Low FPS on games with a i5-6500 and a GTX 970

[James Noscoper]

I have bought a GTX 970 and an i5-6500 a long time ago and I've always been having bad fps on games. For example on CS:GO (A heavy CPU-based game) I get 100 fps in games when other people with the same setup get 200-400. On Arma 3 I get 30 fps on Standard settings. I'm a complete noob with anything to do with PC stuff. Any ideas?

PC Specs:
OS- Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU- Intel Core Skylake i5-6500 (3.2 GHz, 4-Core Processor, Air Cooled)
MB- Asus H170M-E D3
GPU- EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 Superclocked (4Gb)
PSU- EVGA 600 Watt (80 PLUS Bronze)
RAM- HyperX Fury Series (2 x 4Gb, DDR3, 1866MHz) and HyperX (2 x 4Gb, DDR3, (Don't know the Hz but I know it's very low))
Hrd-D - WESTERN DIGITAL (500Gb, SATA)
- TOSHIBA (2Tb, SATA)
- KINGSTON (111Gb, SSD)

I have removed the old RAM and still have low fps.

CPU-Z Screenshots:
http://i.imgur.com/NvHO0uI.png
http://i.imgur.com/9t8Dm4m.png
http://i.imgur.com/BjbV0tz.png
http://i.imgur.com/8YlpHNq.png
http://i.imgur.com/oMxSvYv.png
http://i.imgur.com/2k0EQ0z.png

 

[Ecky]

Any other games you're concerned about?

Arma3 runs crappy on any hardware, and 100FPS is hardly bad in CS; it's still probably well above what your monitor can display, so it's an academic matter at best.

 

[sizzling]

What resolution?

Have you installed the latest drivers for your gpu and motherboard?

 

[James Noscoper]

100 fps in cs is bad. I look at everyone else's and it's at 200-300 fps. Plus I have a 144hz monitor and I need more than 144 fps to be able to have 144hz. It's in all games.

 

[James Noscoper]

Resolution is 16:9 1920x1080 for every game.

I've got the latest drivers for graphics card but I don't know about motherboard

 

[sizzling]

Sorry have to ask, your monitor is plugged into the gpu and not the motherboard?

 

[James Noscoper]

Yes it's plugged into my gpu. First thing I looked for.

 

[st3v30]

Ok, I think I found your problem.On your screenshot from Motherboard your PCI-E port for GPU is working on x4 insted x16.
One thing you can do is to go into BIOS and do Reset Settings to Default/Optimized, save it and exit and go back to cpu-z and see if it is still on x4.

 

[James Noscoper]

I did what you said but it still says Link Width x4 and not x16

http://i.imgur.com/w1AKGGK.png

 

[st3v30]

Is your Graphic card in top PCI-E slot?? One closer to the center of the Motherboard and just under CPU. I also recommend you to update BIOS since you have stock version and latest brings improvements and system stability.

 

[James Noscoper]

No it's not in the middle! I'll move it now. How do I update my bios?

 

[st3v30]

Enter BIOS and find EZ Flash Update.You can update over Internet if you have connected LAN cable or you can download BIOS File to USB Flash Drive and do it manually.

 

[nikoli707]

shouldn't need a bios update. make sure the card is in the top slot.

you should run a benchmark program like unigine heaven/valley or the 3dmark firestrike and check your scores against other gtx970 scores. if you are not getting a score similar to others then we can better identify where the problem may be.

 

[James Noscoper]

My graphics card is in the top slot and I don't see any difference, I still get 90 fps on csgo. I think it's mainly the cpu.

Are there any good free benchmarking programs you know of?

I'm trying the 3dmark demo

 

[James Noscoper]

Just ran a benchmark and compared it to someone elses. http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/8777574/fs/7686991

My score is very low compared to his/hers.

I've seen it says
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (1x Off)
and for his/hers it says
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (2x On)

EDIT: Found out that the person has 2 970s
Found a simlar setup as mine but still has higher score: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/8777574/fs/7177112

 

[nikoli707]

we are looking at the graphics score here, not the overall score. you scored 11444 which its on par with other 970s. that score is highly depended on your core frequency. your cpu being stuck at 3.6ghz turbo is going to be at least 20% lower than unlocked i5s that are north of 4.3ghz across all cores. so your overall score being a bit lower is not surprising.

the second on your linked, the other person has their 6500 running at 4.5ghz turbo while you are running at 3.5ghz. also their gpu is clocked about 50mhz slower than your 970 but they have their memory running at 250mhz(1000mhz effective) higher.... 1752mhz vs 2003mhz. though it seems unlikely a memory overclock would affect the gpu score this much, i guess it is possible.

http://www.legitreviews.com/evga-geforce-gtx-970-hybrid-gaming-video-card-review_178872/8

you can try unigine valley or unigine heaven. their scores wont vary much with cpu performance. you should load up msi afterburner in the back ground to log gpu specs while you run the benchmark. it is possible your gpu is somehow throttling when it is in peak use which will affect performance.

 

[James Noscoper]

But doesn't CS:GO uses CPU graphics? Is there something wrong with my CPU or graphics card?

 

[nikoli707]

cs:go will use your gpu graphics. so far it doesn't sound like anything is wrong with your cpu or graphics card. your 3dmark scores seem relatively normal. without some other benchmarks its hard to tell. also we dont know what settings you are using for cs:go so that may affect your fps. you could go into the nvidia control panel and optimize some of the cs:go settings from there.

 

[st3v30]

I think you are limiting your CPU performance since you use it with DDR3 RAM and not DDR4. People in benchmarks you linked have z170 motherboard with probably much faster DDR4 RAM and it helps with games that are CPU intensive.
You can try to download Geekbench and compare your score with other ppl that have same CPU and see are you CPU limited because of DDR3 RAM.

 

[James Noscoper]

Thanks, I'll install it now and get back to you with the results.

EDIT: I just finished the benchmark (http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/6981003) and got http://i.imgur.com/LNs7xQW.png, other people seemed to get the same http://i.imgur.com/HyejU8q.png

 

[st3v30]

You compared with same DDR3.
This is result with DDR4 and higher RAM speed.
http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/6880039?baseline=6981003

But I still dont think it would take 100+ FPS difference in CS:GO.
Try to set Power Plan to High Performance when you are gaming to see will you have higher FPS.
Have you updated BIOS??

 

[James Noscoper]

My power plan is set to High Performance but still no fps difference.

And no I havent updated my bios, I don't know how to, I looked on the bios and it gave me the option to do it through USB or Internet so I went on Internet and it gave me 3 options, one to connect but I get an error, one asking me to login or something and the last one with a bunch of ip slots to fill in. I have a USB, I'll try update it now.

 

[st3v30]

If you dont know how to,they usually have guide on the site where you download BIOS how to update it ( https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1012815/ ). But it is really easy and you should not have any problems with updating it.

 

[James Noscoper]

Yeah, I looked it up now and I have updated my BIOS. And I tested CS:GO and I got 40 fps boost (140) but it's still not 200-300.

 

[st3v30]

Go into BIOS and do one more time a Settings Reset so it can set all the new values for the devices.