[SOLVED] Best way to optimize i7-2600 to i5-10400f upgrade

Aug 15, 2018
20
2
1,515
Hi y’all, after about 3 years of running my i7-2600, I finally pulled the trigger on a CPU upgrade. Originally I was looking for a 4790k mobo combo to fit my budget, but stumbled on a 10400f w/ mobo AND 16Gb of DDR4 for about $35 more ($265 total) than what the 4790k combos I was finding were running. After a bit of setup today I’m really enjoying the upgraded performance, but I feel like the performance I’m seeing could be better. I’m running it with a 1080 GTX (blower style), 16Gb of RipJaws G.Skill (2x8Gb) and an Asus Prime H510M-A board on Win 10 Pro 64bit. Previously my setup was the same card, CPU cooler (Scythe Mugen 5), hard drives (Crucial CS1311 256Gb (boot), Hyundai 980Gb Sapphire SSD as secondary and 2TB WD Blue HDD for backup data) and OS, but on an i7-2600, MSI Z77A-G43, and 20Gb (3x4Gb, 1x8Gb) of DDR3, mixed brand/model. I installed the new board combo, swapped over my cooler and whatnot, fired it up and installed the stuff ASUS recommended. I ended up having to reinstall GeForce experience as well. Just wondering if there’s something more I need to/should do to optimize performance from the new upgrade. I haven’t upgraded CPU’s before so this is a first for me.

I’ve also noticed that the ASUS software (Armour Crate) gives a different CPU usage percentage than Windows TaskManager/Resource Monitor, about a 20% difference. Hoping to see if anybody can chime in on why that’s happening as well.
 
Solution
Sounds like you're getting some solid performance for sure. The lesser ram might have a bit to do with it as the bloatier the OS gets, the more ram it needs and 16GB is turning into the new 8GB if it isn't already. So upping to 32GB may help.
Sounds like you're getting some solid performance for sure. The lesser ram might have a bit to do with it as the bloatier the OS gets, the more ram it needs and 16GB is turning into the new 8GB if it isn't already. So upping to 32GB may help.
 
Solution

Bazzy 505

Respectable
Jul 17, 2021
344
124
1,940
Hi y’all, after about 3 years of running my i7-2600, I finally pulled the trigger on a CPU upgrade. Originally I was looking for a 4790k mobo combo to fit my budget, but stumbled on a 10400f w/ mobo AND 16Gb of DDR4 for about $35 more ($265 total) than what the 4790k combos I was finding were running. After a bit of setup today I’m really enjoying the upgraded performance, but I feel like the performance I’m seeing could be better. I’m running it with a 1080 GTX (blower style), 16Gb of RipJaws G.Skill (2x8Gb) and an Asus Prime H510M-A board on Win 10 Pro 64bit. Previously my setup was the same card, CPU cooler (Scythe Mugen 5), hard drives (Crucial CS1311 256Gb (boot), Hyundai 980Gb Sapphire SSD as secondary and 2TB WD Blue HDD for backup data) and OS, but on an i7-2600, MSI Z77A-G43, and 20Gb (3x4Gb, 1x8Gb) of DDR3, mixed brand/model. I installed the new board combo, swapped over my cooler and whatnot, fired it up and installed the stuff ASUS recommended. I ended up having to reinstall GeForce experience as well. Just wondering if there’s something more I need to/should do to optimize performance from the new upgrade. I haven’t upgraded CPU’s before so this is a first for me.

I’ve also noticed that the ASUS software (Armour Crate) gives a different CPU usage percentage than Windows TaskManager/Resource Monitor, about a 20% difference. Hoping to see if anybody can chime in on why that’s happening as well.

The difference is in polling time and frequency .


Task manager polls the clock at certain intervals and displays the reading. ( poll intervals are smaller than armory crate)

Things like Armory crate take several readings, averages those readings and displays the result.

(as threads are dispatched to cores, those cores shoot up, go down, as they flare up, windows scheduler assings the next thread to a different core that one shoots up than clocks down)
When you average these readings, the values tend be generally higher and prettier .

Nothing wrong with your pc or task manager, as for armory crate, you can view is "different methodology" or "aftersales marketing" depending on how happy you are with results.

for monitoring purposes HWmonitor is certainly a better option, and for tweaking intel provides the tools.

After you install and update all, there's no reason to keep it around, it's just as useless and bloated as what other board vendors shovel around.
 
Last edited:
Aug 15, 2018
20
2
1,515
After you install and update all, there's no reason to keep it around, it's just as useless and bloated as what other board vendors shovel around.

Are you talking about removing armoury crate or HW monitor? And is HWmonitor any better than OpenHardwareManager? I used to use OpenHardwareManager to monitor temps and usage systemwide, but with the upgrade it won’t show cpu frequency or temp anymore, so I’d like to find something else to use. Asus recommended a software called CPU-Z or something like that, but you have to navigate through the menus to view different system data and I’d like something that displays all system data in one menu that I can glance at on my second screen while gaming or running something cpu/graphics intense.

