Do I need a new CPU or HDD?

just Scott · 28 Jan 2010 at 13:13

Just wondering if my E6320 is due for an upgrade. Almost every game I play suffers from this problem: I get great FPS during quiet scenes were not much is going on, usually 60fps or higher. The problem starts when there's a lot going on, and my games slow to a crawl. I'm playing TF2 the most recently and it happens a lot in this. Running around on my own with nobody else on screen and I get 120-160 FPS, when I'm in a fight or there's 3-4 or more people on the screen, it slows to 15-25 FPS with noticable stuttering. I'm running the game in a window at 1440x900 (I have a 1680x1050 monitor) and everything is on medium pretty much with no AA or AF.

My spec are:

E6320 @ 2.8GHz or lower (the chip won't stay stable at anything higher anymore)
Gigabyte S3 P965
4GB GeIL PC6400
HD4850 1GB
FSP Blue Storm 500W PSU
All my games are installed on a seperate partition on a Western Digital WD5000AAKS.
Windows XP (32 bit, I know I'm not using all of my 4GB of RAM, but I messed up my Win7 install and I can't be bothered reinstalling it

)

So is my low clocked, old CPU and mobo combination limiting my GPU when it needs to work hard? Or could it be my HDD (which I've had a few problems with in the past) slowing down when it needs to work harder?

Or should I replace them both? If anyone has any ideas for this, I've got about £200 (£300 if I can sell my old stuff) spare which I could spend on a new CPU, mobo and hard drive if that's feasilbe.

Thanks guys.

cainer · 28 Jan 2010 at 13:16

you would expect some slowdown with multiple entities on screen but from 160 down to 25fps is huge :/

just Scott · 28 Jan 2010 at 13:18

cainer said:
you would expect some slowdown with multiple entities on screen but from 160 down to 25fps is huge :/

Yeah I'm aware some slowdown is expected, but the big difference is what made me make this thread.

R088ieS86 · 28 Jan 2010 at 13:24

What kinda of HDD problems have you had?
It does sound like your CPU is the problem as your 4850 will love TF2.
you could scan your HDD for problems using their Lifeguard Program:
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=606&sid=3&lang=en

but i'd look into a new CPU, Q9550/Q9560 or save for a possible upgrade to the rig.

just Scott · 28 Jan 2010 at 13:30

R088ieS86 said:
What kinda of HDD problems have you had?
It does sound like your CPU is the problem as your 4850 will love TF2.
you could scan your HDD for problems using their Lifeguard Program:
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=606&sid=3&lang=en

but i'd look into a new CPU, Q9550/Q9560 or save for a possible upgrade to the rig.

There was a spell where it was running at 4MB/sec or less, and I couldn't figure out why. It eventually stopped doing that without me doing much. I'm pretty sure it has a few bad sectors too, GParted always tells me it has when I open the program. I'm not on my computer at the minute, but I'll try that WD software later.

Cheers