Widescreen Gaming Forum

Hello,

This is going to be a lengthy post. I happened to be one of the people who had a micro stuttering problems with my amd 6970s . It was so bad that I was ready to dump my 2 cards cheap on Ebay and fork out for a GTX 590. I was in fact convinced that's what I was doing. The only thing that slowed me down was the fact that all of the major online retailers were sold out of GTX 590s.

Now I would like to note that I am not a fanboy of any brand, not amd, not intel, and not nvidia. I am only a fan of performance, and then after performance my next consideration is value.


Ok so details:

I have 3 asus 24 " LED monitors which run 1920x1080 which gives me an eyefinity resolution of 5760x 1080

When ever I mention that I have a 6970. I actually have unlocked shader versions of HIS 6950s 2 GB version, which run 6970 clocks (and beyond) all day long.

I was originally running one 6970 on a intel q 9300 (stock 2.5)overclocked to 3.48 mhz liquid cooled. This was pushing one card at about 95% CPU load. I was not thinking when I bought the second card about needing extra CPU horsepower. Low and behold I picked up a second 6970 installed the second card and realized that I was completely bottle necked as the cpu was pinned at 100% and my video cards were each pushing about 50%. This was causing major stutters. NOt micro stutters.


I decided that I needed to get a new system. I did some research. Then I did some more research. What I gathered from all of the forums is that in order to truly push 2 high end video cards that I would need to be running an i7 CPU, and that AMD just cant cut it and would bottleneck.
I don't want to get too in depth of why I chose the following system, but I will give some highlights.

I purchased a i7 2600k, a ASROCK Extreme 7 Gen 3 motherboard, and I installed 8 GB of Corsair XMS3 ddr3 which has an xmp profile of 1600 mhz, and is timed at 9-9-9-24.
Highlights of the system are that I chose a beefy CPU, and a motherboard with dual 16x lanes, which in fact are only provided by the third party nvida with the nf200 chip.


I put the system together. and loaded Battlefield 3. Now before I put this system together I was running the game on one card with all high settings, msaa off, AA at 2x, motion blur off, VSYNC ON, and aliasing post = off . ambient occlusion ssaa I was getting FPS ranging from the low 20's - 60 fps and and with vsync off highs of 70s . The game looked well, but I did not appreciate the dips into the low 20's

As soon as I loaded BF3 for the very first time with Crossfire enabled on my new rig I almost barfed. "This looks worse than before " I screamed. The game was supper choppy. After messing with tons of settings I discovered that turning VSYNC off was the only way to get the game to run. Ahh now I was finally getting high frame rates. Frames were staying in the high 50's dipping in the low 40's, and shooting up past the 70's. Then I noticed. "This game really looks like crap, maybe I need a third video card I thought to myself" I looked over my settings and noticed that I was actually running the game now at Medium , and not even HIGH, with ambient occlusion off, mmsa off, aa at 1 x and aliasing post at off ! The game was Micro stuttering to the point where it was simply unplayable and hurt my eyes. IF I turned any of the settings higher it would just get worse.

Ok ok, SO I didn't just give up. I searched for days and days for answers. I tried turning off Hyper threading, I tried the game with every possible settings combination. I overclocked the 2600k to 4.8 GHZ. NONE of this helped. As a matter of fact with hyper threading off I noticed that my 2600k was topping out at times and hitting 100% now and then. It was mainly hovering between 75 and 95 percent. I then proceeded to try new drivers, then old drivers, then old caps. Each time doing an clean uninstall of Catalyst with Driver sweeper. I also used GPU-z to check my used VRAM. It never went far past 1024mb, and these are 2 GB cards. VRam running out is simply not true.

Then for the kicker. I turned Crossfire off, and everything looked smooth again. Yes My frame rates dropped, but if I didn't have Fraps up I would have never known it. Again with one card and crossfire off... Vsync worked fine as well.
Ok so I then decided I have a corrupt OS or a bad driver hanging in my system somewhere. I installed a brand new Samsung spinpoint f3 that I had sitting on the shelf, loaded windows 7 64 bit, installed BF3, and it was simply all the same garbage.

This is when I was convinced that I was selling my video cards. My friend then offered to let me remove his 2 gtx 460's from his AMD RIG so that I could test my cards in his system. I reluctantly agreed to do the test. His system is an ASUS Crosshair V Formula, with a Phenom x 6 1100t (stock clocks), and 16 GB of Corsair Vengence 9-9-9-24 1600mhz ram.

