Question Fixing six year old PC bottleneck?

[cer]

My system spec below:

Spoiler

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Component		Selection	Price
CPU			Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5 GHz Quad-Core Processor From parametric selection: Show

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CPU Cooler			Noctua NH-D14 64.95 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard			Asus Maximus VI Hero ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory			Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 CL9 Memory
Storage			Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Storage			Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage			Samsung 860 Evo 500 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Video Card			Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6 GB AMP Video Card
Case			NZXT H440 ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply			XFX 650 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System			Microsoft Windows 10 Pro French CDN - DVD 64-bit
Monitor			BenQ GL2450HM 24.0" 1920x1080 60 Hz Monitor

Maybe relevant info here too, cinebench with temps below:

https://imgur.com/FmNCpOp

View: https://i.imgur.com/FmNCpOp.png

I'm doing an overhaul of this PC for gaming, I just upgraded to Windows 10 and overclocked CPU to 4.1Ghz.

From what I've gathered I'll get best bang for performance if I upgrade my CPU/RAM. I'm happy to spend around £400-$500. What would you recommend, i've been out of the loop for a while?

Keep in mind Ryzen 5600x is out of stock everywhere for me, I could wait till early next year but I really want to run Cyberpunk on release.

 

[sizzling]

Personally I would try that system as it is. It may do an ok job if only aiming for 45+ FPS. It may be enough to get by. The new 5600x would be a hard to beat upgrade so I would wait for that instead of rushing the upgrade just for 1 game. A 5600x, B550 or X570 motherboard and at least 2x8gb 3200-3600mhz CL16 RAM would be what Id look for but it’s going to be over £400.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

You would also need To upgrade graphics card since 4770k max out 1060 anyway.

Like sizzling said you need To basically upgrade everything next.

Cpu z only shows 4100mhz not 4.2ghz all Core. Also 77c with that cooler at 1.25v Is kinda high, when did you change thermal paste Last time? Use thermal grizzly kryonaut Or gc gelid xtreme, clean first with 90 percent isoprophyl lachohol

 

[cer]

You would also need To upgrade graphics card since 4770k max out 1060 anyway.

Like sizzling said you need To basically upgrade everything next.

Cpu z only shows 4100mhz not 4.2ghz all Core. Also 77c with that cooler at 1.25v Is kinda high, when did you change thermal paste Last time? Use thermal grizzly kryonaut Or gc gelid xtreme, clean first with 90 percent isoprophyl lachohol

You're right I should change that to 4.1Ghz

I've actually not replaced the thermal paste since my initial application, ill order those and give that a go.

Included the setting changes for OC, used a preset from old video guide

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/umkOkd6

View: https://i.imgur.com/umkOkd6.jpg

 

[lga1156_ftw]

4.5 Or 4.6 Is possible with 1.35v cpu voltage most likely if you change thermal paste. Just disable turbo boost, speedstep/ eist and c states.

Less than 85c on any Core under heavy stress Is fine, theres good guides on this side for overclocking cpu.

Use msi after burner To max out your 1060, max power and temp limits, you can use Same thermal paste for gpu too if you want To further decrease its temperature.

After this save bios profile, this Is important. Raise cache (same as vtt) voltage To 1.15v atleast, then Raise dram voltage To 1.65, keep the (cache voltage) within 0.5v margin of dram voltage, you can further Raise it To 1.2 or even 1.25v later if that helps with higher ram frequency. It increasse cpu temps slightly.

Now after you have few saved bios profile, try To increase dram frequency To 1866 Or 2000mhz, so small steps, you can try with dram odd ratio 133 Or 100, sometimes 133 ratio Is More stable at Same freq.

You also need To lower timing with higher frequency but lower timings are less performance. Start with 12 12 12 36 primary timings To see how high frequency you can get the ram running. After you found for example it can boot 2000mhz start lower ing the first 3 numbers, 4th value Is usually first 3 numbers combined.

