Is my XFX Radeon 6870 DD (Double fans) getting under utilized?

Kadoken

This is my card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150521

I seem to be disheartened at some things I've been seeing. I saw a video of a Company of Heroes game with fraps with a Radeon 5850, all maxed out, and it seemed to be doing much better than my 6870. On Borderlands, if I were to turn it up to max, the FPS suffers. I max out the quality settings in Battlefield 2, a game made in 2006, and I feel that it should be able to be maxed out with a consistent 60 fps run, but it doesn't come up to my expectations.

Now this might be my processor's fault, as it is a AMD 250 duocore, which is rated at 5.85 ghz. I do have a new processor, but due to my inexperience with installing processors and coolers, I have yet to put it in. However, I see everywhere it touted "Graphics cards mean everything for running games, processors mean little to nothing. I ran a test on Hwcompare, an the 6870 should be doing better, but it's still confusing. I'm going to test out some games on max.

Specs:

BIOS: BIOS Date: 11/07/11 09:09:37 Ver: 04.06.04
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 250 Processor (2 CPUs), ~3.0GHz
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120330-1504)
Memory: 4096MB RAM
Available OS Memory: 4082MB RAM
Chip type: ATI display adapter (0x6738)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_6738&SUBSYS_31031682&REV_00
Display Memory: 2797 MB
Dedicated Memory: 1012 MB
Shared Memory: 1785 MB

Gaslight

Your processor is probably not doing you any favors. Saying "Games are all about GPU, processors mean little to nothing" is far too simplistic. A great deal varies from game to game.

TychoCelchuuu

For newer games your processor is definitely limiting you. Low BF2 framerates is kind of weird: I guess maybe it's your processor too. What resolution are you running at?

Kadoken

The highest I go, 1600x900. I found that Borderlands maxed never dips below 30,and usually stays 40-50 in action. Company of Heroes maxxed gives me a bit of trouble. Granted, I'm playing with the Blitzkrieg mod, which brings a lot of new assets, but maxxed out, AA x8, it starts around 30fps and dips into 23-28 often. I think the company of heroes Benchmark test doesn't take into count new models or something, because it said ,y average was 60fps with 30 minimum, but that doesn't translate into gameplay. I have uninstalled them, but Mafia 2 and Space Marine didn't run too optimally.

Synthesis

The step from x4 to x8 AA is pretty damning, especially in a populated game like Company of Heroes (good choice on the Blitzkrieg mod, though, I still have that!). Really disproportionate, for what it's worth.

Elimination

Yeah that CPU is definitely holding you back. I dont know where you read that CPU means little to nothing, but that's completely incorrect. It means less than it used to, yes, but your CPU can and will bottleneck your video card.

Unknown

This content has been removed.

Jasconius

i have that exact video card, and I max everything out on almost every game

Kadoken

Installing that 975 helped immensely. DOW2 runs on max at 52 FPS average and minimum 26-27 in the benchmark. Shogun 2 can be at Direct X 11 and now when I zoom close on rows of units I don't take a hit to FPS. Now a few thousand units fighting up close? That's at hit, but at the optimal camera angle the FPS is smooth with all those. Borderlands runs like butter. City of Heroes let's me put up some new settings but if I'm overlooking a large area with pretty high settings it takes a small hit. Company of Heroes runs max easy-peezy.

The only downside is that my processor held me back from a good frame rate with the GW2 beta, and now I'm not in with a good processor. The Hyper 212 cooler was a tiny bit tricky to install but it god the job done. The friggin thing is pretty big though. Sometimes the cooler makes my computer sound like the middle of the purr it's been doing and the roar it was doing when I first got it. Pro tip, never buy IBuyPc desktops. They suck. My window air conditioner in my room pretty much negates the mid roar, with it's own nonintrusive sound and probably it cools the desktop a bit too, making the fan not work so hard. For the first time. I was able to open up a browser while my computer was doing startup things like AVG, Steam, and such.

Thank's for your advice.