Is my card dying? (Sudden FPS drops in-game affecting whole PC)

[bluewaves]

First off, specs: http://i.imgur.com/XpIn2sc.png
^ CPU/GPU-Z stats are just after booting up my PC.

So, recently I've been playing Witcher 3. Every time I started up the game, it crashed about 5 minutes into it so I had to restart the PC then it worked just fine for as long as I played (this became a usual routine). It started to get annoying so I decided to do something about it, I saw somewhere that decreasing core clock (using Afterburner) can help the game run a lot smoother, so I did (to -35Mhz) and by the gods did it work (I was even able to run the game in High settings with smooth FPS (used to play in Medium before). Maintained temperature in the CPU was around 70-80C and the GPU ran on about 65-70C (when running the game, of-course). However, after a week, I began to suddenly experience huge FPS drops just after starting the game so I put back the core clock to 0 (where it was). This did not solve it, the FPS drops got worse. The moment I start up the game, I get 5 FPS at most and it even affects my whole PC (hiccups, lag and what not) when I minimize it to try to close it. I thought there was a problem with voltage (keep in mind I haven't got the slightest clue about overclocking, yet alone voltages). I went into BIOS to try to find some answers (I have OC Tweaker in my MB (Asrock Z77 Extreme4)). I saw that I had Advanced Turbo, CPU/GPU OC and all that Auto stuff enabled by default (which is weird because even if the OC was set to 4.something GHz, CPU-Z was reporting 3.4 Ghz which is my default. I paid no mind to and I proceeded to changing PLL voltage from around 1.83 (AUTO) to 1.84 (without knowing what I was doing), saved changes & exit to boot up and VOILA I kept getting BSOD everytime I tried to start my PC. So I went back to BIOS, changed PLL voltage to Auto and nope, still getting BSOD.. I went back once more, disabled Advanced Turbo and all that and it booted up perfectly fine. Now I'm back to where I was. Some other stuff I tried:

- Setting Power Options to High Performance and tried every power mode on NVIDIA control panel (Optimal was default, I tried Adaptive and Maximum).
- Upgraded NVIDIA driver to the latest version (didn't work), downgraded to 347.88 (didn't work), upgraded to 365 (didn't work), upgraded a little higher to 372 (didn't work). I also used DD-U everytime when uninstalling the driver.
- Tried running the game on the lowest of the low settings.
- After all that BIOS adventure, I tried overclocking using Afterburner, set power limit 132 (which is apparently the maximum for my card), set core clock to around +70 MHz. This actually helped a little but nah the FPS was still incredibly low (although it stopped affecting my PC). Temperature in the CPU & GPU was for some reason at around 60C which is weird even after overclocking (as I said above, when I underclocked it was 70-80C for the CPU and around 70C for the GPU). Basically both my GPU & CPU stopped working as hard, became lazy.

I have now set everything back to normal, still experiencing this 5 FPS (that is also affecting my PC). Is my CPU/GPU dying because I underclocked it before? Are they just throttling? What is going on here? I'll say this again, I have no idea how to overclock and all that voltage stuff. So please be gentle.

EDIT:

If it is of any relevance, my PSU is: Corsair 600W Gaming Series

EDIT 2:

Wow, okay. I just ran Heaven Benchmark 4.0 (with nothing overclocked, just to see the FPS on High setting), was getting around 15 then after closing it, my screen suddenly started going black (on and off) and simultaneously started glitching. I just did a hard shutdown. That was scary.

 

[Tolis_GR]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

 

[bluewaves]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

 

[Tolis_GR]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

 

[bluewaves]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

 

[Tolis_GR]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

 

[bluewaves]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

 

[Tolis_GR]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

All right. So it is the cpu here. You can use CPU-Z and bench it. Compare your resutls either in CPU-Z or online to see how it performs in an indepented application as such. If it scores like it is supposed to, it should be a sign of software and not hardware defection. If you haven't already, run diagnostic tests in your Windows to see if there is any corrupted files in your OS.

 

[aquielisunari]

A couple things stand out as a bit odd.

