Extremely Disappointed with Gaming PC

[OmiexStrike]

Ever since I bought the parts for this PC and did my first build, it has brought nothing but disappointment to me. In almost every game I try, except for older games, I can never manage to achieve a stable 60 fps or higher. Everytime I fight big mobs, look in the open world, go into towns, my fps drops to like the 30's. Lowering the settings makes it better but that's not the point, I built this pc to game on good settings and it can't even do that without fps drops to 30's. Is there something wrong with it? I keep thinking my cpu is absolute garbage and that I should have went with intel, amd is just pure garbage when it comes to CPU's imo if that is even the problem.

Here are my specs: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qZjygs

I have vsync on since my monitor is 60 hz otherwise I get horrible screen tears.

I also have latest video card drivers too.

Games I have tried: TERA, Firefall, Defiance, Diablo 3 (big mobs causes drops), Planetside 2, etc.

The only game it seems to do good in is League of Legends and it stays at constant 60 even in fights. But that game is designed to even run good on laptops...

The total came to about 1.1k with OS and monitor after I ordered everything and tax. Pcpartpicker had some prices which weren't right and I had to order off other places which caused it to come to that total.

Anyways, is there something I am doing wrong or anything I can do or does my pc just plain out suck and I got ripped off?

Thanks...

Also: My temps and everything seem to be fine, I checked with MSI afterburner and when gaming temps were around 50-60 degrees C, and gpu usage varied on the game tested on. So everything appears to be normal. And I'm not OC'ing or anything as I don't have a CPU cooler except for my stock. I just keep the fx 6300 at stock speeds.

Man, I just want to go into a corner and cry lol, all I wanted was a gaming pc and all I get is fps problems..

EDIT:

Video I just took showing my problem:

Game is Defiance on maxed settings.

http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=2mgt5ax&s=8#.U9jFuPldX_Y

EDIT: 2

Just two questions I'm kind of OCD about ever since I built my pc several months back:

-On my first install of Windows 8.1 64 bit, when I first put in the disc, the install like crashed with an error or idk if it was a blue screen or something but when I ran the installation again, everything was fine and Windows 8.1 64bit was installed.

-Some wires were kind of sticking out of the sides of the case, the big thick PSU cables, when I finished the build so I kind of had to force the case panels a little in order to close the case. Due to this, the case panels are a little popped out, just a very little bit due to it pushing against the psu cables, but I don't think its putting that much force on the cables, if any force at all, because what is mostly making the case pop out is this little rubber circle thing on the side of the case, I don't know what its for but its sort of glued onto the case. Nonetheless, if say it was pushing a little on the big, thick PSU cables, the PSU cables are sturdy enough to handle a very small bit of force right?


Pictures of small popped out parts of case:

http://postimg.org/image/fha21ii55 (top right corner)
http://postimg.org/image/race7wx5b (bottom right corner)
http://postimg.org/image/wmuhzspwz (top left corner)
http://postimg.org/image/z1hs6hgs3 (bottom left corner)

From these two questions, could any of these potentially be causing fps problems or more specifically drops to 30's 20's in huge fights? Or should I just ignore them since my benchmarks proved my pc to be good and even better than some people's builds with the same components as me, and also that my cpu/gpu temps, gpu usage, etc. all look ok due to tests with msi afterburner and other programs?

 

[partonjon]

Basically by overclocking, you probably dont need to turn off the throttling, this will just eliminate the chance that its dropping frames because of cpu fluctuations.

There are options in windows power profile settings to stop the clock from dropping as well, you can set it be 100% at all times.

If you dont know how to overclock there are literally a bazillion guides. But basically, if your chip is set to boost to 4.1 on stock cooling then it should be able to run at that speed, and probably even a little higher, at all times without heat issues. So long as your case has adequate airflow. And this may help you to get a smoother experience.

Im not sure how well the catalyst software works, but if you have RealTemp running while youre running prime95 it will tell you what your cpu clock is in real time as well as your core temps. You could also use cpu-z.

