Lower than expected performance on my i5-750 setup

[Zelkian]

Hello, I thought I'd see if I could get community help with a new desktop PC I put together that seems to be performing worse then it should be for me. In fact, it is performing worse then the previous computer I was using, my laptop, a Gateway P-7805u. I've looked online extensively and did some tweaks, but I can't seem to get it to perform as well as my laptop, which doesn't seem right.

First Off here are the specs of the new PC in question:
CPU: Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor
MB: GIGABYTE GA-H55M-UD2H
RAM: 4GB DDR3 1800 (Dual Channel)
GPU: BFG GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16
Resolution: 1900x1200

Specs for my (not so) old laptop:
CPU: 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
RAM: 4GB DDR3 (not sure what MHz at the moment)
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS 1GB of GDDR3
Resolution: 1440x900

Ok, so the main problem is that the gaming performance on my new desktop computer is worse than it was on my slightly older laptop. As an initial test, I changed the number of cores from 4 to 2 in the bios and that significantly increased my performance (frame rates) which I don't quite understand since I haven't had much experience with quad cores, but I'm fine with that unless that's not normal.

Unfortunately though, even with the performance increase from changing cores I'm still not getting as good performance on the desktop. For example, I use to run Dawn of War II on my laptop with ultra settings and ran smoothly all the time, even on heavy battles. On my desktop I'm seeing slowdown happen pretty often and more so in fights with a lot of units.

So any help would be appreciated and if there is some information or anything I left out let me know, I don't post often so I may have forgotten something. Thanks.

 

[RetiredChief]

Sounds more like a problem with the video card.

Might want to download HWMonitor. After install run it and then run 3Dmark06. Report the individual scores to see if it is a CPU or GPU problem. After 3dMark06 completes take a look at your max temps for the 4 cores and the temp for the GPU (verify you are not over heating.

You migth want o look at your +12 V and make sure it is not dropping abnormally. HWMonitor does NOT report my +12 correct on my I5-750 Gigabyte P55-UM4P, nor is it correct for my I3-530 Gigibyte H55M-UD2H. To look at the +12 use gigabyte easytune6 and monitor +12 V will runing Furmark in a window.

Use CPUI-Z to verify your 750 is running at the correct speed (May show low, if so run furmark to verify). Also look at your memory and verify that it is running daul channel and that the timings are correct for your memory.

 

[samdsox]

i think it is the gtx 260. if i were you i would upgrade to 5850. MUCH BETTER

 

[Zelkian]

Thank you for the responses!

I'll run those tests and post what I find.

 

[RetiredChief]

My scores (Nothing to brag about) for comparision
I5-750 @ 3.2 GHz, 4 gigs ram, Intel 80Gig SSD, ATI 5770 GPU

Overall Score - 16382
SM 2.0 Score - 6061
SM 3.0 Score - 7747
CPU Score - 5086

Edited, add
Based on this review of the 5770, the GTX260 should be about (on average) about 10 % faster, except for WOW where the 260 is about 10% slower.
http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,697202/Ati-Radeon-HD-5770-reviewed-DirectX-11-Mid-Range/Reviews/

You can also use furmark as a benchmark

 

[Zelkian]

Alright, well I got the HWmonitor and ran it while I had WoW open and I made an unexpected discovery. The reason I was getting slow performance when I had all 4 cores enabled was because the stock heat sink wasn't really cooling the CPU much at all and was hitting 200° Fahrenheit! I didn't really even consider that because I've really never had any problem with stock heat sinks in the past, but that thinking caused me to ignore that possibility.

So I went out and get a Cooler Master Hyper Plus 212 and now, even under heavy load, it stays around 100° Fahrenheit. So that was the problem, my CPU wasn't being cooled properly and now everything is running as I thought it would.

Thank you RetiredChief, you pointed me in the right direction.

 

[Zelkian]

Best answer selected by Zelkian.