My rig:

i5-2500k @4.2GHz
Crucial M4 SATA III SSD
16GB G Skill 1600 RAM
Sapphire Radeon 7850 @ 1050 core/1450 memory with official release 12.3 drivers
1920x1080 LCD monitor, stanbdard 60 Hz refresh rate
vsync turned off in INI file

Playing Skyrim with the HD texture pack from Bethesda, no graphical mods (some other mods, like Rich Merchants, Better Dragon Loot, Better Skill Books, Sky UI).

At Ultra settings I noticed it was kinda choppy, especially in perpetually snowy cities like Winterhold. So I downloaded FRAPS and recorded my min//max/avr framerates running around Whiterun and Winterhold.

FRAPS is telling me 22 FPS min, 28 max and 24 avr. How is this possible? Reviews of the Sapphire 7850 at the standard overclock (920 core/1250 memory) show numbers more like 50 min, 100 max and 70 average on Ultra settings.

I've checked GPU-Z and the entire time I'm playign Skyrim the log shows the card is clocked at 1050/1450, so it's not that it is getting downclocked to idle speeds for some reason.

I am at a loss. I want the performance the 7850 should provide. Advice appreciated - thanks.

How vram does your card have? And What's your vram usage during numbers?
And what additional settings do u have configured? AA, AT etc.

What kind of PSU? OS type and bit?

Is this your card? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102984

says under details: 1250MHz (5.0Gbps)

@pandorax - 2GB VRAM. I have not bothered to check VRAM usage, as I purposely picked a 2GB to prevent issues with Skyrim and the HD texture pack, since I had read it could use more than 1GB of VRAM at 1080p. My settings are all through the game interface, Ultra settings with FXAA enabled.

Edit: I checked the GPU-Z log from my tests last night and max VRAM usage is just shy of 1.5 GB

@Thoth - Seasonic 620 watt. Win 7 64 bit. Yes, that's my card. I have it overclocked via CCC to 1050 core and 1450 memory. The factory oc is 920/1250.

Take off your gpu overclock and see what results you get.

@B1gBadDaddy - ok, I just set the clocks to the shipped 920/1250 and re-ran some tests. In Whiterun, on the steps up to Dragonsreach, when standing still and looking at the 5 waterfalls off to the right, I was getting 26 fps at 1050/1450 and now with 920/1250 I get 23 fps.

When I walk around in the fields outside Whiterun it shows me getting in the teens, sometimes as low as 13 fps. It's also in the 17-19 fps range when riding Shadowmere. There's got to be something wrong, I just have no idea what it could be.

I see you have Radeon.
However (on the nVidia website) they target these framerates as acceptable for the quality settings,
In other words if you play their recommended settings you'll get these frames...
Doesn't seem like enough to me.
Everyone is obsessed with Graphics! Graphics!
But what about framerate?
If you're playing in Ultra, with Ultra shadows, with high-def textures, using multiple antialiasing, and with your CCC set for quality, I guess that's all you get.
You're using the latest v12.3 right?
I think maybe you should try coming at it from the other direction - set your rig up to record 60 fps minimums. Think you could achieve that?
Then add in more graphical quality and observe performance drop.
If you find achieving 60 fps minimums challenging, this would indicate problem(s) with your configuration.
Regards

Hi Gryphon - there's just no way my framerates could be acceptable even with everything set Ultra. I'm not even close to what I see others get with the same card when the rest of the rig is in about the same. For instance, Hardware Heaven's review of my card with all settings on Ultra, all graphical options maxed out, at 1080 resolution, they are seeing a min 56, high 105 and average 76 fps with my card. Granted their testbed CPU is a bit faster (Sandy Bridge-E), but I should be somewhere close, not avr of 24 fps, right?

A review of the stock 7850 (mine is overclocked), they get avr of 72 fps at Ultra with all settings maxed. Again, a faster CPU than I have but I shouldn't be at 24 fps. Currently, to get 60 fps I have to drop to Medium quality.

Have you tried the game without the HD pack?

I just tried it by unchecking the two Bethedsa HD files in the Data Files section before I ran the game, got ths ame results - is that the way to test it or do I actually need to delete the files?

That should be fine mate. IMO I think that shows its not your GPU, maybe.

Next, try the settings you're playing, but put shadows on low. See what results you get.

After that, delete your 2 ini files and let the game create new ones. You know how to do that?

Edit: After making new ini files do not make any changes to them.

Try turning V-Sync back on. It's been reported in some areas that turning v-sync off causes issues, especially if you use the wrong tweaks. Anyway try enabling it. You might not get 70+ frames, but you'll probably get more than 24.

And your system specs are good so no need to do anything there.

You mention your AA settings are through the game interface - but despite this what AA settings do you have on CCC?

Make sure you've set CCC to "use application settings" for AA (and AF if you prefer Skyrim's handling of AF), but then also look at what is selected in the CCC "Anti-Aliasing Mode" section of CCC, as this does affect the game even though you've told it to use application settings.

