Problem with AMD R9-390 vs AMD FX-9590 Processor?

RopeDrink · 12-01-2016 08:55PM #1

Right, so now that my new computer is broken in per say, I'm still not 100% satisfied with its performance, mostly due to a want of recording games (which, by itself, means compromises need to be made and I'm fully aware of this).

Seeing as untaxing games like Heroes of the Storm can sometimes crawl to 40-50FPS even on High/Medium settings without recording at times, I've started probing a bit to find possible causes.

For the record, I have above mentioned AMD FX(tm)-9590 Eight Core Processor 4.72GHz with 32Gigs of RAM via Windows 10 (64bit) using AMD Radeon R9 390 GFX Card. While in some cases and in most areas it can run the likes of Fallout 4 at 60FPS on relatively generous settings (outside of unoptimized parts of the world or extremely intensive areas), I feel the performance isn't as big as it could be.

I've started digging into this "Bottleneck" word and threw up GPU-Z w/ HotStorm and it claims the GPU does indeed go to 100%, whilst my CPU sits at about 15% average (@27% fan-speed) with VSync enabled (but this is supposedly normal). I have all the latest drivers and even performed an entirely clean install by using GFXDriverUninstaller and re-downloading.

I'm not entirely sure whether this is just normal, or if there are things I can tweak. There was mention elsewhere of using Catalyst to increase Power to +50% but I'm always wary of such things, or overclocking in general - but I guess I should try.

Any idea how I can 100% look into bottlenecking, or maybe you have some tips in general? I'm almost certain I've already asked the computer to use all processors but clarification on how to do this means I'll investigate it again just to be sure.

All feedback welcome.

TerrorFirmer · 12-01-2016 10:04PM

The R7 360 is a massive bottleneck, it's a budget card. It's about the same speed as Nvidia's E100 GTX750...good cheap card but you can't expect miracles from it.

From what you're saying it sounds like it's running as it should, there's no hardware problem. To get a relatively stable 60fps you would have to run at 1080p mostly low settings for that card.

It sounds like you just need to buy a better card.

Also, the 9590 is not a good CPU, it's mega hot, power hungry, throttles badly and lags way behind Intel's i5 and i7 in the latest games. It actually looses badly to the i3 in Fallout 4.

The FX-9590 technically plays 1440p/ultra, but we faced severe frame drops and stuttering with the CPU, a trait characteristic of the 9590's high TDP. We've also found this to be true in some other games, so this is not a unique issue to Fallout 4 with the 9590. The frame drops are severe enough that we'd drop down to a lower setting, were we to actually play the game with this CPU.

The 9590 is a disaster of a CPU in my opinion. While the 360 is a bottleneck in general, even if you had a really fast card, you're still going to have major problems overall due to lacklustre performance, poor minimum framerates, throttling, etc. It'll be more obvious in certain games, some games will be OK.

TerrorFirmer · 12-01-2016 10:48PM

Oh, sorry. You said 360 in the title and in the post, so I assume you had a 360! Which is it? The R9 390 and R7 360 are light years apart, one's a $100 card and the others a $350 card.

TerrorFirmer · 12-01-2016 10:55PM

Ah, the R9 390 is a great card, shouldn't really have any performance issues at 1080p.

However it's pretty likely that 9590 is causing major stuttering and low frames.

In a funny way, you'd actually be way better off with an Fx8350 - even though performance is still sub par, it's a lot more reliable. The 9590 is just a useless abomination that should never have been made.

There's no way that the 9590 is only being utilized at 15% in Fallout, if it was, you'd be getting framerates of about 10fps.

TerrorFirmer · 12-01-2016 11:45PM

I still don't think there is anything wrong hardware wise.

HOTS relies heavily on one or two cores, which the 9590 is really bad for - unless a game scales across multiple cores well, which most don't, the 9590 is going to give medicore performance.

Then you have the fact that it's an insanely hot and power hungry CPU, and it's going to throttle a lot, which is going to cause stuttering and low frames when that happens.

Fallout 4 is also a CPU heavy game, and the 9590 is poor for this game due to it's architecture/insane heat.

It's not a hardware fault, it's just an inherently bad processor.

A $120 Intel i3 is a far better processor for example for most games, and a basic $160 i5 kills it stone dead.

The FX-9590 technically plays 1440p/ultra, but we faced severe frame drops and stuttering with the CPU, a trait characteristic of the 9590's high TDP. We've also found this to be true in some other games, so this is not a unique issue to Fallout 4 with the 9590.

This sounds like what you're experiencing, does it not? That's from Eurogamer.

If you want to eliminate the problem, you have to switch to Intel.

Problem with AMD R9-390 vs AMD FX-9590 Processor?

Comments