System bottleneck

[HarryFlatters]

My PC is getting a bit sluggish of late, and I'm suspecting that the CPU and or graphics card are getting on a bit. If you could replace one component, what would it be, and what with?

Case CORSAIR 230T COMPACT GAMING CASE - RED LED
Overclocked CPU Overclocked Intel® Core™i5-4690k Quad Core (3.50GHz @ upto
4.60GHz)
Motherboard ASUS® MAXIMUS VII RANGER: PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0, USB3.0
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card 4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - 2 DVI, 1 HDMI, 1 DP - 3D Vision
Ready
1st Hard Disk 120GB KINGSTON HYPERX SAVAGE SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto
560MB/sR | 360MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
Power Supply CORSAIR 750W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA
QUIET
Processor Cooling Corsair H60 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
Sound Card ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2
FRONT PORTS
Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence

[Shuvi McTupya]

I am way behind on tech these days but i am surprised that is sluggish. My PC is not up to that standard and seems fine to me,.

[gr1340]

I would get a 2m kettle lead.

What is it struggling with?

[HarryFlatters]

gr1340 said:

I would get a 2m kettle lead.

What is it struggling with?

I was playing Wolfenstein New order yesterday and it was basically unplayable, given how slow it was running.

However, I gave Fallout 4 a go and it normally runs perfectly, but even it was a bit jerky.

Maybe there was a bunch of background tasks running, updates and shiz... I also had a CPU over temperature warning which I fixed by turning it off and back on again.

[deckster]

gr1340 said:

What is it struggling with?

This. Let us know what you use it for, and why it seems slow, and we can make some suggestions.

[MRichards99]

As others have said, that's not a bad system. Maybe it's time for a fresh install of Windows 10?

[sbk1972]

You need to provide more information :-

Is your PC sluggish all the time or just when your playing games / opening documents / etc?
Define sluggish, slow to start but quick afterwards ?
confirm what applications / processes are running in the background ?
How many applications are running ?
Do you open / run local or remote apps ? On a fileserver ?
Network connection sizes - 100mg / 1gb.

Coming from the old solaris / Sparc Sunos days modern PCs have tremendous computing power. Its more a case of the resources your applications are consuming on your server without you knowing it ?

[h0b0]

If your cpu is over heating it will significantly throttle performance. Check the cooling is working and put the cpu back to factory settings.

[FourWheelDrift]

Download MSI afterburner and run it, go to the settings and on the monitoring page select CPU temp, GPU temp, CPU usage, GPU usage. Make sure they are ticked and available to see on screen when you play a game. Then run your game and check the figures.

If the temps are going up higher than you would normally see then you need to have a look at your cooling, clean out dust, take fan off the radiator and blast the radiator with an air duster can, does your case have any dust filters that you haven't noticed? Make sure input and output fans are clean and working, clear cable management to help air flow through the case. On the GPU a good blast from an Air Duster can will clean it out too.

How long have you overclocked it and by how much? 5%, 10%

[HarryFlatters]

Thanks all, I'll have a check of the numbers tonight.

[budgie smuggler]

HarryFlatters said:

I was playing Wolfenstein New order yesterday and it was basically unplayable, given how slow it was running.

However, I gave Fallout 4 a go and it normally runs perfectly, but even it was a bit jerky.

Maybe there was a bunch of background tasks running, updates and shiz... I also had a CPU over temperature warning which I fixed by turning it off and back on again.

Maybe there is something wrong with your cooling system, and the CPU is thermal throttling.

eta: sorry hobo, missed your post

[mizx]

As above nothing really wrong with that spec - 4690k at 4.6 is still more than good enough? - I had mine at 4.5 at one point but it ran a bit hot in CPU intensive games (I don't think W:NO is) it's been running stock for a few years now - seems to do well still with my 6GB 1060. I have a high end air cooler and it will still reach 70-75c in heaviest of CPU heavy games.

Check the cooler seating - even taking it off cleaning up and reapplying TIM won't hurt.

I'd normally be interested what your GPU core load is doing, upgrading the 970 wouldn't hurt either for the very latest stuff, but the GPU might be a red herring in this. There's various ways to check that - I use HWInfo64 which displays the stats via Rivatuner stats server OSD. If it maxes out, this usually causes frame drop etc - though that feels more like a short stuttering slowing of the display.

[HarryFlatters]

Update - CPU temps were 35°c at idle and 60-something while gaming.

The lag/framerate drop has disappeared.

It seems to have mended itself

Thanks for your advice, much appreciated.

