Poor performance 6700k

[Clydfrog]

I am trying to help my friend troubleshoot a weird performance problem he has been having, and I would appreciate any help. This will be a bit long if anyone can follow along and please give some advice.

 

My friend got a good deal from a buddy for a 6700k with an Asus Maximus viii Hero, he also purchased some new (16gb) 3200mhz ram for it. He also has a 1060 3gb card that he is still running from his old build for now.  His game of choice right now is COD Warzone, and he is having MASSIVE performance issues in the game. I mean 15-20 FPS. While a quad core does struggle in COD Warzone, it should absolutely get over 60 FPS consistently, especially since he plays at all low settings. It also isnt even showing 100% CPU usage on his task manager. So I have been trying to help him fix this PC to work with COD Warzone. Sometimes he plays fine for a few minutes and then his FPS just completely tanks back to 15-20 FPS. It is so crazy inconsistent that it does this, once in awhile we will try a fix which works for a few minutes, and it immediately tanks his FPS 5 minutes later.  I have attempted every common sense fix to the game and his PC.

 

Here is the really strange thing though. His old build was incredibly budget oriented, an i5 6500 with 8 gigs of 2133mhz ram, 1060 3gb. And it ran COD WARZONE flawlessly, besides massive stutter from the system running out of ram and writing to the hard disk. So our friend offered his old build to him that he just stopped using for a really nice deal. This way he could run 3200mhz ram, and have a nice speed boost from the raw CPU clock speed improvements. While the stutter was incredibly bad for him, the actual FPS was fine outside of the stutter. But this new build he got is absolutely struggling with the game right now.

 

 

Things we have tried

- Installing on an SSD

- Allocating less vram usage with a change to the config file (this worked for a short time and then started messing up again)

- Overclocking his GPU

-Reinstalling the game (this worked for a little bit but then a new update hit and it messed up performance again)

-Scan and Repair game files

- running all low settings

-running CPU affinity at normal

-Power Plan to Maximum Performance

-His monitor is plugged into the correct port

 

So this leaves us off with tonight. I was running out of solutions but thought "maybe his CPU is throttling" because he is not familiar with building PCs and might have put an inadequate amount of thermal paste on. So I asked him to record his temperature in game. His Temperature was 90-98c. I immediately told him that was far too high for that chip, and to reapply the thermal paste for tomorrow. But then I asked him to give me his voltage, and his voltage on stock settings was 1.428 under load. Which if I am not mistaken is way too high for Skylake architecture (should be around low 1.3 ish under load I think).

 

BUT THEN, when he was playing...even when he experienced this weird issue where his FPS was dropping to 15-20 FPS...his CPU NEVER THERMAL THROTTLED. It ran at 4.2 on all cores the entire duration. So while that temperature and voltage is something that needs to be addressed, that is not the reason for his performance issues. Another weird part is that people who play Warzone with that CPU are usually pegged at 100% CPU USAGE, his hovers around the 50-60% mark, sometimes lower.

 

I am absolutely perplexed by his performance issues right now. While COD Warzone is a hot mess for optimization, there is no reason he should be getting 15-20 FPS. And it happens so strangely too, some times its fine for a bit and then hard dips for 10 mins until the round is almost over. We thought we fixed it multiple times. The game would run (locked at 63 fps) and experience absolutely no issues. Then the next round it would struggle again as soon as he loaded in. Other times he would struggle for the first 5 minutes of the round, and then his FPS would come back. It is so inconsistent that I cannot nail down this issue.

 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

TLDR: Friend upgraded to a new CPU and is experiencing worse performance than his old budget build

 

 

 

 

 

[Swallowtail]

You asked him to record his temperater IN GAME , which shows 90-98c. But then you said when he was playing his CPU never thermal throttled. Which one is it?

[Clydfrog]

15 minutes ago, Swallowtail said:

You asked him to record his temperater IN GAME , which shows 90-98c. But then you said when he was playing his CPU never thermal throttled. Which one is it?

He has a 6700k, I thought it would thermal throttle as well, but when he would check in CPU clock in game all of them were at 4200mhz still with no drops.

[Clydfrog]

41 minutes ago, Swallowtail said:

You asked him to record his temperater IN GAME , which shows 90-98c. But then you said when he was playing his CPU never thermal throttled. Which one is it?

I just realized I might be interpreting your comment wrong. He was not getting any thermal throttling at 98c (I was very surprised), as his cores were still running at 4200mhz.

[ped]

13 hours ago, Clydfrog said:

My friend got a good deal from a buddy for a 6700k with an Asus Maximus viii Hero, he also purchased some new (16gb) 3200mhz ram for it. He also has a 1060 3gb card that he is still running from his old build for now.  His game of choice right now is COD Warzone, and he is having MASSIVE performance issues in the game. I mean 15-20 FPS. While a quad core does struggle in COD Warzone, it should absolutely get over 60 FPS consistently, especially since he plays at all low settings. It also isnt even showing 100% CPU usage on his task manager. So I have been trying to help him fix this PC to work with COD Warzone. Sometimes he plays fine for a few minutes and then his FPS just completely tanks back to 15-20 FPS. It is so crazy inconsistent that it does this, once in awhile we will try a fix which works for a few minutes, and it immediately tanks his FPS 5 minutes later.  I have attempted every common sense fix to the game and his PC.

 

Here is the really strange thing though. His old build was incredibly budget oriented, an i5 6500 with 8 gigs of 2133mhz ram, 1060 3gb. And it ran COD WARZONE flawlessly, besides massive stutter from the system running out of ram and writing to the hard disk. So our friend offered his old build to him that he just stopped using for a really nice deal. This way he could run 3200mhz ram, and have a nice speed boost from the raw CPU clock speed improvements. While the stutter was incredibly bad for him, the actual FPS was fine outside of the stutter. But this new build he got is absolutely struggling with the game right now.

