Looking to improve performance, anyone able to help weighing options on whether I should get CPU/MOBO/RAM?

[ronin026]

So I recently just purchased a new GPU to try and get my computer performance back up. I built this PC in 2014 and it is aging, however I'm hoping to avoid rebuilding more than necessary. PC build is as follows;

ASUS M5A99X EVO R2.0 - MOBO
AMD FX-9370 - CPU (downclocked to 4.0ghz) liquid cooled with NZXT Kraken x40 + 2x 140mm push/pull fans
ASUS ROG-STRIX GTX 1070-Ti - GPU
32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1866 - RAM
Dual display ASUS 28" 1080p - Displays
Thermaltake Overseer RX-1 - Case
Thermalktake 850w - PSU

So the goal here is to got to 1080p gaming at 60+fps with settings at or near max or ultra settings. With my new GPU I am hovering at around 50-60fps under minimal graphics load at 1080p, and on more aggressive games it can drop to 30-40 fps. However from my understanding this GPU should be able to push this no problem(if not, I'll return and get a 1080/1080ti). I did a passmark performance tests and some of the tests are good, and some are just downright abysmal.

As you can see, the disk mark is just horrible(14th percentile!!), memory isn't very good either(36th percentile), and 2d Mark is surprisingly bad as well considering the 1070 Ti is supposed to be a high end graphics card(37th percentile). 3D mark and CPU mark seem to be about on par, although a little lower than what Passmark indicates they should run at on their baseline.

Long story short, something in this PC is returning poor Disk Performance, the memory isn't performing well and the GPU should be performing better according to other performance test with the same GPU. With all of these things my suspicion is on the MOBO. A little history, I actually had to downclock my CPU last year to 4.0ghz since it was overheating the MOBO and CPU to the point of heat shut off. It has been liquid cooled since I bought it, and I even went so far as to put 140mm fans on either side of the radiator for push/pull airflow, all of this mounted underneath another 200mm case fan to exhaust. Full disclosure, CPU/MOBO still runs a little hot, although not so hot to cause shut offs.

TL;DR?
What can I do to get this improved? I'm looking to avoid rebuilding the whole PC, and am hesitant to drop 500+ on mobo/ram when I'm not certain that it will deliver the performance I'm looking for.

Appreciate the help.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

FX is holding you back , time for a new core platform. CPU , Motherboard and Memory.

 

[ronin026]

Any idea why the terrible disk performance? I'm running

Western Digital WD Green WD15EARS 1.5TB 7200 RPM
Western Digital AV-GP WD20EURS 2TB

I have a hard time imagining these would be the issue, but I really don't know for certain.

 

[Gadhar]

If they are close to capacity that could impact the performance, are they sata 2 or 3, and I believe your MB is rated at sata 3, but not sure. That could have an impact. I ran the passmark and my 3d score for a 1070 was 11,776.6 running stock clocks and my 2d was 745.2

 

[ronin026]

If they are close to capacity that could impact the performance, are they sata 2 or 3, and I believe your MB is rated at sata 3, but not sure. That could have an impact. I ran the passmark and my 3d score for a 1070 was 11,776.6 running stock clocks and my 2d was 745.2

They are not near full capacity in the least bit. My primary has 755 gb free out of ~1.5tb, and my backup has 1.8tb free out of ~2 TB.

They are both Sata 3.0.

WD15EARS
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136513

WD20EURS
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136783

 

[engineer5261]

Replace that AMD FX with something better. 1070gtx is plenty for 1080p

 

[coozie7]

The discs probably are not the holdup, but how full are they? A full, or nearly full drive CAN cause issues with stuttering as the drive struggles to load data and may cause the tests to run slowly as the software struggles to read/write.

Check the power settings in Windows, set it at maximum performance.
Run a test with Afterburner showing CPU usage, speed and temperature, the CPU may be throttling.
Make sure all the drivers are up-to-date, including chipset and sound and the BIOS is updated to the latest revision.
Try disconnecting on screen when gaming, this may also help.
A few games like BF1 can use multicore CPUs very effectively, as can the later Wonfenstien and Doom games, Doom in particular should run like a thing possessed ( pun intended ) on your system, can you check any of these and report back?

All the above may help or pinpoint an issue, but the FX series were not very good gaming parts with quite poor performance per core, making the only realistic way to get full performance out of that very, very good GTX1070Ti to change the core system-MB/CPU/RAM...Sorry.