First off is the RAM at 363MHz(Speccy). I expect it to be half of what the actual is but this looks to be a fourth or something. You should have two modules(2 or 4) in place. Motherboard manufacturer's recommendation.

Second thing is Speccy's GFX report. Why am I seeing Intel's GFX information? That should be disabled in your bios. I have Intel's integrated GFX chip as well but it's disabled and therefore I don't see it in Speccy or my Device Manager(Display Adapter).

 

[bluewaves]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

All right. So it is the cpu here. You can use CPU-Z and bench it. Compare your resutls either in CPU-Z or online to see how it performs in an indepented application as such. If it scores like it is supposed to, it should be a sign of software and not hardware defection. If you haven't already, run diagnostic tests in your Windows to see if there is any corrupted files in your OS.

Not sure if I did it correctly, should I have a game running in the background when benching? Here is a validation: http://valid.x86.fr/p2cb0y

Additional screenshots:
GTA 5 load: http://i.imgur.com/xZryb2r.png

Bench: http://i.imgur.com/t59sdoj.png

 

[bluewaves]

A couple things stand out as a bit odd.

First off is the RAM at 363MHz(Speccy). I expect it to be half of what the actual is but this looks to be a fourth or something. You should have two modules(2 or 4) in place. Motherboard manufacturer's recommendation.

Second thing is Speccy's GFX report. Why am I seeing Intel's GFX information? That should be disabled in your bios. I have Intel's integrated GFX chip as well but it's disabled and therefore I don't see it in Speccy or my Device Manager(Display Adapter).

No clue on the GPU part. As with the RAM, now it's showing 662MHz: http://i.imgur.com/Kov3k9D.png
Absolutely no idea why it changed.

 

[Tolis_GR]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

All right. So it is the cpu here. You can use CPU-Z and bench it. Compare your resutls either in CPU-Z or online to see how it performs in an indepented application as such. If it scores like it is supposed to, it should be a sign of software and not hardware defection. If you haven't already, run diagnostic tests in your Windows to see if there is any corrupted files in your OS.

Not sure if I did it correctly, should I have a game running in the background when benching? Here is a validation: http://valid.x86.fr/p2cb0y

Additional screenshots:
GTA 5 load: http://i.imgur.com/xZryb2r.png

Bench: http://i.imgur.com/t59sdoj.png

Bench is good. See what aquielisunari recommends. Have you selected in bios as primary graphics your pcie slot? Maybe you messed with it and you don;t know it. You have to disable integrated graphics. Also indeed, the frequency of your ram is not identical. What ram are you using?

 

[bluewaves]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

All right. So it is the cpu here. You can use CPU-Z and bench it. Compare your resutls either in CPU-Z or online to see how it performs in an indepented application as such. If it scores like it is supposed to, it should be a sign of software and not hardware defection. If you haven't already, run diagnostic tests in your Windows to see if there is any corrupted files in your OS.

Not sure if I did it correctly, should I have a game running in the background when benching? Here is a validation: http://valid.x86.fr/p2cb0y

Additional screenshots:
GTA 5 load: http://i.imgur.com/xZryb2r.png

Bench: http://i.imgur.com/t59sdoj.png

Bench is good. See what aquielisunari recommends. Have you selected in bios as primary graphics your pcie slot? Maybe you messed with it and you don;t know it. You have to disable integrated graphics. Also indeed, the frequency of your ram is not identical. What ram are you using?

It's showing 662Mhz now (in Speccy). No idea why it keeps changing, sometimes it shows 654Mhz as well. Also it's Corsair 8GB CL9 vengeance 1600mhz

 

[Tolis_GR]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

All right. So it is the cpu here. You can use CPU-Z and bench it. Compare your resutls either in CPU-Z or online to see how it performs in an indepented application as such. If it scores like it is supposed to, it should be a sign of software and not hardware defection. If you haven't already, run diagnostic tests in your Windows to see if there is any corrupted files in your OS.

Not sure if I did it correctly, should I have a game running in the background when benching? Here is a validation: http://valid.x86.fr/p2cb0y

Additional screenshots:
GTA 5 load: http://i.imgur.com/xZryb2r.png

Bench: http://i.imgur.com/t59sdoj.png

Bench is good. See what aquielisunari recommends. Have you selected in bios as primary graphics your pcie slot? Maybe you messed with it and you don;t know it. You have to disable integrated graphics. Also indeed, the frequency of your ram is not identical. What ram are you using?

