my pc feels like its not working at its best when it comes to games ( Acer Predator Helios 300 )

[liazecsmc]

Hello , so i have predator helios 300 G3-572 with these specs

I7-7700 HQ 2,80Ghz , 3,40 with Turboboost

NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB and Intel(R) HD Graphics 630

500GB SSD , 1TB HDD
SSD contains OS and a couple of games and a couple of programs i use daily and HDD contains the rest.

16GB RAM

So basically , my pc is pretty powerfull for games at least when they re not in ULTRA quality .
But the thing is , i play game at LOW quality and yet i get pretty normal fps for example :

League of Legends , everything at medium i am getting 100 fps constantly most of the time , 160 if not doing anything and worst case scenario is 80 when things go crazy . I know that kind of fps is enough to play but i kind of feel that my pc should get better fps for such a game.

RainbowSixSiege for example when most of the things are set to LOW or VeryLow Quality , i am getting 70fps and sometimes it gets laggy and doesnt feel smooth.

The reasons i thought about are :

My SSD and HDD splitting is not optimal .

My Nvidia settings are probably not correct , and i think that the integrated Intel graphics card is preventing me from having better fps .

Or its just that my pc is not that good.

Thanks in advance

 

[Supernova1138]

What are your temperatures like? A lot of those higher end Intel mobile CPUs can creep into thermal throttling territory eg. 90+ celsius if you don't max out the fans and undervolt them a result of CPU cooling on laptops not being very good.

Also what's your RAM configuration? Is it just one 16GB stick? If so you are running in single channel, and that can have a pretty negative impact on some games, Ubisoft's titles seem to be particularly hungry for memory bandwidth and usually run a lot better with dual channel RAM.

 

[liazecsmc]

What are your temperatures like? A lot of those higher end Intel mobile CPUs can creep into thermal throttling territory eg. 90+ celsius if you don't max out the fans and undervolt them a result of CPU cooling on laptops not being very good.

Also what's your RAM configuration? Is it just one 16GB stick? If so you are running in single channel, and that can have a pretty negative impact on some games, Ubisoft's titles seem to be particularly hungry for memory bandwidth and usually run a lot better with dual channel RAM.

I dont think the temperature is more than 90 celsius even when i am playing . Well sometimes it does but not always and that only happens with RainbowSixSiege because when i play League its around 75.
And the CPU acts weird sometimes , it literally randomly sometimes stays at 3,60GHz for hours and then for some reason it cant even surpass 2,80Ghz . I am not sure if its random but the only time it gets really low when i am in power saving mode and not charging my PC otherwise its either 3,60 or 2,80 .


My Ram is apparently Single Channel and i just removed my old 8gb stick and added a new 16gb --> Kingston HyperX Impact HX424S14IB/16 16GB RAM (2400MHz DDR4 CL14 SODIMM, 1.2V, 260-pin ) .

These pictures are my memory s , i hope it helps figuring this out .

And thanks again !

 

[Supernova1138]

Your CPU clockspeeds are the result of your power profiles. If it's staying at max Turbo, then you probably have high performance mode on, which is usually default if you are plugged in. If you just run on battery, then you might be on power saving mode which will usually turn off Turbo Boost.

Temps creeping into the 90s is the point where you start to see thermal throttling, usually with Turbo clocks getting disabled at that point. You may want to try using a utility like MSI Afterburner to get a graph of your temps over time and look at that. If your framerate drops are corresponding to CPU temperature spikes, then they are being caused by thermal throttling.

As for RAM, I would suggest you return the 16GB stick and buy a second 8GB stick, preferably with the same speed and timings as the one that came with your laptop and try running dual channel. The only reason to do the single 16GB stick config is if you think you're going to need to upgrade to 32GB at some point in the future and want to keep one of your two SO-DIMM slots open.