Use aida64 memory benchmarks, stability test To see gains. Test final stability with memtest86 bootable run atleast few passes. You can also use cinebench and realbench, bunch of tutorials out there

If you get Black screen then force shutdown, nxt time you boot bios has reset itself, load old profile and tweak again. If you cant get To bios after few restarts you need To do cmos reset read manual how To do it with jumper, if that dont work remove cmos battery for 2mins.

You score starts plateauing Or decreasing In os if ram Or cpu Is slightly unstable

 

[lga1156_ftw]

Its very highly unlikely that you can boot that

You're right I should change that to 4.1Ghz

I've actually not replaced the thermal paste since my initial application, ill order those and give that a go.

Included the setting changes for OC, used a preset from old video guide

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/umkOkd6

View: https://i.imgur.com/umkOkd6.jpg

Its very highly unlikely that you can run that memory set at 2400mhz even at above 1.65v dram voltage (which is max safe intel stated with i7), i had few of those but cant remember what result i had. Cache voltage is same as VTT/imc voltage, i would actually stay below 1.200v Cache voltage with haswell, even after the repaste.

First do a geekbench run at 1600mhz with default timings 9-9-9-27 command rate 2 , download geekbench and do the 64bit cpu benchmark, save the score. Also open aida64 and under tools do "memory benchmark" run it and look "read speed and latency"number on the top. Close all browsers and apps when you do this cause everything can interfere with the test. Higher "read" and lower "latency" in aida64 memory test means better result.

There is 4 primary timings, 1. CL 2. TRCD 3. Trp 4. TRAS and command rate which is usually 2, going from 2 to 1 Command rate can help with performance but is harder the higher frequency you get. Start by maxing out the timings first and finding your max stable dram frequency. You can even go 12-12-12-36 and command rate 2 and start raising from 1600 to 1866mhz then 1900mhz, 2000mhz , 2133mhz etc. After you can no longer boot at 1.200v cache voltage / 1.65v dram voltage, drop the dram frequency to last stable one, for example if 2200mhz is unstable drop to 2133 or 2100 (depending on dram odd ratio) make sure its stable for sure and start decreasing the timings. CL can sometimes be lower than TRCD and TRP, for example 10-11-11-30 can be stable but 10-11-10-30 not.

And about processor, stay at 41 or 42 ratio = 4200mhz for now since your temperatures are already at 77c, after you repasted you can start increasing cpu voltage until you hit 85c under heavy test. When waiting for the new paste you can still memory overclock , just keep cache voltage below 1.200v and dram voltage at 1.65v and you should be fine.

Higher cache voltage also increase cache ratio overclocking ability, but gains are way lower than cpu frequency. Keep the cache frequency min and max at 40 for now, after repaste when you find max stable cpu ratio you can start increasing the cache ratio until unstability. Best performance is core/cache ratio 1:1 but that is hard to achieve on above 4.4ghz cpu freq

EDIT: i see you tried to boot CL 10 at 2400mhz which is almost guaranteed black screen / even cmos reset , read what i said above

 

[lga1156_ftw]

Make sure first that your cpu is stable at 1.25v 4.1ghz so you dont mix those results with your ram overclocking, you might even drop it to 4.0ghz until you get the repaste done. Here is bsod code list for x58 and sandybridge (somewhat similar to hashwell) https://www.overclock.net/threads/the-overclockers-bsod-code-list.935829/
If you get bluescreen take pic of the error code and google it to find out what 0x000 code it is. Then look from the list.

 

[cer]

Personally I would try that system as it is. It may do an ok job if only aiming for 45+ FPS. It may be enough to get by. The new 5600x would be a hard to beat upgrade so I would wait for that instead of rushing the upgrade just for 1 game. A 5600x, B550 or X570 motherboard and at least 2x8gb 3200-3600mhz CL16 RAM would be what Id look for but it’s going to be over £400.

