FPS becoming more and more unstable

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My system is now about 3 years old and at first it was running perfectly fine, but since about a year it seems that my FPS are getting lower and lower in all games I play. The FPS are overall very unstable often ranging between 10 and 130, independent of what I'm doing in the game or the graphics settings.
Some weeks ago my graphics card died, so I got a new one and I also replaced my RAM, but the problem didn't go away. It actually feels worse now than before.

My spec is this:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3L
CPU: Intel Core i7 860 2800 MHz
RAM: G.Skill RipJawsX DIMM 2x4GB, DDR3-1333 (F3-10666CL7D-8GBXH)
GPU: ASUS AMD Radeon R9 270X
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB (Windows 7 Pro)
HDD: SAMSUNG HD103UJ
PSU: ZALMAN ZM660-XT 660 Watts

The windows installation is only a few months old and there's never much running in the background.
I have FPS problems even in games like CS:GO, Dota2, QuakeLive that should (and have in the past) run fine on my system. Doesn't matter if they are on the SSD or HDD.
I've read online that this can happen when the PSU isn't supplying enough power or the temperatures are too high. What's the best way to check those?
Any other ideas?

Thanks for any help.
 
Solution
Remixex
Yes, unless the CPU likes to work while boiling itself up (i've heard Intel work at high Tº but not THIS high) the problem comes from overheating, if the heatsink is clean then i see 3 options left, i am asuming this didn't happen before

1.- Is your fan working correctly? do you hear it slows down some times? or stop
2.- Thermal Paste, the "grease" that keeps your CPU cool and goes right over the CPU, i got no way to know if this is the issue, though.
3.- You told me your GPU died? how old was it? i'm starting to believe your motherboard might be the party pooper, it may be working badly causing your PC components to fail.

Also, a second opinion would be useful, i've managed heat problems before with my PC and helped some guys here...
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Remixex

Remixex

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My guess is....dust, have you cleaned your pc? the heatsink of the CPU can get really dusty and heat up the CPU, making it to drop in frequency and reducing your FPS also i can't tell what generation is your CPU (2ks are sandy bridge, 3ks Ivy bridge, 4k Haswell) i don't know which one is yours, maybe it's getting old? but still, CHECK FOR DUST
 
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Actually yes, I have cleaned everything a few weeks ago. I forgot to mention that, sorry. It was indeed very dusty, but the cleaning didn't help with the FPS.
I'll report back with the CPU temperatures soon, in the meantime, does this help in identifying the CPU?
cpu_i7_860.jpg
 
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I would say it's Nehalem architecture (based on wikipedia), from September 2009.
cpu_i7_860_ingame.jpg
It went up to 99° at about 35% load on each core while playing Dota2.
 
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Remixex

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Yes, unless the CPU likes to work while boiling itself up (i've heard Intel work at high Tº but not THIS high) the problem comes from overheating, if the heatsink is clean then i see 3 options left, i am asuming this didn't happen before

1.- Is your fan working correctly? do you hear it slows down some times? or stop
2.- Thermal Paste, the "grease" that keeps your CPU cool and goes right over the CPU, i got no way to know if this is the issue, though.
3.- You told me your GPU died? how old was it? i'm starting to believe your motherboard might be the party pooper, it may be working badly causing your PC components to fail.

Also, a second opinion would be useful, i've managed heat problems before with my PC and helped some guys here but i am no expert, don't take my word as fact

Based on another Tom's thread, your average temp should go no higher than 70ºC while on load
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/273808-28-what-average-temperature-intel-processor

I take that back, the main suspect should be the thermal paste
 
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1. The cooler fan sometimes gets a bit noisy but I think thats only the fan being a bit loose in its socket. It never stops or seems to slow down, though.
2. This is a really good idea. Replacing the thermal paste on the CPU is worth a try. I don't have any where I live right now so I have to get some first. But I will try this next.
3. It was about 4 years old I think, GeForce GTX 460.

I'll try renewing the thermal paste and then update this thread. It might take a few days though. Thanks a lot for your help so far.
 
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Ok so I bought some thermal paste today after work.
This is what my CPU looked like when I removed the cooler:
2014_08_25_19_56_54_2.jpg

The old paste looked all dried up and it seemed to properly cover only maybe 2/3 of the CPU. I removed the old paste (and the dust of course) with some ethyl alcohol and put on the new paste. Put everything back together and this is the result when playing Dota2:
cpu_new_thermalpaste.jpg

Maximum of 46° instead of 99°. In CS:GO it went up to 48°. When idle the temperature is now between 20-30° instead of 50-60°. Overall a very significant decreased and it also seems that the CPU load is generally lower than before even when I'm doing more stuff. My FPS went up to 170-220 in CS:GO, instead of 10-120 as before. And they are consistently high. Everything is running smoothly again.

So it seems the thermal paste was the problem, as you correctly figured out. Thanks a lot for your help.
 
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Remixex

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I am pleased i was of help, happy gaming :D

@Joseph, consider dust to be the issue before messing with the Thermal paste, opening up your case helps to mitigate heat too, Create a thread if needed
Good luck
 
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