Under performing RAM

[Sinjinn]

I recently went to userbenchmark.com and ran the "Test my PC" option. The results I got were:

 

UserBenchmarks: Game 76%, Desk 76%, Work 51%
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K - 80.9%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 980 - 79.7%
SSD: Samsung 840 Evo 250GB - 93.2%
HDD: WD Black 1TB (2010) - 75.5%
RAM: G.SKILL RipjawsX DDR3 1600 C9 2x8GB - 60.7%
MBD: Asus Z87-PLUS
 

I think my CPU is only in the 80% range because I haven't overclocked it at all. I'm not sure why my GPU is so low but most troubling is my RAM. I have the XMP profile enabled in the BIOS. 

 

Putting this out there early, I have enough basic PC knowledge to put together the PC and do some standard troubleshooting. I've never overclocked anything and don't know how so everything that's here is pretty much out of the box. Any help in improving the performance, or at least understanding why the RAM is testing so low would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Trulop]

It looks fine to me. Your PC got a good result for overall, which means as a whole its doing fine. Just because a number looks low doesnt mean its necesarilly bad either. DDR3 is last gen now, and theres much faster RAM available so in comparison, sure it could seem not nearly as good but realistically, if your PC is running stable, does fine in gaming, not having weird stutters or just basically anything out of the ordinary, then theres nothing to be alarmed or worried about.

As for overclocking the cpu, start out slow, try to keep voltages as low as possible (also look up recommended max voltage for your CPU before starting) and just go up bit by bit until your at a comfortable speed, its completely stable and maximum load, and your temps are in safe ranges. As for the GPU, MSI Afterburner is a good tool to use. For reference, you can look up what others are overclocking their cards to, start out a bit lower, and go up bit by bit until its where you want it and completely stable. Make sure to run stress tests after each tweak to make sure it actually works and doesnt crash. If your not sure where to start or are feeling a bit nervous, realistically, your PC should be fine at stock, or you can look up some in depth videos on how to OC until you feel your confident enough to try it out. Hope this helps a bit.

[Princess Luna]

RAM didn't matter much back in ddr3, it started mattering a lot with ddr4 though.

 

All is fine and even if wasn't there's nothing you can do but buy new ram, userbenchmark is fine for a rough idea not specifics since it throws all the data it collects in 1 huge database for comparison with completely no differentiates of overclocking, OS condition and so on.

[Sinjinn]

2 minutes ago, Trulop said:

but realistically, if your PC is running stable, does fine in gaming, not having weird stutters or just basically anything out of the ordinary, then theres nothing to be alarmed or worried about.

There is one thing that it has been doing that I haven't been able to figure out. I've been getting weird colored dots when... well I guess when I have "too much" open, if that makes sense. Like it doesn't happen right now with just chrome running, or just a game running, but if I have a game running like WoW and chrome in the background, I get them. It looks like this - https://imgur.com/XoyR9FP  I tried contacting evga and nvidia about it, but I didn't get a lot of help from them. 

[Vroooom]

That site gives you two different percentage figures of different types. One compares the performance against all components of that type, where "100%" is defined from the average performance of one component that they decided to use as the reference. When you run the test, you also get a percentile that compares your particular component against all other benchmark runs with that particular component.

 

Example: CPU A gets an average score of 100%. CPU B gets an average score of 70%. You run a benchmark with CPU B, and get 80%. Your percentile score will be above 50%. So your CPU is performing better than expected for that model of CPU, but that model of CPU is just plain slower than CPU A, so the fact it got less than 100% is expected.

 

Looking at the link to your RAM, it's scoring better than average for runs of that kit of RAM.

 

Edit: also, that 60.7 score is similar to the 62.3 I got with my DDR3 1600 CL9, so I think you're good

[Trulop]

1 minute ago, Sinjinn said:

There is one thing that it has been doing that I haven't been able to figure out. I've been getting weird colored dots when... well I guess when I have "too much" open, if that makes sense. Like it doesn't happen right now with just chrome running, or just a game running, but if I have a game running like WoW and chrome in the background, I get them. It looks like this - https://imgur.com/XoyR9FP  I tried contacting evga and nvidia about it, but I didn't get a lot of help from them. 

That could be a problem with the pixels in your monitor. From what it sounds like, is when you play games where the pixels need to refresh at a faster rate, they start skipping or malfunctioning right? Not 100% sure, but thats the first thing that comes to my mind.

[Sinjinn]

I can make it happen if I open few video windows too, like 3-4 tabs of youtube or something. It seems to be when there's a lot of graphics involved but I've run Valley Benchmark, MSI Afterburner, and the evga tool, precision I think it is. None of them found any problems, and the dots didn't appear during the tests. Just seems to be when I open up multiple things if one of them requires graphics like a game, or multiple video tabs.

 

Edit. My monitor is a Asus PB278Q 1440p monitor. I've wondering if it's over taxing the GPU or if the PSU isn't up to snuff. It's a corsair TX750

[Trulop]

I cant remember what its called, but i think there is a test for monitors to see if all pixels are functioning correctly. i would find and run that just to rule it out. If your GPU isnt getting stable power or not enough it might act a bit funky as well, so the PSU could be an issue. Do you have another PSU you would be able to swap and test? 

[Sinjinn]

Not one that is equiv/better than this one, it would be from a PC that's a few years older, I think it's only 500W.

[WereCat]

28 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

RAM didn't matter much back in ddr3, it started mattering a lot with ddr4 though.

I disagree. OCing my RAM from 1600 CL9 to 2200  CL9 and tightening RTL and IO made quite a big difference especially in the 1% and 0.1% low range. At least in newer games, I haven't tried the older titles. (paired with 4770k 4.4GHz).