The first test we actually ran was his cards in SLI and NVidia Surround in my system. the resolution his gtx 460s allowed us to run was something like 3000x 1050( not quite as high as what eyefinity allowed, but I suspect its because the 460s are not even close to the flagship card and therefore limited to this lower res. THe cards ran the game on my intel system at ultra on all settings but msaa off, and motion blur off. The vsync was on and working fine. The game looked fantastically smooth . it was dipping into the low 40s but was most certainly hitting 60 fps with vsync on.

Now for the test that we care about. Please note that the only flaw about this test is that our monitors in our test bed limited the resolution to 5040x1050 with eyefinity. ( I will report back with actuall FPS's of 5760x1080 once I recieve my new crosshair and Phenom x 6 this friday. We installed my cards into his AMD system. I was able to turn all the settings on ultra. Every last one of them. The frames were smooth, Vsync worked, and there was no micro stuttering. the game was not holding 60 fps it was dipping into 50s. We then turned down the msaa 2 x, and motion blu off, ambiend occlusion to ssaa and aa to 8x, but left everything else on ultra.
This seemed to be the sweet spot. The game hugged 60 fps for the most part, with occasional dips, and no micro stuttering.


Now. I also noticed that I was getting micro stuttering on my Intel system even when running on one monitor, but it was kinda suttle, but still very annoying to me and once again I preferred playing with one card as opposed to cross firing. I was also having a hard time holding 60 FPS. So We ran BF3 on the amd rig with my 6970s on one monitor. ALl settings jacked to the max. The game was unbelievable smooth with vsync on and held 60 FPS like a champ. With vsync off there was slight tearing and we were averaging around 90 fps with highs around 120.


I would like to make one final statement about the test. His Nvidia SLI cards actually performed better in my Intel system than in his AMD system, yet they did perform Excellently in his AMD system as well.

My conclusion:

Run your AMD cards on an AMD system. They have true dual 16x lanes rather than 8x8 or a fake 16x16 back boned on a nvida chip.

There are a few variables in my diagnosis. For one the problem could just have been my ASROCk motherboard with the nf200 Chipset. I actually doubt this though. I believe the real reason is that the entire chipset is incompatible with crossfire. I also believe that the i7 hyper threading is not optimal for gaming. if you turn off the hyper threading now you are at 4 cores, and bottle necking your cpu. (lets see the cpumark benchmarks with hperthreating off too guys ) can someone post them?
All of the benchmarks that you read online that compare amd cpus to intel cpus use FPS only as the determining factor. Ok so maybe an INtel system can push a few more frames than an AMD system, but NONE of these benchmarks mention the overall look, and fluidity of the game.

According to task manager all 6 cores of his system were at 75% while running BF3. Remember this was a stock clocked system!


If you guys have any questions about my tests please feel free to comment.

Again I will be posting my actual FPS and experience with my new AMD system this upcoming weekend running 5760x1080.


I hope this helps you guys that are banging your head against the wall with your eyefinity crossfire!!!!!

Bushmaster,

Thank you for taking the time to write your extremely informative post.

Cheers!

Hello there!

Thank you for this discovery.

Not that I don't trust you, but could anyone else confirm that their AMD/ AMD system does/ doesn't stutter? It is odd how it doesn't seem to effect nV Surround on Intel systems though!

Thank you!

_________________
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First of all, thank you for your comprehensive post. It is good to see other people working on the same problem I am having. I would really like to reproduce your findings, but the problem is is that all of my friends have an Intel based system and non of them have two nvidia cards to put in mine. If other forum members have the hardware to test your theory I would be grateful. In this post I talked about my 'solution' of selling both my 6950's a just buying one 79xx card. So between now and jan-feb of 2012 I hope to do some more research, because if you are right, it would be smarter to either buy to nvidia 6xx cards or an amd cpu + board.

_________________
Philips BDM4065UC(3840x2160) Acer Z35(2560x1080@200hz); 980 Ti Hybrid @stock ; 6700K 4.6ghz (1.35v)/D15; 16GB 3200mhz; Asus Maximus Ranger VIII; AX860; 1TB 960 EVO; 750GB 840 EVO; Teufel Concept D 500; Sennheiser HD6XX; Windows 10 (latest build)

First of all, thank you for your comprehensive post. It is good to see other people working on the same problem I am having. I would really like to reproduce your findings, but the problem is is that all of my friends have an Intel based system and non of them have two nvidia cards to put in mine. If other forum members have the hardware to test your theory I would be grateful. In this post I talked about my 'solution' of selling both my 6950's a just buying one 79xx card. So between now and jan-feb of 2012 I hope to do some more research, because if you are right, it would be smarter to either buy to nvidia 6xx cards or an amd cpu + board.

