Low fps on high end rig.

[MishoK]

PC Partpicker list

 

A little back story here would be, when I first built my PC a year ago, I had problems with what seemed like my CPU (AMD FX-8350) overheating. Whenever I would play a game for 5 minutes or so the PC would instantly power off. I ended up purchasing an aftermarket CPU cooler to fix the issue, which seemed to help.

 

Fast-forward to a year later. I've been playing BF4 on 64 player servers with an EVGA 780 classified, but I've been noticing that I only get around the 40-50 fps range on high/ultra settings in 1080p. At first I thought it would be the GPU, so I ran a benchmark of Unigine Valley and the Metro LL benchmark, but my scores are pretty similar to others I found online.

 

The next thing that came to mind was testing my CPU. Usually when my CPU is idle it's speed is only around 1.4Ghz-2.4Ghz when it should be 4Ghz (no OC), I don't know if it is normal for a CPU to have a slow speed when it's idle. I've been running Prime95 in small ffts for almost 2.5 hours and while nothing has failed yet, I keep noticing the CPU's core speed dropping to 3.4Ghz for a split second then it goes back to 4Ghz. Is that normal? Temps are fine so far since the test has been on for 2.5 hours and its at 46 C, so I doubt it's a thermal paste/cooler issue.

 

My CPU is almost out of warranty so if someone could help me ASAP I would really appreciate it.

Is it my CPU that seems to be faulty, could it still be the GPU or is there something else that could be wrong like the motherboard?

A little extra info: I've rolled back my GPU drivers and I also tried doing a fresh install of the latest ones, but there's no change.

[DigitalHermit]

@MishoK

How are the temps?

[MishoK]

@MishoK

How are the temps?

nothing out of the ordinary for both the CPU and GPU.

[DigitalHermit]

nothing out of the ordinary for both the CPU and GPU.

 

Hmm.. PSU seems adequate, the cooler is a Hyper 212 Plus so all clear there...

 

Not sure what's wrong right now... Try checking for background processes and run a full boot time scan using antivirus software... It might be something running in the background...

[MishoK]

Hmm.. PSU seems adequate, the cooler is a Hyper 212 Plus so all clear there...

 

Not sure what's wrong right now... Try checking for background processes and run a full boot time scan using antivirus software... It might be something running in the background...

I seemed to kind of fix it. I went into the BIOS settings and found a "Cool & Quite" feature enabled. I disabled that and now I'm getting around 60-70 fps on ultra, I think that's about right not sure though. I also found a feature called "CPU Unlock" which was disabled. Should I enable that?

[DigitalHermit]

I seemed to kind of fix it. I went into the BIOS settings and found a "Cool & Quite" feature enabled. I disabled that and now I'm getting around 60-70 fps on ultra, I think that's about right not sure though. I also found a feature called "CPU Unlock" which was disabled. Should I enable that?

 

CPU Unlock has something to do with overclocking... Try looking for the TurboCore feature and enable that instead if you're not planning on overclocking...

 

Edit:

Also, thanks for giving me an idea on how I can get a small boost in performance...

[MishoK]

CPU Unlock has something to do with overclocking... Try looking for the TurboCore feature and enable that instead if you're not planning on overclocking...

 

Edit:

Also, thanks for giving me an idea on how I can get a small boost in performance...

I went through the entire BIOS, I couldn't find anything called TurboCore feature

I guess that will do, as long as I get 60+ FPS I'll be happy.

 

Seems like we both helped each other out. Thank you.

[ExcitezR]

yea i had kinda the same issue with the 8350 where the core speed would drop when doing prime 95 so what i did was kinda overclock it by that i mean i set it to manual in the bios and set it to stock that fixed the issue of it lowing the core speed and then i overclocked it to 4.5 at 1.4 volts and the FPS in game skyrocketed.

if i was you overclock it i was scared but is so worth it even if its to 4.2GHz you will see a difference  

[RightfulNerd]

Are all your drivers up to date? How is the health of the power supply? Temps also can have a massive impact

[thorpj]

I seemed to kind of fix it. I went into the BIOS settings and found a "Cool & Quite" feature enabled. I disabled that and now I'm getting around 60-70 fps on ultra, I think that's about right not sure though. I also found a feature called "CPU Unlock" which was disabled. Should I enable that?