 

[liazecsmc]

Your CPU clockspeeds are the result of your power profiles. If it's staying at max Turbo, then you probably have high performance mode on, which is usually default if you are plugged in. If you just run on battery, then you might be on power saving mode which will usually turn off Turbo Boost.

Temps creeping into the 90s is the point where you start to see thermal throttling, usually with Turbo clocks getting disabled at that point. You may want to try using a utility like MSI Afterburner to get a graph of your temps over time and look at that. If your framerate drops are corresponding to CPU temperature spikes, then they are being caused by thermal throttling.

As for RAM, I would suggest you return the 16GB stick and buy a second 8GB stick, preferably with the same speed and timings as the one that came with your laptop and try running dual channel. The only reason to do the single 16GB stick config is if you think you're going to need to upgrade to 32GB at some point in the future and want to keep one of your two SO-DIMM slots open.

I see , but my 8gb RAM is kind of weird , no brand was written on it so i couldnt get an exact one like it and thats why i got a 16gb ram because i dont wanna risk the compatibility not working .
As for the 32Gb , i will probably get a second 16Gb exact stick early 2019 .

This is probably a dumb question but lets suppose that my CPU is not the problem , will the 32Gb ram help out ?
or its just a lost cause getting those extra Fps and smooth gameplay .

and i will try that MSI Afterburner next time i play ! ( that would be in 1-2 days )

 

[Supernova1138]

The extra RAM capacity over 16GB doesn't really help with gaming, but running in dual channel can. I have a somewhat similar laptop myself, Acer Nitro 5 with an i5 8300H and a GTX 1060, came with a single stick of 8GB of RAM. With single channel RAM Far Cry 5 hovered at about 40FPS most of the time, adding a second 8GB stick and running in dual channel added 20FPS and I was getting fairly close to 60FPS consistently. Admittedly that is probably a worst case scenario for single channel RAM, and some other games like Doom (2016) didn't see a huge difference with dual channel RAM.

If you are running into CPU thermal throttling, then you're going to have to try to drop your temps, either through more aggressive fan curves, undervolting, or using Throttlestop to reduce your Turbo clocks, or even a combination of all three. You could also try to take your laptop apart and reapply thermal paste to the CPU and GPU, but that could void your warranty and should only be done as a last resort.

 

[liazecsmc]

The extra RAM capacity over 16GB doesn't really help with gaming, but running in dual channel can. I have a somewhat similar laptop myself, Acer Nitro 5 with an i5 8300H and a GTX 1060, came with a single stick of 8GB of RAM. With single channel RAM Far Cry 5 hovered at about 40FPS most of the time, adding a second 8GB stick and running in dual channel added 20FPS and I was getting fairly close to 60FPS consistently. Admittedly that is probably a worst case scenario for single channel RAM, and some other games like Doom (2016) didn't see a huge difference with dual channel RAM.

If you are running into CPU thermal throttling, then you're going to have to try to drop your temps, either through more aggressive fan curves, undervolting, or using Throttlestop to reduce your Turbo clocks, or even a combination of all three. You could also try to take your laptop apart and reapply thermal paste to the CPU and GPU, but that could void your warranty and should only be done as a last resort.

I already lost the warranty since i added an NVME M.2 SSD , so if i have to do the thermal paste , i will ! and of course i will try the other stuff u told me about .
I will see if i can get a second 8gb stick that is exactly the same as mine , because to be fair 32gb ram is too much for me and i only play games from time to time and its not worth the money to just get dual channel and 16gb is already enough for my daily stuff .

Thanks for your help ! Really appreciate it

 

[jamie911]

ok but late to this but i ahve the exact same problems, ive had this laptop since december 2017 and i have treid to almost everything exept the ram which im going to do now
i thaught it was my CPU but nope, my ram is running at single channel although i have 2x16gb of 2400mHz ram
i only found this today after trying and since the lapop [to my knowledge] only has 2 ram slots, what do i do?? take one out boot it up, then put it back in?? shouldnt it be running duel channel??