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Graphics card or CPU

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Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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August 13, 2013 7:54:12 AM

OK, so I have a few games that wont play on highest graphics settings and that bothers me. Problem is I cant determine why. I have a Asrock extreme 3 with a Phenom X6 1035T and a Zotac Geforce GTX 560. The first game I noticed it on was Ghost Recon Future Soldier. I only seem to have this issue on a few levels. Mostly the out door in the woods level's with lots of leaves and trees. I can't decide if I think its the CPU or the graphics card causing the issue. Can anyone get some insight on what they think and why? I've planned on switching over to Intel for some time but I always said I wasn't going to till I had a reason, and if the CPU is whats causing my issue I would say that's a good enough reason. Let me know if you need any other info.

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August 13, 2013 7:57:54 AM

A perennial question.
To help clarify your options, run these two tests:

a) Run your games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 50%.
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.


Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
set to 50% and see how you do.


If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system, and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.

The X6 is not a great gamer. Few games can use more than 2-3 cores, so a good part of your cpu might be wasted.
But, from your description, I might think it is the graphics card.
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August 13, 2013 8:04:55 AM

When you get to a point in the game where you have framerate slowdown, check your task manager. If it shows your cpu near 100%, then the cpu is probably your bottleneck. If you have win7, you can download a gadget called gpu meter. That will tell you how much of the gpu you are using. Compare that to the cpu. Whichever one is higher is your bottleneck.
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August 13, 2013 8:17:18 AM


Asrock Extreme3 what?

- 890GX ?

- 970 ?

The 1035T is a 95w Thuban hex-core at 2.6GHz -- you need less cores and a higher clock speed. Depending upon your RAMs, you should be able to raise the base system clock from 200MHz to 240-250MHz ...

And within the BIOS, you should be able to reduce the number of cores by 2, or even 3.

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August 13, 2013 9:06:19 AM

geofelt said:
A perennial question.
To help clarify your options, run these two tests:

a) Run your games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely cpu limited.

b) Limit your cpu, either by reducing the OC, or, in windows power management, limit the maximum cpu% to something like 50%.
This will simulate what a lack of cpu power will do.


Go to control panel/power options/change plan settings/change advanced power settings/processor power management/maximum processor state/
set to 50% and see how you do.


If your FPS drops significantly, it is an indicator that your cpu is the limiting factor, and a cpu upgrade is in order.

It is possible that both tests are positive, indicating that you have a well balanced system, and both cpu and gpu need to be upgraded to get better gaming FPS.

The X6 is not a great gamer. Few games can use more than 2-3 cores, so a good part of your cpu might be wasted.
But, from your description, I might think it is the graphics card.


I appreciate your quick response. I will try these things tonight and see what I come up with.
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August 13, 2013 9:08:23 AM

Wisecracker said:

Asrock Extreme3 what?

- 890GX ?

- 970 ?

The 1035T is a 95w Thuban hex-core at 2.6GHz -- you need less cores and a higher clock speed. Depending upon your RAMs, you should be able to raise the base system clock from 200MHz to 240-250MHz ...

And within the BIOS, you should be able to reduce the number of cores by 2, or even 3.



Sorry, its the 970. It sounds like I really don't know as much about all this stuff as I thought I did. I'm not really sure what your talking about with the base system clock speed stuff. I can tell you have 8 gigs of 1333Mhz DDR3.

I don't understand that last statement. Are you saying having 6 cores is actually hurting me and not just wasted power?
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August 13, 2013 3:22:40 PM

nick1091 said:
Wisecracker said:

Asrock Extreme3 what?

- 890GX ?

- 970 ?

The 1035T is a 95w Thuban hex-core at 2.6GHz -- you need less cores and a higher clock speed. Depending upon your RAMs, you should be able to raise the base system clock from 200MHz to 240-250MHz ...

And within the BIOS, you should be able to reduce the number of cores by 2, or even 3.



Sorry, its the 970. It sounds like I really don't know as much about all this stuff as I thought I did. I'm not really sure what your talking about with the base system clock speed stuff. I can tell you have 8 gigs of 1333Mhz DDR3.

I don't understand that last statement. Are you saying having 6 cores is actually hurting me and not just wasted power?


In several ways ... yes.

The only truly threaded game that can run across parallel cores is Flight Simulator. Most games can really only use 2 cores --- the operating system tries to balance system load across all available cores.

The Thuban also incurs as issue with something called 'core-hopping' where the main game threads bounce around from core to core as the OS tries to balance system loads.

What also holds the Thuban back in gaming is the amount of L3 cache per core. You have 6MB of L3 shared between 6 cores -- or 1MB per core.

Raising that to 6MB across 4 cores (or even 2 or 3 cores) will greatly increase your gaming performance -- essentially creating a Deneb quad core (or Callisto dual-core with 3MB of L3 cache per core!).

By disabling several cores, you may also reduce your volt needs, lower temps, and increase your OC potential.

With DDR3 1333MHz, your sweet spot with the system clock is 250MHz. You simply drop your memory divider from 6.67 (x 200MHz) to 5.33 (x 250MHz) -- they both are 1333MHz! You should also drop your HT Link speed from 10X (200MHz) to 8X (250MHz) -- They're both 2000MHz!

