pondering over getting a 2nd 7970

[rageagainstmachine]

Im running far cry 3 at about 33-40fps on ultra, 8XAA full drawn distance.at 1920 x 1080. I very tempted to invest a 2nd card, but not sure its worth it? any thoughts?

[Detection]

Are you running the latest 12.11 Beta 8 drivers and latest CAP 2? You should be getting better FPS than that, I average about those speeds sometimes more with everything maxed out except for AA

I will never go CFX again, when it works its great, but that is a rare phenomenon, most things had better FPS with 1 card when I was running 2 x 6850s

Personally, investing in a better single card is the better option, but you shouldn't be having many issues with a 7970, new games and beta drivers are the problem here imo

[rageagainstmachine]

im running beta 11 drivers? remember i have AA on 8x too.

[theyarecomingforyou]

If you were gaming at 2560x1600 then I'd recommend it but you'd be pretty much buying a second card for just Far Cry 3. You're better off dialling back anti-aliasing to 4x and then waiting for a patch or two and a driver update. I have a GTX680 SLI setup and can only run 2x AA at 2560x1600, plus I get framerate drops. At this point I'm inclined to think that performance will improve, given that the previous nVidia driver update increased performance by up to 38% - that suggests the drivers were very poorly optimised before and probably still are.

[Detection]

im running beta 11 drivers? remember i have AA on 8x too.

Beta 11, yea thats what I meant, we were stuck with Beta 8 for so long I forgot we had an update

Drop AA down halfway and your FPS should get a nice boost

Also check what you have AA set in CCC, I dropped mine to the lowest and just use in-game AA

[rageagainstmachine]

do you think my cpu lets me down? i hear its not the best!

[Detection]

do you think my cpu lets me down? i hear its not the best!

I don't have sigs enabled, what CPU is it ?

[rageagainstmachine]

AMD FX-6 6100 Black Edition 6 Core 3.3Ghz Socket AM3+ 8MB L3

[Muhammad Farrukh]

do you think my cpu lets me down? i hear its not the best!

In my opinion, its definitely the CPU. 7970 is a beast and you shouldn't be getting fps lower than 50 - 60 at Ultra

[Detection]

AMD FX-6 6100 Black Edition 6 Core 3.3Ghz Socket AM3+ 8MB L3

I have the Phenom II 965 X4 @4GHz

Overclock your CPU, those FX's can OC crazy amounts if you have a decent cooler

[rageagainstmachine]

hmmm, i have a decent enough cooler. is it best to manually OC, or use some asus sofware. any reccoemnedations ot tips? its been a while since i OC anything.

rest of my rig:

CPU - AMD FX-6 6100 Black Edition 6 Core 3.3Ghz Socket AM3+ 8MB L3

MOBO - ASUS Sabertooth 990FX Socket AM3+ 8 Channel Audio ATX

GPU - AMD HD 7970

RAM - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz

SSD- Corsair 120GB Force 3 SSD 2.5" SATA

OS - Win7 x64 Profesional

PSU - Corsair TX 850W V2 PSU

[Detection]

hmmm, i have a decent enough cooler. is it best to manually OC, or use some asus sofware. any reccoemnedations ot tips? its been a while since i OC anything.

rest of my rig:

CPU - AMD FX-6 6100 Black Edition 6 Core 3.3Ghz Socket AM3+ 8MB L3

MOBO - ASUS Sabertooth 990FX Socket AM3+ 8 Channel Audio ATX

GPU - AMD HD 7970

RAM - 8GB DDR3 1600MHz

SSD- Corsair 120GB Force 3 SSD 2.5" SATA

OS - Win7 x64 Profesional

PSU - Corsair TX 850W V2 PSU

I use the BIOS, easiest way is to bump up the Multiplier, it works in simple terms like this

FSB is 200MHz

Multiplier is x17

200x17 = 3.4GHz (That is my CPU config)

Bump the multiplier from x17 to x18 and you get another 200MHz = 3.6GHz or 3600MHz

Same if you up the FSB, 200>210 x 17 = 3570MHz

But increasing the FSB will also OC your RAM so best to stick with the multiplier unless you want to try OCing other things too

If you get a bluescreen or no boot, bump the CPU voltage up a tiny amount

My CPU from 3.4GHz to 4GHz = from 1.35v to 1.49v but always try to stabilize the OC with the least amount of voltage

[rageagainstmachine]

excellent response, thank you very much. i'll try that now.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

let us know how it goes - AMDs CPUs arent as powerful for gaming as Intels CPUs. That's a great processor, but i feel that it's still holding you back.

