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Will an underpowered PC affect gaming performance ?

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Gh0sT-NoVa

Member
Joined
Apr 5, 2012
Location
Malaysia, South East Asia.
Like title said, because im running a Sapphire HD5830 Xtreme, it requires minimum 500W , im using exactly a 500W PSU , Cooler Master Xtreme Power 500W, its not a 80 PLUS either , it said only 70% total power too

Here's the shocking part , its over a year but i dont have any sudden shut down or black out when gaming.

But i think its because my system aint very power hungry either

Im using a DELL PC actually.

Intel Quad Core 8200 2.33 GHZ
4GB DDR2 RAM
OEM 320 GB HDD
OEM Motherboard
1 DVD+RW ROM
Sapphire HD5830 Xtreme 1GB
Logitech G510 keyboard
Logitech G700 mouse
Xbox 360 Controller for Windows ( Plugged in 24 hours even not using )

So question still stands, if my PC is underpowered or maybe rather struggling , can it effect ur gaming performance ? ?
 
If that PSU can cough up 300w it's enough for that system.
5830s only actually use 188w at worst.

To answer the title's question: No. Underpowered will crash, blackscreen, explode or smell really bad. It won't cause a drop in FPS. Unless you count dropping to zero.
 
Like literally explodes lol ? ?

How much WATTAGE do u actually need for a mid range gaming PC

Something like

AMD FX-4100 3.6GHZ Black Edition
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-D3 Motherboard
8GB Corsair Vengeance 1.6 GHZ Gaming Ram
AMD HD 6850 / 7850
1 / 2 TB HDD
1X DVD+RW ROM

Also about the question on the title its because due to the problem im having, i tried asking in the display section because i think its graphic involvement there was a reply then no more later which my question havent been solve.

I wonder do u know whats wrong.

I play most games have no lag , but only certain times i will spike abit / lag. Its very random actually and doesnt make sense , sometimes when the game having alot of actions alot of graphic involvement u can say , but it doesnt lag , but instead its like when i go to certain places , reach somewhere that area lags its so weird !

Like Company of Heroes, old game , easily 200 + FPS ! But when building crumbling down , it starts to lag, after the building is destroy then its all smooth again. Even when tons of tanks and artillery shooting and bombarding everywhere lots of explosions effects , 0 lag no problem at all !
 
For midrange PC I'd say 500-600W PSU of a decent brand is good enough. It doesn't sound like your problem is a Power Supply problem. Like bobnova said, when your PSU is not powerful enough, it doesn't cause lag. Components of your computer start shutting down to conserve power. Usually when that happens, your PC crashes.
 
Both those GPUs have a TDP of ~130w. The CPU is 95w if I recall correctly.
Figure mobo/fans/etc. will eat around 75w.
You could run that system on a good 300-350w unit.
Or, of course, a dubious 500w, or a terrible "1000w".
A good 500w would be ideal.

But yeah, random lag is not a PSU issue. That's something else.
PSUs will cause crashing, or they may fail completely. If they fail completely they can do a pretty impressive job of it and fry everything plugged into them.
 
Hmm i c, but does anyone have any answer to my mysterious random lag when gaming ? ?

I did everything thats possible.

Defrag
Disk Cleanup using CCLeaner
Scan Viruses
Clean up inside my PC making sure not overheating
I did benchmark on Futuremark PC Vantage DEMO , my CPU is running properly not bottlenecking
I meet specs to all the games i play

But also like i said its mysterious because not all games will happen , only a certain few , thats the weird thing zzz
 
Depends on what games you're playing. I found going from my old Thuban X6 to my current FX-8120 saw a noticeable performance drop and lagginess when playing RAGE. Other games on the other hand, such as BF3 had no noticeable difference at all. I don't think it really matters with what you're running though. Per core performance should be strong enough already.
 
So ur saying ur new FX8 lags when u were playing some old games or are u saying ur old CPU lags when playing the new games ?

If so , meaning if my CPU could not be bottlenecking my GPU , instead the culprit is my game is being bottleneck by my CPU instead of my GPU ??

As i mentioned well games like

Company of Heroes
Warhammer 40 K Space Marine
Dragon Age Origins ( But Dragon Age 2 totally smooth )
Saints Row the Third ( During when im exploring around the city super lag ,when in buildings or missions involve indoors , 100% smooth )

This is y is so weird !

I play Mass Effect 3 , Syndicate , COD MW3 , MW2 ,Black Ops , World at War , MW, Medal of Honor ,DIRT2 and 3 , Darkness 2 , Kingdom of Amalur all 0 lag.

Long story short , 80% 0 lag, 20% will lag zz my COM infected with a mad virus or something :confused:
 
Nope, the Phenom X6 has 6 strong/real cores. The FX-8120 isn't really a true 8 core design, but its not really fair to call it 4 core either. Its fair to say it shares similarity to Intels hyperthreading though thats not really true either I think its much more accurate to call it a 4 module design.

Rage isn't even an old game, it was released in the past 12 months. It's just that it isn't particularly multithreaded is all. Could be something to do with me running the original version of the game. Might need to download the patch for it at some point.
 
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^This is true I STILL have not gotten around to playing with Bulldozer ( i have one sitting on the shelf to do so) My thuban plays all games very smoothly.

I just dropped from a 580GTX to a 6770 silent cooler edition card, and still run dual 1680x1050 monitors one playing HD video while i game on the other and have not noticed a slow down (no changes to details in games still running 2x AA). so really have to think any "gaming issues" are really software hiccups NOT hardware. There may be exceptions and bulldozer threading might be one, but I thought the hotfix solved that?

I have all 3 modern warfares, and Dragon age installed on my PC. I already un-installed BF3 so didn't get to test that.. did not like it much, I am not a team player and I suck at gaming so multiplayer gets me my *** kicked 100 times out of 101.

I dont run FRAPS so no idea what my framerates are, but I know I have not seen a game like back in the day when the game gets slow because an explosion occurs or something. Excerpt the designed in things that occur in cutscenes or "breaching" a room.
 
I did install the MS HotFix's though to be perfectly honest, I havent noticed any difference. I'll see if things work out any better when Windows 8 is released. I'll need to purchase 2x copies of Win 8 Pro and disable Metro ;)

Regardless, I intend to drop in a Piledriver chip once released and use this chip in a mATX rig inside a Silverstone SG01-E case to use as a portable LAN box. :thup:
 
I did install the MS HotFix's though to be perfectly honest, I havent noticed any difference. I'll see if things work out any better when Windows 8 is released. I'll need to purchase 2x copies of Win 8 Pro and disable Metro ;)

Regardless, I intend to drop in a Piledriver chip once released and use this chip in a mATX rig inside a Silverstone SG01-E case to use as a portable LAN box. :thup:

I think you have to uninstall the 2 early on ones and use the new single hotfix. It might require reinstalling OS not sure.

there have been benchmarks showing both no change and nice change in performance from it. Following on that, I would look at the game you are trying to play and ask them about it.

I am guessing that AMD went a "truer" SMP instead of the more standard multithreading allowing their execution cores to handle the tasking, expecting it to regain ground as the way to run highly threaded apps. (And probably forethinking logic since windows 8 works well and will run on ARM CPUs which are going to lead to Intels 80core Atom processor some day..) Just sucks for us now.

TBH I am not all that particular with the details myself it is entirely supposition on my part.
 
sounds like "lag" your noticing is the cpu and/or the drop in FPS in areas where more cpu is needed. You would be suprised how much things smooth out with higher cpu speed. By cpu i dont mean more cores but a higher clock speed...

you might consider upgrading the cpu in that oem box since you wont be able to "pad mod" the cpu.
 
Alternately he could get a better motherboard and CPU cooler and overclock that system pretty far.
 
im sorry that is just the wrong choice.... the Q8200 wouldnt be a good choice at all for ocing given its really low multi. he would need some really high fsb to make the Q8200 decent (as in clock speed), Q8200 = 7x mulit. even at 400mhz fsb that is only 2.8ghz, to get where he needs to be imo. he would need to hit 500mhz fsb (giving 3.5ghz clock speed). if all he got was a mobo and cpu cooler, i doubt his ram would handle such a high speed.
 
Good info, I dont know much about C2Q systems but what Ive seen they hold pretty solid when OCed. You clearly know more about his particular CPU and are in a better position to make that suggestion then. Seems a faster CPU might be the cheapest road to success here?
 
Well i guess like u said about my CPU , maybe during PC Vantage it didnt needed that much " power " so it turn out fine , while some games when it needed my CPU most and it fails and causes lag.

Another problem is , im itching to get a new PC , well i dont know about u guys , even building a mid range gaming rig here aint cheap and im still a student , college actually lol.

Im 1 of those POOR yet HARDCORE gamers , to be honest i even feel quite embarrass being here , surrounded by overkill PC owners like u all :(

But i do plan to swap out everything , no point changing my CPU now, i think my Mboard is old , even my RAM is only DDR2, i prefer AMD too so i need get a AM3+ Socket Mboard

For now i maybe plan to change my GPU and PSU once again.

In that case guys , for the time being , what should i get for a better CPU ? FX-4 3.6 GHZ or the Phenom II X6 3.0 GHZ , this is the budget i plan for future might change though since well maybe when the time i really change my whole PC , new CPU might have release
 
Well i guess like u said about my CPU , maybe during PC Vantage it didnt needed that much " power " so it turn out fine , while some games when it needed my CPU most and it fails and causes lag.

Another problem is , im itching to get a new PC , well i dont know about u guys , even building a mid range gaming rig here aint cheap and im still a student , college actually lol.

Im 1 of those POOR yet HARDCORE gamers , to be honest i even feel quite embarrass being here , surrounded by overkill PC owners like u all :(

But i do plan to swap out everything , no point changing my CPU now, i think my Mboard is old , even my RAM is only DDR2, i prefer AMD too so i need get a AM3+ Socket Mboard

For now i maybe plan to change my GPU and PSU once again.

In that case guys , for the time being , what should i get for a better CPU ? FX-4 3.6 GHZ or the Phenom II X6 3.0 GHZ , this is the budget i plan for future might change though since well maybe when the time i really change my whole PC , new CPU might have release

I prefer AMD too though I think going to AM3+ this late in the game is a mistake. Piledriver will be the last AM3+ supporting chip. If buying CPU + mainboard then I think Intels Ivy Bridge is the way to go. Down the track, who knows? Will have to wait and see. :shrug:

I'd start slowly upgrading those things that you can bring across to a new system. Upgrade to a quality PSU (Corsair and Silverstone have the best value units in the under $100 range), case, cooling and storage. CPU's, mainboards and graphics are the last things you want to upgrade as their prices change/drop regularly.
 
I prefer AMD too though I think going to AM3+ this late in the game is a mistake. Piledriver will be the last AM3+ supporting chip. If buying CPU + mainboard then I think Intels Ivy Bridge is the way to go. Down the track, who knows? Will have to wait and see. :shrug:

I'd start slowly upgrading those things that you can bring across to a new system. Upgrade to a quality PSU (Corsair and Silverstone have the best value units in the under $100 range), case, cooling and storage. CPU's, mainboards and graphics are the last things you want to upgrade as their prices change/drop regularly.

Thats what i think so too , thats y i planning to change my PSU and GPU again first , then casing. For the board , cpu , hdd i have to change all at once , because as i said this board is rather out date i think , even my PC is only 3 years old now and its still only running on DDR2 RAM , also since i buy from DELL , i heard my copy of WINDOWS cant be install to other PC , i have to pickup another copy of WINDOWS too

ssjwizard, i don't really get what u mean sorry, my english isnt so good.

Are u suggesting me to buy a combo , FX6 + the board at NewEGG ?

I have to mention that im not from US , also i usually go to my local shops and shop i dont really like to buy online. But that seems to be a great value , FX6 + a board only 600 + (My money converted , USD = 3X here) , i can only get a Phenom II X6 3.0 for 600+ here !
 
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