Basically you dont want it fluctuating while youre playing a game, even if not at full load.

 

[OmiexStrike]

Basically by overclocking, you probably dont need to turn off the throttling, this will just eliminate the chance that its dropping frames because of cpu fluctuations.

There are options in windows power profile settings to stop the clock from dropping as well, you can set it be 100% at all times.

If you dont know how to overclock there are literally a bazillion guides. But basically, if your chip is set to boost to 4.1 on stock cooling then it should be able to run at that speed, and probably even a little higher, at all times without heat issues. So long as your case has adequate airflow. And this may help you to get a smoother experience.

Im not sure how well the catalyst software works, but if you have RealTemp running while youre running prime95 it will tell you what your cpu clock is in real time as well as your core temps. You could also use cpu-z.

Basically you dont want it fluctuating while youre playing a game, even if not at full load.

Oh ok, I'm still not sure if I should though because I don't know how much of an improvement it will be in my games currently and if its worth increasing temps for that improvement. If it is significant then I will but if you don't think it will be then I will just leave it as it is. I never overclocked before, especially on a stock cooler, so I don't know what to do to be honest and what settings to mess with in the BIOS etc. Do you think it will be a significant improvement if I overclock to the turbo boost 4.1 Ghz on stock cooler or should I leave it as it is? I also heard that I should disable the turbo boost if I am overclocking it to stay at a constant 4.1 Ghz.

 

[Outlander_04]

Basically by overclocking, you probably dont need to turn off the throttling, this will just eliminate the chance that its dropping frames because of cpu fluctuations.

There are options in windows power profile settings to stop the clock from dropping as well, you can set it be 100% at all times.

If you dont know how to overclock there are literally a bazillion guides. But basically, if your chip is set to boost to 4.1 on stock cooling then it should be able to run at that speed, and probably even a little higher, at all times without heat issues. So long as your case has adequate airflow. And this may help you to get a smoother experience.

Im not sure how well the catalyst software works, but if you have RealTemp running while youre running prime95 it will tell you what your cpu clock is in real time as well as your core temps. You could also use cpu-z.

Basically you dont want it fluctuating while youre playing a game, even if not at full load.

Oh ok, I'm still not sure if I should though because I don't know how much of an improvement it will be in my games currently and if its worth increasing temps for that improvement. If it is significant then I will but if you don't think it will be then I will just leave it as it is. I never overclocked before, especially on a stock cooler, so I don't know what to do to be honest and what settings to mess with in the BIOS etc. Do you think it will be a significant improvement if I overclock to the turbo boost 4.1 Ghz on stock cooler or should I leave it as it is? I also heard that I should disable the turbo boost if I am overclocking it to stay at a constant 4.1 Ghz.

Overclocking using AMD's ctalyst control centre ,[ AKA AMD feature manager ] is easy .
A few mouse clicks and the software speeds up the cpu and performs a stress test . Step by step the frequency is raised and checked .
Click the performance tab and then the cpu overdrive option .
An OCed FX 6300 will game every bit as well as any i5 when the game engine can use all available cores .

Give it a try and then let us know how much of an improvement you got [ though your OC will be relatively small because you have the stock cooler ]

 

[Nathan76]

OK I'm gonna ask you a couple of dumb questions and to be honest I couldn't be bothered reading all the posts to see if somebody has asked you already, so sorry if they have pls disregard.

Are you sure you are using the discrete graphics card and not the cpu graphics?

Monitor cable is plugged into the back of the card and not the socket on the io shield, bios set to use discrete not onboard.

Have you plugged the pcie power cables from the psu into the graphics card? Or both if there are two, if so check connections are good.

I would not be worrying about OCing at this point, the problem is obviously not going to be solved by OCing. I think people are wasting your time telling you to do that at this point.

 

[MasterDell]

OK I'm gonna ask you a couple of dumb questions and to be honest I couldn't be bothered reading all the posts to see if somebody has asked you already, so sorry if they have pls disregard.