It's showing 662Mhz now (in Speccy). No idea why it keeps changing, sometimes it shows 654Mhz as well. Also it's Corsair 8GB CL9 vengeance 1600mhz

It doesn't matter to show +/- a few mhz. Check your bios settings for your primary graphics. It could make sense that your are through your motherboard graphics and the cpu maxes out to compensate the load

 

[bluewaves]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

All right. So it is the cpu here. You can use CPU-Z and bench it. Compare your resutls either in CPU-Z or online to see how it performs in an indepented application as such. If it scores like it is supposed to, it should be a sign of software and not hardware defection. If you haven't already, run diagnostic tests in your Windows to see if there is any corrupted files in your OS.

Not sure if I did it correctly, should I have a game running in the background when benching? Here is a validation: http://valid.x86.fr/p2cb0y

Additional screenshots:
GTA 5 load: http://i.imgur.com/xZryb2r.png

Bench: http://i.imgur.com/t59sdoj.png

Bench is good. See what aquielisunari recommends. Have you selected in bios as primary graphics your pcie slot? Maybe you messed with it and you don;t know it. You have to disable integrated graphics. Also indeed, the frequency of your ram is not identical. What ram are you using?

It's showing 662Mhz now (in Speccy). No idea why it keeps changing, sometimes it shows 654Mhz as well. Also it's Corsair 8GB CL9 vengeance 1600mhz

It doesn't matter to show +/- a few mhz. Check your bios settings for your primary graphics. It could make sense that your are through your motherboard graphics and the cpu maxes out to compensate the load

Just went to North Bridge Configuration, the primary graphic adapter was already set to PCI Express (there were 2 other options, Onboard and just PCI)

 

[Tolis_GR]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

All right. So it is the cpu here. You can use CPU-Z and bench it. Compare your resutls either in CPU-Z or online to see how it performs in an indepented application as such. If it scores like it is supposed to, it should be a sign of software and not hardware defection. If you haven't already, run diagnostic tests in your Windows to see if there is any corrupted files in your OS.

Not sure if I did it correctly, should I have a game running in the background when benching? Here is a validation: http://valid.x86.fr/p2cb0y

Additional screenshots:
GTA 5 load: http://i.imgur.com/xZryb2r.png

Bench: http://i.imgur.com/t59sdoj.png

Bench is good. See what aquielisunari recommends. Have you selected in bios as primary graphics your pcie slot? Maybe you messed with it and you don;t know it. You have to disable integrated graphics. Also indeed, the frequency of your ram is not identical. What ram are you using?

It's showing 662Mhz now (in Speccy). No idea why it keeps changing, sometimes it shows 654Mhz as well. Also it's Corsair 8GB CL9 vengeance 1600mhz

It doesn't matter to show +/- a few mhz. Check your bios settings for your primary graphics. It could make sense that your are through your motherboard graphics and the cpu maxes out to compensate the load

Just went to North Bridge Configuration, the primary graphic adapter was already set to PCI Express (there were 2 other options, Onboard and just PCI)

Ok. It should be that way. Cpu lookes good at bench. I can't think anything else apart from your video card or as last resort the psu. If you can find another card just to test your rig it would be nice. Otherwise try enabling your onboard graphics and see the differences

 

[bluewaves]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

All right. So it is the cpu here. You can use CPU-Z and bench it. Compare your resutls either in CPU-Z or online to see how it performs in an indepented application as such. If it scores like it is supposed to, it should be a sign of software and not hardware defection. If you haven't already, run diagnostic tests in your Windows to see if there is any corrupted files in your OS.

Not sure if I did it correctly, should I have a game running in the background when benching? Here is a validation: http://valid.x86.fr/p2cb0y

Additional screenshots:
GTA 5 load: http://i.imgur.com/xZryb2r.png

Bench: http://i.imgur.com/t59sdoj.png

Bench is good. See what aquielisunari recommends. Have you selected in bios as primary graphics your pcie slot? Maybe you messed with it and you don;t know it. You have to disable integrated graphics. Also indeed, the frequency of your ram is not identical. What ram are you using?

