i7 920 terrible performance (not spreading load on all cores)

[Qwertic]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS HAS BEEN FIXED: CHECK THE VIDEO

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi my name is Joris and I have a real pain in the ass issue with my (older) gaming pc. After booting up my good old gaming rig from way back I noticed a hughe decrease in performance. I looked for usual errors like dust, drivers, temps, ram speed, bad overclock, old bios driver, old gpu driver... Then I found the issue. While playing games only one core is really working. Taskmenager and HWmonitor both show all cores (threads) active. But only on bar is filled up and when it hits 99% I get terrible lag. Some games are ofcours more cpu intensive then others (unturned ran at low settings around 150Fps, insurgency 40 whit heavy lagspikes, gta v 30 with terrible lag, warthunder runs good but not how it should. Remember these games are not single thread games.  (only 60 fos top with 1050 ti). I tried overclocking the cpu and that did improve the performance by a little. But I’m not able to fix this issue any on an idea? The cpu is just not spreading out its load to all of its cores.

 

Thank you!! @JoostinOnline@Majestic @kelvinhall05 @Pasi123 @Catsrules and @Agentx_007

 

FOR EVERYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTRESTED IN THIS FIX (not permanent) you might find a better way. 

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO: 

FOR ANYONE WHO IS INTRESTED IN A (not permanent) FIX.

HERE IT IS: 

 

Btw sorry for my incorrect English. It is not my native language.

 

Want to see (you know with your own eys) the issue check out my yt channel

One: https://youtu.be/BilxsnkKsAo

Two: https://youtu.be/8C_ehCN59VI

 

This is my rig

mobo: Asus P6t (standard issue)

latest windows 10 update

cpu: i7 920 @2.66Ghz overclock 3.7 Ghz (35*C)

Ram: 2x 4GB ddr3 hyperX Fury clocked at 1066

124GB samsung ssd and 1TB seagate hdd

gpu: Gtx 1050ti (it is not bad gpu performance cause my 1080 has the same issue in this rig)

powersupply 700watt Weirdo brand (no idee what it is but it is not chinese)

 

Thx for reading this! I’m really out of idees right now is this a bad cpu or a bad mobo or just a system error/ software error. In case that it is the cpu could i upgrade to Xeon X5560? Or does my mobo not support that one?

 

 

[Catsrules]

Sounds like the game is just a single thread game, and doesn't take advantage of the other cores. I don't think anything is wrong with the computer.

 

You could run benchmarks and compare your results to other 17 920 results. 

 

[Pasi123]

Probably something to do with Windows.

 

6 minutes ago, Qwertic said:

Thx for reading this! I’m really out of idees right now is this a bad cpu or a bad mobo or just a system error/ software error. In case that it is the cpu could i upgrade to Xeon X5560? Or does my mobo not support that one?

I wouldn't recommend upgrading to a Xeon X5560 because it only has 4c/8t. Some 6c/12t Xeon like X5660, X5670, X5675 etc. would be a lot better upgrade.

[Qwertic]

8 minutes ago, Catsrules said:

Sounds like the game is just a single thread game, and doesn't take advantage of the other cores. I don't think anything is wrong with the computer.

 

You could run benchmarks and compare your results to other 17 920 results. 

 

Yea I have been thinkibg about that but 2months ago this game worked fine on the same machine and it this occures on all of my games. These games should run fine on this cpu. They are source engine games with multi core rendering.  

[Qwertic]

10 minutes ago, Pasi123 said:

Probably something to do with Windows.

 

I wouldn't recommend upgrading to a Xeon X5560 because it only has 4c/8t. Some 6c/12t Xeon like X5660, X5670, X5675 etc. would be a lot better upgrade.

Yeah I know right! But does my motherboard support the xeon. I mean the socket is the same 1366 but does the bios?

[kelvinhall05]

1 minute ago, Qwertic said:

Yeah I know right! But does my motherboard support the xeon. I mean the socket is the same 1366 but does the bios?

Most X58 motherboards support Xeons. You can find an official CPU support list by just Googling your motherboard.

[Pasi123]

2 minutes ago, Qwertic said:

Yeah I know right! But does my motherboard support the xeon. I mean the socket is the same 1366 but does the bios?

It should work on it but make sure you have the latest bios version.

[JoostinOnline]

A 920 is pretty old, so it's going to struggle with anything new. Let me explain multi-threading though. First off, it's difficult to code with that. You have to spread the processes out evenly so one core isn't overworked, and regularly check to make sure they're still in sync. I've only used it on one project. After spending a couple months trying to squash all the problems it introduced, I gave up and went back to a single thread. It wasn't quite as fast, but it was far more stable. Games that came out when dual cores were starting to be standard still only use one core, because it was difficult.

 

If your single core performance isn't great, and the workload isn't 100% balanced across all threads (which it never is), things will come to a hault while waiting for one of the cores to catch up. That's when some of the cores aren't going to have any work, and one will be at 100% usage.

 

[Pasi123]

1 minute ago, JoostinOnline said:

A 920 is pretty old, so it's going to struggle with anything new.

With anything new? Are you sure about that?  Overclocked i7-920 should be still able to run new games without any problems.

[Majestic]

You can try going to the Nvidia control panel and force "thread optimization". That can help a little. Other than that, the single-core being maxed is the renderthread. Your CPU can't handle all the drawcalls and it chokes. Overclocking and using framerate limiters are your only help. 

[Qwertic]

4 minutes ago, Pasi123 said:

With anything new? Are you sure about that?  Overclocked i7-920 should be still able to run new games without any problems.

That is why i’m so confused. How is my quad core i7 3.6Ghz struggling whit insurgency, cs:go!

[Pasi123]

Maybe you could try to reinstall Windows? It really shouldn't be maxing out 1 core in Heaven Benchmark or games.

 

Edit:

I just tried Heaven Benchmark with extreme preset on my Xeon X5670 + GTX 960

And CPU usage looks like that even though I have a lot of crap open on background.

[Qwertic]

34 minutes ago, Catsrules said:

Sounds like the game is just a single thread game, and doesn't take advantage of the other cores. I don't think anything is wrong with the computer.

 

You could run benchmarks and compare your results to other 17 920 results. 

 

The game used to work fine on the cpu 2 months ago. ?

[agent_x007]

How high is CPU temp at full load (8 threads) ?
What cooling ?

[Qwertic]

At idly about 35 and at load about max 60 ingame 40. it is a normal  cooler nothing special

[agent_x007]

Normal cooler (for me that's Intel BOX), can't do 60C load after OC.
Also, how high is your UnCore (NB Frequency in CPU-z) ?
Is PCI-e for GPU running at x16 2.0 speed ?

[Qwertic]

Pci-e is 16x dont know about 2.0 but it ran fine 2 monthes ago an no it is not intel cooler it is an old 8-heatpin cooler so it is a good cooler i don’t think the cpu is thermal throtteling would be able to see that ?

[Qwertic]

11 minutes ago, Pasi123 said:

Maybe you could try to reinstall Windows? It really shouldn't be maxing out 1 core in Heaven Benchmark or games.

 

Edit:

I just tried Heaven Benchmark with extreme preset on my Xeon X5670 + GTX 960

And CPU usage looks like that even though I have a lot of crap open on background.

I know right I reinstalled windows the moment i noticed this and other reasons but it didn’t change it intel support asus and geforce all say there products are working fine ( i knew i could’t count on those guyse)

[JoostinOnline]

59 minutes ago, Pasi123 said:

With anything new? Are you sure about that?  Overclocked i7-920 should be still able to run new games without any problems.

Not really. It's about on par with a modern stock dual core when overclocked. You should struggle to run anything above low settings.

 

@Qwertic Try running a stress test with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to see if the cores max out. Heaven Benchmark won't tell you anything, since it's GPU intensive.

[Pasi123]

1 minute ago, JoostinOnline said:

Not really. It's about on par with a modern stock dual core when overclocked. You should struggle to run anything above low settings.

Okay, you just proved you don't know anything about first gen i7's.

 

CPU-Z benchmark on my X5670 @ 4.32GHz 6c/12t, of course multi thread would be slower on a i7 with 4c/8t but it still wouldn't be bad.