Are you sure you are using the discrete graphics card and not the cpu graphics?

Monitor cable is plugged into the back of the card and not the socket on the io shield, bios set to use discrete not onboard.

Have you plugged the pcie power cables from the psu into the graphics card? Or both if there are two, if so check connections are good.

I would not be worrying about OCing at this point, the problem is obviously not going to be solved by OCing. I think people are wasting your time telling you to do that at this point.

We have already passed the stage of OCing. We know that it wont make that BIG of a difference. OP has accepted the fact that he cant run 60FPS maxed on everygame with his build. His build even out does some builds with the same components so I think he should be happy!

 

[Outlander_04]

OK I'm gonna ask you a couple of dumb questions and to be honest I couldn't be bothered reading all the posts to see if somebody has asked you already, so sorry if they have pls disregard.

Are you sure you are using the discrete graphics card and not the cpu graphics?

Monitor cable is plugged into the back of the card and not the socket on the io shield, bios set to use discrete not onboard.

Have you plugged the pcie power cables from the psu into the graphics card? Or both if there are two, if so check connections are good.

I would not be worrying about OCing at this point, the problem is obviously not going to be solved by OCing. I think people are wasting your time telling you to do that at this point.

We have already passed the stage of OCing. We know that it wont make that BIG of a difference. OP has accepted the fact that he cant run 60FPS maxed on everygame with his build. His build even out does some builds with the same components so I think he should be happy!

AM3+ doesnt even have an option of onboard graphics so thats is a really funny post .

The limitation of the system is the graphics card . A 7870 can not run all games at high to ultra settings and get 60+ fps . Someone suggesting spending $300 on a new intel cpu and mb was the second funniest post in the thread .

But the OP can prove to himself where the limits in the system are by OCing . If its the processor then that will be obvious when the results dont change .
There may be gains in games that dont use multicore processors well and that might help

 

[OmiexStrike]

OK I'm gonna ask you a couple of dumb questions and to be honest I couldn't be bothered reading all the posts to see if somebody has asked you already, so sorry if they have pls disregard.

Are you sure you are using the discrete graphics card and not the cpu graphics?

Monitor cable is plugged into the back of the card and not the socket on the io shield, bios set to use discrete not onboard.

Have you plugged the pcie power cables from the psu into the graphics card? Or both if there are two, if so check connections are good.

I would not be worrying about OCing at this point, the problem is obviously not going to be solved by OCing. I think people are wasting your time telling you to do that at this point.

We have already passed the stage of OCing. We know that it wont make that BIG of a difference. OP has accepted the fact that he cant run 60FPS maxed on everygame with his build. His build even out does some builds with the same components so I think he should be happy!

AM3+ doesnt even have an option of onboard graphics so thats is a really funny post .

The limitation of the system is the graphics card . A 7870 can not run all games at high to ultra settings and get 60+ fps . Someone suggesting spending $300 on a new intel cpu and mb was the second funniest post in the thread .

But the OP can prove to himself where the limits in the system are by OCing . If its the processor then that will be obvious when the results dont change .
There may be gains in games that dont use multicore processors well and that might help

I've basicallly given up because I think this is the best my system can do unfortunately. Now, I'm dealing with this terrible buzzing noise in bf3 that just started a day ago. I ran a gpu stress test and when temps got to 70 degrees the noise started. But in bf3 my temps only get to 62 degrees and fan speed around 50's while gpu load around 90's so it shouldn't be doing that sound. It is so annoying its given me a headache and I now I can't even play bf3 anymore, the only game that seemed to work lol. When i turn the settings on low or alt/tab the noise goes away though. It sucks a lot. Tbh, I don't think AMD should even make any products anymore, I mean what the hell? Let's face it, AMD sucks at least when compared to Intel. I feel sorry that I fell into the trap and I wish I would have gotten intel instead. I'm wondering why amd still has products when they run like absolute crap.