It's showing 662Mhz now (in Speccy). No idea why it keeps changing, sometimes it shows 654Mhz as well. Also it's Corsair 8GB CL9 vengeance 1600mhz

It doesn't matter to show +/- a few mhz. Check your bios settings for your primary graphics. It could make sense that your are through your motherboard graphics and the cpu maxes out to compensate the load

Just went to North Bridge Configuration, the primary graphic adapter was already set to PCI Express (there were 2 other options, Onboard and just PCI)

Ok. It should be that way. Cpu lookes good at bench. I can't think anything else apart from your video card or as last resort the psu. If you can find another card just to test your rig it would be nice. Otherwise try enabling your onboard graphics and see the differences

Well now the screen became just black. Onboard graphics was the integrated one so now I can't even access BIOS anymore to change back to PCIE

 

[aquielisunari]

First off I would perform a CMOS reset. Tinkering with voltages and all that may have contributed to this debacle. You will have to go into your BIOS and set your boot options and maybe the time as well as any other personal changes you may have made.

Second I would buy new RAM. Not just one more stick. Purchase a dual channel RAM kit. The fluctuating RAM speed suggests a fluctuating CPU frequency. Is that due to heat(thermal throttling) or one of Intel's features such as Speedstep? My RAM speed is constantly at 1866MHz. Odd fluctuation. Can you say fluctuation 5 times fast?

Click on your Start button and type mdsched and then click enter. Type y and press enter. Type exit and press enter. Restart your computer. That will test your memory.

I'm betting on RAM or an unstable GFX card. In Nvidia control Panel click help and then Debug mode and try gaming again. 15FPS strongly suggests the integrated GPU but your monitor isn't plugged into your motherboard.

 

[bluewaves]

First off I would perform a CMOS reset. Tinkering with voltages and all that may have contributed to this debacle. You will have to go into your BIOS and set your boot options and maybe the time as well as any other personal changes you may have made.

Second I would buy new RAM. Not just one more stick. Purchase a dual channel RAM kit. The fluctuating RAM speed suggests a fluctuating CPU frequency. Is that due to heat(thermal throttling) or one of Intel's features such as Speedstep? My RAM speed is constantly at 1866MHz. Odd fluctuation. Can you say fluctuation 5 times fast?

Click on your Start button and type mdsched and then click enter. Type y and press enter. Type exit and press enter. Restart your computer. That will test your memory.

I'm betting on RAM or an unstable GFX card. In Nvidia control Panel click help and then Debug mode and try gaming again. 15FPS strongly suggests the integrated GPU but your monitor isn't plugged into your motherboard.

I can no longer access my BIOS after switching default graphics adapter from "PCI Express" to "Onboard" as per the other guy's suggestion. My PC boots up but the screen is black while the sound and stuff is on. After I do a hard shutdown it skips BIOS and boots up to login page, when I restart, the black screen is back. I tried resetting the BIOS using a "Reset" button on the motherboard, it restarted the PC but there were no changes. I also cannot seem to find a CMOS battery to do it manually (I have an Asrock Z77 Extreme4).

 

[aquielisunari]

First off I would perform a CMOS reset. Tinkering with voltages and all that may have contributed to this debacle. You will have to go into your BIOS and set your boot options and maybe the time as well as any other personal changes you may have made.

Second I would buy new RAM. Not just one more stick. Purchase a dual channel RAM kit. The fluctuating RAM speed suggests a fluctuating CPU frequency. Is that due to heat(thermal throttling) or one of Intel's features such as Speedstep? My RAM speed is constantly at 1866MHz. Odd fluctuation. Can you say fluctuation 5 times fast?

Click on your Start button and type mdsched and then click enter. Type y and press enter. Type exit and press enter. Restart your computer. That will test your memory.

I'm betting on RAM or an unstable GFX card. In Nvidia control Panel click help and then Debug mode and try gaming again. 15FPS strongly suggests the integrated GPU but your monitor isn't plugged into your motherboard.

