i5-7600K Problems - Newbie builds an expensive computer

[kennyp123]

Thanks in advance to all of you being a wonderful resource for learning! You guys are great! I built an expensive new computer about 8 months ago, and I have yet to enjoy it fully. It "works" but not to its full potential. Games often run into ~15 fps on highest settings. Running Windows 10 build 16299, here are the specs:

ASUS Prime Z270-A (Motherboard)
Intel Core i5-7600k (CPU)
ASUS GeForce GTX 1070 08GB Dual-fan (GPU)
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 (Memory)
Crucial MX300 275GB SATA (main SSD)
WD Blue 1TB SATA (additional HDD)
EVGA SuperNOVA GOLD 750W (PSU)
Phantom 410 case has three fans, with Cooler Master CPU cooler

Cinebench says cpu ran 696 cp which is what it normally should be. Curiously when scrolling over the ranking it says my system is running windows 8, while this is definitely Windows 10 Home. Could this be a clue to the problem? (Open GL scored 131.10 fps.)
CPU-Z raises red flags. 505.1 for CPU single thread and 1864.6 for Multi thread. These scores are one fourth what they should be!
www.userbenchmark.com says almost everything is running fine, except curiously, the memory kit which is running at 75%. I comfirmed with my motherboard manual that they were plugged into the correct DIMM_A2 and DIMM_B2 slots.
Real Temp says cpu is under 50*C during the lagging.

Here is what I tried around *five months ago*, though it is possible I made a mistake as I'm new to a lot of this. So far I have:
Re-installed and check drivers with device manager
Changed power settings
Reset CMOS by removing motherboard battery for 10 minutes
I confirmed Windows 10 had completed all updates.
Confirmed with ASUS my BIOS was compatible with CPU
I installed from ASUS, the apropriate chipset Driver which "successfully repaired" Intel(R) Management Engine Interface and Local Management Service
I tried the Intel Processor Identification Utility but it says, "processor is not supported by the Intel Processor Identification Utility. The utility is designed for Intel(R) Pentium(R) and later processors.
Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool 64 bit says all tests PASSED

I am left really confused. I'd be very grateful for any suggestions.

Updates:

1) Link to userbenchmark results: http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/7128886
2) Passmark says everything checks out with an overall score of 5452. CPU Mark 9196 which actually slightly exceeds the average score of 9162 for the i5-7600K.
3) Freed up space and I now have 92 GB free on my main SSD.
4) Removed graphics card, installed mobo graphics driver. Browsing/light/internet stuff seems normal. Fallout 4 now 15 fps at most.
5) With no graphics card: Reran CPU-Z and got 509.5 single thread, and 1993.8 multi thread. A little bit better? Cinebench cpu 696 cp again, but with 60.16 fps. Userbenchmark: http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/7137214

 

[jr9]

Can you please link to your actual userbenchmark results?

 

[dontlistentome]

I'd remove the videocard and use the integrated graphics. Then install the latest Intel drivers for the integrated graphics. Then test the computer. Obviously you won't be getting the videocard performance that you'd get with a gaming card installed but that's not important. What you are going to test for is that the computer in general is operating fine. CPU, memory, etc. Pretend like this is a pre-built office computer that you plan to upgrade with your 1070. You wouldn't upgrade it unless you knew it was working properly right?

Right now I can't tell if this is a computer problem, as in something isn't configured right, or a videocard related problem which might explain the low framerate. By testing the computer without the 1070 you can see what the computer itself is doing.

 

[kennyp123]

Can you please link to your actual userbenchmark results?

http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/7128886

 

[jr9]

I don't see anything wrong in that benchmark besides the RAM not running in XMP mode. That could be enabled in your BIOS settings. That alone should not cause performance that bad though. The graphics card and its driver are working in that benchmark along with everything else.

Which games are you trying to play? What resolution?

 

[kennyp123]

By testing the computer without the 1070 you can see what the computer itself is doing.