It's so funny, in TERA I went up to a mob of 5 monsters, as soon as I started attacking my fps dropped to the 10's 20's. Disappointing its like I'm playing on a school laptop...

I give up, everything is just causing problem after problem lately...

 

[Rationale]

Tbh, I don't think AMD should even make any products anymore, I mean what the hell? Let's face it, AMD sucks at least when compared to Intel. I feel sorry that I fell into the trap and I wish I would have gotten intel instead. I'm wondering why amd still has products when they run like absolute crap.

It's so funny, in TERA I went up to a mob of 5 monsters, as soon as I started attacking my fps dropped to the 10's 20's. Disappointing its like I'm playing on a school laptop...

I give up, everything is just causing problem after problem lately...

First, I'm going to point out that although the FX-6300 isn't a strong CPU for MMOs, I prefer Intel and I still think 10 fps is way too low on any settings. Never played Tera, but it seems odd. There's a chance something isn't performing as it should, and since you're getting audio bugs that makes it even more likely. If you can, I suggest you RMA the motherboard and CPU and see if you can get identical replacements (for free, of course). But whether you can do that depends on where you bought the parts from, and how long ago. Check soon.


As for your point about AMD...
It's just their CPUs that are massively overestimated. How could 6 cores at 3.5Ghz be bad? Very, very easily. The architecture is not meant for gaming. But the raw specs look impressive to people, so it prevents them from seeing just how slow they can be, even after it's proven over and over again in real world game tests.

I fell into the AMD trap once as well. >_> Lost $800 on a PC with a paperweight of a CPU that'd perform decently in games using many cores, but would crap out even at low settings in some of my favorite games that use 2-3 cores. So far I haven't encountered any circumstances that can even stress my i3-4360, and that includes new games that are meant to use 4+ cores. And now people call me an Intel fanboy, because I bury people in a tide of benchmarks proving an i3-4330 matches or beats an FX-8320 in games whenever people ask for advice.

Your HD 7870 on the other hand, is absolutely a good card. It should run the majority of games on ultra at 60 fps, barring extreme examples like Crysis 3 or BF4, where I suspect it'd need to sit at high settings to attain extremely high framerates. And your other specs are quite good as well. AMD's GPU department is roughly as good, if not better than Nvidia's in many regards. Not like their CPU side.

So, in short, I'd recommend you RMA that CPU and mobo for replacements. I suspect that'll make the audio bugs disappear at least. If the performance is still this poor, then I'd recommend attempting to return the parts for a refund (if possible) and switch to Intel. Either an i3-4150 or an i5-4590 offer the best price/performance ratio at their respective points in the hierarchy. If you can't afford to switch, then the next best thing would be to get that FX-6300 up to 4Ghz or higher.

 

[Outlander_04]

Id have suggested if the audio is buggy through the speakers then there is a windows problem . Probably DirectX when you consider the graphics problems too .
The simplest fix would be to reload windows , then the mb drivers and then the graphics driver . In that order .

But the OP cant make it work [ like so many others have ] so thats the end of it really

 

[OmiexStrike]

Tbh, I don't think AMD should even make any products anymore, I mean what the hell? Let's face it, AMD sucks at least when compared to Intel. I feel sorry that I fell into the trap and I wish I would have gotten intel instead. I'm wondering why amd still has products when they run like absolute crap.

It's so funny, in TERA I went up to a mob of 5 monsters, as soon as I started attacking my fps dropped to the 10's 20's. Disappointing its like I'm playing on a school laptop...

I give up, everything is just causing problem after problem lately...

First, I'm going to point out that although the FX-6300 isn't a strong CPU for MMOs, I prefer Intel and I still think 10 fps is way too low on any settings. Never played Tera, but it seems odd. There's a chance something isn't performing as it should, and since you're getting audio bugs that makes it even more likely. If you can, I suggest you RMA the motherboard and CPU and see if you can get identical replacements (for free, of course). But whether you can do that depends on where you bought the parts from, and how long ago. Check soon.