I can no longer access my BIOS after switching default graphics adapter from "PCI Express" to "Onboard" as per the other guy's suggestion. My PC boots up but the screen is black while the sound and stuff is on. After I do a hard shutdown it skips BIOS and boots up to login page, when I restart, the black screen is back. I tried resetting the BIOS using a "Reset" button on the motherboard, it restarted the PC but there were no changes. I also cannot seem to find a CMOS battery to do it manually (I have an Asrock Z77 Extreme4).

Did you move your monitor's cable from the GFX card over to your motherboard's GFX connection after that change? Did you remove the GFX card?

Your CMOS battery is hiding beneath your GFX card.

 

[bluewaves]

First off I would perform a CMOS reset. Tinkering with voltages and all that may have contributed to this debacle. You will have to go into your BIOS and set your boot options and maybe the time as well as any other personal changes you may have made.

Second I would buy new RAM. Not just one more stick. Purchase a dual channel RAM kit. The fluctuating RAM speed suggests a fluctuating CPU frequency. Is that due to heat(thermal throttling) or one of Intel's features such as Speedstep? My RAM speed is constantly at 1866MHz. Odd fluctuation. Can you say fluctuation 5 times fast?

Click on your Start button and type mdsched and then click enter. Type y and press enter. Type exit and press enter. Restart your computer. That will test your memory.

I'm betting on RAM or an unstable GFX card. In Nvidia control Panel click help and then Debug mode and try gaming again. 15FPS strongly suggests the integrated GPU but your monitor isn't plugged into your motherboard.

I can no longer access my BIOS after switching default graphics adapter from "PCI Express" to "Onboard" as per the other guy's suggestion. My PC boots up but the screen is black while the sound and stuff is on. After I do a hard shutdown it skips BIOS and boots up to login page, when I restart, the black screen is back. I tried resetting the BIOS using a "Reset" button on the motherboard, it restarted the PC but there were no changes. I also cannot seem to find a CMOS battery to do it manually (I have an Asrock Z77 Extreme4).

Did you move your monitor's cable from the GFX card over to your motherboard's GFX connection after that change? Did you remove the GFX card?

Your CMOS battery is hiding beneath your GFX card.

Ah yes, forgot to move the cables. Anyhow, I was able to reset the MB by moving the CMOS jumper. Also I ran the memory diagnostics, no issues detected. Perhaps the reason why the RAM clock was set to 333 was probably because I was tinkering with Afterburner and forgot to revert to default settings. Also, looks like I'm already in debugging mode: http://i.imgur.com/CzlcT3J.png

 

[aquielisunari]

First off I would perform a CMOS reset. Tinkering with voltages and all that may have contributed to this debacle. You will have to go into your BIOS and set your boot options and maybe the time as well as any other personal changes you may have made.

Second I would buy new RAM. Not just one more stick. Purchase a dual channel RAM kit. The fluctuating RAM speed suggests a fluctuating CPU frequency. Is that due to heat(thermal throttling) or one of Intel's features such as Speedstep? My RAM speed is constantly at 1866MHz. Odd fluctuation. Can you say fluctuation 5 times fast?

Click on your Start button and type mdsched and then click enter. Type y and press enter. Type exit and press enter. Restart your computer. That will test your memory.

I'm betting on RAM or an unstable GFX card. In Nvidia control Panel click help and then Debug mode and try gaming again. 15FPS strongly suggests the integrated GPU but your monitor isn't plugged into your motherboard.

I can no longer access my BIOS after switching default graphics adapter from "PCI Express" to "Onboard" as per the other guy's suggestion. My PC boots up but the screen is black while the sound and stuff is on. After I do a hard shutdown it skips BIOS and boots up to login page, when I restart, the black screen is back. I tried resetting the BIOS using a "Reset" button on the motherboard, it restarted the PC but there were no changes. I also cannot seem to find a CMOS battery to do it manually (I have an Asrock Z77 Extreme4).

Did you move your monitor's cable from the GFX card over to your motherboard's GFX connection after that change? Did you remove the GFX card?

Your CMOS battery is hiding beneath your GFX card.