Personally I would try that system as it is. It may do an ok job if only aiming for 45+ FPS. It may be enough to get by. The new 5600x would be a hard to beat upgrade so I would wait for that instead of rushing the upgrade just for 1 game. A 5600x, B550 or X570 motherboard and at least 2x8gb 3200-3600mhz CL16 RAM would be what Id look for but it’s going to be over £400.

I understand it would be better off long term to wait, but lets say if I did grab upgrade now for example:

• This item:Intel Core i5-10600K (Base Clock 4.10GHz; Socket LGA1200; 125 Watt) Box £239.80
  
  
• Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz C16 XMP 2.0 High Performance… £40.00
  
  
• ASUS Prime Z490-P Intel Z490 LGA 1200, Dual M.2, 11 DrMOS Power Stages, DDR4 4600, 1 GB Ethernet… £149.34
  
  
  Comes around to around 430, which is fine. No idea about motherboard, picked suggested one, all these off amazon. What do you think?

 

[lga1156_ftw]

I understand it would be better off long term to wait, but lets say if I did grab upgrade now for example:

• This item:Intel Core i5-10600K (Base Clock 4.10GHz; Socket LGA1200; 125 Watt) Box £239.80
  
  
• Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz C16 XMP 2.0 High Performance… £40.00
  
  
• ASUS Prime Z490-P Intel Z490 LGA 1200, Dual M.2, 11 DrMOS Power Stages, DDR4 4600, 1 GB Ethernet… £149.34
  
  
  Comes around to around 430, which is fine. No idea about motherboard, picked suggested one, all these off amazon. What do you think?

"MSI Z490-A Pro" and "Asus Prime Z490-P" both are decent from the budget 150$ range here is some VRM testing :

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdgNEXpBrfg

For ram i suggest Samsung B-die which performs and overclocks way better, many manufactors (also Corsair most over 3400mhz kits) have ram with samsung b-die chips , use this site to confirm the model : https://benzhaomin.github.io/bdiefinder/

After you pick few ram models, look manufactor site of your chosen motherboard for RAM support for example "asus prime z490-p" https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/PRIME/PRIME-Z490-P/HelpDesk_QVL_Memory/

If both checks out, RAM has samsung B die and its on the motherboards memory support list your ready to go. Make sure that the model number is exactly same when you compare, for example corsair sells 3200mhz both cas 16 and cas 14, the case 16 model DOES NOT have samsung b-die.

 

[sizzling]

I would need to check the reviews of the motherboard, often ASUS budget boards are not as good as the competition.

Apart from that it looks good.

 

[nofanneeded]

I understand it would be better off long term to wait, but lets say if I did grab upgrade now for example:

• This item:Intel Core i5-10600K (Base Clock 4.10GHz; Socket LGA1200; 125 Watt) Box £239.80
  
  
• Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3200C16 Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4 3200 MHz C16 XMP 2.0 High Performance… £40.00
  
  
• ASUS Prime Z490-P Intel Z490 LGA 1200, Dual M.2, 11 DrMOS Power Stages, DDR4 4600, 1 GB Ethernet… £149.34
  
  
  Comes around to around 430, which is fine. No idea about motherboard, picked suggested one, all these off amazon. What do you think?

you are wasting your money ... If you are hasty to play Cyperpunk , for near that amount of money you can get Xbox Series X and game on it and you will get better performance from what you are getting with your graphics card. The xbox is near RTX 2080 speed.

unless you REALLY want to pay for something like RTX 3060 ti and a new AMD CPU , dont upgrade just to play one game. it is waste of money for you.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

you are wasting your money ... If you are hasty to play Cyperpunk , for near that amount of money you can get Xbox Series X and game on it and you will get better performance from what you are getting with your graphics card. The xbox is near RTX 2080 speed.

unless you REALLY want to pay for something like RTX 3060 ti and a new AMD CPU , dont upgrade just to play one game. it is waste of money for you.

