7970m GX640 i7 740QM Performance Issues

Hello I just recently installed my 7970m into my laptop, but I'm having performance issues in my games. I only play with a 1440x900 resolution monitor so I was under the impression that I would be able to max out pretty much all games with the 7970m. Also my 7970m is flashed with the Clevo HM Enduro Off vbios. I checked to see if my gpu was throttling and it is not. Also I have very acceptable temps under load because they hardly go over 80C. I have tried multiple graphics drivers including 13.1, 13.2 beta 7, 13.4, 13.8 beta 2, and now I am using 13.8 beta 2 the Enduro Fix driver. The enduro fix driver has the best performance even though I don't even have enduro enabled. I can't even max out amnesia the dark descent. At max settings and 1440x900 resolution Devil May Cry sometimes stutters, Bioshock Infinite becomes unplayable at times, Amnesia the dark descent is choppy, and Crysis 3 is completely unplayable. Also metro last light performs terrible and my 5850m performs just slightly worse than my 7970m, so there is definitely something wrong there! Is it possible that my overclocked i7 740QM is bottlenecking my graphics card? Any help would be appreciated. Also, something strange is that some software still think that I have a 5850m installed, such as Asus GPU Tweak and Atiman Uninstaller.

Edit: I get good 3dmark vantage gpu score of above 7000 and a bad 3dmark vantage gpu score of around 17000, but I am very disappointed with my gaming performance.

 

You really need to bump up the resolution, because at 1440x900 the CPU is a big bottleneck, which is why you're seeing very little improvement over the Mobility 5850 when in reality the 7970M is many times faster. At the end of the day, you're always going to be limited by the i7-740QM, so upgrading to an i7-920XM or 940XM and overclocking it as far as you can is going to do you a lot of good. The entry-level Clarksfield i7's are just too slow to unleash the full potential of a 7970M.

 

What power supply brick do you have? Also maybe there is some sort of power limit on the motherboard preventing you from utilizing the full potential of that card? I know when I had my GX660 listed in sig it screamed and never had slowdowns or performance issues. But they're not the same laptop, and I have an unlocked more powerful Clarksfield.

 

I am using a 180W power supply. Also I realized that the performance issues mostly happen when I move around. If I stand still then the framerate is pretty good. It seems like it is lagging when trying to load new information into the card. I'm not sure if there is a power limit and I have no idea how to find out if i do, but I have been noticing a low gpu utilization in the games that I have tested, like around 50% to 70%

 

Low GPU usage is often indicative of a CPU bottleneck.

 

740qm was a bottleneck for me on games like Skyrim back when I had the HD5870m, I would advise to check if it's CPU bottlenecking using monitoring software. As it was mentioned, if temps are ok, and GPU is not being fully utilized, the CPU is probably at fault. It will increase your performance a lot if you get a 920xm with a small OC to around 2.6ghz quad core.

 

I would also recommend the 920XM for that GPU combo. If you can keep the temps under control you could also use Throttlestop for a mild overclock to open up its full potential. The 180W supply worked fine with my 920XM and 7970m (usually OC with AMD overdrive). I actually kept my 920XM stock most of the time and found it to not bottleneck my GPU at all. I guess this could depend on games, but even with BF3, I had very fluid consistent high FPS.

 

So yea...I reinstalled windows and everything seems a lot better now. Also I am not using my 1440x900 external monitor anymore, but instead I am using my smaller internal monitor that has a resolution of 1680x1050 (everything looks much better at this res anyways so I'm cool with a smaller screen). I think my windows installation was corrupt or something because I just ran the tomb raider benchmark on ultimate settings and native resolution and got an avg fps of 40fps with a max of 50fps and min of 30fps. Also Metro last light is perfectly playable at maxed settings, native res, no physx, and no ssaa. Those are the only two games that I have tested since reinstalling windows, so hopeful my problem is fixed. I still feel that I need a better cpu though because I know the more processor-intensive games are still going to be unplayable at max settings with my i7. Also I havn't overclocked yet, and my games seem playable so hopefully I won't need to.

Edit: I just tested Battlefield 3. I can only play on medium settings or else I get a lot of FPS drops in opens areas. In closed ares I can get 60fps on Ultra settings, but as soon as I get to an open area my gameplay gets really suttery.

 

Yep you are definitely being bottlenecked by the CPU. This is what a 7970M is truly capable of when paired with a fast enough CPU:



I've playtested BF3 extensively to know exactly the problem you are describing. Even with my i7-3630QM I get CPU-bottlenecked when looking out over the entire map on B2K maps, which are more CPU-heavy than the other ones due to the enhanced destruction. BF3 is currently one of the most, if not the most, CPU-heavy game on the market. In your case overclocking the CPU will give you more FPS than overclocking the GPU. BF3 could benefit immensely from a 920XM or 940XM overclocked to 3+ GHz across all four cores. With the 7970M that's the minimum amount of CPU power I reckon you'd need to run High settings and still get acceptable minimum FPS, because minimums are completely determined by the CPU in this game. Even that might not be enough, as I still think BF3 needs at least a Sandy Bridge if not an Ivy Bridge or Haswell to really make the 7970M fly.