As for your point about AMD...
It's just their CPUs that are massively overestimated. How could 6 cores at 3.5Ghz be bad? Very, very easily. The architecture is not meant for gaming. But the raw specs look impressive to people, so it prevents them from seeing just how slow they can be, even after it's proven over and over again in real world game tests.

I fell into the AMD trap once as well. >_> Lost $800 on a PC with a paperweight of a CPU that'd perform decently in games using many cores, but would crap out even at low settings in some of my favorite games that use 2-3 cores. So far I haven't encountered any circumstances that can even stress my i3-4360, and that includes new games that are meant to use 4+ cores. And now people call me an Intel fanboy, because I bury people in a tide of benchmarks proving an i3-4330 matches or beats an FX-8320 in games whenever people ask for advice.

Your HD 7870 on the other hand, is absolutely a good card. It should run the majority of games on ultra at 60 fps, barring extreme examples like Crysis 3 or BF4, where I suspect it'd need to sit at high settings to attain extremely high framerates. And your other specs are quite good as well. AMD's GPU department is roughly as good, if not better than Nvidia's in many regards. Not like their CPU side.

So, in short, I'd recommend you RMA that CPU and mobo for replacements. I suspect that'll make the audio bugs disappear at least. If the performance is still this poor, then I'd recommend attempting to return the parts for a refund (if possible) and switch to Intel. Either an i3-4150 or an i5-4590 offer the best price/performance ratio at their respective points in the hierarchy. If you can't afford to switch, then the next best thing would be to get that FX-6300 up to 4Ghz or higher.

I've been hearing TERA is also poorly optimized, especially for AMD and favors intel so that could have something to do with it. But I bought my parts around November of 2013 and I bought from newegg/amazon so I doubt I'll be able to get a refund.

As far as the audio issues go, I think that it is just coil whine from my GPU. I was playing bf3 for a couple hours just now and the whine was gone, sometimes it comes other times it doesn't, its sort of rare when it does coil whine though, I'm assuming it is coil whine in the first place due to the GPU stress test I did on MSI Kombustion. When I play games like Firefall or TERA, that buzzing sound, or what I think is coil whine, is not there.

I don't know why AMD isn't smart enough to figure out that most games don't utilize all cores and they probably won't in the future either. I swear, it is almost like a scam, they advertise this product and when you play a majority of games, it get's outclassed by even an i3 for crying out loud, come on AMD. Although your GPU's are good, your CPU's absolutely are garbage based on my experience and the vast amount of games I've tried to run on this rig.

I'm also broke, and you mentioned the next best thing is to overclock to 4 Ghz+. But can I do this on a stock cooler? And I'm not sure if it will be worth the temperature raise because I want to know if there will be much of an improvement at all, if any. And also, raising the temps I'm guessing will also increase the chance of the coil whine, although the type of game seems to matter where in bf3 I got coil whine while in TERA and Firefall there was no sign of that buzzing (coil) sound I mentioned earlier.

 

[Rationale]

I'm also broke, and you mentioned the next best thing is to overclock to 4 Ghz+. But can I do this on a stock cooler? And I'm not sure if it will be worth the temperature raise because I want to know if there will be much of an improvement at all, if any. And also, raising the temps I'm guessing will also increase the chance of the coil whine, although the type of game seems to matter where in bf3 I got coil whine while in TERA and Firefall there was no sign of that buzzing (coil) sound I mentioned earlier.

4Ghz may be doable on the stock cooler. The FX-6350, for example, is just a regular FX-6300 put at 4Ghz from the factory, and I think that still uses the same cooler. It's mostly guesswork how much it'll help, but it's worth a try if you monitor the temperatures for a while.

