Help Tweaking New Build

Bexx

Bexx

Bexx

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Joined
21 Mar 2015
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292
Just built my new PC the other night:

Gigabyte Z97X SOC
i5-4690k
Radeon R9 290 TRI-X OC

I downloaded OCCT to look at temperatures and things. It said I was on 700MHz of 3500MHz which didn't seem right. Took it out of power save mode and I'm now at 3899MHz it says overclocked by 11.4% but I think that's just the turbo mode.

My min/max temperatures on idle (general internet browsing with email client open)
Core 0 - 24°c to 30°c
Core 1 - 22°c to 31°c
Core 2 - 26°c to 36°c
Core 3 - 21°c to 28°c

They have been known to reach the 70's when playing FFXIV so I think I need a CPU heatsink, just using stock at the moment.

I ran the Resident Evil 6 benchmark and got 13,500 so was pretty pleased with that. The FPS dropped a fair bit when the scenes got busier but I imagine that's a given and it never went below 30FPS

I ran Fire Strike and got 8755, better than 83% of all results, but I was a little disappointed as I thought it'd be better.
Graphics Score 10686
Physics Score 7624
Combined Score 4106
The FPS went lower than 20 at one point too, OH says that's fine but it's annoying me. Got the achievement "Your GPU is ready to rumble, but your CPU doesn't want to play." Which is making me paranoid that something isn't up to scratch.

I've just ran Sky Diver and got 22497, better than 78% of results.
Graphics Score 35155
Physics Score 8389
Combined Score 19104

Temps went as high as late 60's during that too.

What and how can I optimize my PC to get better results? Was I expecting too much or is there something wrong?
 
700Mhz is the idle speed (speedstep) 3900Mhz is the maximum Turboboost ratio when a single core is being used and this drops down to 3800/3700/3600 as each other core gets used.

What did you want to spend on a heatsink and what case do you have?

What Ram do you have and is XMP set in the BIOS?

Do you have an SSD?

What sort of tweaks did you want? faster CPU? a bit of overclocking?

Do you have all the latest drivers installed and not the ones supplied on the disks.

Also is the board on the latest BIOS? this can help with the temps as early BIOSes used a bit too much Vcore for Devils Canyon.
 
Your results are about where your HW should be.Firestrike is extremely demanding,low 20's in the final test is fine.

Obviously you should look into an aftermarket Cooler so you can OC your CPU.4.4ghz+ is reachable with a low cost heatsink like the Cm 212 or all the other similar coolers at the same price.

Same goes with your GPU.Overclocking that will give you more performance too.

You dont need to have your power plan set maximum performance,in the standard profiles your CPU will downclock while idle saving power/heat.Thats why it was showing only 700mhz :)
 
Just stock at the moment. I knew Intel was different to AMD and knew it would be hotter but wanted to see how stock with extra fans was incase I didn't need to buy one.

Ram is Kingston 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Genesis

Yes I have an SSD 240GB Kingston

I don't know too much when it comes to actual in depth stuff so I'm a bit n00bish at the mo, I don't want to go into overclocking just yet but I was expecting more from those benchmarks. More FPS, higher scores etc. It was lovely and smooth to watch but I just felt it could have been better

Not sure about the latest BIOS I don't go in there as I don't know what I'm doing, is there a way I can find out if it is?
 
Download CPU-Z.

Run it and show me the mainboard tab and the memory tab (not SPD tab as thats irrelevant).
 
MrMD said:
Your results are about where your HW should be.Firestrike is extremely demanding,low 20's in the final test is fine.

Obviously you should look into an aftermarket Cooler so you can OC your CPU.4.4ghz+ is reachable with a low cost heatsink like the Cm 212 or all the other similar coolers at the same price.

Same goes with your GPU.Overclocking that will give you more performance too.

You dont need to have your power plan set maximum performance,in the standard profiles your CPU will downclock while idle saving power/heat.Thats why it was showing only 700mhz :)
Click to expand...

Sorry, HW?

I've never had an Intel PC before, never had to buy extra fans and this will be the first time I'll be buying an aftermarket cooler lol It's cost me enough already so it will have to wait until I've been paid unfortunately but at least I can take this time to do the research on the cooler.

When you say performance what does that mean? If I'm to overclock everything what should I expect to see afterwards?

Power plan as in the Windows power plan? I haven't been in there to change anything, not sure if OH has I thought he was doing something else when he said power saver lol
 
stulid said:
Download CPU-Z.

Run it and show me the mainboard tab and the memory tab (not SPD tab as thats irrelevant).
Click to expand...

35cpoa1.png


2a0khz8.png
 
stulid said:
HW = hardware.

What case do you have? is your RAM tall or average in height?
Click to expand...

I have the lovely NZXT S340 and I would say that my RAM is average in height, doesn't seem to be blocking or being blocked by anything

stulid said:
Your RAM is right (799.9 x 2 as its DDR =1600)

F6 is the newest at Gigabyte for your board - http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4967#bios
Click to expand...

What do I do when I've unzipped that, does it just automatically install and update? I don't have to do anything special? (Constant fear of breaking stuff lol)
 
stulid said:
Its available in black fan.

This is also black - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-050-AL&groupid=701&catid=2330&subcat=2337

---------------------

So download the BIOS
Extract the folder
Place the BIOS file (is 16mb or so) onto a USB stick
Enter the BIOS with this plugged in
Select Qflash
Update from drive
Select the file
let it run.
Click to expand...

Sweet, this one?
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-015-RT

Which is better? Or better for me?

Thanks for the step by step I'll do that now
 
Last edited:
Bexx said:
When you say performance what does that mean? If I'm to overclock everything what should I expect to see afterwards?
Click to expand...

You would experience higher average frame-rates and lower minimums overall.

Overclocking the CPU will increase how much the CPU can do per cycle.So CPU heavy games are able to to run faster/smoother.This basically just boils down to less framerate spikes/drops and smoother gameplay in general.(And higher Benching scores :D). 4690K at stock speeds is very fast tho,and a lot of games wouldnt get any benefit out of a cpu overclock.

FFXV being an MMO its inherently CPU dependent.I aint played in a while,but when i did with an I5 at stock speeds,i would get sometimes get slowdown/framerate drops.After OCing my CPU the game was silky smooth during all but the craziest moments.

Overclocking the GPU will get you higher frame rates in all games,or you can turn up more graphics settings and still get good frame rates.

How much extra can you get from Overclocking? It varies,lot of it comes down to silicon lottery and how far your able to push your hardware.But its defiantly a noticeable difference even if you can only manage to get average overclocks out of your stuff.

^^the Raijintek themis will be fine and allow you to push a nice Overclock on your I5,dirt cheap too :D
 
MrMD said:
You would experience higher average frame-rates and lower minimums overall.

Overclocking the CPU will increase how much the CPU can do per cycle.So CPU heavy games are able to to run faster/smoother.This basically just boils down to less framerate spikes/drops and smoother gameplay in general.(And higher Benching scores :D). 4690K at stock speeds is very fast tho,and a lot of games wouldnt get any benefit out of a cpu overclock.

FFXV being an MMO its inherently CPU dependent.I aint played in a while,but when i did with an I5 at stock speeds,i would get sometimes get slowdown/framerate drops.After OCing my CPU the game was silky smooth during all but the craziest moments.

Overclocking the GPU will get you higher frame rates in all games,or you can turn up more graphics settings and still get good frame rates.

How much extra can you get from Overclocking? It varies,lot of it comes down to silicon lottery and how far your able to push your hardware.But its defiantly a noticeable difference even if you can only manage to get average overclocks out of your stuff.

^^the Raijintek themis will be fine and allow you to push a nice Overclock on your I5,dirt cheap too :D
Click to expand...

Sounds good, I might try it then. I can put FFXIV at max settings now which is very nice and I can see the difference I didn't think I would.

I wanted to try streaming to Twitch which I did earlier today but the quality wasn't very good when the char was moving and would pause occasionally. But I think that's a streaming client/settings/internet thing.

I've updated the BIOS, took a bit longer because of annoying windows updates :mad: lol
 
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