Weird CPU usage / reduced peformance

[07_Sev]

Hello fine folks,

 

I've got an AMD FX-8350 on a msi970 motherboard coupled with a gtx970 GPU.

 

I've got a fresh install of windows 10 on my pc and my cpu usage is all over the place. I've already installed my anti-malware software, discord and all the nessesary game launchers. Discord uses 10-20% of my cpu recources, which I think it's quite a lot. My games also see reduced peformance from when I first got the PC. stuttering and sevire framerate drops are all to common. And I dont even play the latest game. I play titanfall 2, battlefield 4 and fortnite. all on the lowest settings except for the resolution. Fortnite even struggles at lowest settings, 1080p which I find to be quit odd for this setup.

 

Anyone got any proposed solutions?

Thanks for the advice.

[07_Sev]

Also, forgot to mention, I have Linux dualbooted on my device on a completely seperate ssd.

[Haro]

Discord usage doesn't seem odd to me.

As for game stutters 

Ddu the drivers, check temps.

[Hairless Monkey Boy]

3 minutes ago, 07_Sev said:

I've already installed my anti-malware software

Which one?

 

Some can be very heavy.

[07_Sev]

6 hours ago, HairlessMonkeyBoy said:

Which one?

 

Some can be very heavy.

I run bitdefender. but this usually doesn't take up to much cpu power.

for some reason, with a slight overclock a lot of the problems are fixed. though my pc now sounds like a lawnmoawer.

[Chris Pratt]

That's an 8 year old chip and a 6 year old GPU. I'm not sure how long you've actually had them, but I would hope they're not recent purchases. Silicone doesn't last forever. Performance will degrade over time as it wears out. Just because you did a fresh install doesn't mean you're going to go back to day one performance. If you've had these since they were current, you're approaching max life here anyways.

 

It's probably not what you want to hear, but the best solution is probably just to build a new system. (I'm not sure if you can call it an upgrade, when you're going to have to replace virtually everything in the box. Though, I guess you could probably keep your case if you wanted.)

[07_Sev]

12 hours ago, Chris Pratt said:

That's an 8 year old chip and a 6 year old GPU. I'm not sure how long you've actually had them, but I would hope they're not recent purchases. Silicone doesn't last forever. Performance will degrade over time as it wears out. Just because you did a fresh install doesn't mean you're going to go back to day one performance. If you've had these since they were current, you're approaching max life here anyways.

 

It's probably not what you want to hear, but the best solution is probably just to build a new system. (I'm not sure if you can call it an upgrade, when you're going to have to replace virtually everything in the box. Though, I guess you could probably keep your case if you wanted.)

I've bought the components new in 2014 so I know they have aged. I would however expect day 1 performance since all my never maintained 38 year old vectrex still works like new and Linus has already debunked performance degradation in the following video:

I do take your advice to heart though. As my financial situation has significantly worsened over the yeas I am not able to spend as much as I did on new hardware anymore. A pal of mine is willing to sell he's 1st gen ryzen 5 plus some ram for 90 euros to me and another one is willing to donate a gtx 1060 if I help him moving. When I bought my PSU i made sure it had a long warranty (8 years in my case). That just leaves a new motherboard which I can afford in a couple of months.

[Chris Pratt]

Well, I don't like disagreeing with Linus here, as I'll freely admit he knows more than I do, but silicone degradation is a real thing. It's physics. The more it's used, the more it will degrade. He even touched on this a bit in the video. Does it add up to a likewise degradation in performance? I don't think it's as clear cut as he makes it. That was one test with one specific graphics card against another specific graphics card. Maybe the used one had won the silicone lottery. Maybe it just didn't add up to a meaningful difference in this one matchup. How does a CPU fair over time? That isn't covered at all.

 

Long and short, maybe it will be close, but I still say it's unreasonable to expect day one performance out of 6 year old used components.

 

That said, you also have to consider the march of time with software. Developers optimize their apps and games against reference hardware, and they don't keep testing 6 year old hardware. The version of Windows you installed 6 years ago is entirely different than the version you installed today. Your apps and games have seen probably numerous updates over 6 years, assuming they're still around at all. It's not that it's necessarily bloatware, but just not as optimized as perhaps it could be, just because it doesn't have to be. And the math for determining whether investment in optimizing the code is worth it changes over time.

[07_Sev]

I found the issue. I had a leaking capacitor near the cpu power delivery system

 

Edit: The motherboard in question was the MSI 970 gaming motherboard.

Edited July 30, 2020 by 07_Sev