I think AMD is probably aiming their CPUs more at the video-editing and professional groups. Those benefit more from multiple cores, unlike games. But evidently they still pick up a lot of people just from the advertising. And yeah, I think it's unlikely that the FX series will still be around by the time 8-core games are standard. The AMD Phenom 9600 was one of the first quad-cores back in 2007, and by the time 4-core games really became standard (like a year or two ago?) the 9600 was already too weak for any serious gaming. Probably will be similar for the FX-8xxx and FX-9xxx series.

Coil whine is not one of the things I'm familiar with, so I'm unlikely to be able to help with that. Most of the time when I hear people talk about coil whine it's from the PSU though.

 

[mikef845]

If a game can't use 4 cores, it just won't run as fast as it could. Make sure tessellation is turned off in the driver config. Tessellation really kills FPS.

I get frame rates of 150 fps in Battlestar Galactica Online on medium settings:
http://www.syfygames.com/action/battlestar-galactica-online

 

[tbbennett2121]

A few extra thoughts:

- with just the one 2GB video card, you might want to make sure you're not trying to overdo Anti-aliasing. Consider FXAA instead of MSAA or try other settings that slightly dial it down to see if things get better.
- I've come to enjoy the Razer Game Booster (free software from Razer) that temporarily shuts off background programs while you're gaming and then cleanly brings them back up when you're done.
- With MMOs, there are other factors. I have some really great hardware but there are times in an MMO when my framerate turns to crap. Sometimes my ISP has slowdowns and I have to reboot my router. Sometimes I'm in an area where there are just too many players from too many different places and my friends in other parts of the country report slowdowns for them, too--or I'll see people complaining about choppiness in area chat. This can also happen when the game has some programming issues, like when Planetside 2 had a tank weapon whose graphic F/X seriously wigged out people's machines and made everything look headache-inducing. And it can happen when one or more people happen to pull off a move that is graphics-heavy and your machine struggles to keep all of that in sync.
- On a side note, I also like using the Unigene Heaven benchmark tool for graphics too...just another thing to look at if you'd like.

 

[OmiexStrike]

I'm also broke, and you mentioned the next best thing is to overclock to 4 Ghz+. But can I do this on a stock cooler? And I'm not sure if it will be worth the temperature raise because I want to know if there will be much of an improvement at all, if any. And also, raising the temps I'm guessing will also increase the chance of the coil whine, although the type of game seems to matter where in bf3 I got coil whine while in TERA and Firefall there was no sign of that buzzing (coil) sound I mentioned earlier.

4Ghz may be doable on the stock cooler. The FX-6350, for example, is just a regular FX-6300 put at 4Ghz from the factory, and I think that still uses the same cooler. It's mostly guesswork how much it'll help, but it's worth a try if you monitor the temperatures for a while.

I think AMD is probably aiming their CPUs more at the video-editing and professional groups. Those benefit more from multiple cores, unlike games. But evidently they still pick up a lot of people just from the advertising. And yeah, I think it's unlikely that the FX series will still be around by the time 8-core games are standard. The AMD Phenom 9600 was one of the first quad-cores back in 2007, and by the time 4-core games really became standard (like a year or two ago?) the 9600 was already too weak for any serious gaming. Probably will be similar for the FX-8xxx and FX-9xxx series.

Coil whine is not one of the things I'm familiar with, so I'm unlikely to be able to help with that. Most of the time when I hear people talk about coil whine it's from the PSU though.

Hmm I see, I'll probably leave it at stock for now since it already turbo boosts itself to 4.1 Ghz in some games actually due to its built in feature.

Lastly, just two questions I'm kind of OCD about ever since I built my pc several months back:

-On my first install of Windows 8.1 64 bit, when I first put in the disc, the install like crashed with an error or idk if it was a blue screen or something but when I ran the installation again, everything was fine and Windows 8.1 64bit was installed.

-Some wires were kind of sticking out of the sides of the case, the big thick PSU cables, when I finished the build so I kind of had to force the case panels a little in order to close the case. Due to this, the case panels are a little popped out, just a very little bit due to it pushing against the psu cables, but I don't think its putting that much force on the cables, if any force at all, because what is mostly making the case pop out is this little rubber circle thing on the side of the case, I don't know what its for but its sort of glued onto the case. Nonetheless, if say it was pushing a little on the big, thick PSU cables, the PSU cables are sturdy enough to handle a very small bit of force right?


