What is holding my gaming performance back?

[Blín D'ñero]

Overclocking won't help, more airflow and higher gpu clocks play no role whatsoever as long...
... as the base is not solid.
The base: your CPU is fine. Could do with some overclock... after you solidized the basis.
RAM is fine
Motherboard is fine
Videocard is fine
PSU is fine
HDD, Caviar Green: serious Bottleneck!

Replace WD Greens with Caviar Blacks.
Learn to use first halves of the hdd's for OS and games respectively.
Always keep enough free space. Defragment on a regulary basis.

 

[Hilux SSRG]

HDD, Caviar Green: serious Bottleneck!

Replace WD Greens with Caviar Blacks.
Learn to use first halves of the hdd's for OS and games respectively.
Always keep enough free space. Defragment on a regulary basis.

Good recommendation, but I will propose an alternative to the Caviar Blacks. Get a Samsung Evo SSD for $90 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147247

Setup your OS, Steam, Origin, BF4, and a few other applications and you're set.

I was having super long load times in BF4: 1-2 minutes. After making the switch to a SSD I load BF4 within 15-25 seconds.

Best upgrade in 4+ years.

 

[andrewsmc]

GPU clocks are default. All temps on mobo card and cpu are ok.

You need to elaborate . . . "Fine" is not descriptive at all. We need to know temps. Has this "lag" always existed? I would also suggest running memtest. A fresh format and install of windows with all new drivers never hurts either.

 

[_larry]

I think the BIGGEST thing holding you back is your motherboard/cpu. Your mobo only supports PCIe x16 2.0. You will never see the full potential of your card until you upgrade to a PCIe x16 3.0 board. I hate to say it, but you should have invested in a new mobo/cpu instead of that card..

Turning off indexing on your hard drives will help give you a smoother gaming experience in games that stream textures in. Especially in Windows 7. With it on, Windows is almost constantly rearranging files in the background...

It also seems that overclocking AMD CPU's have a larger effect than overclocking Intel's in Far Cry 3.
http://www.techspot.com/review/615-far-cry-3-performance/page6.html

 

[Hilux SSRG]

I think the BIGGEST thing holding you back is your motherboard/cpu. Your mobo only supports PCIe x16 2.0. You will never see the full potential of your card until you upgrade to a PCIe x16 3.0 board.

PCIe x16 2.0 vs PCIe x16 3.0 = not much difference really to justify the problems he is having.

 

[_larry]

PCIe x16 2.0 vs PCIe x16 3.0 = not much difference really to justify the problems he is having.

I get better FPS in Far Cry 3 with my 7950 and non-K series i5... my 3.0 board easily makes up the bandwidth difference of our cards.

Scratch that..I am not a smart man...

 

[antony209494]

Overclocking won't help, more airflow and higher gpu clocks play no role whatsoever as long...
... as the base is not solid.
The base: your CPU is fine. Could do with some overclock... after you solidized the basis.
RAM is fine
Motherboard is fine
Videocard is fine
PSU is fine
HDD, Caviar Green: serious Bottleneck!

Replace WD Greens with Caviar Blacks.
Learn to use first halves of the hdd's for OS and games respectively.
Always keep enough free space. Defragment on a regulary basis.

Thank you. I think that's it!

 

[FX-GMC]

I think the BIGGEST thing holding you back is your motherboard/cpu. Your mobo only supports PCIe x16 2.0. You will never see the full potential of your card until you upgrade to a PCIe x16 3.0 board. I hate to say it, but you should have invested in a new mobo/cpu instead of that card..

Turning off indexing on your hard drives will help give you a smoother gaming experience in games that stream textures in. Especially in Windows 7. With it on, Windows is almost constantly rearranging files in the background...

It also seems that overclocking AMD CPU's have a larger effect than overclocking Intel's in Far Cry 3.
http://www.techspot.com/review/615-far-cry-3-performance/page6.html

PCI x16 3.0 isn't going to help. Well maybe a few fps depending on resolution. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/07/18/pci_express_20_vs_30_gpu_gaming_performance_review/5

The Caviar Green 1TB are ok if they are the ones with the single 1TB platter. These are still fairly quick even with the 5400rpm motor.