[Order66]

HarryFlatters said:

Update - CPU temps were 35°c at idle and 60-something while gaming.

The lag/framerate drop has disappeared.

It seems to have mended itself

Thanks for your advice, much appreciated.

Was going to say - this seems like a software issue. Worthwhile keeping an eye out for errant processes hogging CPU time (something like Skype, which Microsoft seem to make worse on every update). Absolutely nothing wrong with that hardware spec. The only thing you didn't mention was the power supply unit - oft underlooked and important to provide stable/ample power otherwise cooling might suffer and thus performance.

[HarryFlatters]

Order66 said:

Was going to say - this seems like a software issue. Worthwhile keeping an eye out for errant processes hogging CPU time (something like Skype, which Microsoft seem to make worse on every update).

I suspect that there was a lot of updates being done as it's the first time it's been switched on this year...

Order66 said:

Absolutely nothing wrong with that hardware spec. The only thing you didn't mention was the power supply unit - oft underlooked and important to provide stable/ample power otherwise cooling might suffer and thus performance.

750w PSU, which should be grand.

Still can't explain the CPU over temperature error, unless the pump in the water cooler wasn't circulating coolant properly...

[MintyScot]

Yeh its not a bad build. The CPU may not not be new but with Intels lackluster tik-tok improvements you wont get must improvement on a new cpu.

Upgrading the gpu would be what I would do for gaming. Especially if gaming above 1080p.

For free I would format the c drive and reinstall windows and overclock the cpu but as its working again if it isn't broken don't fix it

[HarryFlatters]

MintyScot said:

Yeh its not a bad build. The CPU may not not be new but with Intels lackluster tik-tok improvements you wont get must improvement on a new cpu.

Upgrading the gpu would be what I would do for gaming. Especially if gaming above 1080p.

For free I would format the c drive and reinstall windows and overclock the cpu but as its working again if it isn't broken don't fix it

Yep, I'll leave it for now as it's working again. CPU upgrades are limited by the socket on my mobo, and GTX1080s are still over £400 even though the 20 series is on the market...

[captain_cynic]

HarryFlatters said:

gr1340 said:

I would get a 2m kettle lead.

What is it struggling with?

I was playing Wolfenstein New order yesterday and it was basically unplayable, given how slow it was running.

However, I gave Fallout 4 a go and it normally runs perfectly, but even it was a bit jerky.

Maybe there was a bunch of background tasks running, updates and shiz... I also had a CPU over temperature warning which I fixed by turning it off and back on again.

Your PC is pretty similar to mine except it's not OC'd... It doesn't struggle at all with Wolfenstein: New Order or Fallout 4 at 2560 x 1440.

If you're getting heat warnings, maybe the CPU is overheating and throttling back so you could try being less aggressive with the OC.

The one part I'd replace isn't a replacement, I'd get a bigger 2nd SSD for games. 7200 RPM drives are fine for storage, but an SSD blows them out of the water for loading times. Beyond that, maybe get a 6GB RTX 2060... personally I'm waiting for them to drop in price first though (paid £270 for my GTX970, so I'm not paying £350 for a 2060).

Could also be a case of WinRot, what version of Windows are you running and when was the last time you re-installed it?

[HarryFlatters]

captain_cynic said:

The one part I'd replace isn't a replacement, I'd get a bigger 2nd SSD for games. 7200 RPM drives are fine for storage, but an SSD blows them out of the water for loading times.

Good point. A 120gb SSD was the tits 5 years ago when I got my rig. 1TB SSDs are <£150 these days

captain_cynic said:

Beyond that, maybe get a 6GB RTX 2060... personally I'm waiting for them to drop in price first though (paid £270 for my GTX970, so I'm not paying £350 for a 2060).

Yeah, I'm struggling to tie up VFM on GPUs...

captain_cynic said:

Could also be a case of WinRot, what version of Windows are you running and when was the last time you re-installed it?

No idea, probably years ago when Win10 was foisted upon me.

[captain_cynic]

HarryFlatters said:

Good point. A 120gb SSD was the tits 5 years ago when I got my rig. 1TB SSDs are <£150 these days

I remember paying £300+ (A$600) for my first 256GB SSD back in 2011. About the same for a 512 GB version a few years later... Now I'm rocking:
128 GB for the OS
512 GB for games
640 GB also for games
3TB slow drive for my 25+ years of accumulated crap

HarryFlatters said:

Yeah, I'm struggling to tie up VFM on GPUs...

NVIDIA seem to think we're still in the coin mining boom. Prices will adjust in time.