Holy shit!

 

I've had the same problems with my 280x, though a little more drastic. I used to play near ultra at 60fps. now i have to play medium!! to get 60fps in bf4

 

i have an fx-6300, similar to your fx-8350.

 

I'll try disabling AMD cool and quiet, will i need to do anything after i disable it?

[i will not overclock]

 

Written below is taken from my messages to my local store where i bought this stuff. Since then i have got a replacement PSU. when i first ran that PSU the fan in it was clicking (normally i have fan facing up, they put the fan facing down).

Something is still wrong. I can now run crysis 3 (it black screened before) but it was on the settings i used to play it at a month ago. and it was stuttering and lagging like crap. I had to turn it down quite a bit...

 

 

Also, temperatures have improved with PSU fan facing down, doesn't go over on GPU 70, averages 65 instead of original 69. CPU doesn't go over 51

thanks in advance!

_________________

• This PC is 3 months old (built on 26/04/14). For the first month and a half, its been “hanging” (pretty much freezing for 15 seconds, i press Ctrl-alt-delete to get to task manager and that generally speeds up the process). Then this stopped for a while, but i got one yesterday. I do have a tendency to open a truckload of tabs, but 8 gigs of ram should be enough (i’ve never seen RAM usage drop below 30%, is that normal?). Something that could be contributing to the hangs is that the hard drives run in IDE mode. By the time i’d found that it was in IDE mode, it was too late. I tried changing it to AHCI in the BIOS, but that caused a BSOD so i changed it back to normal and its been fine.

 

• Recently i’ve been getting a load of black screens while playing games (BF4 and World of Tank are the only ones where i remember it black screening).

 

• Also. For the first 2 months after i got the PC built by a friend (the guy had a room full of RC cars, PCs and PS3s that he was tearing apart and fixing) I could play BF4 on near Ultra at 60fps. The situation has deteriorated to playing BF4 on medium to get 60fps. For the fairly beastly and bloody expensive setup that i have, thats really disgusting.

 

 

 

Heres some things i’ve done

• I have not overclocked

• I have the latest WHQL GPU drivers

• Temperatures: the GPU doesn’t go over 70°C, nor the CPU over 50°C. I can’t monitor the PSU temperature, and i don’t look at the mono temps, but i doubt that they are overheating.

• I’ve read on Toms hardware that PSUs will reset the CPU (aka restart the PC) to prevent the PC from catching on fire. The manual for my PSU confirmed this, saying that my “budget class” PSU will do this.

• I’ve done a chkdisk, and checked the RAM

• I’ve uninstalled all hardware monitors, MSI Kombustor and the like bar one (i found Open Hardware Monitor the other day, its amazing)

• Yesterday i went through my PC and cleaned up unused files ( I use CCleaner as well)

• Mobo is version F5

• I’ve gone through device manager, looking for anything thats out of date

• i’ve downloaded the AMD chipset drivers from Gigabyte’s website. It used AMDs Catalyst Software, and told me that the chipset driver was installed, but it installed/repaired a few other things that were included in the driver download.

• I use Windows Defender

 

Personally i think its the CPU or PSU that is very unstable, or the GPU or CPU is just performing

 

 

 

Specs:

• Win 8.1 

• Gigabyte GA 970a-d3p (AM3+) (Rev 1)

• FX-6300

• R9 280X Double Dissipation

• Avexir 2x4 GB 1600mhz

• Thermaltake Smartpower 750w

• CM Storm Enforcer

• Samsung 840 evo 

• Seagate 1tb 7200rpm

 

• LG DVD read/writer

[gigabyte]

Overclock your CPU as it's bottlenecking your GPU

[Tazub]

Dust can really heat up a system, when is the last time your PC was dusted? I know it seems like a small thing, but when I started dusting my PC, my case temperature went down 10 degrees!

 

Does your case have adequate ventilation as well?