Do you think I'll see much of an improvement

[Supa Koopa]

Hi,

I've currently got an I5 4670k running at 4.4ghz on a asus hero vii board with 8gb of ram and sli'd gtx780ti's. All under a custom loop.

I'm thinking of upgrading to a X99 5820k with 16gb of ram. I'm just wondering if I'll see much of an improvement in gaming. I don't really use the PC for much else, yes I know I should get a 6700K blah, blah, but I've never had an enthusiast level chip so I thought what the hell.

The problem I'm having is with the Division, I'm really enjoying the game but I've had to drop the res to 1080p and the level of detail down to medium to try and overcome the stutters. The game runs smooth enough but then at certain points it just stutters and pauses for a good chunk of time, continues and pauses again. It's getting really quite frustrating as I'm enjoying the game no end, but it makes it unplayable sometimes. According to Hwinfo the cores are maxed out and the gpu's are too.

So I was wondering if going I7 with hyperthreading and an increase in memory (I don't really want to upgrade the memory in the current setup as 1 of the channels seems to have packed in. I can't use 1 and 2, only 1) would make much of an improvment. I've looked online at videos of the division running on 780ti's and it's much better than mine. I know they are not cutting edge anymore but sli'd 780ti's should be able to cope at the res and settings I'm using which makes me think it's the cpu as that's the main difference between mine and the vids.

I know I'm not going to see double the performance and it'll be a lot of money to change, but I'm happy to pay it if I was to get a bit smoother framerates and then be future proofed for when Pascal arrives. I'd be gutted if it did the same though after the upgrade.

 

[Supa Koopa]

Thanks for the help. I tried it on 1 card and it was definitely slower and both cards seem to hit 100% so I think the SLI is working, but obviously could be improved.

I suppose I could go 16gb of ram but I'd have to ditch the 8 I already have, like I mentioned one of the channels on the board doesn't seem to work anymore. It won't boot with one dimm in channel 1 and 1 in channel 2. They both have to be in one channel.

The upgrade itch really is a killer.

 

[Supa Koopa]

Sorry, I didn't explain it too well. This is not micro stutter this is stop for half a second, move 2 seconds, stop half a second, move 5 seconds, stop a second. Move to a new area and everything is fine, then it starts again. Missing the critical shot by a cars length because of a pause really is frustrating. 85% of the time it's fine.

I'll try at 1440p again to see if it's any better, I think dropping the res helped but I'll have to check.

No hyperthreading apps needed, but as I said I'd prefer to go down the X99 route anyway. Just seems like I'm getting something new. Just didn't want to do it for it to be the same. The question I'm sort of asking is 'is the system holding the 780's back and a new X99 will provide them with a boost, or am I just wishful thinking?'

 

[Supa Koopa]

Nope, all wired. Sort of feels like it's paging in a way. I know I won't get massive fps increases, I was more hoping that what I did get would be more consistent by raising the minimum fps, if that makes sense.

 

[Supa Koopa]

Kaspersky is running, but not really much else (aquasuite I suppose for the watercooling). I do sometimes get the stutters in the pc doing other stuff, but most of the time it seems okay. I do get an occasional crash or lock up but it's mostly stable. I'm probably just trying to find faults as I have the itch I think.

 

[Supa Koopa]

So after a little more investigation while running afterburner. My 4 cores are constantly running at 100%, while the gpu's are around 75%. I reset the quality to the recommended settings (1440p) in geforce experience so the gpu's would see more load but it's not made much difference. The fps is 75 (my refresh rate) when the cpu's drop below 100% load and it then drops to 40's when they are being stressed. So to me it would seem that the Division really is cpu dependent and on this occasion my cpu's really are holding back the 780ti's.

Managed to find a sli profile which has helped a little in reducing the stutter.