Pictures of small popped out parts of case:

http://postimg.org/image/fha21ii55 (top right corner)
http://postimg.org/image/race7wx5b (bottom right corner)
http://postimg.org/image/wmuhzspwz (top left corner)
http://postimg.org/image/z1hs6hgs3 (bottom left corner)

From these two questions, could any of these potentially be causing fps problems or more specifically drops to 30's 20's in huge fights? Or should I just ignore them since my benchmarks proved my pc to be good and even better than some people's builds with the same components as me, and also that my cpu/gpu temps, gpu usage, etc. all look ok due to tests with msi afterburner and other programs?

 

[DCV]

What settings were you playing on? If you were running at max settings you cant expect to run 60+ FPS.

In firefall, I tried max but I couldn't run it at 60 fps, however, even on medium settings I notice the fps drops. Defiance is the same case, and Planetside 2 I need to lower the settings by a lot.

But in the least, is there any game I can expect to run well at 60 fps max? When building this system I told people on this forum that I don't really want bf4 max settings all that stuff, just to be able to max mmorpgs since I like those types of games, but as you heard, I struggle with fps problems on mmorpgs as well even though people told me this system is more than enough to max at solid 60 fps for mmorpgs.

It's not always your system's fault. Some games are terribly optimized. I am a Planetside 2 player and even with a very powerful processor and graphics card i am not able to keep a steady framerate in that game. My frames might even go below 30 in certain crowded areas. That's definitely the game's fault and not mine.

Make sure you have downloaded the latest drivers for your GPU, try disabling unnecessary programs running in the background and turn off anti aliasing and motion blur in each game you play since these settings lower your fps without improving image quality that much.
Never go with all High, or all Medium or anything like that. Change each individual setting according to your preferences as this will help you get the most out of your GPU.

 

[partonjon]

The case shouldnt matter, my back panel sticks out about the same because of the cables, wish I would have gone modular... but its fine.

Not sure why you got the blue screen, but if windows seems to be running fine, then it probably is.

Your system seems to be running fine, so basically it boils down to running what you have at maximum efficiency to get the best results possible. Your GPU is good enough to get decent frame rates, however your cpu cant keep up at low speeds. So, if its fluctuating speeds while in game, you will experience frame drops and choppiness.

Solutions include turning down settings that are cpu heavy, like AA, Tessellation, and especially (in my experience) shadows. In Rift, I eventually turned off shadows completely so that I could jack all the other settings almost to full and still get constant 60 outside of the main city area, even in larger battles.

I also use D3DOverrider, this ensures the games are using vsync and triple buffering. Sometimes works better than the in game vsync alone.

I would strongly suggest overclocking (this is why we do custom, is it not?), but I understand its kinda scary and rather frustrating at first, especially if its your first build.

Basically, if you choose to do so, spend a couple more bucks to get a good cooler. Afterwards you'll never use stock cooling again, you'll wonder why they even bother to put the damn thing in the box. Also, I assume you probably used the thermal compound that came with the cooler, some arctic silver properly applied can make a pretty decent difference in temps.

Another thing to consider is case airflow, seems like your graphics card is hitting max fan speed, which means its outputting bunches of heat. If its not being properly ventilated this could be causing the cpu to heat up and throttle during scenes that are both cpu and gpu heavy, like large battles involving many characters.

 

[partonjon]

These are a few quotes from a post I found on Newegg that might help.

"Pros: Can't ask for much better for this price. It's a great all around budget-oriented CPU: heavy multitasking, multimedia, gaming, video encoding/transcoding, file compression, virtual machines -- can't go wrong. You can get a lot of extra mileage out of this by overclocking as well."

