Installed brand new R9 280X's CPU usage gets to 100% whilst gaming

[DIRTYHACKEROOPS]

So I installed my brand new MSI G series R9 280X's (crossfire) Then I installed recommended drivers from AMD's website and fired up BF4 only to find me getting 40fps on the ultra preset. So I checked my CPU usage using windows task manager and found that it was at 100%, I then went on to check my GPU usage only to find it bouncing up an down on GPU1 and being stuck at 99% on GPU 2. I found that when turning off crossfire I was getting significantly better FPS, arround the 60's. I have uninstalled them both since they are meant to be a Christmas present, I couldn't resist, atleast I now have time to write forum posts etc to find out why this problem is occuring. You can find a spec list of my system below.

Thanks, Any help is appreciated.

 

Spec list:

PSU: - (650w) Antec VP650P

MOBO: - B75A-G43 GAMING

CPU: - i5 3570k @ 3.8ghz

GPU: - (2x) R9 280X MSI G series [sTOCK CLOCKS]

[IAcKI]

Got to be software related surely!

[Jamdude]

I've been having fps problems related to GPU usage as well since the new updates.

[DIRTYHACKEROOPS]

Got to be software related surely!

Here is the thing, Beta drivers didn't work at all, So i scraped those uninstalled them and installed the recommended drivers, those worked a whole load better but I'm definitely not getting the performance I should be getting.

[DIRTYHACKEROOPS]

I've been having fps problems related to GPU usage as well since the new updates.

U mean the new game updates or new graphics driver updates? If so which Graphics driver would you recommend?

[Jamdude]

U mean the new game updates or new graphics driver updates? If so which Graphics driver would you recommend?

Game updates, I'm still using old 13.11 beta drivers but I've only had issues since BF4's latest update.

[DIRTYHACKEROOPS]

Game updates, I'm still using old 13.11 beta drivers but I've only had issues since BF4's latest update.

Hmm but that still doesnt seem to explain why my CPU usage is constantly at 100%

[IAcKI]

HAve you updated your motherboard BIOS? 
That may be related?

[delet my acc pls]

Hmm but that still doesnt seem to explain why my CPU usage is constantly at 100%

The CPU is supposed to be at 100% when you are gaming.

[DIRTYHACKEROOPS]

The CPU is supposed to be at 100% when you are gaming.

Never heard of this but Ok. However Shouldn't I be getting way more than 40fps on Ultra with two R9 280X's?

[DIRTYHACKEROOPS]

HAve you updated your motherboard BIOS? 

That may be related?

No I have not actually, however I don't see how that would affect in game performance...

[Altecice]

Well you really should be on the latest beta drivers, but a few days ago they did push a new set of non-beta drivers for us. the CPU usage at 100% on BF4 I could believe. BF4 is a very badly optimized game and gives your computer a pounding. my 8350 @ 4.8ghz sits at 40% though but it will spike to 100% usage when the levels are loading. As for the single card getting better than two, Does your motherboard support dual x16 PCI or do they flick to x8,x8? and what speed is your RAM?

 

I run two 290x's and at ultra I pull 60-100fps  @ 5760x1080p but I turn AA off as its just not needed at my resolution, Have you tried bumping the AA down? x2 is really all thats ever needed unless you are under 1080p.

 

I am unsure as to how Mantle will effect performance of BF4 but hopefully it should sort lots of issues out!

[DIRTYHACKEROOPS]

Well you really should be on the latest beta drivers, but a few days ago they did push a new set of non-beta drivers for us. the CPU usage at 100% on BF4 I could believe. BF4 is a very badly optimized game and gives your computer a pounding. my 8350 @ 4.8ghz sits at 40% though but it will spike to 100% usage when the levels are loading. As for the single card getting better than two, Does your motherboard support dual x16 PCI or do they flick to x8,x8? and what speed is your RAM?

 

I run two 290x's and at ultra I pull 60-100fps  @ 5760x1080p but I turn AA off as its just not needed at my resolution, Have you tried bumping the AA down? x2 is really all thats ever needed unless you are under 1080p.

 

I am unsure as to how Mantle will effect performance of BF4 but hopefully it should sort lots of issues out!

