Why is my computer so bad at gaming compared to others?

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Kirigaya

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Feb 23, 2014
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Okay, so I've had this computer for about 3 years now, here are the specs

motherboard : gigabyte 880GM-USBL
CPU : Amd fx-4100 quad-core
RAM: 4gb ddr3 sdram pc3-12800
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7870
PSU: 500 watts

Ever since day one I got my first graphics card, which was the AMD radeon 6450, I realized that it performed like crap, compared to other people with the same exact specs as me (CPU and GPU wise). now that I've upgraded to the HD 7870, I mean.. I can run games better than I used to be able to, but other people with the same specs run games a LOT better than I have been able too, I've upgraded all my drivers, tried changing the settings in catalyst control center to optimize performance, made sure my cpu usage wasn't being eaten up, made sure that my PCI slot was being used in bios, yet.. I've still never got nearly as good performance as other people get. I don't get it, is my motherboard bad? I dont have any viruses/malware, I've checked for that a ton of times, registry is clean, cache is also clean. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MY PC? Is my cpu shot? Is my power supply unit bad? I just dont understand.. Also, my temperatures are usually low for both the gpu and cpu. Any suggestions on what to do/buy?
 
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I'd still like to see a HWMonitor screenshot to check your voltages, not just your CPU voltage.

If you are looking to upgrade your CPU, which you should, you'd need a new motherboard too. There's no point buying the bulldozer x1xx and x2xx FX series when the x3xx is much better and similarly priced, but your motherboard does not support the x3xx series. So if you look to upgrade you'll need a new motherboard, whether you go AMD or intel. Intel has the higher performance in most games, some you can only tell by benchmarks they're that close.
 
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Everyone is suggesting you buy new parts as if that's actually the problem...

What kind of monitor do you have? You say you get "bad" frame rates, but what does that actually mean in frames? Is 60 bad to you? Some monitors are locked at 60fps. Have you tried turning off V-sync? V-sync will cap the hell out of your frames.

Well, which motherboard do you have?
This one:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3801#sp
or this one:
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3412#ov
 
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"when I try to update my motherboard it says "The version of this file is not compatible with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system information to see whether you need a 32 bit or 64 bit version of the program. I downloaded the correct version.. sigh"

i was referring to that
 
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I've tried different monitors before, and this is my mother board http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3801#sp

Also, when I say I get bad frames, I mean the computer itself just cant run the games very well. the graphical performance is just awful. I have also tried enabling and disabling v-sync. Most games just run bleh.
 
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all these signs point to a corrupted or possibly dodgy version of windows to me or too much porn, try reinstalling windows before you spend any money EDIT: BUT before you do that , i dont know the motherboard you have but if it has 4 ram slots try having them in slots 1&3 or slots 2&4 if you dont try resetting bios back to stock with jumpers or switch off the psu or at the the wall remove the battery on your motherboard and holding the power button in for 30 seconds to discharge the capacitors place the battery back in and try booting and playing, but i swear to you get the windows 8.1 90-day trial os you can google and download it but after the trial it will shut down the pc every hour until you purchase a key or enter one install it through a bootable usb and let it do its thing , download slim drivers tool and install the updates then get the lates ati drivers and directx and install your games,

stop with the weak cpu bs already it's fine for the card he has
 
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Oh believe me, I've reinstalled windows tons of times. I've even gone to windows 8, back to 7 before. I feel like it's definitely hardware related, I have 0 malware, I never download anything sketchy.
 
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can you check your CPU usage while gaming non fullscreen? like open a task manager performance tab and see if you are using a lot of CPU % while gaming, if not maybe core parking function needs to be disabled in the registry and power saving features disabled in the BIOS (even if not overclocking)
 
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Right now it's sitting at an average of 5-10 percent with skype and google chrome open, and I've tinkered with all my bio settings before, still the same results.
 
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It's not BS. The CPU is weak. There are a number of other things that could be wrong, though I've not received any readings so I can't rule out the PSU as being the problem.
 
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yeah we need to know if the CPU is even being utilized, as in what the CPU load is looking like under stress/while gaming
 
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Well, there's this http://gyazo.com/600b930c361bbd423345369e0cd989d0 if it helps.

 
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not so much, the same thing with a task manager CPU usage chart would be preferable, while something heavy is going on like lots of lights and explosions you know in a battle, idk,we need to stress the cpu and see if the % goes up to full usage like it should. core parking, enabled cores in the BIOS, motherboard BIOS probably has an update, the chipset driver has probably been updated, power saving features may be throttling you down.
 
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whenever heavy teamfights happen in league of legends it goes up to about 50-60%
 
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is High Performance mode enabled in the control panel --->power option settings???

also try this
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=...

also take a screenshot of the memory tab in CPU-Z (free program) and screenshot upload it
 
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I have also tried this, it doesn't really affect anything.
 
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Wow games run on your gpu primarily, it off loads all that from your cpu. Gpu needs power, ram,and cpu. Your power seems fine, your cpu is working ok, so you need more ram and a better GPU. You cpu is for running computer programs not games. So your other option to: Go to best buy, purchase an open box/clearance computer with a newer CPU and 12 gigs of ram. While u are there buy an Nvidia video card, you don't sound like a crazy gamer so a gtx 750,760 card should suffice, buy a 600 watt PSU with at least 50 total amps on the rail, shouldn't be more than 50 bucks ask the salesman for a gaming psu. You go home rip out the Psu install the new one and the new card and for less than $760.00 youll have a nice future proof/gaming computer!
 
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