Hi all - Looking for some advice in identifying the source of on-going lag during gaming.
My rig is a little over two years old, but has held up well. I use it primarily for gaming, with some work and everyday usage on the side. Primary components are as follows:
AMD FX-8150
GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3 AM3+
Kingston 8 GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 PC3 PC1333
GIGABYTE GV-N970G1 GTX 970 4GB
850W PSU
Win7 Home Premium
Recently I have been experiencing some lag and graphical artifacts on newer games and figured it was time to upgrade the GPU (particularly because of the artifacting, but also due to age and the next generation of cards becoming available). I went with a Gigabyte GTX 970 as it fit my price point and needs regarding power and benchmarks (with fairly solid reviews). After installation, there is a stark improvement in graphical fidelity (as expected) but I am still hitting rough patches of stuttering and frame rate drops when there is a lot of activity on screen. Adjusting visual settings lower helps reduce this at a cost of FPS, but doesn't eliminate the problem entirely.
Having eliminated the GPU from the equation, I'm left trying to determine which of the remaining components is the culprit for the slowdowns. Overall temps for the unit are well within normal levels, and I verified all drivers are up to date and streamlined windows settings to maximize performance. The CPU is not currently overclocked as I hadn't really felt the need to do so, but could be if needed, as I have sufficient cooling in the rig. I found some hotfixes for the CPU to improve threading, but it doesn't seem to make a significant impact.
Should I be looking at more/faster memory or is it time to upgrade the CPU? Could the motherboard be bottle necking them both?
I don't want to just keep throwing parts at it without a better idea of the best practice, and would greatly appreciate any advice from the collective here at Tom's.
My rig is a little over two years old, but has held up well. I use it primarily for gaming, with some work and everyday usage on the side. Primary components are as follows:
AMD FX-8150
GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3 AM3+
Kingston 8 GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 PC3 PC1333
GIGABYTE GV-N970G1 GTX 970 4GB
850W PSU
Win7 Home Premium
Recently I have been experiencing some lag and graphical artifacts on newer games and figured it was time to upgrade the GPU (particularly because of the artifacting, but also due to age and the next generation of cards becoming available). I went with a Gigabyte GTX 970 as it fit my price point and needs regarding power and benchmarks (with fairly solid reviews). After installation, there is a stark improvement in graphical fidelity (as expected) but I am still hitting rough patches of stuttering and frame rate drops when there is a lot of activity on screen. Adjusting visual settings lower helps reduce this at a cost of FPS, but doesn't eliminate the problem entirely.
Having eliminated the GPU from the equation, I'm left trying to determine which of the remaining components is the culprit for the slowdowns. Overall temps for the unit are well within normal levels, and I verified all drivers are up to date and streamlined windows settings to maximize performance. The CPU is not currently overclocked as I hadn't really felt the need to do so, but could be if needed, as I have sufficient cooling in the rig. I found some hotfixes for the CPU to improve threading, but it doesn't seem to make a significant impact.
Should I be looking at more/faster memory or is it time to upgrade the CPU? Could the motherboard be bottle necking them both?
I don't want to just keep throwing parts at it without a better idea of the best practice, and would greatly appreciate any advice from the collective here at Tom's.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram