New Rig - Runs like a cow - please help

Plissken · 29 Oct 2013 at 10:28

Hi Guys,

Just spent a small fortune on a new rig and it runs like a total cow. The system is used mainly for gaming (MMOs mostly RIFT) and I’m getting around 15fps in large battles. I should be getting close to 100fps on a rig like this so something is very wrong. In fact my 14 month old laptop is getting better fps figures than this. The spec is listed below. Any ideas on how I go about figuring out the problem? I thought maybe the GPU is shot or its not getting enough power from the PSU? The GTX760 looks like it’s working. Both fans spinning nicely. All power connectors in place. The i5 is pretty well cooled and doesn’t look like it’s under much stress during game play. To be honest I’m just stuck and don’t know where to go from here. Any help appreciated.

Crucial CT128M4SSD2 128GB M4 SATA III 6Gb/s MLC 2.5 Inch Internal SSD
Noctua - Heatsink + Fan CPU Cooling Kit - Dual Fan - NH-D14
Intel Core i5 4670K Quad Core Retail CPU (Socket 1150, 3.40GHz, 6MB, Haswell, 84W, Intel Graphics, BX80646I74770, 4th Generation Intel Core, Turbo Boost Technology 2.0)
Asus Gryphon Z87 Motherboard
MSI Nvidia GTX 760 2GB DDR5 TF Fan PCI-E Graphics Card
Silverstone SST-TJ08E USB3.0 PC Case
XFX Pro 650W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G1600HC9DC01)

almighty15 · 29 Oct 2013 at 10:31

It's not the rig, it's the game... Overclock that CPU and you'll get a speed bump.

Gregster · 29 Oct 2013 at 10:33

The game you are mentioning are heavily CPU dependent as well as GPU, so I would start off by overclocking that CPU. but before that, download 3DMark11 and run that and give the link to your scores. This will show if anything is wrong from the off.

mmj_uk · 29 Oct 2013 at 10:48

What do other games perform like? I've not played Rift but it's possible that it's just a terribly inefficient game engine like almighty15 says.

Marine-RX179 · 29 Oct 2013 at 10:52

I think Rift only use up to 2 threads?
http://forums.riftgame.com/technica...k-glance-rifts-cpu-multi-core-efficiency.html

15fps sounds about right for a 2 threaded demanding mmo, considering even with Guild Wars 2 using 4 threads, my overclocked i5 2500K would still dip down to around 30fps. Definitely need to overclock that i5 to improve the frame rate.

Plissken · 29 Oct 2013 at 10:59

Thanks for all your suggestions so far. I'm at work just now so will post some updates tonight. RIFT is the only game on the rig at the moment but as a comparison my laptop is based around an i7-3720QM with a GTX 680M and I get double the fps on the laptop. I don't think its the CPU which I will OC at some stage. It just feels like something is broken in GPU land. That PSU should give enough juice right?

Yaayuh! · 29 Oct 2013 at 11:07

Download and run Futuremark 3D Mark 2011 (for free) and post your results here. It will give a good indication to whether it's at least the setup is running ok.

Make · 29 Oct 2013 at 11:09

PSU is more than fine.

Double FPS on the laptop you say.. do you have the latest drivers? Try a different driver version maybe.

Overclocking could help, but it is weird if the laptop does just fine on it.

Marine-RX179 · 29 Oct 2013 at 11:11

When you say the laptop performance is fine, do you mean it as running around solo fine, or also in big battle and frame rate doesn't tank fine?

Darr2cool78 · 29 Oct 2013 at 11:16

Are you very sure that you are using the 760 to process your graphics and not the onboard intel graphics. Might seem ridiculous but I've heard it happen in some cases.

Orangey · 29 Oct 2013 at 11:23

Make sure your monitor is not plugged into the mobo graphics (Intel onboard GPU). Saw that happen recently.

What about ingame settings? Are you just leaving it on auto?

Plissken · 29 Oct 2013 at 11:35

To be consistent I logged in to the same zone on both machines. Same settings. New rig gave me 30fps (not much happening graphically on screen) and the laptop gave me 59fps. I made sure that the monitor was connected to the GTX 760 (in fact I tried both ports just to be sure). I moved settings down to a low quality renderer option and it made no difference to fps at all. One thing I will try is taking the card out and running it on the onboard graphics just to see. I do think the game isnt too mutli-core compatible but in checking cpu utilization is wasn't taking much load on core 1 at all so I'm inclined to rule out the CPU as being an issue. Oddly, it really does feel like the quality I'm getting is similar to onboard graphics ...

almighty15 · 29 Oct 2013 at 11:41

That's really weird!! Have you turned the iGPU off in BIOS?

Plissken · 29 Oct 2013 at 11:51

No - havent turned it off yet. That a contender you think?

almighty15 · 29 Oct 2013 at 11:55

Plissken said:
No - havent turned it off yet. That a contender you think?

Could be..... Won't hurt to try

sockky · 29 Oct 2013 at 12:44

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLssv8wBw5o cows can run!

Razor Time · 29 Oct 2013 at 12:47

Do you have vsync enabled by any chance?

mmj_uk · 29 Oct 2013 at 12:49

Razor Time has it I think. Try turning off vsync.

Plissken · 29 Oct 2013 at 15:01

I think vsync is on. Will check when I get back. Again, big thanks for the help so far. More data tomorrow. Just looking at 3d mark stats the laptop should bring back a score of X2627 and the game rig should be P8435 so I'm parsing that as the game rig should rock.

Stas823 · 29 Oct 2013 at 15:15