adamthekingtiger

Sorry to say but I don't know what could be the issue. My last idea is trying a fresh windows install, as much of a pain it may be. The hdmi input on my monitor JUST broke... Time for a warranty claim I guess (￣﹏￣；) I wish you the best of luck

Or maybe it would be smart to try another pair of headphones if you haven't done so all ready.

Then my only remaining help is for you to try and reinstall windows. Someone else might know more troubleshooting steps but i do not. Sry

I sadly have not seen that video from Gamers Nexus but mobo designers should know cooler dimantions for the ones included with cpus, DURING the mobo development. So I find this very strange. And liquid cooling removes most of the heat entering the air from the gpu. But at the same time you lose the airflow of the stock cpu cooler blowing air down around the cpu socket area on the mobo. I can't reatch Gigabytes website atm but I think this board should support the 16 core monster. So the power draw from 3600X should be more then fine. I do think that something in the system is not working as intended. My primary guess is the mobo, but in my experience ram problems / instability can act very weird. So I'm also thinking there is a chance of something going on there. If you have sticks big enough that you can game on one you could try removing one stick and game for a bit. And if it is still the same just putt it back and remove the other one.

Start should just handle the start menu in the bottom right of windows. So on modern CPUs the usage should be very low. Do you have many things pined to the start menu??? Could you try and monitor the usage of each core? To see if during the fps drops the usage of any core reatch 100% or close to 100%?

Upgrading from 8GB ram could be a good idea. But more ram only helps if you're out of ram. You should have task manager open in the background while playing for a bit and see if it uses over ~ 90 - 95% of your ram. When getting close to saturating the available ram performance often decreases quest heavily. If there is still ram left upgrading would likely not change much performance wise.

Great question xP Not quite sure, but since it sound like you bought the card around 7 months ago and it was working fine then, a 5-6 month ish old driver should do I guess. The age not super important. Regarding the PSU, 550W sounds like enough. The PSU wattage recommended for GPUs is usually much higher then reacquired (In a normal balanced system). BUT! I do think testing another PSU is a very good idea anyway. And having extra power left over is always nice.

Long shoot here. Have you tried unplugging all storage devices and seen if it goes in to the bios on its on? Is the keyboard plugged in to a usb 2 port?

I can't find such a high temperature in HWinfo Only HW Monitor reports a high temp and I have personally had HW Monitor read out incorrect temperatures. So I am doubt full to that being the problem. I would point towards the power supply. But that is just my guess. If another psu could be tested that is what I recommend

Sorry to say but it does sound like a CPU issue. What was the TDP of the older chip? Just thinking that maybe you should also try another psu.

I would lean towards the mobo. What board are you using? And have you by any chance tried changing the ram?

The possibility of killing the cpu is always there. I don't have all that much knowlage in this area but the VRM should not receive any considerable amount of power from the 24-pin cable. So with or without the 8-pin eps cable the VRM/mobo should not try and "compensate" with increasing power drawn from the 24-pin cable, the capability simply is not there for that type of functionality. What do you base the guess on that you think the psu is fine? Do you live in a humid climate?

What do mean with fps drops? How severe are we talking? Where is the cpu usage normally and what does it spike to?

Sounds unlikely on such a new system but if it continues to forget the bois settings then that sounds like a bad cmos battery to me. But apart from that. Yes mobo or psu seams like good bets

Are the bios up to date on the boards? Asrock's site did not load correctly but I assume as with the asus motherboard it requires a update for compatibility with the 1600AF. As for powering the system with just a 4-pin eps cable, I'm not sure if it is ok or if it requires 8-pin. I have a lower to mid end psu from a few years ago and it uses 4 wires on the eps cable but has a 4+4 connector on the end and that has worked fine for a Phenom 955 (125W TDP). The times it is important to have a full fat 8-wire and 8-pin eps if for high power draw use cases and maybe for 100% stability even in lower power systems. Since the 1600AF is not that power hungry a adapter should be fine as long as the psu has high enough amperage on the required rails. As for if the psu could be dead? Sure, but my psu's have ether worked fine or not output any power at all. But that is just my experience.