Disappointing System Performance?

Gogster

Gogster

Gogster

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Joined
10 Feb 2012
Posts
17
Location
Staffordshire
Hi all,

Bear with me - I have a fairly lengthy question.

Last year I decided to upgrade my PC. I use it for gaming and photography, as such I have a Dell 27" 2560x1440 resolution, which is obviously higher than a standard 1920x1080 HD screen.

I ordered, from these dudes:

  • AMD Bulldozer AM3+ 3.6GHz FX8 (8 core) processor
  • Gigabyte GA-990 FXA
  • 32GB 1866MHz Corsair Vengeance RAM
  • 1 x 128GB OCZ Agility for operating system
  • 1 x 256GB OCZ Vertex for games
  • nVidia GTX 670 GFX

I thought, with these components, my computer would eat everything, but I've not been blown away by system performance.

In other forums I see people with similar specced systems getting 60-100 frames per second in games, now I don't know whether they're exaggerating but I get nowhere near that.

For measuring frames per second I use Fraps, but someone mentioned to me a while ago that Fraps isn't the best measuring tool, but I let someone answer that who may know better.

Example frames rates would be:

  • BF3 20-30
  • Arma 3 8-11
  • DayZ 30-40
  • Colonial Marines 40-50
  • War Thunder 30-45

I would have thought my system would smash these games for FPS. So either I have too high expectations for my system or perhaps it is not quite set-up right.

Could my power supply be too weak? It is:

Antec TruPower 650w modular.

I am willing to run any tests or supply any information if someone could help. I haven't overclocked the system at all at the moment and, for information, I am running Windows 7 64bit Pro.

Thanks in anticipation.
 
What settings are you running these games at? Max? Settings like multisampling in games eat plenty of GPU power and can cripple performance. Your build should be able to do higher frames than that in BF3 but it's hard to help unless we know what settings you are running the game at :(
 
Chances are in game, the cpu might be bottlenecking the graphics, try overclocking it ;)

Also, no games out at the moment will use 8 cores and 32Gb of ram, to the best of my knowledge.
 
Hi snips86x,

I believe so. After installing Arma 3 and trying the Evo mod and being stunned by the 8-11 FPS, I updated the GFX card rivers using the nVidia detection tool.

It didn't have much of an effect, however in defence of the card I've heard the Evo mod is quite intense due to the number of AI entities so I tried a stock Arma 3 server, which faired slightly better at 20-26 FPS. Still not great though.

Cheers.
 
SeraphX said:
Chances are in game, the cpu might be bottlenecking the graphics, try overclocking it ;)

Also, no games out at the moment will use 8 cores and 32Gb of ram, to the best of my knowledge.
Click to expand...

I will try that tonight and post some results tomorrow.

Cheers.
 
jamiehavok said:
you could be reaching the vram limits at that resolution, just lay off the anti aliasing. you dont really need any at that res anyway so i've heard!
Click to expand...

I have tried tweaking the settings in most games, but I shall do some more testing and post definitive results tomorrow.

I will continue to use Fraps unless anyone says it is not the best tool to use?

Thanks for all you help so far, everyone.
 
Gogster said:
I have tried tweaking the settings in most games, but I shall do some more testing and post definitive results tomorrow.

I will continue to use Fraps unless anyone says it is not the best tool to use?

Thanks for all you help so far, everyone.
Click to expand...

i never had a problem with fraps but you could try msi afterburner instead that also monitors gpu usage, if its less than 99% consistantly you'd need to overclock your cpu, and you can also see how much vram your using. if its over 2gb then thats your issue, (assuming you got a 2gb 670) and also temps incase its a heat issue and there's throttling going on!
 
jamiehavok said:
i never had a problem with fraps but you could try msi afterburner instead that also monitors gpu usage, if its less than 99% consistantly you'd need to overclock your cpu, and you can also see how much vram your using. if its over 2gb then thats your issue, (assuming you got a 2gb 670) and also temps incase its a heat issue and there's throttling going on!
Click to expand...

OK Jamie cheers - it is the 2GB version of the 670, in fact it is this one:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-185-EA&groupid=701&catid=1914
 
What I'd do :

- Unigine / 3D mark pass to see if scores are consistent with similar systems.

- Check CPU-Z, GPU-Z, MSI Afterburner values for CPU core + GPU core + VRAM usage and frequency.

- Decrease Anti Aliasing (or use post-process AA exclusively) as regular AA is a performance killer.
 
No single GPU will be able to get your constant high FPS with max settings on a screen with a high res like that. If you had a single 1080P screen your specs should happily munch away through it, but a high res screen like that either needs a Titan or a dual GPU setup.
 
The few people who have mentioned overclocking the processor, is this through the BIOS alone or do you recommend a software app to do it?

I know the GigaByte board came with an 'Easy Tune' app for overclocking, but I've not used it so no idea of its effectiveness.
 
Bacon? said:
No single GPU will be able to get your constant high FPS with max settings on a screen with a high res like that. If you had a single 1080P screen your specs should happily munch away through it, but a high res screen like that either needs a Titan or a dual GPU setup.
Click to expand...

Hi Bacon (great name!),

I had wondered about the resolution of the monitor. I have a standard 23" 1920x1080 in work, I may take it home and run some tests to see if it is the struggle maintain such a high resolution, causing low FPS.

Cheers.
 
SeraphX said:
Overclock via the bios, fair more versatile than any silly software app you can get :)
Click to expand...

I was afraid you were going to say that - is there a guide to achieving it successfully? I did look into it once but got confused by the amount of settings.
 
Again, MSI afterburner can be used for bumping up clocks and voltages as well as measuring them.

-Edit: misread. MSI Afterburner for the GPU, BIOS for the CPU ;)
 
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