmark

As Loadsamoney said, try changing your cpu to stock then see if you gain any fps.
 
Hi thanks for all the input.

I have tried my cpu at stock, still the same bad results.
I have just put the card in two other friends systems, in both systems a 4870 ang gtx 260 outperformed my card.
One thing i have noticed. When i use Atitool my card hits 99% load, temps rise to around 76 after 10 mins. However when i am in a game, my card is only running at a fraction of its full load. Dirt 2 shows it at around 70%. Resident evil 5 benchmark is strange. When i choose "fixed benchmark" my fps during scene 1 is around 35 fps @ 30% gpu load. However the same scene under " variable benchmark" averages 100+fps @ 99% load. Howver, when the second part of the scene loads my gpu goes back down to 30% load.
Depending what scene is playing there after, the load percentage can vary eg scene 1 = 30%, scene 2 = 60%, scene 3 = 45% etc. The fps changes dramatically to reflect this change in gpu load.
Same thing with all other benchmarks. My gpu will never hit near 100% load. The load it does manage to acheive varies between game. Farcry is 45%.

So i can acheive 100% load from Ati tool, and resident evil 5 scene 1 part 1. The rest its under 50% performance.
 
Sc00p007 said:
Hi thanks for all the input.

I have tried my cpu at stock, still the same bad results.
I have just put the card in two other friends systems, in both systems a 4870 ang gtx 260 outperformed my card.
One thing i have noticed. When i use Atitool my card hits 99% load, temps rise to around 76 after 10 mins. However when i am in a game, my card is only running at a fraction of its full load. Dirt 2 shows it at around 70%. Resident evil 5 benchmark is strange. When i choose "fixed benchmark" my fps during scene 1 is around 35 fps @ 30% gpu load. However the same scene under " variable benchmark" averages 100+fps @ 99% load. Howver, when the second part of the scene loads my gpu goes back down to 30% load.
Depending what scene is playing there after, the load percentage can vary eg scene 1 = 30%, scene 2 = 60%, scene 3 = 45% etc. The fps changes dramatically to reflect this change in gpu load.
Same thing with all other benchmarks. My gpu will never hit near 100% load. The load it does manage to acheive varies between game. Farcry is 45%.

So i can acheive 100% load from Ati tool, and resident evil 5 scene 1 part 1. The rest its under 50% performance.
Click to expand...

Temps of your GPU is 76 thats quite high, have got enough airflow in your case? i know that ATI run quite high on load, however i would keep an eye on that.
 
There was a thread similar to this a while ago with an older graphics card. It turned out he had gone into the drivers and forced a quality setting on and then forgot about it. I think is was 16xAA on everything

thinking of the 60 to 49fps. That could be vsync? if a game was averaging 60 then it must drop below 60 half of the time so with vsync on, 49 would be about right.
 
Last edited:
Everything is at default. AA says let application decide. I have also put this card in two other computers with fresh driver install and not been able to fix the problem.
 
the concern i have is in your original post :I've had a 5870 for a couple of months. Tonight i noticed that my framerate has dropped eg Dirt 2 bench going down from 60 to 49. Resident evil benchmark is significantly down, i am getting about 10 more fps on my gtx 260 in the same system. Farcry 2 averages around 3fps lower than the gtx 260.

so what kind of case do you have? it does sound like the gpu has overheated, but this is my opinion, the only reason i say this is cause of the drop in framerate and lacking performance, which has damaged the card.
 
I know it's old now and not usually that relevant, but why not try running 3dmark and seeing what the score is compared to reviewed cards etc.
 
ok i had a look on the tinternet what percentage is you fan speed at it should be 35%, try upping the fan speed on the catalyst drivers
 
My case is p182 with psu bay fan moved up to middle bay blowing across the 5870 on medium setting. Airflow should be good as i have spent time with cable management to ensure minimal clutter.
I am pretty sure it hasnt overheated, as i always monitor my pc temps. Hhighest i seen was 79 and this was stableised around this mark as the fan would kick to 32% speed and bring it down to around the 76 mark. It would then slow down, temmp would creep towards 80 again and repeat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom