Detectives Needed: It seems I have a bottleneck

[fivezerothree]

Hi guys,

I recently bought a pre-built PC; I shoved a much better Corsair 600W Modular PSU and XFX R9270x Graphics card in there. I received a lot of help from this forum and even managed to overclock the CPU to 5.0ghz but currently that's now back to default.



One of my mates bought a near identical system at the same time, with the difference being he has a A10 CPU with a standard R970 GPU and possibly better RAM. I mostly try to play DayZ and ARMA III and while these games are probably the best examples of horribly optimised games my friend gets a rather consistent average 30fps in each. My average in complex scenes is closer to 13fps with or without overclock.

The ridiculousness of these games is that they are supposedly CPU intensive yet under high load from the games they barely use 50% but I digress...

My system seems to have a bottleneck somewhere; I'm using cheap**** RAM and while I know it could do with replacing, is this actually the cause?

Thanks guys!

 

[Itachiii]

Well I don't see any reason why the RAM would bottleneck your PC. I mean, it's 1600 MHz, 8gb (which DayZ or Arma3 don't even use near close) and the timings are.. ok. RAM is just RAM. I would personally use CPU-Z and HWMonitor, pop them while you play the game and just check what's going on under load. You might be throttling due to CPU overheating, GPU overheating or God knows what else. So download those two programms I mentioned above (CPU-Z, HWMonitor) run them, start playing for a little while and post a full screen of HWMonitor and CPU,SPD,Memory tabs on CPU-Z

 

[EarthDog]

I dont imagine it to be the ram either.

It could be a slew of things... different drivers, throttling, etc... what are load temps? Have you tried switching drivers?

 

[fivezerothree]

Well I don't see any reason why the RAM would bottleneck your PC. I mean, it's 1600 MHz, 8gb (which DayZ or Arma3 don't even use near close) and the timings are.. ok. RAM is just RAM. I would personally use CPU-Z and HWMonitor, pop them while you play the game and just check what's going on under load. You might be throttling due to CPU overheating, GPU overheating or God knows what else. So download those two programms I mentioned above (CPU-Z, HWMonitor) run them, start playing for a little while and post a full screen of HWMonitor and CPU,SPD,Memory tabs on CPU-Z

I dont imagine it to be the ram either.

It could be a slew of things... different drivers, throttling, etc... what are load temps? Have you tried switching drivers?

Appreciate the replies. Actually I can't use CPU-Z and HWMonitor as they're not compatible with CPUs that output thermal margin rather than temp so I can only use AMD Overdrive for accurate readings as far as I am aware. Either way temps are sound even when overlocked to 5.0ghz and stress tested with Prime95 on mixed for 10 hours. I'm using an Arctic Freezer 13 cooler which I neglected to mention initially but that ensures the CPU runs super cool even under load. But as mentioned above, to be super sure I have reset the overclock back to default in bios whilst I'm trying to find out what's going on.

My drivers are the very latest available; I wouldn't actually know about changing drivers to anything else? I've never even considered using anything other than the latest would be beneficial?

Between ARMA III an DayZ everything is pretty much consistently at 50% load or below.

I also ran a few 3DMark tests for hardware comparison: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7160224 | http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7160368

The only thing I have found is that most of the builds that scored better than me with almost identical hardware had two sticks of slightly faster ram (4GB), rather than one slightly slower (8GB). This finding coincides with my friends build too.

 

[EarthDog]

Actually I can't use CPU-Z and HWMonitor as they're not compatible with CPUs that output thermal margin rather than temp so I can only use AMD Overdrive for accurate readings as far as I am aware.

Are those drivers the same as your friend? Try rolling back a version. Sometimes the latest and greatest are not the best.

So you only have 1x8GB of ram and you are not running in dual channel (why?!!!)????

Please create a signature that shows all your hardware so we know exactly what you are working with...

 

[Itachiii]

What about your GPU temps? You can use MSI Afterburner to check them. Latest drivers: did you download them manually or you had the updater do it? If you downloaded them manually there are usually some BETA version drivers of the upcoming driver just for people to test and report any bugs so rolling back to a previous version could solve the issue if it's a driver problem.

EDIT: Lol, ED caught me up there. I had the same question of why running a single stick of ram rather than using dual channel. Even so I don't think it would affect you the way it does.

 

[fivezerothree]

Are those drivers the same as your friend? Try rolling back a version. Sometimes the latest and greatest are not the best.

So you only have 1x8GB of ram and you are not running in dual channel (why?!!!)????

Please create a signature that shows all your hardware so we know exactly what you are working with...

Sorted the signature.

Yeah we're on the same drivers. I'll try the beta drivers of which I've already downloaded and I'm downloading the previous to latest as we speak.

Well logic says that one stick is better than having two sticks without any underpinning knowledge (of which I don't have) haha. I now assume that my system would benefit from using both slots rather than just one? If so it'll be sorted rather soonish.

What about your GPU temps? You can use MSI Afterburner to check them. Latest drivers: did you download them manually or you had the updater do it? If you downloaded them manually there are usually some BETA version drivers of the upcoming driver just for people to test and report any bugs so rolling back to a previous version could solve the issue if it's a driver problem.

EDIT: Lol, ED caught me up there. I had the same question of why running a single stick of ram rather than using dual channel. Even so I don't think it would affect you the way it does.