 

Thank you for your input! I will probably be getting the 920XM in a few months and will overclock it because I have an unlocked bios that allows for i7 extreme processor overclocking. I feel sorry for the MSI GX60 owners because their 7970m is paired with an AMD A10 processor, so they are probably experiencing a lot of CPU bottlenecking.

 

Yep that is the downfall of that system. The A10 really holds back the 7970M in a lot of cases, to the point where you're not really getting a 7970M anymore because of how compromised it is.

 

Yea I was reading a review of the GX60 and it said that the 7970m in the GX60 would have the performance of a mid-range mobile GPU in some games because of the processor. I think my i7 740qm is probably a little faster than those A10's though, so hopefully I don't run into that bad of performance issues. I just set up Rivatuner Statistics Server with HWinfo64 to monitor my temps, frequencies, and frames per second. I played Tomb Raider on ultimate preset for a little while and I was getting 100% GPU utilization at 900/1500 and my temps did not go over 75C, and also my fps hardly ever went below 30 fps and most of the time my fps was between 35-45 fps.

 

It's sad that AMD's latest-and-greatest APU still gets beaten by a fair amount by the three-year-old i7-740QM. Tomb Raider is a very GPU-bound game so your CPU is not holding you back in this particular title as it does in BF3.

 

Can you post some 3dmark scores from ur upgraded GX640?

Here are some pretty recent from my original version 5850 and QM740

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-740QM Processor,MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-1656

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-740QM Processor,MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-1656

 

Yes here they are. These are my scores after reinstalling windows and using the latest amd beta drivers. Also these test were done with the clocks that I use for gaming and they are perfectly stable.

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-740QM Processor,MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-1656
AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-740QM Processor,MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-1656

BTW that is a very impressive overclock for the 5850m.

 

Are these clocks on your Mobility 5850 100% stable for gaming or just benching? I used to have a Mobility 5870 but I topped out 825/1085 and voltage couldn't be increased past stock. Did you overvolt?

 

My HD5870m overvolted and overclocked was stable at gaming at 920/1100 Bob actually beat my scores, but then again mine are a bit old by now so I don't have the same drivers etc

a 920xm does wonders to the scores and performance of such a system

 

In most games they work great. I can go 900/1075 in most games. Anymore and the game shuts down. I do however mostly run 875/1075 @ 1,060 volt to keep it 100 percent stable. Temp is good as well. Usually around 50-60C when under heavy gaming and around 35c idle

 

The 740 is bottlenecking you pretty bad. Even if you get a xm920 and overclock it to 2,6-3ghz which will be hard enough an old 3610 will be faster. It will however help ur performance a lot. I noticed heavy bottlenecking in serious Sam 3 thanks to my 740.

 

OK so I just overclocked the out of my i7 740qm and my 3dMark Vantage score went wayyyyy up. I have an unlocked bios so i actually lowered my ram frequency to 800 MHz lol. I know this sounds stupid, but I am able to overclock my i7 a lot higher. My QPC frequency is 2152 MHz in SetFSB vs the stock 1729 MHz. This overclock is with an FSB of 166MHz vs the stock 133 MHz.
Here is my new 3dMark vantage score: AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-740QM Processor,MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-1656
Here is my new 3dMark 11 score: AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-740QM Processor,MICRO-STAR INTERNATIONAL CO., LTD MS-1656

 

Thats awesome, could you let me know how i can OC my QM740?

 

yea no problem. First you need the SetFSB software: SetFSB_HomePage Then you need to download Intel Burn Test: Download IntelBurnTest - MajorGeeks
Use the ICS9LPRS113AKLF clock generator, and then just increase the FSB (right set of arrows in SetFSB under the Control tab) by 1 or 2 until your computer crashes and make sure you know what value of the FSB caused it to crash. (It shouldn't really harm anything when it crashes. This is just so you know your limit.) Once you find that crashing value then just subtract 2 from that value and use it. The run the Intel Burn Test on the default settings. If it passes, then your overclock should be stable. If you want to get an even better overclock, then you need to flash an unlocked BIOS that allows you to decrease the memory speed. Also, in order for your overclock to work properly, you need to open up a command prompt and type in the following line and then press enter and then restart your computer:
bcdedit /set useplatformclock true
You have to do this because after you set a new value in SetFSB it screws up the timings of the system and some games will look like they are in some sort of fast forward mode.

 

Hey i managed to get my clock to 1906 mhz on all 4 cores before it shuts down. I diddnt do anyhting with bios or anything i just opened Command prompt and wrote what u told me but i get the MSG: The boost configuration data store could not be opnened. access is denied.

Will my 1906 mhz still work? Its shows up in CPU-Z.

Also do i have to access setfsb and do everything again each time i restart my laptop?

I have the High Precision Event Timer in my device manager does that mean am good to go? http://www.tweakhound.com/2013/07/15/bad-tweak-useplatformclock-true

Please feel free to add me to steam for faster communication

my username is satyrionfinal

 

I just ran CPUmark and with stock cpu i got 4000 points, with my 1906mhz OC i got 3920 points, so i dont think its working.

 

I would say that if your games are behaving properly, then you don't have to worry about that message. But your overclocking settings will stick even if you restart, but if you shutdown then you will have to use SetFSB again. And I added you on Steam, my username is jonny30bass.