Poor performance with new build.

Ardscoil Ris

Hi,

I've just recently completed building a new computer and to say I'm unhappy with it is an understatement.

Here are its specs:

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ)

Asus P5Q Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 LGA775 'Yorkfield' 2.66GHz 12MB-cache (1333FSB) Processor

G.Skill 4GB DDR2 PQ PC2-8000C5 (2x2GB) CAS5 Dual Channel Kit (F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ)

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium SP3 64-Bit

Gainward GeForce GTX 295 1792MB

Corsair Powersupply 750W

Samsung 24" LCD Syncmaster 2443NW, 1920x1200, 20000:1, 5ms, VGA

My performance in certain games is poor. According to the reviews of the 295GTX I should be getting around 70 FPS with everything maxed out in Company of Heroes, but instead I usually get about 20-40 on medium to high settings.

Sins of Solar Empire runs like crap after an hour of playing.

Crysis usually runs at 30FPS with everything high. It should run at 40 FPS with everything ultra

Empire Total War runs at about 15 FPS on any setting, but that game is so poorly optimised I'm not worried about that.

STALKER Clear SKY gets about 30 FPS everything maxed out. It should be 60FPS

COD 5: WAW runs at 60 FPS, everything ultra, it should be near 100FPS

Something just doesn't seem right. I know the results should be higher. I ran a 3Dmark benchtest and only scored 17141 with my 295GTX scoring only 15144. According to most people the 295GTX should score around 18000.

I've asked a few people and they have told me that it could be a number of problems:

1. CPU needs to overclocked to 3.0 or 3.2.
2. My RAM is poor.
3. 295GTX is faulty.
4. Driver issues.
5. That's what it's usually like while playing games at 1920x1200.
6. Reinstall Windows Vista

Any ideas guys? Also, I have a good bit to spend on any upgrade so don't hold back telling me I need new parts and I have the latest Nvidia driver (185).

PogMoThoin

Nothing wrong with Your ram, I've the same ram. Run cpu-z and make sure its running at the right speed (500mhz)

You sure You installed the chipset driver? Reinstall it just in case.

Reinstall graphics driver. Make sure its listed twice in device manager as the 295 is a dual card. Make sure sli isn't disabled in control panel

Ardscoil Ris

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Nothing wrong with Your ram, I've the same ram. Run cpu-z and make sure its running at the right speed (500mhz)

You sure You installed the chipset driver? Reinstall it just in case.

Reinstall graphics driver. Make sure its listed twice in device manager as the 295 is a dual card. Make sure sli isn't disabled in control panel

RAM is running fine according to CPU-z

Graphics driver has been installed correctly. It's listed twice in control panel and SLI is enabled.

Solitaire

As I usually moan and complain, a 2.66GHz quad is almost out-of-place in a mid-high-end gaming rig. Per-core speeds should be a fair bit higher. Go off and OC that thing a bit please! There's a reason no gamer who's gone mad (i.e. built an i7 rig) would contemplate running an i7-920 stock! OC is a matter of survival with <3GHz chips! :P

But seriously, while it will affect things at high res (>=1080p) the CPU speed alone shouldn't be affecting you that much...

Can you run 3DMark and compare that too? IIRC you can compare CPU and GPU seperately as well as together as a system score. Plus its multithreaded. See if your GTX295 figures are way off the usual.

Also, check your temps! GTX295 is quite the hot runner! If you can, check to see if both GPUs are clocking in at the right speeds.

Look around in Device Manager. If you have a bunch of unknown devices your chipset drivers may be FUBAR...

Ardscoil Ris

Solitaire wrote: »

As I usually moan and complain, a 2.66GHz quad is almost out-of-place in a mid-high-end gaming rig. Per-core speeds should be a fair bit higher. Go off and OC that thing a bit please! There's a reason no gamer who's gone mad (i.e. built an i7 rig) would contemplate running an i7-920 stock! OC is a matter of survival with <3GHz chips! :P

But seriously, while it will affect things at high res (>=1080p) the CPU speed alone shouldn't be affecting you that much...