That sound like a great idea I will try today, thanks!

I assume the correct driver is here https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/PRIME-Z270-A/HelpDesk_Download/
Under Windows 10 64 bit then Intel Graphics Accelerator Driver

Which games are you trying to play? What resolution?

Fallout 4 and Stellaris run into problems during intensive moments. 1920 X 1080 which is recommended by windows and the highest settings which I thought would run without issue.

 

[Bungle11]

Also are your games installed on the sdd? and if so how much space do you have left on it? BTW fallout is know for frame drop issues. Bad game mechanics.

 

[kennyp123]

Also are your games installed on the sdd? and if so how much space do you have left on it?

I'm at work now, but literally everything is on the SSD. It's around 90% full.

BTW fallout is know for frame drop issues. Bad game mechanics.

Noted, but I think cpu-z shows there is a wider problem (along with other recent-ish games).

 

[Bungle11]

Also are your games installed on the sdd? and if so how much space do you have left on it?

I'm at work now, but literally everything is on the SSD. It's around 90% full.

BTW fallout is know for frame drop issues. Bad game mechanics.

Noted, but I think cpu-z shows there is a wider problem (along with other recent-ish games).

I would recommend having at least 20% of your ssd free. Windows needs some free space of paging and caching etc., and if your graphics card runs out of video memory in tends to start using ram then ssd memory as a buffer. I think you said you had a 1070 so lack of video card memory shouldn't be a problem, especially playing at 1080p (any gpu with 8gb don't have this issue until 4k gaming. It may be that windows simply doesn't have enough space for paging, so its shifting some of the processes to the ram and/ or HDD. which slows things down and increases cpu useage.

If you can shift some of you games to the HDD. HDDs only effect loading times on games. Try and keep fallout on the ssd, as loading times a quite long.

I hope this may help out a little. Let me know if things improve or don't.

 

[kennyp123]

I would recommend having at least 20% of your ssd free. [...] If you can shift some of you games to the HDD. HDDs only effect loading times on games. Try and keep fallout on the ssd, as loading times a quite long.

Noted, and I'll be trying your suggestion. However, I've had these problems since I build it. I know I had at least half the SSD free during the first month or so.

 

[Bungle11]

I would recommend having at least 20% of your ssd free. [...] If you can shift some of you games to the HDD. HDDs only effect loading times on games. Try and keep fallout on the ssd, as loading times a quite long.

Noted, and I'll be trying your suggestion. However, I've had these problems since I build it. I know I had at least half the SSD free during the first month or so.

Ok I see. I'll get my thinking cap on.

 

[jr9]

- Ensure Windows power plan settings are set to high performance for the power current profile you are using.

- Ensure in your BIOS settings in the EZ System Tuning section that it is set to give maximum performance.

- Ensure BIOS is most recent version.

 

[kennyp123]

Allright, I finally tried a few things. Firstly, I freed up some space and now have at least 90 GB on my SSD. Next I removed the Graphics card, and installed mobo graphics driver.

Very interesting results. Browser/normal/light activity seems to work fine. Stellaris actually seemed to play about the same 15 – 60 fps. Fallout 4 was noticeably worse at 15 fps doing nothing but walking around for a minute.

Reran CPU-Z and got 509.5 single thread, and 1993.8 multi thread. A little bit better?
Cinebench cpu 696 cp again, but with 60.16 fps. Some differences on userbenchmark, but cpu is working flawlessly so it says. http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/7137214

jr9 - I'm about to try your suggestions. I assume I should replace the graphics card, and reinstall the driver beforehand.

 

[jr9]

You won't really get anywhere troubleshooting graphics card performance issues with the graphics card removed. Recommend reinstalling it after running DDU in safe mode to clean out the drivers again. In normal Windows install only the display driver and phyx and leave everything else unchecked. Try using the drivers from the ASUS website page for your card as well instead of the nVIDIA page. Do not use Geforce experience either.

