Could this PC run a little better?

[Hail_Storm]

I have very little knowledge about computers; just the basics. I have recently learned or have started to learn there is a lot more you should do with a custom built PC. Like things in a bios menu to check or drivers for your motherboard; it was a lot of numbers and acronyms I had trouble following. I am currently hoping to build a new computer in the future, but until then learning this stuff made me think maybe my current computer could be performing better.

 

My current computer (components listed below) is one I ask some friends to help build for me. To my knowledge, all we did was put all the components together, put windows 7 on it and I took it home. Other than keeping drivers and things up to date since then, the only addition I made to it (about a year ago) was a couple more sticks of RAM, in hopes it would help some issues I was having and as far as I know it helped.

 

Parts List: I'm just reading the boxes, most of it is gibberish to me. If more info on them is needed, I'll find it.

 

AMD FX 8-Core Processor Black Edition - 4.0 GHz, 16.0 MB Total Cache (using the fan and heatsink it came with)

Gigabyte Ultra Durable Motherboard 990FXA-UD3

Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7850/PCI-E 3.0, 2GB GDDR5/256 bit

Corsair CX600, Builder Series

Viper 8GB (2X4GB Kit) DDR3 PC3-15000 1866MHz, XMP Ready Designed for Intel, 6/7 Series Platforms

Viper 8GB (2X4GB Kit) DDR3 PC3-15000 1866MHz, XMP 2.0 Ready Designed for Intel, 7/8/9 Series Platforms

Cooler Master HAF 912 - Mid Tower (came with 2 120mm fans, mounted to vent air out the back)

     + 2 Cooler Master SickleFlow 120mm Green LED (mounted at the front for intake)(Currently one of these is dying)

Western Digital 1TB Hard Drive

CD Drive (Super Writemaster)

Razer Blackwidow Chroma Keyboard | Razer Deathadder Chroma Mouse | Razor Chroma Headset

 

If anyone could give me any setting I should check or things to change, along with how to find these setting and how to change them, that would be greatly appreciated.

 

If there are any performance info/screenshots that would help, tell me how to find them. Also, on a side note, is it normal for a PC to use about 5GB of RAM while not doing anything other than being on.

 

Thanks

[Turtle Rig]

3 minutes ago, Hail_Storm said:

I have very little knowledge about computers; just the basics. I have recently learned or have started to learn there is a lot more you should do with a custom built PC. Like things in a bios menu to check or drivers for your motherboard; it was a lot of numbers and acronyms I had trouble following. I am currently hoping to build a new computer in the future, but until then learning this stuff made me think maybe my current computer could be performing better.

 

My current computer (components listed below) is one I ask some friends to help build for me. To my knowledge, all we did was put all the components together, put windows 7 on it and I took it home. Other than keeping drivers and things up to date since then, the only addition I made to it (about a year ago) was a couple more sticks of RAM, in hopes it would help some issues I was having and as far as I know it helped.

 

Parts List: I'm just reading the boxes, most of it is gibberish to me. If more info on them is needed, I'll find it.

 

AMD FX 8-Core Processor Black Edition - 4.0 GHz, 16.0 MB Total Cache (using the fan and heatsink it came with)

Gigabyte Ultra Durable Motherboard 990FXA-UD3

Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7850/PCI-E 3.0, 2GB GDDR5/256 bit

Corsair CX600, Builder Series

Viper 8GB (2X4GB Kit) DDR3 PC3-15000 1866MHz, XMP Ready Designed for Intel, 6/7 Series Platforms

Viper 8GB (2X4GB Kit) DDR3 PC3-15000 1866MHz, XMP 2.0 Ready Designed for Intel, 7/8/9 Series Platforms

Cooler Master HAF 912 - Mid Tower (came with 2 120mm fans, mounted to vent air out the back)

     + 2 Cooler Master SickleFlow 120mm Green LED (mounted at the front for intake)(Currently one of these is dying)

Western Digital 1TB Hard Drive

CD Drive (Super Writemaster)

Razer Blackwidow Chroma Keyboard | Razer Deathadder Chroma Mouse | Razor Chroma Headset

 

If anyone could give me any setting I should check or things to change, along with how to find these setting and how to change them, that would be greatly appreciated.

 

If there are any performance info/screenshots that would help, tell me how to find them. Also, on a side note, is it normal for a PC to use about 5GB of RAM while not doing anything other than being on.

 

Thanks

The best thing you can do for instant performance increase is get a SSD as I see your using a 1TB hard drive.  Your 16GB RAM is good as well as case and the PSU.  Drop a SSD on there and  you will feel like you have a super computer all the sudden.