Theres only one place for consoles and that is the garbage can, i bet even hes old system overclocked from 2013 beats this crap

 

[nofanneeded]

Theres only one place for consoles and that is the garbage can, i bet even hes old system overclocked from 2013 beats this crap

your bet is lost. and you know nothing about modern Xbox series X speed and performance.

 

[neojack]

my former build was a 4790k, very similar to your 4770k
your system is fine for gaming, just upgrade the GPU. find a used RTX2070/2080 or RX5700. you won't even spend 400USD and be pleasured.
if you want an even more powerfull GPU, you would need to change the PSU first. (A-Grade 850W or more)

for the cpu, i was able to run my 4790k at @4.4Ghz/1.20v if i remember well.
just set your vcore to a sane value (like 1.25v), and find the highest stable multiplier at this value. very simple. Validate the results by running prime 95 overnight.

As for the ram, they are heavy diminishing returns after 1866Mhz so if you OC your ram, just stick to that.
you may also search for the same kit as yours used. maybe you can find a deal a get 32GB of ram this way.

Note : some games nowadays demand 6 cores. so yeah your CPU won't be enough in this case... but for the other games, no problem.

 

[sizzling]

Theres only one place for consoles and that is the garbage can, i bet even hes old system overclocked from 2013 beats this crap

Utter BS. I have a PC with an RTX3080 and a Series X. The Series X and even the One X (now moved to spare bedroom) are very impressive for their cost.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

Sorry i was literally trolling with the xbox comment. I have been trashing consoles for few decades, seems like that time is now over sadly. I just had to do it
Ignore that everyone.

Neojack: about 4790k 4.4ghz 1.2v that seems like nice overclock, 4770k needs abit more vcore for higher frequency.
As for dimishing returns after 1866 i kinda disagree, i benchmarked fortnite 1600 vs 2400mhz with same cpu frequency and results where more than 100 fps from 250 to 375 fps in creative. I tried best timings i could for 1600mhz it was 8-8-8-24 and 2400mhz 10-11-10-30 both command rate1.

DDR4 obviously runs above 2400mhz anyway so gains are way less

 

[cryoburner]

While system requirements have been released for Cyberpunk, it's hard to say exactly how well the game will perform on any given hardware, since they give no details on what frame rates to expect, or how stable the performance might be.

If I had to guess though, a 4-core, 8-thread processor running at 4+GHz like that will probably do a reasonable enough job. The GTX 1060 might do alright as well at 1080p, so long as you don't care about maxing graphics settings or necessarily maintaining a solid 60fps. According to CDPR, your system meets the requirements for "1080 high", though again, we don't know exactly what their idea of "meeting the requirements" is. That could potentially be for maintaining only a 30+fps experience like the prior-gen consoles, for example.

If something had to be updated, assuming you want the graphics settings turned up relatively high, I suspect you would get greater performance gains out of a graphics card upgrade. Unfortunately, we're kind of in-between graphics card generations at the moment though, and it might be months before the full lineup becomes readily available, as supply of the new models is rather limited right now.

On the CPU side of things, the per-core performance of processors hasn't actually improved all that much in recent years, so each core of a 10600K is only around 20-30% faster than those of a 4770K, and there's a similar ratio with the processors overclocked, despite that CPU coming out around 7 years prior. There are a couple more cores though, and the new i7s have added a couple more still, but most games are still not designed to make much use of those extra cores. Games tend to be built to run reasonably well on the old, slow 8-thread Jaguar processors found in the 7 year old consoles, and even a 4770K is around twice as fast as one of those. So if a game is designed to target 30fps on those consoles, it's likely to be able to push around 60fps on a CPU like that, provided the graphics hardware isn't holding it back. Having more cores available could potentially allow for more stable frame rates in some games, but in general I think this level of graphics hardware will be the limiting factor more often than not in recent demanding titles.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

Im still running first generation Intel i7 oc and its fine for 1080p low settings gaming. Csgo i get 350 fps, overwatch 350 and fortnite 375 In creative and 200 ingame. Your cpu Is even better overclocked. After repaste and time spent To find stable settings your fine. Cryoburner said very Well.