"Another plus: The 6300 is 95W, not 125W, so overclocking on a board like the 970A-G46 should be okay if you don't go too far beyond the max clock/voltage spec for this CPU (4.1, 4.2GHz at the most at around 1.4v). Just make sure you have air blowing on those VRM's since the aftermarket coolers you would need tend to be to high above them (this is vital to a stable OC on the 970 series motherboards -- remember this)."

"The heatsink/fan is a joke. If you are on a super tight budget get some quality thermal paste -- which is less than 10 bucks -- and take off the junk paste AMD is using. Only that and that alone can guarantee you decent performance out of the stock cooler. You can even get away with a light OC of up to 3.7-3.8GHz with better paste at stock voltage. If you don't know how to put it on, it's just one youtube video away."

"-Use something like Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste if you intend to use the stock heatsink/fan. OC no higher than 3.8GHz, DO NOT increase voltage.

-Any higher OC requires an aftermarket cooler. Match the voltage to the spec of the CPU for said clock speed up to 4.1GHz and you should be fine. Anything beyond that can be tricky depending on your board/limits of your individual CPU (they aren't all created equal for how far one intends to push their overclock).

-If you are using 970 series motherboards with an aftermarket cooling device, make sure you have an air intake near the VRM's. If you don't know what this means, don't overclock.

-Disable turbo core for all OC scenarios.

Frankly I think this is the best CPU AMD has to offer currently -- it has all the hallmarks of what keeps people coming back to their brand: Solid performance and overclocks with relative ease for a low price compared the the competition. Is it the best? No. But you can get the most out of your dollar by matching this with a nice GPU. The 4xxx FX series shouldn't even be around anymore, the 8xxx FX series is too expensive given how long they've been on the market, and have heat/power issues with too many boards to be worth your trouble. Kaveri leaves much to be desired. If you are going to buy an AMD chip, this is what you want. If you want more power, sadly you should just give your money to you-know-who."

 

[OmiexStrike]

The case shouldnt matter, my back panel sticks out about the same because of the cables, wish I would have gone modular... but its fine.

Not sure why you got the blue screen, but if windows seems to be running fine, then it probably is.

Your system seems to be running fine, so basically it boils down to running what you have at maximum efficiency to get the best results possible. Your GPU is good enough to get decent frame rates, however your cpu cant keep up at low speeds. So, if its fluctuating speeds while in game, you will experience frame drops and choppiness.

Solutions include turning down settings that are cpu heavy, like AA, Tessellation, and especially (in my experience) shadows. In Rift, I eventually turned off shadows completely so that I could jack all the other settings almost to full and still get constant 60 outside of the main city area, even in larger battles.

I also use D3DOverrider, this ensures the games are using vsync and triple buffering. Sometimes works better than the in game vsync alone.

I would strongly suggest overclocking (this is why we do custom, is it not?), but I understand its kinda scary and rather frustrating at first, especially if its your first build.

Basically, if you choose to do so, spend a couple more bucks to get a good cooler. Afterwards you'll never use stock cooling again, you'll wonder why they even bother to put the damn thing in the box. Also, I assume you probably used the thermal compound that came with the cooler, some arctic silver properly applied can make a pretty decent difference in temps.

Another thing to consider is case airflow, seems like your graphics card is hitting max fan speed, which means its outputting bunches of heat. If its not being properly ventilated this could be causing the cpu to heat up and throttle during scenes that are both cpu and gpu heavy, like large battles involving many characters.

Yeah, my next best option other than upgrading/switching out hardware would be to overclock. For now it is fine and I will mess with some in game settings to get better performance too. Also I don't think my graphics card is hitting the max fan speed, in msi afterburner the fans were around the 50%'s, but I don't know if that is the case fans or the graphics card fan. In the msi kombustion GPU stress test, the fans got pretty loud once it hit 70 degrees, but in gaming it never got that loud for me so I don't think it is heating up that much to hit max, considering the temps while gaming are mostly around 62 degrees for heavy games like bf3, etc.