Ah yes, forgot to move the cables. Anyhow, I was able to reset the MB by moving the CMOS jumper. Also I ran the memory diagnostics, no issues detected. Perhaps the reason why the RAM clock was set to 333 was probably because I was tinkering with Afterburner and forgot to revert to default settings. Also, looks like I'm already in debugging mode: http://i.imgur.com/CzlcT3J.png

Odd. What's your core clock at in your game? You can set MSI's OSD to monitor and display that info.

 

[Tolis_GR]

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Are you experiencing this in all games or just as soon as you launch this game? Can you play other cpu/gpu intensive games adequately? If yes, then you have your answer, that it is not hardware related. However maybe you want to check your cpu temperatures. I have a similar cpu (Ivy) and i barely hit 52 C on the core while playing Mafia 3. While in idle my cpu cores are around 23-33

Yup, looks like all games (also see my 2nd edit). Just tried GTA V (used to run smooth on the highest setting) now it's all laggy/low FPS as hell. Pray for my dear PC, I guess it's dying 🙁

Well, you can start isolating the potential defection by removing components and testing in other rigs. Start with your gpu, then cpu and absolutely your PSU. I doubt that underclocking your core frequency has anything to do with it. Usually some coincidences are moving us to misleading assumptions. I also doubt that overclocking is at any way effective without touching voltages.

Unfortunately, I don't have access to other rigs to be able to single out the issue. Also, idle temp (Chrome, Skype and stuff open though) on the CPU is 36-42C and 33-40 on the GPU. When I start up both Witcher 3 and GTA V, the CPU load instantly goes to 100%. Why are they suddenly under-performing though? Could not enough voltage still be the cause?

Interesting. I guess no although i am not sure. Low core voltage would probably make your system restart and not throttle. Is this 100% of usage completely dedicated to the game application? You can check it in task manager if any other 3rd party application is running that could be the issue.

Yep. I use Process Explorer. It's indeed the games that are causing the load.

All right. So it is the cpu here. You can use CPU-Z and bench it. Compare your resutls either in CPU-Z or online to see how it performs in an indepented application as such. If it scores like it is supposed to, it should be a sign of software and not hardware defection. If you haven't already, run diagnostic tests in your Windows to see if there is any corrupted files in your OS.

Not sure if I did it correctly, should I have a game running in the background when benching? Here is a validation: http://valid.x86.fr/p2cb0y

Additional screenshots:
GTA 5 load: http://i.imgur.com/xZryb2r.png

Bench: http://i.imgur.com/t59sdoj.png

Bench is good. See what aquielisunari recommends. Have you selected in bios as primary graphics your pcie slot? Maybe you messed with it and you don;t know it. You have to disable integrated graphics. Also indeed, the frequency of your ram is not identical. What ram are you using?

It's showing 662Mhz now (in Speccy). No idea why it keeps changing, sometimes it shows 654Mhz as well. Also it's Corsair 8GB CL9 vengeance 1600mhz

It doesn't matter to show +/- a few mhz. Check your bios settings for your primary graphics. It could make sense that your are through your motherboard graphics and the cpu maxes out to compensate the load

Just went to North Bridge Configuration, the primary graphic adapter was already set to PCI Express (there were 2 other options, Onboard and just PCI)

Ok. It should be that way. Cpu lookes good at bench. I can't think anything else apart from your video card or as last resort the psu. If you can find another card just to test your rig it would be nice. Otherwise try enabling your onboard graphics and see the differences

Well now the screen became just black. Onboard graphics was the integrated one so now I can't even access BIOS anymore to change back to PCIE

First off I would perform a CMOS reset. Tinkering with voltages and all that may have contributed to this debacle. You will have to go into your BIOS and set your boot options and maybe the time as well as any other personal changes you may have made.

Second I would buy new RAM. Not just one more stick. Purchase a dual channel RAM kit. The fluctuating RAM speed suggests a fluctuating CPU frequency. Is that due to heat(thermal throttling) or one of Intel's features such as Speedstep? My RAM speed is constantly at 1866MHz. Odd fluctuation. Can you say fluctuation 5 times fast?