Well,

I assure you that what I described did indeed happen. Like I said I was very very close to get rid of my AMD cards. I was cursing AMD up and down and ranting to my AMD friends how much AMD sucks.
Like I said I even installed a clean OS to double check it wasnt a corrupt os or driver.

I'm not exactly sure where to point the finger... NF200 Chip, the intel chipset, the intel cpu, or all of the above.

I do however know that my 6970s run triple monitors amazingly on a phenom x6 while cross fired, and VSYNC works !! I in fact purchased a 1100t ad a Crosshair v. Total price = $440 bucks.
Total price of my intel mobo/cpu was $600 bucks.

I honestly think there's a huge misconception floating around the entire gaming industry that you need an i7 cpu to utilize multiple video cards at high resolutions. (I was one of these believers) why do you think I bought an i7 to begin with.

Hey ! I bet that if you bought an lga 2011 and a new sandy bridge-e with a board that has true dual 16 x lanes, that your AMD cards would work excellent. This rig however is going to cost you over a Grand just for the mobo/cpu never mind that now you need quad channel RAM.

Remember.. part of my test showed that nvidia sli worked better in my Intel rig. Now remember these were nvidia gtx 460s which most likely do not need to utilize a 16x lane and would work just fine on a 8 x lane.

I do agree with you though. Id like to see some more tests.

But why am I the only one that has done this test and publicly posted the results???? hmm.. I think everyone has been convinced that AMD cpus just suck and to not even look at them.


I will post some results with my new system this weekend. Ill run some of the titles that I own such as BF3 , blackops, MW3, Metro 2033, dirt 3. If you guys have any requests just ask.. I might own the game.

I honestly think there's a huge misconception floating around the entire gaming industry that you need an i7 cpu to utilize multiple video cards at high resolutions. (I was one of these believers) why do you think I bought an i7 to begin with.

I am pretty sure that most people that are into hardware know that 95% of all modern games are gpu bound (civ5 and Skyrim being the exceptions)

Hey ! I bet that if you bought an lga 2011 and a new sandy bridge-e with a board that has true dual 16 x lanes, that your AMD cards would work excellent. This rig however is going to cost you over a Grand just for the mobo/cpu never mind that now you need quad channel RAM.

If there is a incompatibility problem with intel chipsets and amd gpu's then buying the fastest intel platform won't do much.

Remember.. part of my test showed that nvidia sli worked better in my Intel rig. Now remember these were nvidia gtx 460s which most likely do not need to utilize a 16x lane and would work just fine on a 8 x lane.

PCI-e lane bandwidth doesn’t effect gpu performance at all. See for example this vid and related ones. Performance (fps) obviously is not the same as smooth stutter free gameplay however.

I will post some results with my new system this weekend. Ill run some of the titles that I own such as BF3 , blackops, MW3, Metro 2033, dirt 3. If you guys have any requests just ask. I might own the game.

I would love to see them. It would be even better if you could capture some video's, but that might be too much work. Dirt 3 for me is one of the easiest games to test stutter free gameplay with, so good choice.

_________________
Philips BDM4065UC(3840x2160) Acer Z35(2560x1080@200hz); 980 Ti Hybrid @stock ; 6700K 4.6ghz (1.35v)/D15; 16GB 3200mhz; Asus Maximus Ranger VIII; AX860; 1TB 960 EVO; 750GB 840 EVO; Teufel Concept D 500; Sennheiser HD6XX; Windows 10 (latest build)

I honestly think there's a huge misconception floating around the entire gaming industry that you need an i7 cpu to utilize multiple video cards at high resolutions. (I was one of these believers) why do you think I bought an i7 to begin with.

I am pretty sure that most people that are into hardware know that 95% of all modern games are gpu bound (civ5 and Skyrim being the exceptions)

Hey ! I bet that if you bought an lga 2011 and a new sandy bridge-e with a board that has true dual 16 x lanes, that your AMD cards would work excellent. This rig however is going to cost you over a Grand just for the mobo/cpu never mind that now you need quad channel RAM.