Can you run 3DMark and compare that too? IIRC you can compare CPU and GPU seperately as well as together as a system score. Plus its multithreaded. See if your GTX295 figures are way off the usual.

Also, check your temps! GTX295 is quite the hot runner! If you can, check to see if both GPUs are clocking in at the right speeds.

Look around in Device Manager. If you have a bunch of unknown devices your chipset drivers may be FUBAR...

I'll OC it. I was thinking of doing that anyway.

My 3Dmark CPU score was 31544. GPU 15144.

I think my temps are usually hovering around the 70C mark if I remember the last time I was asked that.

TerrorFirmer

my first port of call would be switching video drivers. i use older forceware on my gtx260 sli, one of the later ones noticably decreased performance, for example. can't see any reason otherwise to yield such poor results, and even at 2.66Ghz you should be pulling far better numbers than that. other than that, maybe chipset drivers or a borked os install (just noticed you have vista so not likely)

Ardscoil Ris

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

my first port of call would be switching video drivers. i use older forceware on my gtx260 sli, one of the later ones noticably decreased performance, for example. can't see any reason otherwise to yield such poor results, and even at 2.66Ghz you should be pulling far better numbers than that. other than that, maybe chipset drivers or a borked os install (just noticed you have vista so not likely)

Which drivers would you recommend?

encryptix

Ardscoil Ris wrote: »

I think my temps are usually hovering around the 70C mark if I remember the last time I was asked that.

Sorry for not having any helpful comments but 70 seems a high to me.

Ardscoil Ris

encryptix wrote: »

Sorry for not having any helpful comments but 70 seems a high to me.

Really? I should add it was 70 while playing games and not idle.

MooseJam

I have a 2.6 quad I believe and a 4850x2 , have a 24 inch monitor and run all my games at 1900x1200 with settings at high, I'd wipe the machine and reinstall everything, get the latest drivers - check for a bios upgrade, ensure cpu and ram are running at correct speed, vista isn't great I'd install win7 and see how that goes

Solitaire

Temps are fine, try running games on win7 and see if you can see any change. Are both GPUs reporting the correct frequency and correct size framebuffer while gaming? Maybe you have a screwy GDDR3 chip in there...

Big problem I can think of is nVidia's dreaded lack of legacy support. Not that the GTX295 could be affected by that... but what about C2Q? :eek:

Shortly after i7 hit the shelves nVidia had huge issues with significantly reduced performance, especially with multiple GPUs. They fixed it in the recent releases but I'm wondering whether they've effectively started removing SLI support for the mainstream Intel quads as nVidia usually don't look back when they move forward... they might have messed up the C2Q compatibility and when nVidia breaks support, they won't go back and fix it. That kind of BS is one of the reasons I got hacked off with them and left the Green Team :mad:

Also, something people may have forgotten, check the PCIe slot itself with a tool or in the BIOS if possible. Has it dropped down to PCIe1x8 or PCIe2x4? That could easily explain the problem (messed-up PCIe transfer bus bottlenecking the speed the GDDR3 can grab textures off the system). GTX295 is a beast, it really needs PCIe2x16 but can survive on PCIe1x16 or PCIe2x8. Lower values can really pull down that card's performance.

PogMoThoin

Today I installed Windows 7 with all the latest drivers, installed Crysis, Warhead and Grid and I've ended up going back to my Vista image as gaming performance isn't anywhere near what I'm getting on Vista, a serious drop in performance actually. Maybe part of the reason is that I'm using a 4870x2, crossfire X might not be as good on 7, it'll probably take a while for the 7 drivers to mature.

To the op: In a situation like Your's I'd first try reinstall Vista, I've had bad installs before which didn't run well. No point trying Windows 7 as I've said above, as You got a dual card gpu as well