Advice for my newly built computer?

[Guest]

Alrighty, a while back some forumites helped me with my system build. Well, I now have that computer up and running!

Here are some specs, then I have some questions!

Gigabyte P35-DS3R mobo
Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 Conroe 2.13ghz
2gb Crucial Ballistix pc26400
geforce 8800GTS 320mb
Antec 900
Antec Trio 650W PSU
WD 250gb SATA HDD
22inch widescreen Hanns G monitor

Think that about covers it! First of all, thanks to all who helped! Now, I have some questions.. my system temperature is around 32-35c, and my CPU temperature in the bios is idle at around 28-32c. I am pretty sure that is fine, but is there a way to tell the temp when under load? Also, what about overclocking? I had overclocked it to 2.4Ghz, and the temp went up to 35-40c.. wasn't sure if that was good, so went ahead and set it back down. Any input here? Using stock cooling.

Also, I installed Oblivion, and it's incredible, but I've heard people getting over 40fps with all details maxed out. In dense forest areas, I seem to drop to 20-30, and even hit 10fps at one point. Is that bad? I planned on this card running Crysis with all details maxed... Am I doing something wrong, or is this normal and Oblivion is just a system hog?

And, anyone know a program that will allow me to overclock my GPU slightly?

Thanks for all the help!!

 

[Kruesader]

Get Rivatuner for ur GPU overclocking

 

[andybird123]

or ATI Tool (I know, sounds counter intuitive but it does support nvidia cards including the 8800)

for CPU, there's speedfan, Motherboard Monitor, WMsensormon...

an overclocked Core2 can run up to temperatures of 70C+ without problems, though I personally would get something like a tuniq tower 120 or thermalright ultra 120 which would then give you temps under load more like 40-50C under load (at 3ghz+)

what texture settings are you running oblivion at?
if you have it set to High, try medium, I wouldn't be suprised if you're hitting the texture memory limit of the GTS and your pc is using system memory for textures (which will result in crap fps)... that card won't run crysis with all settings maxed, not even a GTX will, but one major problem you'll have with the 320 is texture memory - you'll need to use Medium textures in most games from now on as most games are using >320mb for the highest texture setting

also, basically yes oblivion is a system hog, you won't be able to run with ALL settings maxed out, just look at the VGA charts

 

[Guest]

So if I OC my CPU to 2.4 or 2.5 on stock, think I'd be alright?

And yeah, I had texture settings on high, and everything else maxed, except the anti aliasing. Makes me sad that my card won't run Crysis on max detail, but at the same time it's fine if an 8800GTX won't put out full details eiteher.

 

[Guest]

This is a double post >< sorry!

Just noticed, while installing Call of Duty 2, my CPU fan would stop spinning... I'm pretty sure this is a bad thing. Or at least not good. Any ideas why this would be happening?

 

[robucf4]

Check your BIOS settings, most mobo's have management software for the CPU fan. Turns on when needed, off otherwise. Consult your mobo manual.

With that 320M card, resolution is the key, if you are playing it with max settings on your monitor's max res 16x10 then yeah your FPS is going to suck. If you want to run games with lots of eye candy turned on, like others said, you need more video memory. Thats a great card, bang for buck type of thing, but you should have read it's limitations before buying it.

 

[Guest]

Hmm... Will I run into problems later? With Crysis and UT3 and such? I hadn't planned on getting the 22" widescreen, but at the last minute, decided to, AFTER I bought the video card.

It won't kill me to turn some things down hehe. Just curious as to what exactly is limiting me. I noticed in a fight in Oblivion today, in some dense forest, I dropped down to 10fps... that is BAD lol.

Oh well... maybe I'll sell the card, and buy the 640mb. I might just wait till Crysis is out to do that, just to see if I am wanting to fork out an extra 100$ for another card.

 

[ffchocobo]

Just check the VGA charts or some of the benchmarking on Tomshardware, they use oblivion in most of their benchmarking of systems so you can get a feel for whether you need to upgrade the card or not.

 

[Guest]

Thanks ffchocobo, I just checked the charts. It's a relief to know that my card scores higher than the 640mb card in framerate for most of those 1600x1200 and lower! Also glad I didn't fork out the extra 100$ on the other card, seeing now that it doesn't perform much better.

I'm gonna try to overclock my CPU and GPU now =D Really not entirely sure how to OC on this new comp, but I'm gonna wing it!