GPU temps are fine too, yeah. Just gave it hell for 20 mins and went through another 3DMark test and it didn't go over 53c.

 

[Mandrake4565]

When you say you are overclocked to 5.0 how did you go about overclocking it to that speed and what did you use to stress test it to see if it is stable?

 

[fivezerothree]

When you say you are overclocked to 5.0 how did you go about overclocking it to that speed and what did you use to stress test it to see if it is stable?

If it's relevant, I upped the multiplier to 50. I attempted 20 minute stress tests each time and increased the voltage until it didn't crash/restart/turn off. Once I got to a 'semi-stable' stage I gave it 10 hours of Prime95 on mixed.

 

[Itachiii]

Do you have Windows Power plan to Performance? Did you enable the C1E state, CnQ etc. back on when you finished OC'ing?

 

[fivezerothree]

Do you have Windows Power plan to Performance? Did you enable the C1E state, CnQ etc. back on when you finished OC'ing?

Set to Performance, yeah it is. I don't know what C1E or CnQ is though?

EDIT: Just found out, can't remember what my Mobo calls it but it was off for the overclock and back on when I found stable.

 

[bob4933]

Forgive me for being crass here... but you're pushing an extreme overclock on what's essentially a paper weight with tracers. Just because the cpu temps might be ok, doesn't mean the rest of the motherboard is fine.


You very much can use cpu z and hwmonitor on richland apus. I'm literally looking at mine now.

 

[fivezerothree]

Forgive me for being crass here... but you're pushing an extreme overclock on what's essentially a paper weight with tracers. Just because the cpu temps might be ok, doesn't mean the rest of the motherboard is fine.


You very much can use cpu z and hwmonitor on richland apus. I'm literally looking at mine now.

Hah be as crass as you like here dude but the thread is being derailed by something that isn't causing the issue at all. I mentioned that I reverted this OC for the purpose of diagnosis in the first post - I've had it like this for weeks now. I was advised by some fairly experienced guys on these very forums for best practise with the overclocking.

For me... CPU Z can't even read my temps as it kicks out some error I'm not interested in diagnosing as it's uncommon and HWMonitor gives false readings. As far as I know, AMD Overdrive was the only application that gave accurate readinds a couple of months ago.

I can share the original thread where all of this information came from if it helps but I feel as though this is off topic?

 

[bob4933]

The temp issue is likely a motherboard compatibility issue, not a cpu issue then.

Sorry, I'll be more direct then. The likely hood of you damaging something with an overclock that high was pretty reasonable on the motherboard. Have you had any other issues going on or just noticing problems in arma 3? Other games running ok?


Also, it's your thread. Post whatever you think will help. Others here presumably won't mind and it's more information.

 

[bob4933]

That motherboard claims support of 95w. At your overclock, you were closer to 160w. Not a small margin over.

 

[fivezerothree]

The temp issue is likely a motherboard compatibility issue, not a cpu issue then.

Sorry, I'll be more direct then. The likely hood of you damaging something with an overclock that high was pretty reasonable on the motherboard. Have you had any other issues going on or just noticing problems in arma 3? Other games running ok?

Also, it's your thread. Post whatever you think will help. Others here presumably won't mind and it's more information.

Oh that's interesting, I hadn't even thought of that, thanks.

I have had a few issues yeah. Mostly within the Adobe Creative Suite actually. A few rather CPU intensive tasks, such as rendering a two-pass video have caused crashes, where the screen has gone black and the only way to recover was to turn the PC on and off at the PSU. It's not consistent so I wasn't sure but as it hasn't happened whilst at stock it shows a strong suggestion. It's really not a huge issue if I have to stay at stock or at a reduced overclock. It was more curiosity than necessity.

In regards to game performance, it's just been consistently under-performing in comparison to my friends rig of which is very, very similar. We pretty much play online together and I'm constantly asking for read outs of his FPS which is always considerably higher than mine when it should be very similar.

 

[Itachiii]

Welp seems as bob is right. 4+2 power phase with FM2+ 95W support and FM2 100W. You most probably beat the hell out of the mobo What makes me wonder though is that you should see instability at the stress test. I mean workers stopping, crash, BSOD and stuff when you OC'ed that high. Try playing the game at stock settings with low graphics and see if there's any similar behavior with b4.

 

[BuRgLaR]

Arma 3 reks puters

Poorly optimized horse feces but a fun game.

 

[Mandrake4565]

If it's relevant, I upped the multiplier to 50. I attempted 20 minute stress tests each time and increased the voltage until it didn't crash/restart/turn off. Once I got to a 'semi-stable' stage I gave it 10 hours of Prime95 on mixed.

Thanks, reason I asked is because if the Oc wasn't stable it could cause issues. If you passes 10 hours prime blend it's likely not your issue.

How old is that Corsair Cx Psu? They are known to have caps fail over time, maybe you're not getting clean power, if it's getting long in the tooth.

 

[fivezerothree]

Thanks, reason I asked is because if the Oc wasn't stable it could cause issues. If you passes 10 hours prime blend it's likely not your issue.

How old is that Corsair Cx Psu? They are known to have caps fail over time, maybe you're not getting clean power, if it's getting long in the tooth.

It's about a month old, same as my graphics card. :/