CPU Performance Drops: 3dmark Firestrike

F7GOS

Commendable
Sep 14, 2016
12
0
1,510
Morning folks, I tried posting this yesterday but for some reason it was flagged as spam and deleted so Ill try again.

I recently built a budget built with the following components

CPU: Pentium G3258 @ 4.0Ghz
CPU Cooler: Rajentek Aidos
GPU: Powercolor R9 280X
MB: MSI H81m-P33
RAM: 8Gb DDR3 Corsair (clocked at 1333 because of the G3258 - capable of 1600Mhz)
Storage: 120GB SSD / 500GB HDD
Case: Corsair Carbide 88R + 3 x 120mm Fans
PSU: EVGA 500W 80+

I initially used the 3D mark Demo before and during setting up the OC on the system. I eventually settled on the below and as you can see from the initial and final scores there was a good increase.
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29665602630_1d0c3cb975_b.jpg

Temps are stable. the GPU reaches a max of 70°C and the CPU a max of around 50°C so im very happy with that.

Something has happened to the PC and I have no idea what.

All of a sudden my Physics score has dropped off to much less than even what I was getting with the base clocks.

The Graphics scores remain consistent with the last image I posted (About 9400-9500) but the Physics score has dropped off to below 1800 (about 5-6fps average)

Now, I know that the physics test is mainly CPU bound so I thought I might be experiencing thermal throttling of the cores, and I bought the full version of 3d Mark this week to be able to easily monitor everything that is going on.

The result was just as I had prevously seen. about 50°C through out the test. and the clock speed never dips below the 4Ghz - so its not throttling.

Long story short is I have no idea what to look out for. The CPU usage in task manager is minimal - below 5% before I run the test and there are no programs gobbling ram in the backround as its a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro.


Does anyone have anything I can look into?


The only 2 things I have done is added braided GPU Cables and tried out MSi's OC Genie tool in the MB Bios which I then turned off and reset my multiplier to 40 to get me back to a manually set up 4Ghz.


What would cause a CPU to suddenly half its physics scores?
 

F7GOS

Commendable
Sep 14, 2016
12
0
1,510
I really cant specifically recall any tinkering with the cores. Im quite a cautious overclocker.

It would explain why I was thinking that the score was more like a dual 2.0 ghz gpu (approx 60% my original score at 3.2Ghz) if it was only running as a single 4.0ghz

does anyone with MSI motherboard knowledge know what I should look for. The "Active cores" can only be set at 1 or ALL.. I have it set at all.

if I "Cleared CMOS" would that restore it to a factory setting?

I mean all I want to do is use the chip standard with the multiplier increased from 32 to 40.
 

F7GOS

Commendable
Sep 14, 2016
12
0
1,510
The answer is that windows update had decided to restart itself without me enabling it. It was sitting In the background using one whole core.