Good enough pc?

[Marwan_Ayman]

i want to know what may be bottlenecking my pc
Intel Core i7 4770K stock cooler
R9-290 reference design
Gigabyte GA-Z87-D3HP
8GB G.Skill 2133 MHz
Samsung 840 EVO 250 GB
Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced
any tips on what i could buy for cooling would be great!

 

[Rocketninja16]

What is happening that you feel your system is bottlenecked?

That's a pretty decent build there, the only thing I see is the graphics card. The stock R9s dial back their clock speed quite a bit when they get hotter, so if it's in game that you're seeing issues then that would be my guess.

As far as cooling goes, I have a corsair H80i, switched from a stock cooler and the difference is amazing. Very happy with it!

 

[Marwan_Ayman]

Honestly, noise isn't an issue. For my R9-290 I'm getting pretty solid results by increasing the fan curve i even OC'ed to 1075 and temps didn't exceed 65 with the custom fan curve, my cpu ( 4.3 GHz ) heated up a bit though reaching 88 when all case fans and stock cooler were set at maximum. So is the H80i worth it? Is the cpu cooling what's dragging me a bit down ? Somebody told me I got good units in terms of heat, is that true?

 

[geofelt]

a) Run your games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 50%.
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.

If your cpu is lacking(doubtful) then you can easily Overclock by about 20%

I do not much like all in one liquid coolers when a good air cooler can do the job.
A liquid cooler will be expensive, noisy, less reliable, and will not cool any better
in a well ventilated case.
Liquid cooling is really air cooling, it just puts the heat exchange in a different place.
The orientation of the radiator will cause a problem.
If you orient it to take in cool air from the outside, you will cool the cpu better, but the hot air then circulates inside the case heating up the graphics card and motherboard.
If you orient it to exhaust(which I think is better) , then your cpu cooling will be less effective because it uses pre heated case air.
And... I have read too many tales of woe when a liquid cooler leaks.
google "H100 leak"

I would look at a noctua or phanteks cooler.

 

[Marwan_Ayman]

a) Run your games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 50%.
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.

If your cpu is lacking(doubtful) then you can easily Overclock by about 20%

I do not much like all in one liquid coolers when a good air cooler can do the job.
A liquid cooler will be expensive, noisy, less reliable, and will not cool any better
in a well ventilated case.
Liquid cooling is really air cooling, it just puts the heat exchange in a different place.
The orientation of the radiator will cause a problem.
If you orient it to take in cool air from the outside, you will cool the cpu better, but the hot air then circulates inside the case heating up the graphics card and motherboard.
If you orient it to exhaust(which I think is better) , then your cpu cooling will be less effective because it uses pre heated case air.
And... I have read too many tales of woe when a liquid cooler leaks.
google "H100 leak"

I would look at a noctua or phanteks cooler.

Cpu gets solid results in benchmarks and physics tests, i got 11500 on passmark's performance test 8.0 and a high 3dmark test to. I've got a budget of about $100 to put in my pc, where do you think that should go?

 

[Scremin34Egl]

By the looks of it, nothing. Your pc would probably max any game out their today with no problems

 

[Marwan_Ayman]

I'm a bit worried about the CPU temp, i get paranoid when I see high temps. Is 88 in the Firestrike Extreme test?

 

[geofelt]

A good air cooler will be quieter and let you oc that 4770K.
Even a $30 cm hyper212 would be good.
I would buy this noctua NH-U14S. It will clear even tall heat spreaders: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608041

 

[geofelt]

I'm a bit worried about the CPU temp, i get paranoid when I see high temps. Is 88 in the Firestrike Extreme test?

Do not worry much about heat.
A cpu will slow down or even shut down to protect itself from damage.
That temperature is in the 100c. range.

88c is not too unusual for a cpu stress test. You will not get to that under normal heavy loads.