Major performance boost for AMD CPU's

[EventHorizon]

I've not see this posted elsewhere, but if it is feel free to lock the thread.

I have just had to upgrade my rig (MB died), for comparisson this is what I had:

ASUS P5N-E SLi
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz @ 3.0GHz
4Gb DDR2 800MHz
GeForce 8800 GTS 320

I am now running this:

ASUS M3A32-MVP Delux
AMD Phenum Q9950 2.6GHz @ 2.8GHz (Initial overclocking, will be pushed higher)
4Gb DDR2 1066MHz
Radeon HD4850 512Mb

At first performance was awful, and I do mean awful. Utter slide show, even in empty (IE, unknown) sectors and new games. Then I had a brainwave, I had AMD Cool'N'Quiet enabled. Switched it off and bloody hell! From slide show to silk!!!! With the old rig I was running at 1680x1050 with medium textures, no AA or AF, I can now run the same res (monitor max) at hi textures with 4AA 8AF. Ok, it goes without saying that the new rig is way more powerful. But Cool'N'Quiet simply destroyed this game for me!

This won't help Intel based users, and it may be a side effect of a Dual/Tri/Quad core CPU not being fully utilised and thus thinking that it can halve the speed, but if your using an AMD CPU try turning off Cool'N'Quiet and see if it makes a difference.

[frymaster]

just out of interest, do you have the amd cpu drivers installed? they are needed to prevent performance and stability problems relating to cool'n'quiet

[pjknibbs]

I echo Frymaster here. AMD CPUs have a tendency to put themselves to sleep in situations where one core is busy and the other is idle, which is obviously what happens when a single-threaded game like X is running. Installing the latest CPU drivers fixes that.

[EventHorizon]

just out of interest, do you have the amd cpu drivers installed? they are needed to prevent performance and stability problems relating to cool'n'quiet

What CPU drivers? Been on AMD's website (was actually downloading all drivers that I would need before the new rig arrived) and the only ones I could see were for Windows XP/2003. None for Vista, are cetinatly none for Vista x64.

[aka1nas]

just out of interest, do you have the amd cpu drivers installed? they are needed to prevent performance and stability problems relating to cool'n'quiet

What CPU drivers? Been on AMD's website (was actually downloading all drivers that I would need before the new rig arrived) and the only ones I could see were for Windows XP/2003. None for Vista, are cetinatly none for Vista x64.

They are not required for Vista, and you can tweak the throttling properties directly in the power management tab for your current policy.