In the meantime, here's a core parts list, it's not even a suggestion ATM, just an illustration of the costs involved:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor ($159.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B450M PRO-M2 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($64.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Team - Dark 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($125.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $350.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-25 14:21 EDT-0400

I'd normally suggest going Intel for 1080 gaming but the prices are just too high ATM to justify the relatively small performance increase:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core OEM/Tray Processor ($237.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B360M GAMING PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($59.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - Dark 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($125.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $423.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-25 14:26 EDT-0400

Note: the linked CPU does NOT come with a CPU cooler, I'm hoping you kept the Intel brackets for the Kraken to reuse it, otherwise add <>$40 for a half decent cooler like the Cryorig H7 or little Coolermaster 212 Evo.

 

[ronin026]

Thanks for the in depth response! Those are some decent load outs for far cheaper than I was thinking.

I did update all BIOS and MOBO drivers and Power settings changed as well, however it run at the same speed on benchmark(still need to do a couple other driver updates). The gaming load times and windows boot times I'm not so concerned with, and I doubt its using much if any physical RAM since I have 32GB on this build.

After looking into the Disk performance, it appears its actually running right around what other disk drives of the same model run at. It put me roughly in the middle of the pack compared to other disk drives of the exact same model. After looking at the graphs it shows other baseline comparisons, the best of which are all SSD's and running 10-25x faster. So that explains the low marks on overall percentile as it's comparing my HHDs to a topline benchmark of the best SSD's on the market. Mine ranks approx 14% percentile against those, and again right in line with other HDD of the same model.

So it does appears everythings running as it should. Compared to all benchmarks of other parts with same model they run about middle of the road. Ultimately I'm a little bummed at the prospect of replacing the CPU for two reasons, 1) it still performs reasonably well on benchmarks (76th percentile isnt to bad) and 2) I spent a ton of time, effort, and two 140mm push/pull fans getting this thing to run stable(even though in the end i had to downclock it). Today I looked into what some new ram or MOBO would look like in it, however it appears DDR3 is no longer the standard for RAM, and AM3 sockets+ are no longer the current standard for processors(at least for gaming/1080p which is what I'm trying to do). Worst yet DDR3 sockets arent compatible for DDR4 and AM3+ sockets arent compatible for AM4. So either way I'm SOL.

So either I waste money buying some updated products for my current AM3+ MOBO that I'll have to ultimately replace in 2-4 years, or pony up and replace it with new AM4 gear. With that being said I've already dropped 400$ on new 1070 Ti so no point in quitting halfway.

I'd like to pickup something that'll last me a good 4 years again as this one did. I'm thinking doing the CPU/MOBO/RAM and a new SSD to get things moving. I like the price point of the Ryzen 7 1700x , seems like a good bit of computing for the money. Can you recommend a AM4 mobo(standard ATX form factor) and RAM(should I go with 32GB again or will that be overkill?) and a good 1tb SSD?

The discs probably are not the holdup, but how full are they? A full, or nearly full drive CAN cause issues with stuttering as the drive struggles to load data and may cause the tests to run slowly as the software struggles to read/write.

Check the power settings in Windows, set it at maximum performance.
Run a test with Afterburner showing CPU usage, speed and temperature, the CPU may be throttling.
Make sure all the drivers are up-to-date, including chipset and sound and the BIOS is updated to the latest revision.
Try disconnecting on screen when gaming, this may also help.
A few games like BF1 can use multicore CPUs very effectively, as can the later Wonfenstien and Doom games, Doom in particular should run like a thing possessed ( pun intended ) on your system, can you check any of these and report back?

All the above may help or pinpoint an issue, but the FX series were not very good gaming parts with quite poor performance per core, making the only realistic way to get full performance out of that very, very good GTX1070Ti to change the core system-MB/CPU/RAM...Sorry.

In the meantime, here's a core parts list, it's not even a suggestion ATM, just an illustration of the costs involved:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor ($159.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B450M PRO-M2 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($64.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Team - Dark 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($125.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $350.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-25 14:21 EDT-0400

I'd normally suggest going Intel for 1080 gaming but the prices are just too high ATM to justify the relatively small performance increase:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core OEM/Tray Processor ($237.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B360M GAMING PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($59.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Team - Dark 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($125.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $423.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-25 14:26 EDT-0400

Note: the linked CPU does NOT come with a CPU cooler, I'm hoping you kept the Intel brackets for the Kraken to reuse it, otherwise add <>$40 for a half decent cooler like the Cryorig H7 or little Coolermaster 212 Evo.

 

[Tigerhawk30]

I meant to throw this out earlier today...

So, this may be too simple of a question/answer, but does your MOBO have a speed setting on it in the BIOS? Maybe set it to its fastest setting if not already done so. Your system and mine are similar, at least for the chip and MOBO. I have my Asus set on the Performance setting (IIRC) which, while eating more power, does speed it up. Playing online games, my FX8350 will hold 4.3Ghz on all cores/threads per HWMonitor while the Hyper Evo 212 cooler I have doesn't let it go much past 45C. If nothing else, it's the simplest suggestion I can come up with to make an instant impact on your performance if it's not already set that way.