If there is a incompatibility problem with intel chipsets and amd gpu's then buying the fastest intel platform won't do much.

Remember.. part of my test showed that nvidia sli worked better in my Intel rig. Now remember these were nvidia gtx 460s which most likely do not need to utilize a 16x lane and would work just fine on a 8 x lane.

PCI-e lane bandwidth doesn’t effect gpu performance at all. See for example this vid and related ones. Performance (fps) obviously is not the same as smooth stutter free gameplay however.

I will post some results with my new system this weekend. Ill run some of the titles that I own such as BF3 , blackops, MW3, Metro 2033, dirt 3. If you guys have any requests just ask. I might own the game.

I would love to see them. It would be even better if you could capture some video's, but that might be too much work. Dirt 3 for me is one of the easiest games to test stutter free gameplay with, so good choice.

Look, I dont want to start back and forth arguing with you. But I am going to point out that if you go to many websites such as overclock.net, people on those forums are convinced that to run multiple GPU's that you need an i7.

"pci-e bandwidth doesnt effect gpu performance? " common. why then are they making 16x cards, and why bother making pci 3.0 cards. if bandwidth means nothing then all cards should be 1x. that's just a ridiculous statement.


I can make videos. How do you suggest for me to do so?? FRAPS?? or an actual camera view of my screens?

Look, I dont want to start back and forth arguing with you. But I am going to point out that if you go to many websites such as overclock.net, people on those forums are convinced that to run multiple GPU's that you need an i7.

Arguing is not necessary at all, but can be healthy. You said that you were a believer that you need i7 to run multiple gpu's. Maybe because of discussing that a belief you or I (or any other forummember) may have, a missconception can be cleared up. I am not all all knowing, by the way. Read a lot about hardware tho.

"pci-e bandwidth doesnt effect gpu performance? " common. why then are they making 16x cards, and why bother making pci 3.0 cards. if bandwidth means nothing then all cards should be 1x. that's just a ridiculous statement.

What I mean is that 4x vs 8x vs 16x doesn't differ much when we look at fps. If you don't belief me test it yourself or read about in some more. The only reason I bring this up is that not having true 16x bandwidth for both gpu's is very unlikly to be the cause of the problem we both are having.

I can make videos. How do you suggest for me to do so?? FRAPS?? or an actual camera view of my screens?

Both fraps or msi afterburner should work, altough I am not skilled at all at making videos myself.

Thanks for doing the research. I will post any new information or findings I have.

_________________
Philips BDM4065UC(3840x2160) Acer Z35(2560x1080@200hz); 980 Ti Hybrid @stock ; 6700K 4.6ghz (1.35v)/D15; 16GB 3200mhz; Asus Maximus Ranger VIII; AX860; 1TB 960 EVO; 750GB 840 EVO; Teufel Concept D 500; Sennheiser HD6XX; Windows 10 (latest build)

Look, I dont want to start back and forth arguing with you. But I am going to point out that if you go to many websites such as overclock.net, people on those forums are convinced that to run multiple GPU's that you need an i7.

[quote]
Arguing is not necessary at all, but can be healthy. You said that you were a believer that you need i7 to run multiple gpu's. Maybe because of discussing that a belief you or I (or any other forummember) may have, a missconception can be cleared up. I am not all all knowing, by the way. Read a lot about hardware tho.

well. I cant argue that an i7 outperforms most games when it comes to FPS and when USING NVIDIA cards. did anyone ever notice that ALL the tests that show sandybridge running more frames than AMD all use nvidia GPUS????

Truth is. a) i dont care about hitting 150 fps. I want 60 fps on vsync so that my video is smooth ... like watching HD tv. 2) why dont they do some tests with a AMD system and AMD cards running the same benchmarks??

I have to agree with you. My only goal is to hit 60 fps with no dips, because those will make it seem like the video is stuttering (well eyefinity + crossfire + some hardware/software combo we both have does that too). I have to say I am very anal about any unsmooth gameplay, wich makes this problem even more annoying.

_________________
Philips BDM4065UC(3840x2160) Acer Z35(2560x1080@200hz); 980 Ti Hybrid @stock ; 6700K 4.6ghz (1.35v)/D15; 16GB 3200mhz; Asus Maximus Ranger VIII; AX860; 1TB 960 EVO; 750GB 840 EVO; Teufel Concept D 500; Sennheiser HD6XX; Windows 10 (latest build)