You should leave your IMC/NB at 10X if possible ... you can raise your NB VID to 1.2v or so if necessary to accomplish this. For each 10% you raise the IMC/NB above stock 2000MHz, memory bandwidth is increased 3-4%, and latency is reduced 3-4% !! This will provide quite a boost to your gaming.

Be sure to set your PCIe speed to 100MHz in the BIOS, and off you go. With your CPU multiplier at 13x250MHz across four (or fewer!) cores, and the boost to your IMC/NB, it's your GTX 560 that is going to be holding you back!

edit: I fergit

You should also experiment with disabling Turbo!

The Turbo function adds 2.5X to your CPU multiplier across 2-3 cores while down-clocking the other cores. It6 drops the volts on down-clocked cores and bumps the volts on Turbo'ed cores.

Some folks disable Turbo when over-clocking ... it may work to your advantage if you leave it enabled while disabling cores!

13x250MHz will leap to a Turbo'ed 15.5x250MHz.

Yippee !!

:) 












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August 13, 2013 3:33:26 PM

I disagree. I think that reducing your cores will hurt performance.
Despite the cache, more and more games are multithreaded and in many cases can use more then 2 cores.

But you should OC that chip, its low clock speed will be hurting game performance.

One last thing: You don't usually need max settings to have fun on a game.
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August 13, 2013 3:39:21 PM


Well ... You would be wrong

:lol: 

(no offense)

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August 13, 2013 3:42:59 PM

Proof?
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August 13, 2013 3:51:57 PM


Personal experience and enthusiasts around the World enough proof for you?

Check out Xtreme Systems , Lost Circuits, etc., if you are having issues with the concept (or 'proof')

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August 13, 2013 3:54:20 PM

Or perhaps the OP can try it both ways and report back?
My guess is that it might be a slight improvement dropping it to 4 cores but I think below that you will see a drop.
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August 14, 2013 5:35:30 AM

Wisecracker said:
nick1091 said:
Wisecracker said:

Asrock Extreme3 what?

- 890GX ?

- 970 ?

The 1035T is a 95w Thuban hex-core at 2.6GHz -- you need less cores and a higher clock speed. Depending upon your RAMs, you should be able to raise the base system clock from 200MHz to 240-250MHz ...

And within the BIOS, you should be able to reduce the number of cores by 2, or even 3.



Sorry, its the 970. It sounds like I really don't know as much about all this stuff as I thought I did. I'm not really sure what your talking about with the base system clock speed stuff. I can tell you have 8 gigs of 1333Mhz DDR3.

I don't understand that last statement. Are you saying having 6 cores is actually hurting me and not just wasted power?


In several ways ... yes.

The only truly threaded game that can run across parallel cores is Flight Simulator. Most games can really only use 2 cores --- the operating system tries to balance system load across all available cores.

The Thuban also incurs as issue with something called 'core-hopping' where the main game threads bounce around from core to core as the OS tries to balance system loads.

What also holds the Thuban back in gaming is the amount of L3 cache per core. You have 6MB of L3 shared between 6 cores -- or 1MB per core.

Raising that to 6MB across 4 cores (or even 2 or 3 cores) will greatly increase your gaming performance -- essentially creating a Deneb quad core (or Callisto dual-core with 3MB of L3 cache per core!).


By disabling several cores, you may also reduce your volt needs, lower temps, and increase your OC potential. With DDR3 1333MHz, your sweet spot with the system clock is 250MHz. You simply drop your memory divider from 6.67 (x 200MHz) to 5.33 (x 250MHz) -- they both are 1333MHz! You should also drop your HT Link speed from 10X (200MHz) to 8X (250MHz) -- They're both 2000MHz!

You should leave your IMC/NB at 10X if possible ... you can raise your NB VID to 1.2v or so if necessary to accomplish this. For each 10% you raise the IMC/NB above stock 2000MHz, memory bandwidth is increased 3-4%, and latency is reduced 3-4% !! This will provide quite a boost to your gaming.

Be sure to set your PCIe speed to 100MHz in the BIOS, and off you go. With your CPU multiplier at 13x250MHz across four (or fewer!) cores, and the boost to your IMC/NB, it's your GTX 560 that is going to be holding you back!


edit: I fergit

You should also experiment with disabling Turbo!

The Turbo function adds 2.5X to your CPU multiplier across 2-3 cores while down-clocking the other cores. It6 drops the volts on down-clocked cores and bumps the volts on Turbo'ed cores.

Some folks disable Turbo when over-clocking ... it may work to your advantage if you leave it enabled while disabling cores!

13x250MHz will leap to a Turbo'ed 15.5x250MHz.

Yippee !!

:) 














So all the blue stuff I get, the Red stuff you lost me. But thats ok. Thats a lot of awesome info. I'm assuming that is the steps to disabling a few cores and overclocking the processor. I am going to look into some of the stuff you said there and do some research, figure out how to do those things and give it a shot. Never overclocked before and I want to be sure I know what I'm doing before I go messing with those settings.

I appreciate everones help and will post results when I can.
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