Click on your Start button and type mdsched and then click enter. Type y and press enter. Type exit and press enter. Restart your computer. That will test your memory.

I'm betting on RAM or an unstable GFX card. In Nvidia control Panel click help and then Debug mode and try gaming again. 15FPS strongly suggests the integrated GPU but your monitor isn't plugged into your motherboard.

I can no longer access my BIOS after switching default graphics adapter from "PCI Express" to "Onboard" as per the other guy's suggestion. My PC boots up but the screen is black while the sound and stuff is on. After I do a hard shutdown it skips BIOS and boots up to login page, when I restart, the black screen is back. I tried resetting the BIOS using a "Reset" button on the motherboard, it restarted the PC but there were no changes. I also cannot seem to find a CMOS battery to do it manually (I have an Asrock Z77 Extreme4).

Did you move your monitor's cable from the GFX card over to your motherboard's GFX connection after that change? Did you remove the GFX card?

Your CMOS battery is hiding beneath your GFX card.

Ah yes, forgot to move the cables. Anyhow, I was able to reset the MB by moving the CMOS jumper. Also I ran the memory diagnostics, no issues detected. Perhaps the reason why the RAM clock was set to 333 was probably because I was tinkering with Afterburner and forgot to revert to default settings. Also, looks like I'm already in debugging mode: http://i.imgur.com/CzlcT3J.png

Can you post the specs of your card through GPU-Z? Did you change any voltage in your GPU with Afterburner?

 

[aquielisunari]

That means you have a reference model aka vanilla. Debug mode is greyed out because it would be worthless on a referance card. I have a FTW 970. I can enable Debug mode and that eliminates any overclocking done by EVGA. It is used as a troubleshooting step. It may have other uses. Ins.

I'd call Palit and see what they can deduce. Still, I'd replace and double up on the RAM. Somethings hinky there. Where did the word hinky come from? I've no clue.

 

[bluewaves]

First off I would perform a CMOS reset. Tinkering with voltages and all that may have contributed to this debacle. You will have to go into your BIOS and set your boot options and maybe the time as well as any other personal changes you may have made.

Second I would buy new RAM. Not just one more stick. Purchase a dual channel RAM kit. The fluctuating RAM speed suggests a fluctuating CPU frequency. Is that due to heat(thermal throttling) or one of Intel's features such as Speedstep? My RAM speed is constantly at 1866MHz. Odd fluctuation. Can you say fluctuation 5 times fast?

Click on your Start button and type mdsched and then click enter. Type y and press enter. Type exit and press enter. Restart your computer. That will test your memory.

I'm betting on RAM or an unstable GFX card. In Nvidia control Panel click help and then Debug mode and try gaming again. 15FPS strongly suggests the integrated GPU but your monitor isn't plugged into your motherboard.

I can no longer access my BIOS after switching default graphics adapter from "PCI Express" to "Onboard" as per the other guy's suggestion. My PC boots up but the screen is black while the sound and stuff is on. After I do a hard shutdown it skips BIOS and boots up to login page, when I restart, the black screen is back. I tried resetting the BIOS using a "Reset" button on the motherboard, it restarted the PC but there were no changes. I also cannot seem to find a CMOS battery to do it manually (I have an Asrock Z77 Extreme4).

Did you move your monitor's cable from the GFX card over to your motherboard's GFX connection after that change? Did you remove the GFX card?

Your CMOS battery is hiding beneath your GFX card.

Ah yes, forgot to move the cables. Anyhow, I was able to reset the MB by moving the CMOS jumper. Also I ran the memory diagnostics, no issues detected. Perhaps the reason why the RAM clock was set to 333 was probably because I was tinkering with Afterburner and forgot to revert to default settings. Also, looks like I'm already in debugging mode: http://i.imgur.com/CzlcT3J.png

Odd. What's your core clock at in your game? You can set MSI's OSD to monitor and display that info.

I'm getting 1.7 FPS while the core clock is at 1097 MHz, the game is crashing 10 seconds in (black screen, I have to do hard shutdown).

@Tolis_GR

No I did not touch any voltage option in Afterburner, also I included both CPU-Z, GPU-Z and Speccy specs in my original post.