Am I leaving performace on the table?

[Eeeypieter]

Hello,

 

My pc is turning 2 years old soon and is still functioning ok. However I got the feeling I'm leaving performance on the table. Not sure if it is just me getting used to the pc(upgraded from an old laptop), lack of maintenance, games getting more demanding or something else.  Any tests you guys would recomend I run to see if the pc is still running at its best? And any tips on hardware/software maintenance(I dust it out regularly.) The results may inspire me to spend a bit to get it up to scratch again.(About €100 in the Netherlands.)

Parts list:
-Intel Core i5-7500 @3.40GHz (Non K);

-Small 90mm fan Coolermaster aircooling tower;

-Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 Memory at 3200GHz(Running 2400GHz through UEFI setting. The motherboard won't let me go higher);

-MSI GTX1060 Armor 6GB OCV1;

-MSI B250M PRO-VD motherboard;

-Samsung EVO960 250GB(though my motherboard had NVMe when I bought the disk, turns out its just running through SATA=( );

-An old 750GB 7200rpm WD Black harddrive for large storage(not filling up very fast);

-Be Quiet Pure POWER 10(L10-400W);

- Cooler Master N200 tower;

-Radom Asus wifi card I had lying around.

 

I mainly play RTS games(Stellaris, Crusader Kings 2, Total War series, etc) and 'cinematic' games(Witcher 3, Skyrim with grapic mods, Assassins Creed). No fast passed shooters.

Thought about maybe upgrading the motherboard(to get NVMe and USB 3.2) and/or the CPU to make the RTS games run a bit better in late game. When my realms get big it starts to struggle. I'm open to second hand parts.

Thanks for reading, thanks for replying and thanks for teaching a relatively new guy some new things about his PC =).  

[Turtle Rig]

25 minutes ago, Eeeypieter said:

Hello,

 

My pc is turning 2 years old soon and is still functioning ok. However I got the feeling I'm leaving performance on the table. Not sure if it is just me getting used to the pc(upgraded from an old laptop), lack of maintenance, games getting more demanding or something else.  Any tests you guys would recomend I run to see if the pc is still running at its best? And any tips on hardware/software maintenance(I dust it out regularly.) The results may inspire me to spend a bit to get it up to scratch again.(About €100 in the Netherlands.)

Parts list:
-Intel Core i5-7500 @3.40GHz (Non K);

-Small 90mm fan Coolermaster aircooling tower;

-Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR4 Memory at 3200GHz(Running normal 2100GHz, I think. Saw an option in UEFI to make it run that speed, wouldn't turn on.);

-MSI GTX1060 Armor 6GB OCV1;

-MSI B250M PRO-VD motherboard;

-Samsung EVO960 250GB(though my motherboard had NVMe when I bought the disk, turns out its just running through SATA=( );

-An old 750GB 7200rpm WD Black harddrive for large storage(not filling up very fast);

-Be Quiet Pure POWER 10(L10-400W);

- Cooler Master N200 tower;

-Radom Asus wifi card I had lying around.

 

I mainly play RTS games(Stellaris, Crusader Kings 2, Total War series, etc) and 'cinematic' games(Witcher 3, Skyrim with grapic mods, Assassins Creed). No fast passed shooters.

Thought about maybe upgrading the motherboard(to get NVMe and USB 3.2) and/or the CPU to make the RTS games run a bit better in late game. When my realms get big it starts to struggle. I'm open to second hand parts.

Thanks for reading, thanks for replying and thanks for teaching a relatively new guy some new things about his PC =).  

You have a good video card for 1080p gaming at 60fps.  However your CPU is a big time bottleneck right now.  7500 at a mere 3.4Ghz is no good and creates a bottleneck.

[Turtle Rig]

However if you get 60fps which you still can, then your good.

[ch3w2oy]

Looks like you might need to upgrade your CPU.

 

You can run tests on your SSDs and HDDs using crystaldiskmark. Use userbenchmark.com to run a simple test on your components. I do this every once in a while just to see if anything has changed. Cleaning up your drives and reinstalling windows seems to always help..

 

The difference between SATA and NVMe in every day use isn't that noticeable, so going to PCIe 3.0 x2/x4 won't change much unless you're moving or editing large files often. 

 

For the RAM, try something less than 3200mhz, it might just be your board. Use the preset for 3200 and then just change the frequency manually to 3000mhz. 2100mhz is really low for 3200mhz RAM. I'm not an expert with RAM, but just my 2 cents. 

[Eeeypieter]

6 hours ago, Turtle Rig said:

However if you get 60fps which you still can, then your good.

In Witcher type games I get 60fps at 1080 high and ultra setting, wouldn't say very easily, but the computer isn't struggling either.

 

Its the RTS that may run at 10fps. I was afraid it might be the CPU. It was a compromise I had to make to fit it within the budget.

Any suggestions on which (second hand) CPU to get in the 1151 socket?

[Eeeypieter]

7 hours ago, ch3w2oy said:

Looks like you might need to upgrade your CPU.

 

You can run tests on your SSDs and HDDs using crystaldiskmark. Use userbenchmark.com to run a simple test on your components. I do this every once in a while just to see if anything has changed. Cleaning up your drives and reinstalling windows seems to always help..

 

The difference between SATA and NVMe in every day use isn't that noticeable, so going to PCIe 3.0 x2/x4 won't change much unless you're moving or editing large files often. 

 

For the RAM, try something less than 3200mhz, it might just be your board. Use the preset for 3200 and then just change the frequency manually to 3000mhz. 2100mhz is really low for 3200mhz RAM. I'm not an expert with RAM, but just my 2 cents. 

Thanks,

 

Saves me buying a new motherboard =).

 

Lets tinker with the Ram again

 

UPDATE: Managed to get the RAM to run at 2400GHz, that's all the motherboard allows =(