Will an after market cpu fan help my gaming performance?

Washthethrone

Honorable
Nov 13, 2012
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0
10,530
Hi,

I built my pc in late 2012 and it's starting to struggle with modern games. I've recently bought GTA V and it plays okay at normal settings for a while.. But then my framerate drops very low and stutters after about an hour of gaming. I thought I may get an aftermarket cpu fan as I'm just using the stock one that came with my processor. Will the purchase help my problem, and any suggestions which ones? Looking to spend no more than £50.

Specs:
Intel Core i5 3470,1155, Ivy Bridge
Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3V, Intel B75, S
2GB XFX Radeon HD 7850 Core Edition
430W Corsair Builder Series CMPSU-4
8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance

Thanks
 
First check your cpu temps when the stutters occurs. Check your gpu temps as well. It also would be helpful to check your cpu and gpu usage during those periods and you may want to keep an eye on your video memory usage before deciding adding/swapping hardware.
 

gonf

Distinguished
Jun 17, 2008
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18,860
After market fan won't help much on speed but it lower the noise of your computer.
after market heatsink won't help much on speed too but it will lower the load and idle temp of your cpu/gpu which help you to overclock them which can help you with speed. but a good 5?10?15% is about it.
after market heatsink can also keep your load temp lower so if your computer is crashing due to heat it will help.
same thing go for PSU.
 
GtaV is a hard game to go by for determining hardware problems, it's full of issues and glitches. The patches have helped some people, hurt others. Even those with gtx 980 and i7's experiencing stuttering. Try a program like realtemp to monitor your cpu temps, so long as they're ok under load then there's no reason for an aftermarket cooler. If the stock cooler is loud to you, an aftermarket will probably be quieter. No cooler is going to help you overclock the 3470 since it's a locked core cpu and doesn't overclock. You might be able to increase the baseclock in the bios but not by much - maybe from 100mhz to 104mhz give or take before it becomes unstable, the baseclock overclocks more than just the cpu including the pci bus. I'd leave it alone personally.

Some people may suggest otherwise, but that particular video card according to the xfx website recommends a minimum of a 500w power supply. You're currently running it on a 430w power supply of medium to lower quality. The 7850 is just below min requirements for gta V (same as mine, but mine is even a bit less as it's a 1gb vram version). Eventually you'll want a better gpu and will definitely need a higher wattage better quality power supply to drive it.