The problem is either throttling from power saving features (BIOS or Windows or both), the GPU driver, or the GPU itself or possibly the motherboard (slim chance). There is nothing wrong with your CPU. CPUz is not benchmarking software and I would take userbenchmark and cinebench's results over it any day.

 

[kennyp123]

jr9 - I did re-attach the graphics card. I wanted to try reinstalling the driver, but I'm not 100% certain this is the correct one - what do think? I don't know if "VGA" is what I need.
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/PRIME-Z270-A/HelpDesk_Download/
Under driver and tools, window 10 64, VGA, Intel Graphics Accelerator Driver
Is this the best place to install drivers? I'm kind of leery of windows device manager, as it doesn't tell me a whole lot.

I changed EZ system tuning settings from normal to max performance. Change windows power settings from balanced to high performance. This did not seem to make a difference with Stellaris or Fallout 4.

Recommend reinstalling it after running DDU in safe mode to clean out the drivers again. In normal Windows install only the display driver and phyx and leave everything else unchecked. Try using the drivers from the ASUS website page for your card as well instead of the nVIDIA page. Do not use Geforce experience either.

The problem is either throttling from power saving features (BIOS or Windows or both), the GPU driver, or the GPU itself or possibly the motherboard (slim chance). There is nothing wrong with your CPU. CPUz is not benchmarking software and I would take userbenchmark and cinebench's results over it any day.

I saw some prolonged 100% cpu spikes months back, but now its running 30 - 50% usage in these two games according to windows resource monitor. If cpu-z is "lying" then I agree it probably not the cpu like I thought.

I'll be following your suggestions as soon as I can, maybe tonight.

Oh and I have not tried the BIOS update yet. I know I should be fine, but I've never tried it before and want to be safe. I'm currently running American Megatrends Inc. 0604 12/8/2016 and I know there's a new one.

 

[jr9]

Nope that's not it. The place you are looking for is the ASUS page for the graphics card not the motherboard integrated graphics. Device manager should never be used for display drivers, use the driver installer program after you use DDU on the drivers.

CPU spikes to 100% indicate the CPU is struggling with a particularly heavy work event like loading a lot of NPCs in a city or loading the next cell of a map (fallout). A Core i7 would be able to handle these workloads with no drops. Small split second drops are one thing but if it's at 30fps all the time then the GPU is the issue. No way would a CPU do that. I would check your CPU clocks as well in CPUz. Load a browser and see if the multiplier correctly changes and the clock goes up to at least 3.8GHz.

 

[kennyp123]

I finally got around to updating the BIOS, no problems. Checking cpu-z it says my "core speed" is 4500 MHz. I suppose that's the 18% increase the loading screen tells me, though I haven't attempted any overclocking. Doesn't seem to change with a browser and game open. I'm going to try the clean reinstall of the drivers. I'm happy it seems you have an idea of what's going on!

 

[kennyp123]

The problem is either throttling from power saving features (BIOS or Windows or both), the GPU driver, or the GPU itself

Okay, so after uninstalling the driver using the DDU tool, I confirmed this by playing my games' intro screen at only 5 fps. I then installed the driver on the ASUS page called the Nvidia Graphics Driver for my GPU. I checked for install only the "Graphics Driver (version 390.65)" and "PhysX System Software". My symptoms seem the same as before I began this thread.

I'm paying attention to my GPU stats since that is what you suspect. I'm using the ASUS GPU Tweak II tool that came with my card. The "GPU clock" speed idles at around 570 - 650 MHz, and when playing games it seems to never exceed this idling speed. I think this card should be capable of a nominal 1506 MHz. My GPU "memory clock" is interesting. It either stays at a floor of around 800 MHz, and during gaming it will jump to 7600 - 8000 MHz with no in between. Thanks for your help so far! I hope I can get this fixed.

 

[jr9]

The 5 fps is because you were running games on the integrated graphics. That is expected.