 

[coozie7]

If you're still watching, Ronin026, I took me off as the solution, it'll open the thread to others who may pass by, thinking it's been fully solved.

Options, options, options.

Wait until you have the cash to do the upgrade in one go.

Black Friday isn't too far off, and you may collar a few bargains then to soften the financial blow ( and have a bit more cash ).

Get it in sections, one or two parts at-a-time until you're ready to go, but this carries a risk; If a part turns out to be DOA you may have difficulty returning it which will mean a longer wait while you go through the RMA process to the supplier.

Personally, as someone on minimum wage, I can see the attraction of the R 7 1700X, especially given its price, but a R 5 2600/2600X is likely to be as fast in gaming and comes with a decent boxed cooler, something the 1700X lacks, which pushes the price of a 1700X upgrade further up. Also, and sadly, the current Kraken isn't compatible with AM4, and it looks like NZXT don not supply extra mounting brackets for it.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700X 3.4GHz 8-Core Processor ($189.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Scythe - Mugen 5 Rev. B 51.2 CFM CPU Cooler ($52.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: MSI - B450-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($129.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital - Blue 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($139.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $582.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-26 13:39 EDT-0400

Most of the above is obvious, apart from using the later B450 motherboard, B350 MBs are fully compatible with a 1700X, but the later chipset is slightly more capable.


And with the 2600:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor ($159.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - B450-A PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard ($69.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($129.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital - Blue 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($139.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $499.66
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-26 13:59 EDT-0400

 

[ronin026]

Hey Coozie,

For the extra $20 I'm inclined to go with the 8 core vs 6. Also I wanted to go on the beefier side for the MOBO as my last MOBO was really quite a bottleneck, and from what I've read they plan on supporting the Ryzen chipset through 2020. I went with a Asus - ROG STRIX X470-F. Should have plenty of thermal capacity on VRM's to support overclocking, or perhaps even a better CPU in 2 years once the prices have fallen on some of the higher end CPU's. I do like the western digital drive, and it is 10$ cheaper than what I paid for my crucial of the same size, but alas I ordered it already so no point in canceling the order over 10$.

Heres what I've got going on. The items that are priced at 0 I already own, and are coming from my existing build.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 1700X 3.4GHz 8-Core Processor ($189.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H100i PRO 75.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus - ROG STRIX X470-F Gaming ATX AM4 Motherboard ($185.55 @ Walmart)
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($299.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial - MX500 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($159.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB ROG STRIX Video Card (Purchased For $0.00)
Case: Thermaltake - Overseer RX-I ATX Full Tower Case (Purchased For $0.00)
Power Supply: Thermaltake - Smart M 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $0.00)
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Pro OEM 64-bit (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: Noctua - NF-S12A PWM 120mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: Noctua - NF-S12A PWM 120mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: Thermaltake - Pure 20 LED 129.6 CFM 200mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: Thermaltake - Pure 20 LED 129.6 CFM 200mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: Thermaltake - Pure 20 LED 129.6 CFM 200mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00)
Case Fan: Thermaltake - Pure 20 LED 129.6 CFM 200mm Fan (Purchased For $0.00)
Monitor: Asus - VE278Q 27.0" 1920x1080 Monitor (Purchased For $0.00)
Monitor: Asus - VE278Q 27.0" 1920x1080 Monitor (Purchased For $0.00)
Keyboard: Corsair - Vengeance K95 Wired Gaming Keyboard (Purchased For $0.00)
Mouse: Logitech - G900 CHAOS SPECTRUM Wireless Optical Mouse (Purchased For $0.00)
Headphones: Sennheiser - GAME ONE Black Headset (Purchased For $0.00)
Speakers: Logitech - X-230 32W 2.1ch Speakers (Purchased For $0.00)
UPS: APC - SMT1500 UPS (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $955.41
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-26 15:44 EDT-0400

Also had to get low profile memory to allow a 240mm radiator to fit above my Mobo, as the push fans underneath would otherwise come in contact with the RAM.