My money is on the 8120. My 8320 was a bottleneck at stock clocks. I'd try getting the cpu to 4.0-4.2GHz and see how the performance is.

 

[FX-GMC]

HDD, Caviar Green: serious Bottleneck!

You can't just make a blanket statement like that. There are way to many variations of the Green's to tell if it is the bottleneck or not.

Thank you. I think that's it!

What is the model number on the Green's?

http://rml527.blogspot.com/2010/10/hdd-platter-database-western-digital-35_1109.html

The 1TB Green drives with a single platter are just as fast as a 1TB Black with multiple platters. http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1190240

 

[M0rt]

You need to elaborate . . . "Fine" is not descriptive at all. We need to know temps. I would also suggest running memtest. A fresh format and install of windows with all new drivers never hurts either.

^That about says it.

Create GPU clock, and temp logs, replicate the problem, and rule out those variables. Log the CPU too while you're at it.

Memtest and CHKDSK are smooth moves.

If you can, do a fresh install and take it from the top.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Is is the CPU... my 5 years old nehalem still bites the head of this CPU... Slow L3, bad IPC per core... at lower resolution it will be around 30% slower than first gen i7... AMD really needs a kick in the balls with some OC. Games that are very GPU heavy like Metro or very optimized for multicores won't trigger this, but classic console port rubbish will, as they are poorly optimized for multi cpu's and like raw single core performance.

PCIE3? Rubbish...
HDD? It will affect load times not FPS...

Check if ram is really working at its real timings... AMD boards are usually is bugged out at that department.

Simply said... that GPU needs a hefty feed... for the sake of curiosity, have you benched BF4 with mantle and off?

 

[Mathragh]

As an owner of the FX-8120, I can also say that at stock clocks, it really is quite slow in situations where single threaded CPU performance is your primary concern. You shouldn't exactly drop down into the teens when it comes to FPS, however, so I agree with the others in that it probably is mainly bottlenecking somewhere else. However on the CPU front, as others have also said overclocking that CPU cant hurt at all. And as far as overclocking goes you've got yourself a great chip! By default it is clocked quite low, meaning it has loads of headroom, and with your cooler and mobo you should be able to take advantage of that! Even a fairly mild overclock can easily get you about a 30% increase.

So even though it might not solve your spikes into the ten fps range, it will certainly smooth things out. If after reading those overclocking articles others linked you still need help feel free to PM me for some directions on the overclocking front

 

[Ferrum Master]

we are forgetting last thing... usual AMD no driver issue... It could be driver related... for example Mantle beta catalyst does not sleep at 2D mode... clocks are quite Hawaii like indeed for those cards.

 

[antony209494]

Is is the CPU... my 5 years old nehalem still bites the head of this CPU... Slow L3, bad IPC per core... at lower resolution it will be around 30% slower than first gen i7... AMD really needs a kick in the balls with some OC. Games that are very GPU heavy like Metro or very optimized for multicores won't trigger this, but classic console port rubbish will, as they are poorly optimized for multi cpu's and like raw single core performance.

PCIE3? Rubbish...
HDD? It will affect load times not FPS...

Check if ram is really working at its real timings... AMD boards are usually is bugged out at that department.

Simply said... that GPU needs a hefty feed... for the sake of curiosity, have you benched BF4 with mantle and off?

Yea. Same results with or without Mantle. OK so what I get from this is I should OC the 8120 and get a better HDD if possible.

About the overclocking part: What should I use to do it?

 

[FX-GMC]

Yea. Same results with or without Mantle. OK so what I get from this is I should OC the 8120 and get a better HDD if possible.

About the overclocking part: What should I use to do it?

The BIOS. Press the Delete key repeatedly, immediately after turning the PC on. Then go into the Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker. http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-990fxa-ud3_e.pdf (Relevent information starts on page 32.)

