Recommendation for what upgrade(s) I should make for smoother 1080 gaming

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SkyChan006

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Hi folks. On my current system I can play games in 1080 but not to the full potential games offer. For example some settings may have to be set to "Medium" or "high" from very high which obviously detracts from some of the visuals. Other times I may have to lower render distances or even both. Even when I do this some games will still stutter and it's pretty frustrating. I'd like to have a system capable of playing games on the highest settings without me having to worry about lower FPS and other annoyances.I may also look to record / stream at these high end settings so this should also be considered.

My current system is as follows:

Motherboard: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. P8Z77-V PRO (Over 3 years old)

Processor: 3.60 gigahertz Intel Core i7-3770K (Over 3 years old)

GPU: MSI AMD R9 290 - (Less then a year old)

Memory: 16gb ram (less then 2 years old)

PSU: EVGA Supernova650G Gold - (Less then a year old)

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium (x64)

I also have a water cooler on the processor, the brand escapes me at the moment but it gave significant improvement when I installed that.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. No budget really however if it starts to get into the thousands I suspect I'm better off buying a new pc all together.
 
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SkyChan006

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Feb 20, 2014
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Hi drkatz42.

I have always had problems with my machine since I very first got it. Have updated drivers, changed graphics card, changed the power, added the cooler and still get problems. Even lesser demanding games like League of Legends won't run at a solid 60FPS.

I have even done complete reinstalls and never gotten perfect results. Twice I have taken my machine to a "specialist" and just turned out to be a waste of money as they couldn't find any faults, the only advice was what you suggested, update the drivers.
 
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Samat

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You seem to have a solid system that really shouldn't have the problems you are mentioning. I'm running most games maxed at 1080P with a older system (i5 750 @ ~3500MHz, Radeon 7970, 8GB ram). Not getting 60 FPS, but that isn't a problem for me though. I'd look into maybe overclocking the CPU and definitely overclocking the GPU (bump the power limit setting to +20% from amd overdrive atleast and maybe experiment with a bit higher clocks aswell). Also make sure you are running latest drivers etc, if these don't help look into other means to reduce stuttering.

Upgrading the CPU/mobo wouldn't give much if any performance boost in games. If you can't get rid of the stutter with other means and it really is annoying/unplayable you could look into switching to a different GPU. Buying a whole new PC is always a consideration but with your current system and usage that would be wasting money in my opinion atleast.
 
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SkyChan006

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I'm fairly confident it's connected to the R9 290 but I'll double check when I am home
 
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Samat

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Have you upgraded the bios/uefi of your motherboard?
 
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Dragos Manea

Dragos Manea

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I agree with Samat, the new cpu is 10% better then your current one and even your current one isnt pushed to maximum, if you really want a massive performance jump go buy a titan x or gtx 980 also buy a aftermarket cooler like cooler master hyper 212 evo and overclock a bit your cpu, or at least just buy an aftermarket cooler it really helps to get smoother performance.
 
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SkyChan006

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I don't understand overclocking, I have looked at it before and just ended up moving some bars left and right with no real idea of what I was achieving. I can no doubt type into Google "How to overclock" but if you know of a good post or better yet video on it all ready you can direct me to that would be great!
 
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SkyChan006

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I upgraded the motherboard bios maybe 6 months back so tonight I will try doing this again, double check I have the most recent drivers and attempt the over clocking. Thanks everyone for the suggestions...here's hoping they work!
 
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rhysiam

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With respect to others, I really don't think overclocking or upgrading the video card is the answer.

You have a problem, a big one, somewhere. That system should have no problems at ultra, 60fps in any game... let alone League of Legends which will run on my 15W Surface Pro 3!

The last thing you want to do is spend more money on a 980 or a Titan X when the 290 you have should be enough. You also don't want to go overclocking until you're completely confident that your build as-is is rock solid... which it's clearly not.

As others have said:
- Update BIOS is an excellent suggestion
- Confirm the monitor is plugged into the graphics card (seems staggering that this could be the problem, but for sure worth checking).

Some other suggestions:
1) Have a look at the benchmarks on a review site like this: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5771/the-intel-ivy-bridge-core-i7-3770k-review/6
Get your hands on those benchmarks and run them on your system. You should get very similar scores. Use HW-Monitor or similar to check the temps are reasonable throughout.
If your CPU seems to perform where it should, move on to the GPU. Same thing, google a review and see if you can copy their benchmarks.

If either component isn't performing where it should then at least you've identified your problem. Post back here with the results and we can help.

I would strongly suggest against randomly spending money on more upgrades. Something is broken or not working properly. We need to find which component is the culprit so it can either be fixed or replaced.
 
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rhysiam

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Just a further word on overclocking. IMHO the last thing you want to do on a system that has a problem is start overclocking it.

That 3770K CPU you have (if it's working properly) is a super-solid CPU. As a gaming CPU, at stock clocks it will probably (slightly) outperform a $1000 5960K due to the higher clock speeds.

By all means if (hopefully when!) you find the source of the problem and resolve it, put an OC on that CPU. It will help for the streaming/recording workloads you're planning. But don't do it with a system that is broken/not working properly.
 
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Dragos Manea

Dragos Manea

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Yes is more then enought. Before u do anything download 3d mark 11 (the demo version is free) and run the default preset benchmark and post results to see if it is hardware or software your problem ( if the results in 3d mark will be ok then your problem is software)
 
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SkyChan006

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Thanks for your input rhysiam. Bench marking is also something I don't really understand how to do properly but I will give it a go and try and post the results. Dragos just recommended running 3d mark 11 so I guess I will try this
 
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Dragos Manea

Dragos Manea

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It is simple just google 3d mark 11 go on the site and download demo, install it make all updates that is asking for and press run, even simpler if u have steam, search on steam 3d mark 11 click on download demo (it will not require updating because on steam downloads the latest version) and run then it will open a browser page, paste the link of the browser page here to see scores if it is a bad score it is a driver or hardware error, if the scores are ok it is a software setting in your games or glitch that will not let your computer perform at 100%.
 
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SkyChan006

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Here are the results from running 3d mark 11. Note as it was only the demo I could only run at a 720 resolution but hopefully these scores will still mean something to someone.

First result before doing anything to my pc: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9723748

Second result after running SlimDrivers, this gave me a couple of audio drivers and a storage driver, nothign relating to motherboard or graphics though. I then also ran spybot before hand just for good measure: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9723888

Looks like there was a slight improvement the second time but nothing drastic. I won't touch anything else until someone suggests the next step!

Thanks again
 
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SkyChan006

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Feb 20, 2014
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Ok so is it just a case of straight up replacing them or should I try some other things first? They are the oldest parts of the machine, perhaps the processor became damaged whilst I wasn't using a cooler. Though obviously if it's the motherboard that's a lot cheaper to replace
 
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