When I set CCC to use application settings but CCC AA is set to Multi-sample AA, I get 60fps. If I set CCC to use application settings but CCC AA is set to Super-sample AA, I get 25fps. I have an i7 2700K @ 4.5ghz, 16gb ram and Radeon 6970 2GB.

Do you have the anti aliasing set to anything in the Catalyst Control center? Be careful because that SSAA will definitely diminish your FPS.

First, much thanks to every single one of you who replied. It looks like the issue is solved!

I tried shadows set to Low but only saw a 3-4 fps increase. So I then renamed both ini files and let the game create new ones (@sygnus21 - this also reset the vsync to On of course). When I got back into the game, a steady 60 fps everywhere! It's awesomely smooth now.

@jackstarr and DiracDelta - just to let you know, my CCC is/was set to use app settings and AA was/is set to performance.

Again, thanks everyone!

It's quite interesting - I experimented by going back into the SkyrimPref.ini and changing iPresentInterval=1 to iPresentInterval=0 to turn off vsync again.

When I go back into the game, I am back down to 24 fps.

Then I go back into the file and edit it again back to the original state - iPresentInterval=1

When I go back into the game after that, it's STILL at 24 fps.

If I then (again) rename or delete both ini files and let the game create them (detect my graphic card, etc), I am back to 60 fps, rock solid.

Has anyone seen that behavior before? Totally bizarre...

EDIT: Ultra settings does not check off FXAA box in the Skyrim Options. I tested by turning it on, and again fps drops to 24. If I turn it off, fps stay at 24. Only fix is deleting/renaming the ini file(s) and having the game re-create.

So it seems lile any modification to the ini file after the initial "Video Card Detection" causes fps to drop to 24...

FURTHER EDIT: I'm an idiot - you need the line iPresentInterval=0 in BOTH ini files in order to really turn off vsync. Now I see 80-100 FPS

However, checking off the FXAA it still drops things below 30 fps and even when I uncheck the box it still stays below 30 fps, so that is still a mystery.

Yeah, I should have mentioned that if you don't do both you'll have problems. However if you notice video tearing in the game you really might want to turn v-sync back on. I know I tried turning it off and I got video anomalies.

Also, why are you trying to use FXAA when you have an ATI card??? - http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&sugexp=llsin&gs_nf=1&cp=3&gs_id=d&xhr=t&q=FXAa&pf=p&output=search&sclient=psy-ab&oq=FXA&aq=&aqi=&aql=&gs_l=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=b765418fe13a43b3&biw=1920&bih=973

Ya leave the FXAA box unchecked totally worthless.

Ha, had no idea FXAA was Nvidia's version of AMD's morph AA! Thanks again everyone...

NP and neither did I until Skyrim came out :/
Do you have Morph checked? I have yet to use it in anything but DX HR.

I have an i5-2500k @ 4.3ghz and a GTX 580 1.5GB and I get 60fps everywhere with settings on Ultra (shadows on High) with Ambient Occlusion set to Performance and 4xMSAA and 4xTRSSAA.

I have no clue why considering you have a slightly more powerful card (I have mine overclocked to 930mhz), why you would be averaging 24fps. I get higher fps that than that even with ENB.

Ya werd not a FPS watcher I don't even use the display for it and just leave vsync on but I have a feeling something is drastically wrong. Sounds dumb but have you tried re seating your card? I do also have shadows set to High(preset was ultra but it was chewing me up so I opted for High with an ini tweak). I can run my fps counter next time I play just to give an accurate avg fps that my inferior AMD card gives out for ya.

@Kazekage the problem is fixed - letting the game create new Skyrim ini files solved the problem and also I had to learn what FXAA is and why not to enable it. Thanks for helping though!

Also, @Thoth, I have morph checked now, but I'm still mucking around with the settings. Have to google and learn what the difference is between Standard and Edge-Detect for the Filter setting, too.

As I read edge detect will look better but use more GPU resources as opposed to standard. I use edge detect morph for DX HR because it uses the newest MLAA and Tesselation so I go for max quality. In Skyrim I run SSAA standard morph off application controlled at 4x which looks great. Catalyst AI is the bigger ? in my mind. I currently leave it at Quality but would love to get a better idea of its effect.

Thoth, out of interest - what fps are you getting with SSAA standard morph off app controlled at 4x ? I have a pretty similar rig to yours (i7 2700k @ 4.5ghz and z68 with ssd, 2gb 6970 and 16gb vengeance ram) and with your settings I seem to have a pretty steady 45fps in exteriors around Riverwood and Whiterun (shooting up to 55fps max if I look at pretty empty areas). With SSAA @ 8x I drop down to a max of 25fps. I wonder if my faster processor makes any difference to fps compared with yours.

Basically, with a vanilla Skyrim and a brand new high-end computer at its launch, I wonder why ultra (albeit with SSAA) gives so poor performance!