gtx 660 vs r9 290

[ronss]

these are my 2 computers-
#1. fx-6300 asus r9 290
#2. phenom II 1100t- gtx 660

when i bench mark these 2 computers....such as could gate in futuremark,,,i get allmost the same results

i am thinking the fx-6300 is holding back my r9 290, because when you do a cpu comparison, they are close ....

 

[Silverforce11]

You are thinking right. You have way too much GPU power for such bad CPUs.

 

[SlickR12345]

Can you link your scores?

That seems really weird, the 1st setup should be a lot faster than your 2nd setup.

So either you are not reading the scores right or your PC is broken

 

[guskline]

Have you tried to switch the gpus?

 

[lehtv]

GTX 660 is roughly equivalent to GTX 480 which was high-end before 1100T was even released. GTX 480 launched in March 2010, 1100T in December, so GTX 660 + 1100T is a good pair, there should be next to no bottleneck there.

The problem is the R9 290 paired with the FX6300. Clock for clock, FX-6300 is basically the same as the older 1100T, it just overclocks more easily. Meanwhile, R9 290 is twice as fast as GTX 660, so it's nowhere near as balanced as the GTX 660 paired with the 1100T. Ideally, you'd want a CPU twice as fast as a 1100T to handle the R9 290. Any Intel Haswell quad core would fit the bill, the higher clocked the better obviously.

If you don't want to spend the cash on a new motherboard and CPU, however, you can try overclocking the FX-6300 to reduce the bottleneck. But you need a decent overclocking motherboard to reach clock speeds where you get to feel the difference in performance. FX-6300 can clock past 4.5GHz with decent air cooling and a good motherboard, which would be about a 30% improvement over stock speed - far from the +100% you need to let the R9 290 shine, but at least it'd be something.

 

[AtenRa]

If the system had a NVIDIA GPU before, you should uninstall any NVIDIA drivers/Software if you havent doen already.

edit: Cloud Gate is a DX-11 GPU benchmark, CPU performance only applies in the Physics Score and that only playes a small role in the overall Cloud Gate score. So R9 290 should be faster than 660 even with a Dual Core CPU, the FX6300 is fine for that benchmark.

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Overclock the FX-6300 and see if the score changes.

 

[Attic]

these are my 2 computers-
#1. fx-6300 asus r9 290
#2. phenom II 1100t- gtx 660

when i bench mark these 2 computers....such as could (cloud) gate in futuremark,,,i get allmost the same results

i am thinking the fx-6300 is holding back my r9 290, because when you do a cpu comparison, they are close ....

Emphasis mine.


What about the overall score or the individual score for Firstrike and Firestrike Extreme?

 

[.vodka]

Exactly. Cloud gate is light on the GPU side, and will get CPU bottlenecked. Firestrike should be a different story, the 290 ought to stretch its legs further with the added load.

Just to be sure you're getting the most out of the 290 rig, overclock the 6300.

 

[ronss]

thanks for all the great suggestions.......i will double check some things, and try some of the suggestions..i sort of agree that a bigger intel cpu is a perfect match...i was just trying to compare things with a smaller cpu,......

 

[ronss]

just ran fire strike with fx-6300 , overclocked cpu to 3.9ghz -r9 290

score-7180

better than 78% of all systems....

the 1100t rig now with the gtx 660 with first strike-

score 4555

better than 45% of all results....

 

[lehtv]

just ran fire strike with fx-6300 , overclocked to 3.9ghz-r9 290

score-7180

better than 78% of all systems....going to try the 1100t rig now with the gtx 660

FWIW, R9 290 should get a bit over 9000 in Fire Strike when not bottlenecked.
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5857/amd-radeon-r9-290-4gb-reference-video-card-review/index5.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/radeon-r9-290-crossfire-review-benchmarks,20.html

Since Fire Strike is not CPU heavy overall, you need a 30% faster CPU to get rid of limitations in GPU bound situations. CPU heavy situations/games would still be CPU limited, however. You won't be able to overclock the FX-6300 more than 20-25% over what you have even with the best motherboard and cooling.

 

[ronss]

FWIW, R9 290 should get a bit over 9000 in Fire Strike when not bottlenecked.
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5857/amd-radeon-r9-290-4gb-reference-video-card-review/index5.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/radeon-r9-290-crossfire-review-benchmarks,20.html

Since Fire Strike is not CPU heavy overall, you need a 30% faster CPU to get rid of limitations in GPU bound situations. CPU heavy situations/games would still be CPU limited, however. You won't be able to overclock the FX-6300 more than 20-25% over what you have even with the best motherboard and cooling.

thanks...so i quess the rig is running normal from the looks of things....i was sort of wondering if something might not be right, but from i can see- running not too bad for the cpu matched with the r9 290....

i actually start out with 3d mark 6,,,,,,and got allmost even results there...then i noticed on the page, do not use modern hardware with 3d mark 6...so that was a huge waste of time....been hile since i,ve done some bench marking and overclocking