PC performance not as good as expected

Bilko123 · 15 Dec 2009 at 20:43

Could you PC boffins have a look over my PC specs and tell me where it's letting me down please? I just got a nice new HD5850 and I expected my PC to be pretty rapid. There's some FPS issues with some games (ArmA2, natch).

Wondering also why Windows 7 reports my RAM as being so poor, I know the performance thing isn't to be trusted but take a look, really seems low:

Specs:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 B3 (2.4GHz 1066MHz) Socket 775 L2 8MB Cache
Mobo: Asus COMMANDO P965 Socket 775
GFX: Powercolor ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB
Memory: Corsair 4GB (4x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory
PSU: Seasonic M12 700W Modular
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

Thanks for any advice

Bilko123 · 15 Dec 2009 at 20:50

Woah, I shall think about getting some better RAM then. Any recommendations for my current setup?

Bilko123 · 15 Dec 2009 at 20:55

Haha, like I said I know it's not the most effective tool, but in this case it did highlight a bottleneck

if you can recommend another testing proggy, i'd be happy to try it, see if it really is an issue.

Bilko123 · 15 Dec 2009 at 23:56

Really? But it's not G0 stepping, I always thought that was important? Any guides knocking about for overclocking, never done it with a CPU before. (stock fan).

Richdog: That's what I did, like I said I see some stuttering in games like ArmA2, not FPS loss however, just the game stuttering occasionally. I am not basing all this on the windows test.

Bilko123 · 16 Dec 2009 at 09:17

Thanks everyone, I ran a 3D Mark test:

For some reason my Asus Commando won't allow me to change the CPU Frequency in the BIOS.

It lets me set the AI Tuning to manual but when I press enter on the CPU frequency itself, nothing happens... I'm probably not doing something rather simple, but can anyone point me in the right direction?

Bilko123 · 16 Dec 2009 at 09:30

Ah ha, you are correct. How daft do I feel?

Ahh cool, I'll drop the dram frequency down too. I'm gonna use SP2004 Orthos to stress test. I'll assume that's ok for now. Thanks!!

edit: Should I run 4 copies of this then all on each core??

Bilko123 · 16 Dec 2009 at 09:59

Woo, excellent stuff. I started a CPU test just to see how it ran on my default settings and on 4 instances of the program (one core assigned to each) it froze up. But on 2 instances of the program it went fine for 20 mins (until I stopped it). Think I'll stick with two.

I'll take your advice in regards to the memory stuff, thanks

Bilko123 · 17 Dec 2009 at 08:46

Corasik said:
Oh, btw, you dont mention what cooler you have on the cpu, or what case cooling you have. Keep an eye on your temperatures when the CPU is under load. Temp's are not a major concern in general, but excessive temps can affect stability when overclocking.

My Q6700 peaks at around 75C, but thats still a fair distance from the throttle point on the 65nm Q6xxx series so nothing to worry about, and is 100% stable.

I generally recommend keeping a 65nm cpu at no more than 80C or so, to give a little bit of spare incase of a hot sunny summers day.

Excellent advice, i'm using the stock cooler that came with the chip, although I have been considering getting a better one since I started overclocking. Any recommendations? Saw an Thermalright Ultima 90 which seemed like a decent choice for my setup.

I'm up to 2.62ghz now, not doing badly at all. 3D Mark for the CPU has increased over 300 points already. Lovely stuff. Just need to keep and eye on the temps.