As far as the Kraken, I can't with to kiss that POS goodbye. The CAM software CONSTANTLY crashes, I had to remove it from boot as it was lengthening my boot times substantially with this thing freezing up and crashing. It also DID NOT do a sufficent job of cooling my FX-9350. I do understand thats a tall task in hindsight, but I just was overall not impressed with the NZXT. Lights were cool, that's about it. I'm hoping Corsair will deliver a better AIO liquid experience. I thought about getting a big air cooler, but I have an open side case(overseer rx-i) and the best of the air coolers(noctua etc) are quite large, and sit right infront of the window preventing any ability to see the MOBO/RAM and obscuring view of the GPU as well. CryOrig had some cool looking air coolers I was contemplating buying, but I really do like the layout of the liquid coolers, and as my case will already accommodate a 240mm radiator(assuming you use low profile RAM) it didn't take me long to talk myself out of a air cooler. Also I have 4x200mm case fans, 2x120mm case fans, and with the addition of the two 140mm fans on the Corsair cooler it'll bring my total to 8 fans. Needless to say this thing has never been quite. It's not LOUD by any means, but a dull hum that frankly I've gotten used to and don't mind. So acoustics wasn't really a top concern either. Lastly, I have Corsair ram and keyboard currently, had corsair ram prior to my current build, and while they are really no frills; they just work, and I very much appreciate that for computer parts. Hence why I got they're ram and cooler. The H100i pro, and their LPX Ram was also reviewed quite highly, both finding themselves on several "Best of" lists.

Sorry for long post, let me know what you think of my choices for rebuild.

Thanks!

 

[coozie7]

Rather more than I was aiming at ( I'm a tightwad ).

Nice to see someone planning for the future with the MB, and yes, according to their own press releases AMD will support AM4 until 2020, maybe beyond.
Remember; Ryzen likes fast memory but you'll need to set the speed manually by activating DOCP ( the AMD version of XMP ) or it'll run at its lower JDEC speed.
If you have difficulty activating DOCP, try updating the BIOS, most of the early compatibility issues have been worked out by now but Ryzen is still a little picky about memory choice-and check the MB manual, most 'boards will run memory at a lower speed if all 4 slots are occupied, something to bear in mind for the future.

Don't expect miracles overclocking any current Ryzen CPU, they all push themselves pretty hard out-of-the-box.

You're not alone in preferring the neater install of an AIO, and it's not a bad setup, besides the 1700X doesn't need such brute force cooling as the big FX chips.

Some may criticise the choice of CPU: Intel are a better choice for maximum performance at 1080 rez and the 1700X IS a generation out of date but TBH you'd be hard pressed to get a better part for the money, even used, and the 2700/2700X aren't THAT much faster while the slightly faster Intel chips are currently too expensive to justify the extra cost IMHO.

The only change I'd suggest is that you drop to 16Gb of RAM, unless you do a lot of heavy multitasking 32Gb is just expensive overkill for a general purpose/gaming system.

 

[ronin026]

Thanks for the tips on DOCP, I had read that max RAM settings were lower than 3200(2400 i think) on MOBO stock, so they require user intervention to get to max settings, just wasn't aware what the setting specifically was thank you for that. Also as far as having all 4 slots occupied, I actually read that as well. I forget where, I'm been hoovering up computer information over the last week, but that's actually why I went with 2x16gb instead of the cheaper 4x8gb. I am somewhat of a power user, I often find myself gaming, watching a movie/show, 5+ browser windows open, multiple background monitoring apps, music, F/B etc, for this reason I've liked to stick to 32gb. I could probably get away with 16GB, but even now as I'm typing this I'm using 7.85 GB RAM and I only booted up my PC about 30 mins ago.

As for the CPU, I've always been an AMD fan boy. I started my first PC build when I was 13 with an AMD Athlon, Athlon 64, then a Phenom, then a Vishera, and moving on now to the Ryzen. I do believe the 1700x is a steal of a deal, benchmarks put the 2700x only 12% faster, and almost 100% more expensive. As much as I like to have the latest and greatest, there is a certain point of diminishing returns when going too new on parts.

Now comes the lame part, waiting on newegg and amazon to deliver my parts =/

 

[coozie7]

All good points, mate, like I said, that 1700X is a virtual steal.
Well, if you need the RAM you need the RAM, simple as that, and I wasn't aware you needed so much.
As for the AMD part...Have fond memories of my old Athlon builds, setting MB jumpers, fighting Win 98 and crying as 3D Mark crushed my Geforce3 Ti.

Enjoy the new build, and don't forget to tie your Windows install/licence to a Microsoft account before you make the hardware changes, it makes updating and activation so much easier.
It'll probably be possible to clone your boot HDD to the new SSD, but for stability reasons it's usually considered a good idea to do a full rebuild of the software system ( fresh, clean, Windows install, all updated drivers ) rather than risk driver and registry issues by hanging on to a previous OS install.
And don't forget to set the new MB to AHCI mode before installing/cloning, SSDs greatly benefit from this, but non AHCI formatted HDDs usually don't play nice with AHCI formatted drives, so backup as much as possible before making any software changes-you can use optical drive, USB drives or the Cloud via One Drive, Google Drive or similar to safeguard your important data/game saves/favourites.

Wait for the deliveries you must! Patience! You must learn patience! or a Master of the PC you will not become!