Get that CPU stable then check your fps. After that, just get another 7970 :shifty:

[Muhammad Farrukh]

I believe, if I can remember correctly, 6100, when overclocked to around 4.2 or 4.4 GHz was, then, able to match i3' performance

Do let us know anyway how it goes

[rageagainstmachine]

well

let us know how it goes - AMDs CPUs arent as powerful for gaming as Intels CPUs. That's a great processor, but i feel that it's still holding you back.

Get that CPU stable then check your fps. After that, just get another 7970 :shifty:

I believe, if I can remember correctly, 6100, when overclocked to around 4.2 or 4.4 GHz was, then, able to match i3' performance

Do let us know anyway how it goes

I use the BIOS, easiest way is to bump up the Multiplier, it works in simple terms like this

FSB is 200MHz

Multiplier is x17

200x17 = 3.4GHz (That is my CPU config)

Bump the multiplier from x17 to x18 and you get another 200MHz = 3.6GHz or 3600MHz

Same if you up the FSB, 200>210 x 17 = 3570MHz

But increasing the FSB will also OC your RAM so best to stick with the multiplier unless you want to try OCing other things too

If you get a bluescreen or no boot, bump the CPU voltage up a tiny amount

My CPU from 3.4GHz to 4GHz = from 1.35v to 1.49v but always try to stabilize the OC with the least amount of voltage

well im currently at 4.11GHz and appears to be now stable after a couple of minor cranks of the voltage. i had only two freeze ups, mid game. no bsods. didnt take much additional voltage to get her stable either. May push her a little further tomorrow. added 0.4 onto my windows score too! think she will go further. but i'll be honest, cant say im noticing much if any increase in FPS in game!

[Detection]

well

well im currently at 4.11GHz and appears to be now stable after a couple of minor cranks of the voltage. i had only two freeze ups, mid game. no bsods. didnt take much additional voltage to get her stable either. May push her a little further tomorrow. added 0.4 onto my windows score too! think she will go further. but i'll be honest, cant say im noticing much if any increase in FPS in game!

Nice work :)

You will mainly see better FPS in games that are heavily CPU dependant and/or your CPU was, in the first place the bottleneck, nothing bad about gaining over 700MHz on your CPU for free though ;)

Prime95 is one of the favourites for CPU stability, personally I gage it on real life use, if I can use my machine 100% with no problems, then it is 100% stable for me, P95 will crash the most stable machines

But also, I have seen OC's pass hours of P95 only to crash during gaming so take it as you will :)

[rageagainstmachine]

Nice work :)

You will mainly see better FPS in games that are heavily CPU dependant and/or your CPU was, in the first place the bottleneck, nothing bad about gaining over 700MHz on your CPU for free though ;)

Prime95 is one of the favourites for CPU stability, personally I gage it on real life use, if I can use my machine 100% with no problems, then it is 100% stable for me, P95 will crash the most stable machines

But also, I have seen OC's pass hours of P95 only to crash during gaming so take it as you will :)

Is there a better AMd CPU that would benefit me without swapping out my mobo? better of with a phenom II?

[rageagainstmachine]

would i be better off swapping this out for an 8350? http://www.dabs.com/products/amd-fx8-8350-black-edition-vishera-8-core-am3--4-0ghz-16mb-125w-8BXF.html?q=AMD%20FX-8350&src=16

[Muhammad Farrukh]

would i be better off swapping this out for an 8350? http://www.dabs.com/...0FX-8350&src=16

No

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

well im currently at 4.11GHz and appears to be now stable after a couple of minor cranks of the voltage. i had only two freeze ups, mid game. no bsods. didnt take much additional voltage to get her stable either. May push her a little further tomorrow. added 0.4 onto my windows score too! think she will go further. but i'll be honest, cant say im noticing much if any increase in FPS in game!

i read this Techspot article the other day. They compare the fps increase by overclocking the cpu in FC3. Check it out and take it for what it's worth.

http://www.techspot.com/review/615-far-cry-3-performance/page6.html

[rageagainstmachine]

well in that case, i may consider a 2nd 7970. http://blogs.amd.com/play/2012/12/10/far-cry-3-in-depth/