[Raudi_]

Idle desktop usage for memory is very high. Unless that includes having something like chrome open. I would check your software that opens up on start up. Then look into getting a SSD and moving to Windows 10. 

[SupaKomputa]

10 minutes ago, Hail_Storm said:

If there are any performance info/screenshots that would help, tell me how to find them. Also, on a side note, is it normal for a PC to use about 5GB of RAM while not doing anything other than being on.

 

Thanks

That is pretty normal for 16gb.

[TheBean]

5gb ram is not normal for windows 10 (not sure about 7). 

get an ssd. it will change your experience dramatically. everything will seem MUCH faster/smoother/more responsive. 

if you can find out how, go to the bios and find a setting called X.M.P. turn that on if it isnt already. 

honestly without paying money, i doubt you can get more out of that system. its pretty old. 

best option for under US$30 is an ssd. 

I recommend this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F9G43WU

 

[SpookyCitrus]

Step one, you should update your bios. It is one of the more confusing things to update on PC but once you get it out of the way the rest should be pretty simple. First go to the motherboards support website and download the most recent Bios update file https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/GA-990FXA-UD3-rev-10#support-dl-bios save it onto a blank USB flash drive and then follow the steps in this video to complete the update you can skip the part where he saves the update to the USB since you should have already done that.

Step two, search for Windows Update in the the search bar on your Windows 7, run the application and click check for updates, it will auto update anything Windows and device related for you.

 

Step three, go to AMD's driver page https://www.amd.com/en/support and enter your model of GPU into the drop down boxes and download the latest driver that pops up, and once complete it will let you launch it as an application to install the driver.

 

Suggestions I have.

I would upgrade from that old HDD to a solid state drive, it will greatly improve your experience. Also 5GB of ram usage while idle is pretty wack especially for Windows 7, you should definitely disable any startup applications and make sure you don't have any unnecessary applications running in the background. Also I would ditch that old HD 7850 for something with a little bit more Vram and some better performance, like an RX 480 or RX 570 graphics card.

[Tristerin]

1.) SSD

2.) Overclock the CPU (but good luck on stock cooler, my 240mm aio on the FX 8350 wasn't enough imho)

3.) Get a better GPU.  I ran one of my R9 Fury's with it for a bit, and the CPU bottlenecks it slightly with the low single core performance, but I used to pair it with a Crossfire setup similar to yours, 2 x Gigabyte HD 7850s.  The difference was instead of at mid to mixed settings, I could crank it all up to Ultra.  Im not saying an R9 Fury is the way to go but that's the only 2 upgrade paths for your gear (SSD and GPU) that will give you a performance facelift that I can see.

 

BTW once you go SSD you will have NO IDEA WHY YOU DIDNT DO THIS SOONER.  I only spin up HDDs on my home server.  Everything gets an SSD in this house.  

[trevb0t]

4 hours ago, Tristerin said:

1.) SSD

2.) Overclock the CPU (but good luck on stock cooler, my 240mm aio on the FX 8350 wasn't enough imho)

3.) Get a better GPU.  I ran one of my R9 Fury's with it for a bit, and the CPU bottlenecks it slightly with the low single core performance, but I used to pair it with a Crossfire setup similar to yours, 2 x Gigabyte HD 7850s.  The difference was instead of at mid to mixed settings, I could crank it all up to Ultra.  Im not saying an R9 Fury is the way to go but that's the only 2 upgrade paths for your gear (SSD and GPU) that will give you a performance facelift that I can see.

 

BTW once you go SSD you will have NO IDEA WHY YOU DIDNT DO THIS SOONER.  I only spin up HDDs on my home server.  Everything gets an SSD in this house.  

I agree with all that's said here. To expand on it:

 

1.) Here's a link to a decent 120GB SSD. You'd ideally like to go bigger, but really all you need it for to enhance experience is to put your operating system on it. If you grabbed a 240GB for $30ish you could put a few game titles on it, and see faster load times. This WILL be night and day when running the computer in general. 

 

2.) I can't speak to the reliability of the older PSU and the MOBO's readiness to do so, but if you grabbed a good cooler, you could push the CPU if you so chose. 

• For a lower end but reasonably capable cooler there's the 212 Black edition
• For a beast of a blower, check out the Dark Rock Pro 4
• For an inexpensive but reasonable singe radiator AIO, you could look at the H60

Really the overclock is going to take a decent cooling solution, and that's going to cost more than it's probably worth to you. Who knows though!

 

3.) On the used market, an R9 280X can be had for around $45-55. It's a nice upgrade from the 7850. Any smaller an upgrade would be a waste of money. For a bit more, a used RX 570 or 580 would be a great buy at $75-100.

 

Happy hunting!