Once in the M.I.B. put the CPU ratio up. Each half step will add 100MHz to the cpu clock (assuming your Bus speed is at the default of 200MHz.)

 

[Ferrum Master]

Yea. Same results with or without Mantle. OK so what I get from this is I should OC the 8120 and get a better HDD if possible.

About the overclocking part: What should I use to do it?

Get an SSD... Samys Evo's are cheap or a Pro one as it has a huge 5 year warranty, use the green as intended - as data storage only...

Well I played with R9 290 last weekend too, I am happy with my 7970 still, as it also enormously stutter in Skyrim due to throttling and some bonkers behavior, as skyrim isn't really that demanding all the time, that critter slowed down that much on the clock so when something happened on the screen, thus GPU usage rises, it has a dreadful hiccup, yes, try to game with an open case too, as I had temperature issues too after benching it a lot, it didn't help much for me, when it warms up it stays hot, only thing that helped is manually use afterburner and crank up fan speed with custom table to reasonable temps to prevent throttling... it helped a lot to stabilize the critter. It could be not only GPU temp, but VRM too!, but I did exclude it as you have Asus Direct CU II, it ain't that bad and should handle the temps...

Only solution that we found in my case, we decided later on to perform red mod and mount some Cooler Master Seidon as the pump screws fit natively on the card for the sake of silence.

OC help... It is a long thread, but it will had all warnings and recommendations about this specific board. As I see same old story... I dislike Gigabyte with those revision updates... like the first batch of motherboards is more like beta test.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1023100/official-gigabyte-ga-990fxa-series-owners-thread-club

 

[antony209494]

The BIOS. Press the Delete key repeatedly, immediately after turning the PC on. Then go into the Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker. http://download.gigabyte.us/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-990fxa-ud3_e.pdf (Relevent information starts on page 32.)

Once in the M.I.B. put the CPU ratio up. Each half step will add 100MHz to the cpu clock (assuming your Bus speed is at the default of 200MHz.)

It has the gigabyte UEFI bios and it's quite different than in the manual. I can't seem to change anything there though. Core ratio is locked and I can't unlock it. Can't change any frequency settings in general.

 

[eskwy911]

be sure your mobo Bios is up to date.
make a good and safe overclocking for your cpu heatsink and mobo
be sure your memory is really set to 1600mhz.

sorry for my english but I wish that help you.

 

[antony209494]

Never mind found it. I increased the base clock ratio to 3.5 Ghz but windows still reports 3.1? Why?

 

[antony209494]

Tested Far Cry 3 with the new clocks. PC locked up and rebooted twice within 30 seconds of going in game with no noticeable improvement on performance either. So the easy and perfect for overclocking FX can't even handle a 0.4 increase? What's even weirder is that the temps were perfectly normal. It reached about 41 C when it crashed. What is wrong with this damn PC!?!?!?!?

 

[FX-GMC]

Tested Far Cry 3 with the new clocks. PC locked up and rebooted twice within 30 seconds of going in game with no noticeable improvement on performance either. So the easy and perfect for overclocking FX can't even handle a 0.4 increase? What's even weirder is that the temps were perfectly normal. It reached about 41 C when it crashed. What is wrong with this damn PC!?!?!?!?

Post a screenshot of cpu-z http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

When you do the screenshot run something in the background that makes the cpu go to max clock.

 

[Solaris17]

you are cpu limited bf4 is heavy on cpus

 

[patrico]

hmm somethings not right, which could be CPU,,, anything funny running in the task manager?

 

[antony209494]

Post a screenshot of cpu-z http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

When you do the screenshot run something in the background that makes the cpu go to max clock.

Sorry gonna sleep now. Maybe tomorrow. I added you on battlelog by the way!

 

[patrico]

WUT? That made very little sense...

The mentioning of the WD Greens is a good point. they are meant to be used for storage.

think he was sayin ya need as much much ram as the harddrive uses for the game which im sorry but isnt right as you dont use all harddrive game data at once and which alot of it isnt graphical