Bottlenecked... But where?

[KeyboardDemon]

I don't understand why you would be getting such bad results from your PC when your 3dMark score is very close to mine, your Physics and Combined scores are actually higher than mine, this is what I got the last time I ran the test:

3DMark Score P7734
Graphics Score 10210
Physics Score 4662
Combined Score 4227
GraphicsTest 148.49 FPS
GraphicsTest 252.57 FPS
GraphicsTest 359.19 FPS
GraphicsTest 429.8 FPS
PhysicsTest 14.8 FPS
CombinedTest 19.66 FPS

I run Advanced System Care 5 to clean out the virtual cobwebs and dust bunnies from my registry and windows files, which helps, maybe you could try that and see if things improve. Alternatively have you tried putting everything back to stock speed and running the games again in case there are recoverable errors or issues being created by the overclocks? I'm not really sure what those issues might be, just clutching at straws at the moment.

Looking at the bench comparison with a 965BE the Q9550 looks like it should be able to perform fine with current games, it doesn't seem anywhere near as outdated as I thought it would be.

[scaryjim]

I don't understand why you would be getting such bad results from your PC when your 3dMark score is very close to mine ...

Later Phenom II revisions got very close to Core 2 in IPC, and you've got ~ 400MHz clock advantage and also much faster memory (which may or may not have an impact). Also, we're talking about "bad results" when the evidence we've got is of potentially sub-par performance in one game. I think we'd need to see a full range of benchmarks to know whether it's genuinely a problem - it could just be that F1 2012 Ultra settings have an unusually high CPU load.

Percy; can I suggest you try F1 2012 again, at full resolution, and turn down each setting individually one at a time (if possible) - my guess is there's one particular setting that's taxing your CPU (probably something physics based). Then try a range of other games and see how they compare to review figures. Then decide if the bottleneck is sufficiently widespread and impactful to justify spending money (and it will be quite a lot of money) on a CPU & Mobo upgrade...

[Percy1983]

KeyboardDemon I can't help but notice that despite similar scores all my fps figures are below 60fps where yours are in the hundreds.

Interesting about ram speed, my ram multi is at 3.2 to give me 1328mhz, I just turned it down to 2 to give 830mhz and fps dropped by another 15-20.

Could my ram be causing such a bottleneck?

[kalniel]

KeyboardDemon I can't help but notice that despite similar scores all my fps figures are below 60fps where yours are in the hundreds.

Interesting about ram speed, my ram multi is at 3.2 to give me 1328mhz, I just turned it down to 2 to give 830mhz and fps dropped by another 15-20.

Could my ram be causing such a bottleneck?

Dropping RAM to 830mhz doesn't show that it was a bottleneck, only that it is now If you increased the RAM speed (and made sure nothing else changed) and you see an increase in performance then you were RAM bottlenecked.. I would be massively surprised if you actually are RAM speed bottlenecked at 1333mhz

[Percy1983]

Good point, will see if I can overclock my ram and see if things improve.

[Zak33]

nowt wrong with those 3d mark scores bud

mine are lower by a long shot

P4710 3DMarks
Graphics Score
4703
Physics Score
4874
Combined Score
4537

[Zak33]

Percy; can I suggest you try F1 2012 again, at full resolution, and turn down each setting individually one at a time (if possible) - my guess is there's one particular setting that's taxing your CPU (probably something physics based). Then try a range of other games and see how they compare to review figures. Then decide if the bottleneck is sufficiently widespread and impactful to justify spending money (and it will be quite a lot of money) on a CPU & Mobo upgrade...

this is GOOD advice

I think it's a game setting issue... really I do.

Lovely PC.. good benchmark's.. or something we are not aware of

[Percy1983]

Ran the 3 benchmarks in just cause 2 and got

107fps
127fps
63fps

GTA IV everything maxed

50fps

[Percy1983]

Ok just ran the avp benchmark with settings maxed:

*DX11 Hardware Detected*

Using Video Settings from file <AvP.txt>:

Resolution: 1920 x 1080
Texture Quality: 3
Shadow Quality: 3
Anisotropic Filtering: 16
SSAO: ON
Vertical Sync: OFF
DX11 Tessellation: ON
DX11 Advanced Shadows: ON
DX11 MSAA Samples: 4


Benchmark Summary:

Number of frames: 7674
Average Frame Time: 13.7ms
Average FPS: 73.2

Holy poo my pc is a monster. The hexus review is 54.4 fps!

So what is wrong with f1? I have tried messing with settings and there doesn't seem to be 1 thing causing the issue. Would a reinstall of f1 be worth a try?

[kalniel]

So what is wrong with f1? I have tried messing with settings and there doesn't seem to be 1 thing causing the issue. Would a reinstall of f1 be worth a try?

At this point, possibly. Certainly cheaper than an upgrade which it's looking like isn't needed for your other games.

[Domestic_Ginger]

run task manager and gpuz? (techpowerup one) and start the test; alt+tab back to desk top and see which is struggly.

F1 may not have multi core support? (clutching at straws)

[Butuz]

The bottleneck is your 4 year old CPU/MOBO combo.

Butuz

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

F1 2010 and F1 2011 are CPU heavy games it seems:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...k,2833-19.html

http://www.dsogaming.com/pc-performa...ance-analysis/

http://benchmark3d.com/formula-1-2011-benchmark/2

[Percy1983]

Interesting reading.

It would seem by cpu is generally fine but I do see this first struggle as a sign of things to come.

More interesting is if you look how much the Q9550 goes for on ebay right now.

So I could ship out by current board/cpu/ram for £150-£200 and get an i5 3570k, Z77 and 16gb ram for around £350.

So an upgrade isn't needed but it might be a good time to do it as my old stuff can fetch a bit.

[KeyboardDemon]

The bottleneck is your 4 year old CPU/MOBO combo.

Butuz

I'd love to know what you base this answer on, as the rest of the thread has really helped prove that in fact the opposite of what you say is true, in most games and benchmarks the OP is getting pretty good results, but game play suffers with one particular title as it is particularly CPU heavy, though Cat didn't post that until after you posted.

Interesting reading.

It would seem by cpu is generally fine but I do see this first struggle as a sign of things to come.

More interesting is if you look how much the Q9550 goes for on ebay right now.

So I could ship out by current board/cpu/ram for £150-£200 and get an i5 3570k, Z77 and 16gb ram for around £350.

So an upgrade isn't needed but it might be a good time to do it as my old stuff can fetch a bit.

Sounds like a good plan, you might even be able to get more for your mobo + cpu combination if you sell it as an overclocked bundle.