First things first - I would isolate the issue and plug back in the 6500 and let your friend game while you test the 6700K with the Asus board separately and run some tests.

 

Ultimately it boils down to  why are we upgrading from a 6500 to a 6700K?   Is it purely gaming or some other reason?  We're going from a 65W TDP part to a 90W+ one without overclocking,   Let's say it was only for gaming, this upgrade and hassle doesn't make sense in my opinion.   What is your friend expecting to get out of this upgrade?  A few FPS?   The phrase - if it ain't broke don't fix it comes to mind honestly.   

 

There is a few things that Skylake chips for this generation has to take into account, namely all the security patchs that wreck havoc with HT chips, and some performance clips to be had versus the non HT chips.  It shouldn't be causing your issues for sure, but at the end the performance gains are not really going to be there for the effort put in.

 

So going to what I would do, assuming you isolate the 6700K on the Asus board:

• Question the "buddy" on the good deal chip  / board - what performance / heat was this thing outputting before being sold.  Was it a hot chip to begin with?   Did theyOC the heck out of it to 4.9 GHz?
• Assume of course you used a higher end cooler and re-pasted correct?  what type of cooler, brand, model is it?
• Latest BIOS update for board?
• Tried running it with 1 stick of RAM versus both (assume the 16GB was 2x8?)
• Run a gauntlet of OC tests on the board + CPU without OCing the chip to see where thermals lie (check Overclock.net for 6700K thread forums)
• Add parts into the mix - rest of RAM, GPU
• Start running GPU & CPU tests (3Dmark)
• Do the same for the 6500 (what MoBo was it using)?
• PSU wattage / model / make?

Let us know what you discover.

 

At this point, I would target the CPU, RAM sticks, cooler, thermal paste - just to see how the thing runs on its own accord.

 

Good luck.

 

 

[Clydfrog]

2 hours ago, ped said:

First things first - I would isolate the issue and plug back in the 6500 and let your friend game while you test the 6700K with the Asus board separately and run some tests.

 

Ultimately it boils down to  why are we upgrading from a 6500 to a 6700K?   Is it purely gaming or some other reason?  We're going from a 65W TDP part to a 90W+ one without overclocking,   Let's say it was only for gaming, this upgrade and hassle doesn't make sense in my opinion.   What is your friend expecting to get out of this upgrade?  A few FPS?   The phrase - if it ain't broke don't fix it comes to mind honestly.   

 

There is a few things that Skylake chips for this generation has to take into account, namely all the security patchs that wreck havoc with HT chips, and some performance clips to be had versus the non HT chips.  It shouldn't be causing your issues for sure, but at the end the performance gains are not really going to be there for the effort put in.

 

So going to what I would do, assuming you isolate the 6700K on the Asus board:

• Question the "buddy" on the good deal chip  / board - what performance / heat was this thing outputting before being sold.  Was it a hot chip to begin with?   Did theyOC the heck out of it to 4.9 GHz?
• Assume of course you used a higher end cooler and re-pasted correct?  what type of cooler, brand, model is it?
• Latest BIOS update for board?
• Tried running it with 1 stick of RAM versus both (assume the 16GB was 2x8?)
• Run a gauntlet of OC tests on the board + CPU without OCing the chip to see where thermals lie (check Overclock.net for 6700K thread forums)
• Add parts into the mix - rest of RAM, GPU
• Start running GPU & CPU tests (3Dmark)
• Do the same for the 6500 (what MoBo was it using)?
• PSU wattage / model / make?

Let us know what you discover.

 

At this point, I would target the CPU, RAM sticks, cooler, thermal paste - just to see how the thing runs on its own accord.

 

Good luck.

 

 

I am guessing the chip has been running fairly hot for a few years because the stock voltages were crazy for no reason, maybe not that temperature but if I had to guess probably mid 80s.

 

I am guessing the paste was correct because as soon as voltage would drop to idle the chip cooled right now. It wasn't running high at idle at all, around mid 30s. That's what makes me believe it's not the paste.

 

Im going to have him undervolt the chop from stock (there is no reason it should be running at 1.428 at stock voltages) and take it down to 1.35 for now just to get the temperature under control until we stabilize it. I then am going to have him run some benchmarks and see if he is getting full performance or not. Also think I am going to have him install a updated bios and see if that helps, but I want him to do that as a last resort only if needed.

 

It will be hard to fully take it apart and rebuild it as he isn't familiar with PCs and also doesn't have a lot of time on his hands to mess around with it. Which is why I am helping the best that I can and then filling him in on any information I have found.

 

He was using an incredibly low end budget board that only supported 2133mhz ram and only had 2 slots. He needed to upgrade from 8 gigs of RAM and our close friend wasn't using his old board he just replaced so handed it over to him for a good deal with the better CPU. This way he could get 3200mhz ram and also hyperthreading and more ram support. So essentially in clock speed alone he was getting over 20% additional performance per core, hyperthreading which helps frame drops on high end games, and support for more ram and at 3200mhz to help with his performance as well. Only thing I worry about is that while he takes care of his computer very well, no one realized the default voltage was so high. So I hope it's not degradation on the CPU.

 

The weird thing is the massive frame drops. It's only in Warzone (or so we think) but he doesn't play many demanding games but that one. So we don't know if its a bug with some configuration he has, or that the game just pushes it so hard he gets those issues. The fact that it locks to 15-20 FPS sometimes and not other times was crazy to me and I really don't know what could be causing it.

 

I've seen some things about clearing standby memory or something, but I am not familiar with it so I didn't want to force it on him without myself understanding it.

 

I think I am going to have him test his ram next.

 

Thank you for the help, I'll follow advice as best as I can.