Looking for PC advice

[SimpleMan79]

My old gaming PC ran decent but was quite outdated, I put together a newer, fairly budget friendly PC that should be 4x as powerful as my old one, but im getting half the FPS in the same games that my old pc got (9600gt, duel core, 2g, yeah that old). Something is just not running right or faulty. I do not have the tech knowledge to narrow down the problem....Is there anyone out there that would be willing to try to help?

My PC specs are:
AMD Phenom II X6 1045T 2.7ghz
8G Ram
64 bit windows 7 ultimate
Nvidia GTX 960 2gig GDDR5
DX11
2x: WDC WD3200AAJS-22B4A0 ATA 250g HD

 

[Barty1884]

Was this a clean OS install? Or did you move it from your prior build?
If you just moved it from a prior build honestly, you're lucky it booted. Even so, driver incompatibilities are likely causing it & a clean install will fix those issues.

Even if this is a clean install, it's still likely driver related, as those specs should be giving you much better FPS.
Ensure all your drivers are up to date (head to the manufacturers site, motherboard, GPU) and ensure you have the latest versions installed - along with any BIOS updates available.

 

[SimpleMan79]

Yes all up to date, clean install. Most games I play I get around 15-20 fps. My hard drives are the only thing I havent upgraded, and are quite dated. I always felt that may be a weak point, but I dont know much about how that works.

 

[Barty1884]

HDDs shouldn't play into your FPS and regardless, they're the same HDDs you were using with your higher FPS, correct?

I'd doubt check your GPU drivers.......and uninstall all traces of GPU drivers and reinstall them if they appear to be up to date.

 

[SimpleMan79]

I'm sure the GPU is up to date, I just got the latest driver the other day, and I do a custom, clean install every time just by habbit. Geforce Experience checks updates daily, and this has been an ongoing problem, Im just at witts end with it, and I'm about to give up and buy a new PC, even though this one is less than a yr old...This was my last resort. I've been PC gaming for about 15 years and always built my own rigs, so I do have SOME knowledge about PC's, just not the technical know how to diagnose this problem. I just wish there was some tool to run that would say "yeah, this is why your PC is sucking"....And TY for your responses.

 

[SimpleMan79]

I get 7.9 on every category on the windows experience score with the exception of my hard drives which are like 5.4. (not that that score means a whole lot, just all I have to go by atm.

 

[SimpleMan79]

I do know that I have Nvidia sound drivers installed as well as Realtek HD audio. I have 2 sound Icons on my taskbar. I have NO clue if that is even relevant, just something else that has been on my mind since the sound in quite a few of my games seems glitchy as well.

 

[SimpleMan79]

It seems to me, that with the specs I have, that I should be able to run most games on higher settings, but Im always fighting to find the lowest that I possibly can to squeeze out a few more FPS. When games set default values for graphics settings for my PC, they are always maxed out, but my PC would probably explode if I started a game in ultra. It seems to effect multiplayer games the most, but its not network lag or rubber banding...its def graphical.

 

[Barty1884]

Effecting multiplayer games moreso would indicate a CPU bottleneck opposed to a GPU.

What was your prior CPU? and what games do you notice the difference on the most?

 

[SimpleMan79]

The more on my screen, the slower I get. For example, Space Engineers, In a fairly empty world i get 200+fps. The second my PC has to load a ton of things into the scene, it could drop to 2fps, or even crash. Same applies to most games. The more that I see, the slower it gets. View distance seems to have a great impact as well.

 

[SimpleMan79]

Prior CPU was an Intel dual core, I couldnt tell you what one at this point. I want to say core 2 duo or something like that, or maybe thats a quad core..Idk. Arma 2+3 are the worst, as well as space engineers, and I know those are both processor heavy games. Rust sucks, H1Z1 sucks, ArchAge, etc...GTAV and CoD BO run great, but on lower settings that I shouldn't have to have. Skyrim also runs great. Arma 3 is my most played game, and I average about 15 fps in a MP game, not much better on Arma 2, and that's a 10 year old game. The fewer players on, the better my FPS. If a server goes above 20 players my frames go to hell.

 

[SimpleMan79]

My internet sucks since I moved to a log cabin in the absolute STICKS.. I only get about 3mb/s, but I know thats not the problem because it exsisted before I moved, and I got 30mb/s at that point.

 

[SimpleMan79]

So what could cause a CPU bottleneck, and what steps should I take? And by the way, while I'm experiencing these problems my cpu usage, ram and video card never seem to go above 10-20% usage...I feel I'm getting no where near the potential of my machine.

 

[Barty1884]

Ok, wait. First off, update a post, don't keep posting replies. You'll lose peoples interest that way.

WEI is a terrible benchmark - honestly, ignore you ever looked at those numbers.

A CPU bottleneck, there's very little you can do asides from lowering your settings or upgrading your CPU. From the specs of those games, your Phenom should handle them pretty well, so there's something else at play here.

If your drivers are up-to-date with a clean install, that's a good start.

From there, the next likely culprit is heat. Do you monitor your temperatures at all? It sounds like you might be getting some throttling (probably CPU).

You put together this rig, correct? Did you apply thermal paste correctly? Are you running a stock CPU cooler?

 

[SimpleMan79]

Currently testing temps. Ok, after a long gaming session on a pretty intense MP server, my CPU temp was 85 deg c, and my card was 61 deg c.

 

[SimpleMan79]

I now have my CPU running hard at 22 deg.......I also now realize how ignorant I was by not monitoring my temperatures...lol