EVGA Geforce GTX970 - Core i5 4460: Graphic Issues when playing Total War: Warhammer

[EDHhan87]

Hello everyone, I finally am posting something here -
So here is the situation: I have
Alienware x51 R2 (mini ITX ... damn cooling issue)
EVGA Geforce GTX 970
Some crappy ass Motherboard (well not crappy... but was there when I bought the Alienware X51 R2)
Shitty RAM - Standard x 2...
External shitty PSU
Core i5 4460

Ok, so I exclusively play Total War: Warhammer game that I bought recently... at first, the graphics card worked (I was nervous about the PSU and FAN from overloading) - but to my surprise, it worked!... however, after playing a bit for about an hour or so, the campaign graphics start to get choppy, and the whole game stalls or pauses (lags) for about 5 ~15 seconds at a time, and then resuming... the graphic quality does not get worse or anything, but the whole process kind of stops and pauses...

With my given specs - (and not spending too much...) Which area do you think needs more work/replacement???

1. Is it the cooling? The temperature stays at around 40 ~ 46 celcius, and GPU sets to around ~80 - 86 celcius when running the game at the maximum (for about 10~15 seconds only)

2. Core i5 4460 CPU - Core 1 runs mostly at 100%

3. Is it the motherboard? I am not even sure of the motherboard name... could this be THE culprit????

4. RAM?? I don't even know if RAM matters that much anymore, but if it does... I think it may be it, because my RAM is the standard one from the manufacturer...

5. PSU??? OK, I do have the Alienware external PSU - so that sets about 300 - 350? around?? but if this was the problem, I would assume that the process will shut down if there wasn't enough power being supplied, correct? So I ruled this possibility out for now.

So, I do not want to go and start replacing parts without actually resolving the issue... and I am also tight on budget, so I won't be able to outright replace the whole package...

I know this community is full of ideas and experiences - Please help me resolve this tiring issue for me!

Thank you

 

[n0ns3ns3]

There are two PSU shipped with alienware, 240w standard and 330w optional. Check which one you have (it's not that shitty BTW). You can find it on the lable of the PSU block. it supposed to be 19.5v = xxA the xx is what will tell us which one you have.
85c, is where the card will start to throttle. try to play with open case

 

[EDHhan87]

There are two PSU shipped with alienware, 240w standard and 330w optional. Check which one you have (it's not that shitty BTW). You can find it on the lable of the PSU block. it supposed to be 19.5v = xxA the xx is what will tell us which one you have.
85c, is where the card will start to throttle. try to play with open case

Thanks for the reply!

It seems I have 240W...
So in this case - I wouldn't really NEED to change anything? I just hate that the loading time for the game is way too long, and there are moments where the game would stop for 5-15 sec and resume... but is by no means consistently laggy or such, just every here and there (like around 3~5 times per every hour of gameplay - so it isn't THAT bad, just total of about 3 minutes per hour spent being idle...

 

[n0ns3ns3]

Thanks for the reply!

It seems I have 240W...
So in this case - I wouldn't really NEED to change anything? I just hate that the loading time for the game is way too long, and there are moments where the game would stop for 5-15 sec and resume... but is by no means consistently laggy or such, just every here and there (like around 3~5 times per every hour of gameplay - so it isn't THAT bad, just total of about 3 minutes per hour spent being idle...

You need the 330w PSU.
the cpu can hit about 100 watt and 970 is rated at 150 watt. You also have MB, disks, fans, RAM. they all consume power.

P.S.
Under any circumstances don't overclock the GPU ever ! it is too much for the PSU (even 330)