Also, is there anything I need to do with or remove from the system after the upgrade? I don’t know if any of the stuff that was required with the old MSI board or Sandy Bridge processor would interfere with the performance of the new setup.
 
Aug 15, 2018
20
2
1,515
Sounds like you're getting some solid performance for sure. The lesser ram might have a bit to do with it as the bloatier the OS gets, the more ram it needs and 16GB is turning into the new 8GB if it isn't already. So upping to 32GB may help.

I’ll see if I can’t snag some 16Gb sticks for the next upgrade, long term I’d like to upgrade the board to something with more PCIx16 slots and more RAM slots as it’s only a micro atx board with only 1 PCIx16 and 2 ram slots.
 
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Unless you know you are or will be exceeding 16 GB of RAM usage, having another 16 GB of RAM unused is just... wasted money.

Was this upgrade accompanied with a fresh /FULL WIn10 /apps/games reinstall, or a 'shutdown, swap mainboard/CPU/RAM, reboot, install new drivers and hope it all works out'? (The latter sometimes works, but, if you are not seeing noteworthy 1080P framerate increases from the i7-2600 upgrade, I've be concerned that something was ....amiss....
 
Hi y’all, after about 3 years of running my i7-2600, I finally pulled the trigger on a CPU upgrade. Originally I was looking for a 4790k mobo combo to fit my budget, but stumbled on a 10400f w/ mobo AND 16Gb of DDR4 for about $35 more ($265 total) than what the 4790k combos I was finding were running. After a bit of setup today I’m really enjoying the upgraded performance, but I feel like the performance I’m seeing could be better. I’m running it with a 1080 GTX (blower style), 16Gb of RipJaws G.Skill (2x8Gb) and an Asus Prime H510M-A board on Win 10 Pro 64bit. Previously my setup was the same card, CPU cooler (Scythe Mugen 5), hard drives (Crucial CS1311 256Gb (boot), Hyundai 980Gb Sapphire SSD as secondary and 2TB WD Blue HDD for backup data) and OS, but on an i7-2600, MSI Z77A-G43, and 20Gb (3x4Gb, 1x8Gb) of DDR3, mixed brand/model. I installed the new board combo, swapped over my cooler and whatnot, fired it up and installed the stuff ASUS recommended. I ended up having to reinstall GeForce experience as well. Just wondering if there’s something more I need to/should do to optimize performance from the new upgrade. I haven’t upgraded CPU’s before so this is a first for me.

I’ve also noticed that the ASUS software (Armour Crate) gives a different CPU usage percentage than Windows TaskManager/Resource Monitor, about a 20% difference. Hoping to see if anybody can chime in on why that’s happening as well.
Run this and post a link to the results page.
PC Benchmark
 

Bazzy 505

Respectable
Jul 17, 2021
344
124
1,940
Are you talking about removing armoury crate or HW monitor? And is HWmonitor any better than OpenHardwareManager? I used to use OpenHardwareManager to monitor temps and usage systemwide, but with the upgrade it won’t show cpu frequency or temp anymore, so I’d like to find something else to use. Asus recommended a software called CPU-Z or something like that, but you have to navigate through the menus to view different system data and I’d like something that displays all system data in one menu that I can glance at on my second screen while gaming or running something cpu/graphics intense.

Also, is there anything I need to do with or remove from the system after the upgrade? I don’t know if any of the stuff that was required with the old MSI board or Sandy Bridge processor would interfere with the performance of the new setup.

either remove of armory crate or disable auto start with windows. Needless resource hog.
As for monitoring, HWmonitor takes all those reading you are mentioning out of the box.

https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

CPUz you've mentioned is more aimed at quick bench/stress testing , checking cpu, bios, motherboard details, RAM information, operation mode, frequency, timing and the basic info about current state of GPU. It's not aimed at displaying all temperature readings.
Both are made by the same company, and are lightweight and free

https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html

no reason you can't have both ;)
 
Aug 15, 2018
20
2
1,515
Unless you know you are or will be exceeding 16 GB of RAM usage, having another 16 GB of RAM unused is just... wasted money.

Was this upgrade accompanied with a fresh /FULL WIn10 /apps/games reinstall, or a 'shutdown, swap mainboard/CPU/RAM, reboot, install new drivers and hope it all works out'? (The latter sometimes works, but, if you are not seeing noteworthy 1080P framerate increases from the i7-2600 upgrade, I've be concerned that something was ....amiss....

No, just a shutdown, disassembly, swap and reboot. Is it better to do a wipe and fresh install of everything? I'll need to see if I can find the windows key I used, I'm not sure where it ended up

The heaven benchmark I ran gave a considerable max fps increase - about 100-120fps (234 max fps)- but only about a 10-15 min fps (34 min fps) increase
 
https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/45048636

With XMP enabled

UBM still says processor is performing below expectations. Would reinstalling the OS free that up any? Not sure if the board is the cause for that either, this is the first micro-atx board I've ever run.
That looks a little better.
I think your a little behind on the bios.
Go to the mobo site and get the latest bios and chipset driver.
Reboot and run UBM.