 

[cer]

While system requirements have been released for Cyberpunk, it's hard to say exactly how well the game will perform on any given hardware, since they give no details on what frame rates to expect, or how stable the performance might be.

If I had to guess though, a 4-core, 8-thread processor running at 4+GHz like that will probably do a reasonable enough job. The GTX 1060 might do alright as well at 1080p, so long as you don't care about maxing graphics settings or necessarily maintaining a solid 60fps. According to CDPR, your system meets the requirements for "1080 high", though again, we don't know exactly what their idea of "meeting the requirements" is. That could potentially be for maintaining only a 30+fps experience like the prior-gen consoles, for example.

If something had to be updated, assuming you want the graphics settings turned up relatively high, I suspect you would get greater performance gains out of a graphics card upgrade. Unfortunately, we're kind of in-between graphics card generations at the moment though, and it might be months before the full lineup becomes readily available, as supply of the new models is rather limited right now.

On the CPU side of things, the per-core performance of processors hasn't actually improved all that much in recent years, so each core of a 10600K is only around 20-30% faster than those of a 4770K, and there's a similar ratio with the processors overclocked, despite that CPU coming out around 7 years prior. There are a couple more cores though, and the new i7s have added a couple more still, but most games are still not designed to make much use of those extra cores. Games tend to be built to run reasonably well on the old, slow 8-thread Jaguar processors found in the 7 year old consoles, and even a 4770K is around twice as fast as one of those. So if a game is designed to target 30fps on those consoles, it's likely to be able to push around 60fps on a CPU like that, provided the graphics hardware isn't holding it back. Having more cores available could potentially allow for more stable frame rates in some games, but in general I think this level of graphics hardware will be the limiting factor more often than not in recent demanding titles.

Im still running first generation Intel i7 oc and its fine for 1080p low settings gaming. Csgo i get 350 fps, overwatch 350 and fortnite 375 In creative and 200 ingame. Your cpu Is even better overclocked. After repaste and time spent To find stable settings your fine. Cryoburner said very Well.

Alright so my Kryonaut paste and arctic silver CPU cleaning products arrived and I open up my Intel CPU tomb.

WARNING this is what NH-D14 looks like after six years of neglect:

Spoiler

I guess my temps make a bit more sense, after thorough cleaning and applying new paste, my new idle temperatures are down practically 10 degrees!

Now I've not messed with RAM or GPU but just tried overclock again for 4.2GHz this time. Using 30 minute Aida64 stability tests:

1.250v @ 4.2 GHz Aida64, 30 minutes

Spoiler

1.200v @ 4.2 GHz Aida64, 30 minutes

Spoiler

1.150v @4.2GHz Aida64, 30 minutes

Spoiler

Sorry took the screenshot after test ended but it was running at 4.2GHz during whole stability test.

I'm not sure how much further ill go or maybe test higher multiplier but I'm quite happy with 4.2 GHz at those temperatures.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

Looks good. Do the ram at very Last, no hurry for it. . Remember To read my earlier post about disabling turbo boost and c states etc.

Ram speed need to be at its lowest until max cpu and cache speed Is confirmed, so it wont interfere.

Your fine To go 1.275v Or 1.300v cpu voltage if max Core temperature stay below 85c, i mean stress test not gaming its always about 10c-20c lower In games.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

Remember the LLC Or load line calibration affects cpu voltage under load. You can see cpu voltage t on cpu z main tab when stress testing with aida64 for example. Higher the llc setting In bios, More voltage under load.

Edit for example llc level4 you might get 1.31v under load wwhen you set 1.300v In bios, and level 5 you get 1.32v. Just find setting which Is closest To your set value under load.