Can't reach 60 fps with a beast PC

[ThomasKK]

Hello,

i'm having a really annoying issue and i'd like to find an answer here, because i couldn't find it in the google. I have recently bought a really great PC, i've built it with the pieces and parts selected by me (i'm not a newbie in constructing computers). My specs would be :

Motherboard - Asus Z97M-PLUS
Intel core i5-4690K (+ overclocked to 4.57GHz from 3.50GHz, it's i5 quad cpu)
Custom cooler on a processor (i don't know exact name or number but the temps are around 50-60 of Celsius when gaming hardly, never going up & ~40 of Celsius when doing nothing)
Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 (Asus DirectCU II version --> i'm able to overclock it)
8.00 GB RAM (Dual channel, 1600)
1TB HDD + 240GB SSD
24" Full HD 60Hz Philips monitor
Mircrosoft Windows 8.1 Pro

GPU drivers are up to date and i've tried editing some options in Nvidia control panel, but nothing helped. I'm not a gamer right now, i'm a person who likes from time to time to turn on one or two games to spend some free time (usually online) and only now 1 question came to my mind --> i love seeing youtube videos marked with 60fps, i also have a beast pc, but why i can't run my games on 60fps? During all this time i tried playing Skyrim 5, Battlefield 4, Resident evil 6, The Evil Within, The Witcher 3, Far Cry 4, Dying Light and many more. I was able to run all these games at 30 fps (for sure) with high/ultra graphics --> when the screen is steady, its amazing, but when it comes to moving around and having to perform quick actions and swiping camera all around, i see little lags i would say, even fps drops, the animations aren't so smooth. Even when playing simple games that do not require huge amounts of PC resources, like 7 Days to die, Contagion or even Minecraft, the graphics are great but in every 2 or 3 seconds (sometimes every 5s or 10s) i have small ~0.2 second screen freezes. Although it's very small but having it constantly really takes the joy away no matter how extolled the game is.

I've been looking for guides for unlocking fps, tried disabling VSync and other options, but nothing helped. The refresh rate of my monitor is 60Hz. I also have a blue screen error sometimes, once in 2-4 weeks, during that the PC says its collecting information about crash and tells me to google more about this error, code : WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR. I dont know if this has to do anything with my gaming experience, but i can't know everything, so i've posting all issues i have right now. I hope someone is able to share a solution with me. Thanks in advance.

 

[cbag]

I can play all the games i want at ~30 fps, but , as i remember, i've never had the smoothness, never had 60fps, only now i decided that i want that.
I've made some more testing on a game called "7 days to die" because it was the nearest option. But first, lets check my rig and specs for the game --> Here.

As we can see, is it shown that my rig is able to play the game at 1920x1080 at ultra at 30 fps without any problems. The bar in the chart is about ~2.5 times higher than the line of ultra game settings at 1080p. It also says i could play ultra on 2560x1440 at 30fps, sadly.. i didn't expect such terrible results.

I"ve been using nvidia geforce experience to see in-game fps. Well, in game:

Low graphics --> 60fps never going down --> everything is perfect.
Medium graphics --> 60 fps, sometimes 59 --> still perfect.
High settings --> 45-47 fps --> this is the line when i start getting small screen freezes --> playable, but not enjoyable
Ultra settings --> 25-27 fps --> terrible gameplay experience --> it is playable, but when it comes to aiming, using guns and running in a bright environment with lightning effects.. it's so unpleasant.

Otherwise, i don't see many improvements in quality of textures from medium to high/ultra, only the distance of the map is shorter that is loaded for me to look at.

What about overclocking my gpu, would it help me to achieve some more fps, i mean, would overclocking enhance my experience by a visible amount or would it only be a slight improvement causing more problems than giving benefits? (like heating)

Pingtest.net --> ping 23ms, jitter 1ms, packet loss: unable to test (says something about java, but i do have it.. 😵) --> Grade : B* (says very good)
I understand what you mean, playing online is ok (BF4 64 players on biggest map - no problems, no crashes or being unable to move because of lags, 30-50fps i had there, small inside spaces are great, but wide open fields are too bad to play because of fps), i'm more focused on LAN type of multiplayer.

I found out that people play this game maxed out at 1080p at 60 fps with this combination of PC --> GTX 660 on an AMD Phenom X4 CPU and 8GB of ram. I'm inclined to believe that 760 is a bit better than 660, isnt it?

Your test of increasing graphical settings and getting lower framerates shows you are GPU bound. But the way you describe the problem and also your massive CPU overclock I would wonder if you should just try to put your CPU back to stock settings/voltage and see what happens in your games. It is such a massive overclock. Maybe it is causing some instability or something.

 

[ThomasKK]

My CPU is overclocked via BIOS using built-in overclocking modes, right now there is highest performance boost with water cooling option chosen (wont reach over 60 degrees at hard usage with my simple radiator-box-cooler on the chip, it's really big). I've checked the stability with various programs, i've never had problems with overheating or idk, no crashing using daily. (except these blue screens once a month with WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR --> system tells me to google more about it, i found nothing :|)

 

[huvik]

I would recommend not using the built in overclocking modes. The blue screen you talk about is most likely due to your extreme cpu overclock.

 

[cbag]

My CPU is overclocked via BIOS using built-in overclocking modes, right now there is highest performance boost with water cooling option chosen (wont reach over 60 degrees at hard usage with my simple radiator-box-cooler on the chip, it's really big). I've checked the stability with various programs, i've never had problems with overheating or idk, no crashing using daily. (except these blue screens once a month with WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR --> system tells me to google more about it, i found nothing :|)

Even still it is worth a shot. Just set it to stock and see if anything improves. You can always go back to your OC.

 

[ThomasKK]

I took away the overclock and did some testing on freshly installed windows 10 Pro, cpu was working on about 3.6 - 3.7GHz (stock 3.5ghz, turbo 3.9ghz). Not an improvement, maybe even worse than it was before with 4.57GHz.

Anyway, thanks everyone for trying to help, but i finally saw that gtx 760 isnt a gaming card. It's level is somewhere just in the middle --> not 60fps, but games do work. Low / medium video settings are the ones to go with this card. Gonna go back to overclocked CPU mode and start looking for a tutorial to do the same with GPU.

 

[BurgerandChips66]

As you are gaming at 1080p with a 60Hz refresh rate, how about keeping an eye on the reviews and benchmarks of the new RX 480 when it releases on the 29th of this month?

It might be just what you are looking for.

 

[ThomasKK]

Nah, i'm not gaming anymore. I've started programming and video making/rendering. I've had problems with amd video cards a few years ago, i still dont like them (my radeon hd 5670 used to crash every time i start any game, it could happen any minute). The worst thing is that i also had problems recently with my nvidia - with enabled gpu acceleration while rendering a video it crashes after 5-20 mins after a start. I'm glad i didnt save money on CPU, it has so much power and renders quickly with or without gpu acceleration. Now i'm pretty confused about choosing my future GPU, as i see both brands have their good and bad sides, now i'm kinda neutral. I guess i will be looking into VR stuff in a few years if it gets more popular, because nowaways there arent many activities to do with it. For now i will just get google cardboard VR for my phone 😀 Thanks for suggestion!