I would download and run Furmark to see if your GPU can hit 100% usage using the stress test. It will tell you GPU usage, core clock, and memory clock when the GPU is getting pushed as hard as you can push it. What are those 3 numbers?

 

[kennyp123]

What are those 3 numbers?

I ran Furmarks default options for Benchmarking mode. By "GPU-Z" it says "Core:645MHz - Mem:4091MHz - Shader:0MHz". I do not see % usage.

Other info:
SCORE:7060 points (60000 ms)
Max GPU Temp: 51°C
Resolution: 1274x995 (W) - MSAA: 0X
FPS: min=115 max=119 avg=118

 

[jr9]

1274x995 isn't a resolution I've ever heard of. Did you select the 1080p/1440/4k presets? It should be set to your display's native resolution. If you select that, in the Window that Furmark opens during the benchmark it should give you all of that information about GPU power while its testing. It should be on the screen towards the top in blue text. Core speed % and GPU power.

Here's a test with an old 770 GTX I just did:

SCORE:2898 points (48 FPS, 60000 ms)
Max GPU Temp: 84°C
Resolution: 1920x1080 (FS) - AA:0 samples
FPS: min:48, max:51, avg:48
GeForce GTX 770/PCIe/SSE2 (10DE-1184)

 

[kennyp123]

For some reason, my response last night wasn't posted. Thank you for your patience.

The weird resolution was because I did not have full screen checked. The bigger issue was that my version of furmark was from 2010! Moving on. I ran the 2018 version and here are the values *while it was running*.
avg:100 fps
core:1556MHz/62*C/98%, mem: 4090MHz/5%, GPU power: 99.5% TDP, fan 35%, limits:[power:1, temp:0, volt:0, OV:0]

And the ending results:
SCORE:6009 points (100 FPS, 60000 ms)
Max GPU Temp: 62°C
Resolution: 1920x1080 (FS) - AA:0 samples
FPS: min:99, max:103, avg:100 - OPTIONS: DynBkg
GPU core: 1607 MHz, memory: 4090 MHz
CPU Speed: 3792 MHz
System Memory: 16323 MB

 

[jr9]

Good so the GPU is capable of working in that test. So there is nothing wrong with the GPU or the driver either. Possibilities:

- High background CPU usage. Use task manager to make sure that the game is running with no other applications or programs taking up CPU. If you see CPU usage but cannot see any processes or programs using CPU (CPU usage vs proceeses usage doesn't add up), then it could be malware.

- You're plugging the display into the integrated graphics port instead of the video card port. I have seen it happen and it would explain the 15FPS.

The GPU and the driver are working so there is no reason for low FPS in game. 1070 is a very capable card. Does lowering graphics settings have any affect? Settings like Hairworks can slash FPS down.I don't believe there is hardware problem here assuming your temps are actually around 50c.

 

[kennyp123]

High background CPU usage.

Scrolling around the map playing fast gives me 30 fps. Looking at the performance tab in task manager, I'm averaging 55% cpu an 30% GPU.

plugging the display into the integrated graphics port instead of the video card port.

I know what you mean, but nope. I'm plugged into the GPU.

Does lowering graphics settings have any affect?

I played around with that before and just now. (I just realized I can't change my resolution higher than 1080. I guess that's the limit of my monitor - I'm new to a lot of this.) I'd say it makes exactly zero difference on the fps, going either higher or lower settings.

Am I stuck with an expensive computer that runs like a simple laptop? Surely there must be a solution to this. It seems to me new parts should run well, or not at all, if there was something wrong hardware-wise.

 

[jr9]

Does this happen in all games? What games are you playing exactly?

It really seems like a game settings issue. Obviously 1080p is your limit but getting 30FPS with low GPU utilization makes no sense. The hardware is working properly in testing. There is no reason why you shouldn't get far better performance. It almost sounds like the FPS has been capped to 30FPS somewhere in settings. I'd have a close look through them. Things like Vsync cap FPS.