 

And here is a video of my old i7-950 @ stock on a HP Z400. In cinebench that i7 is about on pair with a i5-6500 @ 3.2GHz in multicore

 

[Qwertic]

9 hours ago, Pasi123 said:

Okay, you just proved you don't know anything about first gen i7's.

 

CPU-Z benchmark on my X5670 @ 4.32GHz 6c/12t, of course multi thread would be slower on a i7 with 4c/8t but it still wouldn't be bad.

 

And here is a video of my old i7-950 @ stock on a HP Z400. In cinebench that i7 is about on pair with a i5-6500 @ 3.2GHz in multicore

 

Wow fanboy chill I to am an lover of these cpu’s. Mine is just performinc terrible. It is okay to be mad. And I know that these Xeon cpu's have great performance believe me. And I'm really thinking of buying one myself. But this i7 920 is just performing terrible compared to my other first gen workstations.

[Qwertic]

6 minutes ago, Qwertic said:

Wow fanboy chill I to am an lover of these cpu’s. Mine is just performinc terrible. It is okay to be mad.

If you have that little video could you show your cpu core ussage cause my gta only runs at one.

[Qwertic]

11 hours ago, Qwertic said:

Hi my name is Joris and I have a real pain in the ass issue with my (older) gaming pc. After booting up my good old gaming rig from way back I noticed a hughe decrease in performance. I looked for usual errors like dust, drivers, temps, ram speed, bad overclock, old bios driver, old gpu driver... Then I found the issue. While playing games only one core is really working. Taskmenager and HWmonitor both show all cores (threads) active. But only on bar is filled up and when it hits 99% I get terrible lag. Some games are ofcours more cpu intensive then others (unturned ran at low settings around 150Fps, insurgency 40 whit heavy lagspikes, warthunder runs good but not how it should (only 60 fos top with 1050 ti). I tried overclocking the cpu and that did improve the performance by a little. But I’m not able to fix this issue any on an idea? The cpu is just not spreading out its load to all of its cores.

 

Btw sorry for my incorrect English. It is not my native language.

 

Want to see (you know with your own eys) the issue check out my yt channel

One: https://youtu.be/BilxsnkKsAo

Two: https://youtu.be/8C_ehCN59VI

 

This is my rig

mobo: Asus P6t (standard issue)

latest windows 10 update

cpu: i7 920 @2.66Ghz overclock 3.7 Ghz (35*C)

Ram: 2x 4GB ddr3 hyperX Fury clocked at 1066

124GB samsung ssd and 1TB seagate hdd

gpu: Gtx 1050ti (it is not bad gpu performance cause my 1080 has the same issue in this rig)

powersupply 700watt Weirdo brand (no idee what it is but it is not chinese)

 

Thx for reading this! I’m really out of idees right now is this a bad cpu or a bad mobo or just a system error/ software error. In case that it is the cpu could i upgrade to Xeon X5560? Or does my mobo not support that one?

 

 

But how can i be sure that this problem is caused by my cpu and not my other software/ hardware. If it is the cpu i'll be upgrading my system to a X5560. Does anyone have an idee?

[Qwertic]

23 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

Not really. It's about on par with a modern stock dual core when overclocked. You should struggle to run anything above low settings.

 

@Qwertic Try running a stress test with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to see if the cores max out. Heaven Benchmark won't tell you anything, since it's GPU intensive.

FOR EVERYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTRESTED IN THIS FIX (not permanent) you might find a better way. 

CHECK OUT THE VIDEO: 

FOR ANYONE WHO IS INTRESTED IN A (not permanent) FIX.

HERE IT IS: 

 

 

 

thank you for this i have ran cpu benchmarks with this cpu. Cinebench with overclock 3.6Ghz gets about 535 cb.  But ine every game my cpu seems to bottleneck (my ram is not full and not underclocked, my gpu runs at 50% and is a new gtx 1050ti) ssd and hdd is not the issue

[Qwertic]

11 hours ago, Pasi123 said:

Probably something to do with Windows.

 

I wouldn't recommend upgrading to a Xeon X5560 because it only has 4c/8t. Some 6c/12t Xeon like X5660, X5670, X5675 etc. would be a lot better upgrade.

But if my quad core 3.6Ghz runs at on core why would a hexa core solve this issue. Remember i have this issue on every game (gta V included)