My MOBO seems to switch to 8x,8x That might actually be why. As for the AA i turned it off as well and it doesn't seem to give me much of an FPS boost maybe 5-10fps but not much, it doesn't seem like that is affecting my in game FPS that much however as you said get on the latest beta driver, when I install them I get about 2FPS in game and 5FPS whilst loading the map which is clearly far worse than what the recommended driver runs at. Thanks for all the tips etc. I hope I can get this working some time soon because I bought these two cards to be able to play BF4 at ultra no probs and I was actually looking to do 3 screen Eyefinity with them but at this rate Im not even close to having enough performance to do something like this.

 

Thank you for all the help and for the detailed answer and I hope that they do something about this because whats the point of having two cards when one runs better than both at once?

[WildTurtle]

My MOBO seems to switch to 8x,8x That might actually be why. As for the AA i turned it off as well and it doesn't seem to give me much of an FPS boost maybe 5-10fps but not much, it doesn't seem like that is affecting my in game FPS that much however as you said get on the latest beta driver, when I install them I get about 2FPS in game and 5FPS whilst loading the map which is clearly far worse than what the recommended driver runs at. Thanks for all the tips etc. I hope I can get this working some time soon because I bought these two cards to be able to play BF4 at ultra no probs and I was actually looking to do 3 screen Eyefinity with them but at this rate Im not even close to having enough performance to do something like this.

 

Thank you for all the help and for the detailed answer and I hope that they do something about this because whats the point of having two cards when one runs better than both at once?

16x,16x vs 8x,8x wouldn't make a difference, besides your on LGA 1155, that platform only has 20 PCIE Lanes from the CPU. No matter what your motherboard says you will only have 20 "true" PCIE lanes, going through a PLX chip just creates more latency to increase the bandwidth to 16x,16x.

[IAcKI]

No I have not actually, however I don't see how that would affect in game performance...

I've had an issue before with it, I have no idea either!

[DIRTYHACKEROOPS]

16x,16x vs 8x,8x wouldn't make a difference, besides your on LGA 1155, that platform only has 20 PCIE Lanes from the CPU. No matter what your motherboard says you will only have 20 "true" PCIE lanes, going through a PLX chip just creates more latency to increase the bandwidth to 16x,16x.

Good to know this, I have always been worried about my MOBO only having 8x 8x when using xfire, Whats your take on why my Game seems to be running better using one GPU and not two? any ideas on why this could be happening

[WildTurtle]

Good to know this, I have always been worried about my MOBO only having 8x 8x when using xfire, Whats your take on why my Game seems to be running better using one GPU and not two? any ideas on why this could be happening

It could purely be a driver issue, where in rare cases the game/drivers aren't properly coded for Xfire or SLI and a single card would be the performance of that a dual card solution. Just so you know If you want true 16x, 16x you will need to go on LGA 2011 where there are 40 PCIE lanes available. for XFIre you only need PCIE 4x so on LGA1155 you could even go 3 way if you have a atx board. The performance difference between 16x->8x is negligible.

[DIRTYHACKEROOPS]

It could purely be a driver issue, where in rare cases the game/drivers aren't properly coded for Xfire or SLI and a single card would be the performance of that a dual card solution. Just so you know If you want true 16x, 16x you will need to go on LGA 2011 where there are 40 PCIE lanes available. for XFIre you only need PCIE 4x so on LGA1155 you could even go 3 way if you have a atx board. The performance difference between 16x->8x is negligible.

That's very good to hear actually because I was always worried that the slots being 8x were going to "Bottleneck" my gpu's performance, but good to hear that they barely affect it. When you talk about the drivers working better with one card rather than two is it possible to maybe find out about a driver that ran two cards better than one? 

[DIRTYHACKEROOPS]

I have found a Solution to this problem!!!!

 

I am running Crossfire R9 280X's and dealt with major fps drop when enabling crossfire. However when I had it disabled (when I had the game running on one GPU) I would get almost always 60fps on ultra (with AA). After some research, in fact a lot of research I fixed this problem by disabling frame pacing and enabling fullscreen in game. I was running the game on borderless the whole time and this was the cause of my problem. What borderless and windowed do is they mess with your crossfire settings. It gives one GPU (in my case GPU 2) all the work but lets the other one spike up and down inconsistently. Mine would frequently drop to 30% load then back up to around 60% load (I checked the load using MSI afterburner and EVGA Precision X). If you don't understand what the last couple of sentences meant well.. then either you shouldn't have a gaming PC or I just really didn't explain well. 

Im just messing, Its ok to not understand. Just do as I said, Disable frame pacing and enable fullscreen under the video settings IN GAME! you should then be good to go. I went from 30-40 fps all the way up to 60-80fps on Ultra (with AA) 

 

I hope this worked for you!