Is my CPU throttling or is it locked?

[Kryptotek]

I'll try to keep this short,

I have:

Surface Pro 3
Windows 10
Intel Core i5-4300U CPU
4GB DDR3
Samsung 128GB SSD

My problem:
I am what I would call a casual gamer however I recently (6 months ago) ventured into the world of Counterstrike: Global Offensive
This is not at all a very intensive game on my system however, running at average 40fps in a extremely competitive environment isn't great.

Now you will all be thinking "why the **** would you even attempt to game on something which is, at heart, a tablet"; yes, I know. Others will also comment on the fact that simply having a graphic card would solve the issue easily however it is not possible on this system.

My problem I am trying to solve and find an answer to is to whether I can at all improve the performance of my CPU. When I read into the details I find that my CPU is stated as a Intel Core i5-4300U CPU @ 1.90 GHz. However if I read down the system tells me it has a max speed of 2.50GHz. So my question is, is it possible and how would I achieve a 2.50GHz performance from my machine?

All answers and solutions are much appreciated, thank you to all who reply

 

[dylanestrada]

What is your RAM, CPU, and GPU usage while playing CounterStrike?

 

[synphul]

That cpu should have a max speed of 2.9ghz and it's controlled by intel turbo boost, a feature that's built in. You shouldn't have to do anything, when it's able to and under heavier load the cpu should ramp up speed on its own.

I would do as dylanestrada suggested, check your resource usage. Cpu, memory etc. Just try to keep in mind, it's a tablet so 40fps isn't really that bad all things considered. It's not a gaming machine capable of 100fps+. Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong but it appears to be a 1440p screen and if I had to guess since I see no mention of a gpu, it's running off the igpu of the processor. High resolution + weak igpu means low fps.

You can try checking power settings for the device if it has them available. Usually set to medium or higher power savings to help extend battery life, turning power saving features off to game may give better performance.

 

[Lespaul678]

Synphul is right, resolution is the biggest performance/resource hog, more so then any graphic option that exists (All forms of AA included). If you're playing in 1440, try lowering it 1080 and maybe put on some AA to compensate.

 

[Kryptotek]

That cpu should have a max speed of 2.9ghz and it's controlled by intel turbo boost, a feature that's built in. You shouldn't have to do anything, when it's able to and under heavier load the cpu should ramp up speed on its own.

I would do as dylanestrada suggested, check your resource usage. Cpu, memory etc. Just try to keep in mind, it's a tablet so 40fps isn't really that bad all things considered. It's not a gaming machine capable of 100fps+. Maybe someone can correct me if I'm wrong but it appears to be a 1440p screen and if I had to guess since I see no mention of a gpu, it's running off the igpu of the processor. High resolution + weak igpu means low fps.

You can try checking power settings for the device if it has them available. Usually set to medium or higher power savings to help extend battery life, turning power saving features off to game may give better performance.

I play at 1280x768 on 4:3 so it isn't so intensive, granted the thing has no GPU, that being the biggest problem. After doing what dylan said, my CPU is in fact performing to 2.5GHz. However, when I first run the game, I can achieve 80-100 fps whilst in a 10v10 DM server (most stress-testing game type I find as it has to load the most entities). After 10-20 mins though, the fps drops to 40-50 and gets gradually worse. This would suggest throttling would it not? As my CPU is getting too hot under the stress (as it is a very thin machine for its power, with what I think is poor ventilation and fans).

 

[Kryptotek]

Synphul is right, resolution is the biggest performance/resource hog, more so then any graphic option that exists (All forms of AA included). If you're playing in 1440, try lowering it 1080 and maybe put on some AA to compensate.

I play in 1280x768 on 4:3 although I do have all AA turned off, no V-Sync, no multi analysing etc. (I'll include a link of my setup). Would turning any of these on/increasing some, improve my fps performance?

I play in Fullscreen usually but for the purposes of the screenshot had to put it in windowed: http://prntscr.com/a7fvvs

 

[Kryptotek]

What is your RAM, CPU, and GPU usage while playing CounterStrike?

RAM sits around 750-800 MB
CPU hitting the 2.5GHz limit (after doing some testing)
No GPU xD

 

[dylanestrada]

What temperature is your CPU sitting at when you experience framerate drops?

 

[Kryptotek]

What temperature is your CPU sitting at when you experience framerate drops?

Temperatures of the cores is 65 average whilst playing which is high if I'm right. They are around 45 whilst idle. I hear people saying that 65 would be the temp of an overclocked core. This would suggest that is thus throttling to reduce the temperature, thus giving my the frame drops after use of more than 20+ mins

 

[dylanestrada]

You've probably got the stock BIOS settings ah?

Sounds like a power safety/temperature safety settings are still on, you can try tweaking the power saving features in your BIOS to give you a boost in performance.

65 degrees is acceptable for that chip.

 

[Kryptotek]

You've probably got the stock BIOS settings ah?

Sounds like a power safety/temperature safety settings are still on, you can try tweaking the power saving features in your BIOS to give you a boost in performance.

65 degrees is acceptable for that chip.

I have attempted to venture into the BIOS before, however it didn't seem very extensive. It only had 4 options, none of which seemed relevant. Along side that, I payed a fair bit for a nice bit of kit, so it would be a shame to ruin it by messing around with the bios. Still need to finish college with it first haha

Thanks all for the help, guess I'll have to wait till the summer when I start my build project

 

[dylanestrada]

Your motherboard manual should have plenty of information on what all of the settings do when tweaked inside of the BIOS.

You could try to turn off power saving features like c-state/t-probe and turn on performance features like load line calibration to give your CPU a significant boost in performance.

Changing these features are safe, and won't damage your motherboard, the only real differences are better performance, perhaps higher temperatures (unless you've got good airflow in your case), and a slightly higher energy bill (might see $10 increase over 1 year span).

 

[Kryptotek]

Your motherboard manual should have plenty of information on what all of the settings do when tweaked inside of the BIOS.

You could try to turn off power saving features like c-state/t-probe and turn on performance features like load line calibration to give your CPU a significant boost in performance.

Changing these features are safe, and won't damage your motherboard, the only real differences are better performance, perhaps higher temperatures (unless you've got good airflow in your case), and a slightly higher energy bill (might see $10 increase over 1 year span).

This is the BIOS for Surface http://winsupersite.com/mobile-devices/surface-pro-3-tip-access-firmware
As you can see it is more than basic, so are these options still viable and how would I proceed in doing so?

 

[dylanestrada]

Bummer. All in all it comes down to the fact that this isn't a gaming dedicated laptop, the clock speed of the CPU can only hit 2.5 ghz, which for a Haswell is decent, but the single core performance is significantly held back. No options to overclock either from the looks of it.