PC Performance not as it should be?

Hey All,

Thanks for taking the time to check this out, hope you can help. My spec can be found at the usual spec page drop down thing.

No way am i an expert with computer hardware but im not dumb when it comes to it. This performance issue has come to my attention due to a friend with a pretty similar build apart from GPU, and benchmarks of games that ive found via various internet sources. It concerns Gaming performance really.

I used to have a Palit GTX 550Ti 1GB with a pretty cheap brand PSU of around 500-600 watt, and at the time i played Battlefield 3 which was playable on high settings. I wasn't really happy with playable on High settings or the future proofing that my GTX 550Ti was providing so the GTX 600 Series was launching and i decided to get a Gigabyte GTX 670 2GB Windforce 3x. Got it installed, wasen't happy with my PSU and the AMP's it was described to have compared to what gigabyte said the card required so i went out and got a XFX Core Series 650W and all was well, Max Settings on BF3 not dropping below 60Fps. Now time has passed and ive got more and more games but it appears my PC can't handle them on Max Settings. The games in question are Max Payne 3, Borderlands 2, Need for speed Most Wanted, and War-z (Survival MMO like Day-Z). Benchmarks suggest my CPU and GPU should be getting Avg's of 75-80Fps in these games but Max Payne 3 i struggle to stay above 40-50Fps, Borderlands 2 is a nightmare where i can get as low as 20Fps and no higher than 40fps, War-z is the same situation as Borderlands 2, and NFS Most Wanted Avg's 50Fps but dips down to 30Fps at times.

So My friend running the same CPU and mobo and ram but using a GTX 550Ti (like i used to have) can run borderlands 2 in the same game as me co-op and get a lowest reading of 50Fps, avg of around 60 Fps with the same ingame settings. Then i look at a benchmark comparing GPU's and CPU's and from it i can conclude i should be Avg 75FPs in borderlands 2 but thats not happening, no where near. Its the same situation for the rest i listed, everyone gets completely different (Higher) results when playing the same games, on similar systems with lower end and similar GPU's to me, but i get the complete opposite (bad end) of the results.

I am convinced i have an issue somewhere, but i don't know where to begin. My current thoughts were along the lines of my High End gpu which is designed with PCI-E 3.0 but my board only had 2.0 slots and maybe CPU bottle-necking the card. However, the borderlands 2 benchmark suggested all should be fine with my CPU/GPU set. I have also made observations using MSI Afterburner that in many of these gaming situations the card isn't performing as i expect it is never 100% Loaded. To me if the Pc is struggling to load my visuals and dipping down to 30Fps with Vsync on or off, then surely the card should be maxed?

Any suggestions? Probably confused the hell out of you all but ill be checking back regularly so i shall answer any questions which will help clear this.

Many thanks.

That is wierd.

What are the drivers your are using? Are you using the latest nvidia ones. Might try going back a version and see if that helps. My thinking thinking is that the older card is 'tried and tested' and therefore the drivers might be more stable on the 550 than the 670.

i cannot imagine the pci-e 3 being a problem, i would expect a little drop in performance but not that much.

I always use the latest Nvidia BETA drivers, Any issues then i roll back to the last driver that was fully working no issues. Over the time ive played these games ive been through Various R300 drivers for the card which no real improvement or worsening of the performance.

Definitely not a PCI-E 3.0 problem per se (unless you have damage to the slot - try a different slot!). It's almost certainly software, but check temperatures in case you are throttling back for any reason like a clogged fan. Power saving modes might be another reason.

If you have a spare hdd bang a fresh version of Windows on and try the games again. A bit long winded but will at least narrow it down to a hardware problem or software.

Thanks for the responses. I shall try a fresh reinstall of windows and different slot. All power saving features are turned off at windows and BIOS level.

Do you have Youtube, or any Flash apps, open in the background?

Frustratingly, I see that problem quite frequently, having Flash running makes your GPU drop to video playback clocks, even if you're playing a game in the foreground. If closing all background apps helps, use something like GPU-Z to monitor GPU clocks when idle, with Flash running, and while just gaming.

AFAIK this problem has existed for at least several years, I'm not sure if it's been patched recently but I dread to think how many problems this has caused for people.

It might not be the cause of your problem, but it's still something worth bearing in mind + possibly testing.

So, ive upgraded to Windows 8, fresh install, getting the same low performance results. The flash player issue i shall test over the coming days. Still to try changing the PCI-E slot it is in but ill get to that.

Could anyone confirm if my CPU may be a bottleneck for the card where the game relies on the CPU a bit more. For example BF3 to me uses multi-cores both Intel and AMD well, so therefore i don't get any issues with that game, where as borderlands 2 is maybe more cpu intensive and not so optimized for AMD 6 core processors which to me would cause the issue im having?

You could overclock your cpu and see if that makes much of a difference. Have you tried monitoring the gpu temperature maybe the heatsink isn't on right.

The CPU generally doesn't make that much of a difference in most games, besides I and some friends have the same one/another Thuban and have run some of the problem games you mention fine. Bear in mind that benchmarks aren't always identical; most games don't have a built-in benchmark so it's up to the review site to come up with something which generally includes playing through a certain part of the game as consistently as possible, but it leaves a large margin of error and different sites can choose different scenes to benchmark on.

What are you using to measure FPS with?

Also, double-check your settings are actually the same as the reviews are using, e.g. FXAA is essentially free but MSAA, expecially at higher levels, can destroy performance in some games.

Does your friend run at the same resolution?

Does BF3 still play at 60FPS?

Did you check the temps as already stated? When was the last time you cleaned inside your system?

Overclocking processor maybe gives me an extra frame or two but nothing significant.

I have used MSI Afterburner and Fraps to monitor FPS. I use HWmonitor, and MSI Afterburner for temps, all of which are under the limits generally by a fair percentage. My system was last cleaned 3 weeks ago, i try to stick to a monthly cleaning schedule.

Battlefield 3 still runs at 60FPS on Win 8 and my friend does run at the same resolution.

I now have Hitman Absolution and on its built in benchmark i get an avg of 43FPS, Min of 34FPS, and max of 54FPS on full settings except I use FXAA rather than MSAA. From benchmarks so far, this is about normal for my card and this game although one benchmark showed FXAA and MSAA x4 enabled and still got the same results as me who doesn't have any MSAA.

Some games are more CPU driven than others, BF3 is more GPU intensive for sure. Games like WoW, Source engine, etc are more CPU dependant.
I don't play most of the games you mentioned but your FPS sounds about where it should be..
On my system I get butter smooth 60 FPS solid on Borderlands2 at high settings with a 560Ti so you definitely got something going on, have you tried doing a clean install of different drivers?
Also check in Nvidia Control Panel under manage 3D settings and set Power Management Mode to Prefer Maximum Performance.
Then benchmark your card in Heaven Benchmark and also run a 3DMark11 run and post your score so we can see how your system is performing