Is my system really that slow?

[Decatur5717]

I wanted to post here because as an IT guy something’s just not right with my system and it’s not able to run some of the games I’d expect it to run, that and I can’t seem to find the slowdown. Hopefully I can get some ideas from you guys as far as my hardware.
I built this system as a server nearly 10 years ago and 5 years ago I completely rebuilt it. Here is what is in it now

AMD Phenom 9600BE (4 cores, 2.3GHz)
Asus m3a32 MVP Deluxe
Asus Geforce 8800 GTS 512
2x Adata SP600 (Sata2, 64GB Solid State, non-raid)
4GB DDR2-1066
Win7 64-bit

It’s been about a year sense I reinstalled the OS and I would have done so again if it wasn’t for the fact that my technet subscription has expired and I need to repurchase Win7. Drivers are all up-to date, drive has been de-fragged, registry has been cleaned, extra junk has been removed, components are a bit dirty but system is running cool. Below are some of the game issues I’ve been experiencing

Sins of a Solar Empire – get about an hour in and ships start moving super slow, ship battles larger than 300 take upwards of an hour to finish.
Civilization 5 – 5-6 hours in and I start to see a noticeable difference, turns take upwards of 45 minutes 8+ hours in
Banished – Anything larger than a Tiny map or 100 people drag to 1-2x speed (even on fast 10x speed system can’t do more than 1-2x)
Total War Shogun 2 – Half way through the map and turns take 10 minutes, yet to get all the way through
Galactic Civilizations – 10 hours in and turns take 30+ minutes

Problem is these games are very new or don’t require a ton of power….. I should be able to run them without blinking an eye but as I stated above …. They break down right when it starts to get good. I’ve tried almost everything I can think of aside from ripping it apart and rebuilding what am I missing? Is my hardware just too old? Is my system that slow?

You tell me

 

[sparestuff]

The system's parts are very outdated and are usually the minumum requirements, so no wonder your finding issues with performance, I would rebuild your system. The good news is even with around $500-700 you can build a powerful system to run many of the newest games if you only need the tower.

 

[Robertwhyte]

seems like a RAM/CPU issue, the longer these turn based strategies go on the more ram they consume and the harder the CPU has to work to deal with numerous A.I and the memory is called on alot more, so old DDR2 just isnt fast enough to keep up (Id imagine) but overall your system is very outdated and i would certainly recommend a rebuild.

 

[smeezekitty]

Your system is slow but that seems unusual. How is your CPU temp?

 

[Decatur5717]

I was afraid you'd all tell me that. It used to be easy to drop a half grand on parts but with kids my budget is shot. I've been running a little app on my system today thats been giving me a few good specs and .... well part of the reason why I've posted, you would think that if the game is running slow I'd have something maxed out.... but I'm not seeing it

Here's what it's telling me

Lowest CPU temp - 54C
Higest CPU temp - 67C
Lithography 65nm
TDP 94 watts
Highest mem usage 60%
Highest Average CPU usage - 54%

 

[smeezekitty]

Your CPU is getting kind of hot. If you load test it, does it get any hotter than 67?

 

[Decatur5717]

Thats under the heaviest load I can put on it. Been watching this thread and running Banished and I'm currently at 61C .... and around 30ish % CPU, 46% mem

 

[smeezekitty]

61C seems hot for 30%

I suggest trying a load test like prime95 and OCCT

If it passes 75C, stop.

 

[Decatur5717]

I'll run it now

 

[Decatur5717]

Wish I had of known about that program before. Running prime95 it completely locked up the system and right about the time I was going to hard reboot it came back (about 3 minutes) .....while testing it peaked all 4 cores to 100% and stayed there for about 8 minutes (steady at 70C) second it hit the second part of the test it jumped to 83C and thats when I cut it.

I'll pop off the fan tomorrow, clean it out real good and re-run

 

[Decatur5717]

I'll admit, I thought the CPU was fine at that temp and I would have expected a different kind of problem but ..... big difference. Cleaned out the system and under the heaviest load I got a max of 47C. What was more surprising was how much better the system ran, not as fast as I want it but it's what I'd expect. Games ran twice as long, twice the load before I start to see it slow down (checked the temp and it was around 37C)

Interestingly I notice far less memory usage than before, running almost a gb less than when the system was running hot. Whatever the case I know there is still a bottleneck somewhere as the CPU and memory don't come close to maxing out before things start to run slow...... I suspect it's either the memory speeds, HD or ...... my video card

Thanks for the help, never would have thought the heat would cause so much problems