Graphics Card upgrade?

[tweakboy]

Your CPU is holding you back.... gl

 

[Headfoot]

Overclocking is very easy with a K CPU and a Z motherboard, you can get 90% of the max possible overclock by just making the multiplier higher and adding some voltage with a decent cooler on it. The last 10% takes more doing to get, but you can just ignore it really. There are a lot of guides out there. Just google "3570k overclock guide." HSF is also easy for most coolers, especially those that have pressure limiting spring mounts, which is most modern coolers these days.

 

[MattXS]

Looks like I screwed something up with the stock HSF, because my CPU is running around 59 deg C stock in BIOS. Definitely getting a 212 EVO and hopefully mounting it much better this time for much lower temps. Hopefully I didn't get an extremely hot i5. Core Temp is showing 45-55 deg C with Windows 7 booted and 30% or lower load on the cores.

 

[Headfoot]

the temperature measurement that matters is when the core is fully loaded, like under a program for that purpose like Prime95 or OCCT. Go and read an overclocking guide, it will walk you through all of this. 60 degrees celcius is not overly hot.

 

[MattXS]

OC'd it to 3.9 GHz (Only turbos to that speed, with retaining most everything in auto, and setting max watts/amps to 250) and ran Prime 95 blend test and temps got to 92-95 in a minute. I ran Lotro at this speed for about 19 minutes and the most I got was 76-78 deg C with 31/66/94/57 core loads in log file.

 

[Headfoot]

Yeah the 90's is probably too high, definitely worth getting a better cooler since they're pretty cheap and it'll make your machine quieter too

 

[Headfoot]

As for a cooler, I'd go for the Cryorig H7. Costs the same as a Hyper 212 Evo but it performs a few degrees better, its a newer cooler. You can get it on newegg for about $35.

 

[Seba]

I ran Lotro at this speed for about 19 minutes and the most I got was 76-78 deg C with 31/66/94/57 core loads in log file.

And how was the performance in that game? Any improvements?

 

[MattXS]

And how was the performance in that game? Any improvements?

Hard to say. They just "upgraded" the servers, and everything is running like crap. If/when it gets settled down I will try a somewhat repeatable part of the game and look at fps differences at different cpu speeds.

I see that fraps can make spreadsheets of fps numbers, so I'll use that for checking for a noticeable difference.

 

[MattXS]

I was able to get a stable enough (80 deg C max in LOTRO) OC to 4.2 with stock HSF (decided not to push it any higher due to temps), and it looks like the servers are fixed, so I should have some numbers between 3.4/3.8 and 3.4/4.2. I went ahead and ordered the H7 anyway because it seems my temps are quite high, so I hope to have something close to 4.4 or 4.5 with the new cooler. I plan on doing a full add pull in the School instance of all adds back to entrance, which should be easily repeatable, but may not be the same every time. I think 3 to 5 times at both speeds should give a decent average number. I plan on using Fraps for fps numbers, and Core Temp for temp and load numbers. I've never done any of this before so if someone has some advice or suggestions please let me know.

Also, I am leaving the base clock at 3.4 and only increasing the turbo clock, using the same number on all 4 cores. I increased the wattage/amperage limit in bios as well, but other than that I left most everything at stock, which is mostly auto. It has been very stable with my use, with only temperature being an issue, which I have to believe is mostly a hsf issue that should be corrected in a week.

 

[Charlie98]

OC'd it to 3.9 GHz (Only turbos to that speed, with retaining most everything in auto, and setting max watts/amps to 250) and ran Prime 95 blend test and temps got to 92-95 in a minute. I ran Lotro at this speed for about 19 minutes and the most I got was 76-78 deg C with 31/66/94/57 core loads in log file.

Did you do anything with Vcore voltage?

 

[Symcy94]

If you want to buy now, a 4GB 380X. If you want to hang on 6 months, 14nm GPUs will be here.

14nm GPUs in 6 months :O
Thanks for letting me know that I should start saving my money for upgrade xD

 

[MattXS]

Did you do anything with Vcore voltage?

I left the Vcore voltage on auto, so it is adjusting itself as needed. Core Temp only logs frequency, temp, load, and watts, so I don't know what the voltage is going to exactly.

 

[Charlie98]

I left the Vcore voltage on auto, so it is adjusting itself as needed. Core Temp only logs frequency, temp, load, and watts, so I don't know what the voltage is going to exactly.

Ok... that might work for now. If you start having stability problems, you may have to manually adjust the vCore. As I mentioned, at least in my case, I dropped the vCore while still getting a decent OC; lower voltage helped me get my temps under control. I was in the low 90C's at 4.1GHz until I lowered vCore.

 

[MattXS]

Ok... that might work for now. If you start having stability problems, you may have to manually adjust the vCore. As I mentioned, at least in my case, I dropped the vCore while still getting a decent OC; lower voltage helped me get my temps under control. I was in the low 90C's at 4.1GHz until I lowered vCore.

