Help with i3-2120 not performing as well as should be expected

[meyrn3]

I built this rig a couple of years ago when I was on a pretty tight budget:

i3-2120 3.3Ghz
Sapphire Radeon HD 6870
8GB of RAM
Corsair 600w PSU
Windows 7 64-Bit

I know it is becoming pretty substandard, but when I built it, I was given the build by someone on these forums. They said that it would play pretty much anything at the time on at least medium settings. The problem is, it hasn't performed well at all since day 1.

I got away from PC gaming for a while, but I am trying to pick it back up. I would really like to get to the bottom of my problem. For instance, BF3 only gets about 10 fps even on low settings. The Witcher 2 does fine until I get into any kind of fight, which is when it drops to <10 fps. Even games as light as Chivalry: Medieval Warfare drop to an unplayable fps.

I run Razer Game Booster and have even tried optimizing the settings for all my games through AMD Gaming Evolved. All of my drivers are up to date and my computer is completely virus and malware free. I just don't understand. I have seen other people with the same build or even worse running the same games just fine. I even downloaded the 3dmark demo from steam and ran that. According to the tests that it ran, my rig is performing right on par with other rigs of a similar build, but when I actually try to play a game it lags so bad that I can't play.

I also just tried looking at my CPU usage during BF3 gameplay, and it is definitely my CPU that is bottlenecking me. It is completely peaking up to 100% usage. Remember, I have no other background processes going on. While I am well aware that I should be upgrading my CPU soon, I also know that it should be performing better than this based on the research I have done.

Please, if anyone has suggestions, I would be very grateful.

Thanks

 

[JobCreator]

Is your computer recognizing all 8GB of RAM?

 

[rolli59]

Those FPS indicate that you are running on the IGP on the CPU not on the GPU so is your monitor connected to the card or the motherboard?

 

[meyrn3]

Those FPS indicate that you are running on the IGP on the CPU not on the GPU so is your monitor connected to the card or the motherboard?

My computer recognizes all 8GB of RAM and my monitor is hooked up to the GPU. Admittedly, I have hooked it up to the MB before, but when I did, the monitor did not get any signal because the on-board graphics through the MB are disabled

 

[rolli59]

Using the latest GPU drivers? Nothing overheating?

 

[meyrn3]

Using the latest GPU drivers? Nothing overheating?

Yeah, everything is up to date and nothing is overheating. I don't get why the CPU is capping out on low settings. It probably would overheat if I kept trying to play the games at 10 FPS

 

[rolli59]

Well you may have a bad CPU or motherboard.

 

[meyrn3]

Well you may have a bad CPU or motherboard.

Actually, I just looked at my CPU temp, and it is sitting at 98-99C while idle. It is actually getting quite hot! I don't understand why though. The fan on it is working fine, and it have 2 other fans on the chassis. No clogged cable clutter inside either.

 

[rolli59]

That would be it, thermal throttling, time to reseat the cooler with new paste!

 

[meyrn3]

■

That was my next guess. I reckon you never actually got the heat sink flat on the cpu. Hence the multiplier cap.If the cpu is permanently affected you can pick up a non K i72600 quite cheap now. ;#}

I still can't believe that it heats up that much from some bad thermal paste, but this is why I come to this forum. You guys are great at coming up with solutions fast and on the fly. I'm going to get some Arctic Silver 5 and hope this solves the problem. If not, I guess I'll be upgrading to an i5 soon.

Thanks again though for the help guys.

 

[rolli59]

You are welcome!