90's in prime 95 or another similar program? I am getting 90's in prime 95 with stock hsf, suspect it will lower significantly new hsf. With LOTRO game play I am only getting 80 max, and that is about as taxing as I will be on the computer, so again with new hsf it should be much lower and very safe.

 

[railven]

Have you always had these issues with LOTRO? I just read they switched over to new servers and have had a myriad of issues since.

http://massivelyop.com/2016/01/14/lord-of-the-rings-onlines-server-woes-continue/

If the issues are new, it could be related to the migration issues. From when I last played LOTRO (years ago, dunno if they did any engine updates) it ran pretty poorly to begin with. I think I last played it when I had a HD 7970 which was faster than your HD 7850.

And CFX seems to be a huge miss with MMOs from my experience. I've played countless MMOs and when I ran CFX 7970's I had to disable it. I'd either get insane frames with ridiculous microstuttering or negative scaling.

But that was two years ago.

 

[MattXS]

My low fps is nothing new, and I suspect that at least part of it is poor game code and poor server performance. My really low fps is mostly in 12+ raids and in the moors, which is simply the most intense part of the game where you would expect the lowest performance. If switching graphic settings between different custom settings was easier I would simply go from custom high settings to custom low settings and put up with the poor picture quality in exchange for better fps. I did run a 3 man instance (Iorbar's Peak if you are curious) with 2 others after the server first got switched over but before they took them down to fix the issues, and it was barely playable. The performance made the challenge on T2C almost impossible to complete even with 3 players.

 

[Charlie98]

90's in prime 95 or another similar program? I am getting 90's in prime 95 with stock hsf, suspect it will lower significantly new hsf. With LOTRO game play I am only getting 80 max, and that is about as taxing as I will be on the computer, so again with new hsf it should be much lower and very safe.

I use LinX. 80C while gaming isn't too bad, and once you replace the HSF that will certainly drop... by how much is the question.

 

[railven]

My low fps is nothing new, and I suspect that at least part of it is poor game code and poor server performance. My really low fps is mostly in 12+ raids and in the moors, which is simply the most intense part of the game where you would expect the lowest performance. If switching graphic settings between different custom settings was easier I would simply go from custom high settings to custom low settings and put up with the poor picture quality in exchange for better fps. I did run a 3 man instance (Iorbar's Peak if you are curious) with 2 others after the server first got switched over but before they took them down to fix the issues, and it was barely playable. The performance made the challenge on T2C almost impossible to complete even with 3 players.

Yeah, I didn't realize you had already mentioned you were aware of the server migration. I want to say LOTRO ran off the same horrid engine that was Vangaurd (I'd have to actually dig to see if it's true), but I just don't remember that game running smoothly (and I've always had a "beastly" PC for it's time).

I just found out/realized Blade and Soul uses PhysX. I can imagine this is why a lot of AMD users reported issues during the closed betas.

Unrelated to you, but more so MMOs are trying to use more and more advance features, stuff you don't see in the likes of WoW. And performance is being crushed by it when you factor in the body count these features get applied to.)

 

[dogen1]

I just found out/realized Blade and Soul uses PhysX. I can imagine this is why a lot of AMD users reported issues during the closed betas.

Probably not. If it's the GPU flavor of PhysX it just wouldn't run. CPU PhysX is basically fine, even the older "unoptimized" versions were competitive or superior to other engines like bullet.

 

[railven]

Probably not. If it's the GPU flavor of PhysX it just wouldn't run. CPU PhysX is basically fine, even the older "unoptimized" versions were competitive or superior to other engines like bullet.

BnS is looking to not be a well optimized game. But it seems from browsing forums (before I realize the game was poorly optimized, I didn't get too far into the CBT and the one time I experienced going from 60 to 35 FPS looking at a portal didn't raise red flags, it should), INTEL+NV users are reporting less issues then AMD+AMD users or AMD+NV users.

Gotta do some testing myself. Wish I had a newer Radeon to test on :/

EDIT: My understanding is:
AMD CPU already has lower ST performance (strike 1)
AMD GPU have poorly multi-threaded drivers (strike 2)
PhysX can (at least from what I saw during the ProjectCars debacle) put a lot of stress on the CPU (strike 3)

Same thing happened with Guild Wars 2 and their proprietary physics engine.

 

[MattXS]

I got the H7 installed and it has made a huge improvement. CPU is running about 15-20 deg C cooler at idle/light usage, about 20-25 cooler when playing LOTRO, and about 30-35 cooler in Prime 95. I used to run Prime 95 and I would have to turn it off after a minute due to temps rising to 90+, now they plateau at 59C. These are all at 4.2 Ghz, I am going to see what max overclock I can get with it, and then compare LOTRO FPS numbers when I get a chance.