Bought 470 GTX and still get lag!!!

[iori57]

Just bought the new 470gtx from lowyat and put inside my 2 year old dell pc.. however it is quite sluggish when playing both bioshock 2 and starcraft ii... what could be the problem?
it lags sometimes, but sometimes it goes very smooth for few seconds.. even I changed to medium settings on bioshock 2 it appears to be the same or worse.. which is worse than my old graphic card.. the nvidia 8600gt..

what could be wrong? is it overheating issue?

I also changed the power supply to cooler master 650Watt because the old dell one is not powerful enough as told by shopkeeper.

Also noted that I throw in a corsair SSD harddisk and used it as main at the same time.. could it be caused by it? i installed windows 7 directly on the SSD. the boot up time is very fast though..

System spec:

Operating System: MS Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 @ 2.20GHz Conroe 65nm Technology
RAM: 4.0GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 332MHz (5-5-5-15)
Motherboard: Dell Inc. 0RY007 (Socket 775)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470
Hard Drives: 59GB Corsair CSSD-F60GB2 ATA Device (IDE) 38 °C
244GB Seagate ST3250310AS ATA Device (Unknown Interface) 42 °C


Please advice.. thanks in advance!

 

[iori57]

your cpu is severely bottlenecking your card.Which res you play? Post a gpuz screenshot.

playing on 1440x900 resolution.

gpuz screenshot:

 

[iori57]

Use latest nvidia driver.Up the res or buy new cpu.your mobo is 1.1 so thats bottlenecking your card also.not by much though.And that card runs ******* hot whats your load temp.

Oh previously I was using the latest 258.96 drivers and it has the exact same performance.. switched to the old one just to test it out
Up the res? I thought it will make it worse?
ya i got some response on other forums saying that I need a new cpu.. seems that everyone agrees...

if i get an i5 or i7 i'll need to upgrade the mobo as well right?

the graphic card is running at 50+ celcius even if the computer is idle.. when running games it reaches 87 celcius max..

also the dell's casing is kind of small.. and there's not much space for the card, maybe that's causing the overheat? I tried playing the games with the casing cover opened it is still the same though, same performance, same temperature..

 

[phasmantis]

If you're on a budget, the 1156 boards run nicely on the quadcore i5. Also, AMD offers some pretty cheap alternatives for phenom ii x4 and phenom ii x6 (AMD has the cheaper priced boards).

However, you can most likely pop a quad core that's 775 in your MB that should loosen it up quite a bit. However your motherboard might need a BIOS update to be compatible, if it's available.

You can also invest in an AM2+ board and stick with the ddr2 and use phenom ii CPUs. However, if you're going to invest, might as well invest a bit more to make it modern.

 

[OvrClkr]

If he has a Dell case he will need to upgrade that also. The standoffs are located in some wacky places therefore he would not be able to cram in a traditional board in that particular case.

He will most likely need a new case/board and a new set of ram. No point in recycling his current ram if he is going to opt for a AM3/1156 CPU.

 

[rv10]

As already mentioned, the CPU is slow compared to your card and its holdin it back, OC the CPU or upgrade and youl notice the improvement. A new case helped me when i had a similar issue as it cooled my temps by 15-20 'C

 

[jerreece]

CPU/Mobo is definitely holding back that GTX 470. Also, 1440x900 will never fully stress that GTX 470 either. So that's sort of a natural limit, but doesn't affect performance. If anything, the GTX 470 should be working very little.

As others stated, not a bad idea to replace:
CPU
Motherboard
RAM
Case


Or, at a minimum, find out what the fastest Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad is that your motherboard supports and put that in to tide you over for the time being.

And ultimately, the GTX 470 is WAY more than you need at 1440x900. Even a GTS 450 would be more than adequate.
Monitor

 

[notty22]

I have a dell 530 with same m/b , cpu- I've researched this before. The particular m/b does not support quad cores. The voltage circuitry is to weak. They used a different m/b~bios combination for quad cores. PSU as well.
Make it a media server, HTPC, back up.

 

[iori57]

CPU/Mobo is definitely holding back that GTX 470. Also, 1440x900 will never fully stress that GTX 470 either. So that's sort of a natural limit, but doesn't affect performance. If anything, the GTX 470 should be working very little.

As others stated, not a bad idea to replace:
CPU
Motherboard
RAM
Case


Or, at a minimum, find out what the fastest Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad is that your motherboard supports and put that in to tide you over for the time being.

And ultimately, the GTX 470 is WAY more than you need at 1440x900. Even a GTS 450 would be more than adequate.
Monitor

Sounds like I'm getting a whole PC afterall... thought I could save some $ by just upgrading the old system T-T

 

[fahmee]

it's bottleneck... upgrade your processor & motherboard...!!

 

[iori57]

Latest Update:
I reswapped back my old dell graphic card (8600gt) and tested bioshock 2, the occasional lag and stuttering is gone, tested medium graphic settings runs quite smooth and
high graphic settings which runs with quite low fps (but the FPS is constant at least).. then i swapped back the new 470gtx and now medium graphic settings and high graphic
settings run quite smoothly without the stuttering.. the problem of worse performance seen in the new card compare to old card that i mention in the first post is now gone..
i guess is the connection issue just need to reseat the graphic card..
now can see that in high settings, the framerate is constant but a bit on the low side (when looking around with the mouse can see jumping frames).. I think this is the
processor bottleneck everyone is talking about right now... so at least i think my graphic card is not faulty at this point..

going to see what processor i could get this weekend

thanks guys!

 

[psychophat]

I don't get it why people would say upgrade !!! upgrade !!! its the only solution or die.

I tip my hat to those who makes things work by fixing things and not jumping to the upgrade band wagon.

 

[graemevermeulen]

Also use a program like MSI Afterburner or EVGA Precision and have a look at GPU usage, it's good for sniffing out a bottleneck.

Even overclocking that CPU will yield some FPS increases.

 

[iori57]

I've upgraded my processor to AMD Phenom II X6 1055T and everything is smooth now sorry forgot to update this topic...
i got it like two months ago cheers!!

Conclusion: CPU bottleneck is really serious

 

[iori57]

Best answer selected by iori57.

 

[plznote]

Great!
Update your Windows to 64-bit as it cannot recognize more than 3.5 GB of TOTAL RAM

 

[GJohnson]

I wouldn't look at the graphic card as the golden nugget. Every part in the system needs to be golden/top notch and DDR2 is not very good for a gamer rig. Based on those specs the only real solution that will provide good results is to get a new motherboard (ddr3), processor (one that actually supports ddr3) and memory (ddr3). Most people don't even bother to look at the full CPU specifications (and most 775 dual cores only support ddr2 regardless of if the motherboard supports ddr3) which will still work, but will not work as well as it should.


This CPU only supports 800 MHz FSB
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=30781

Bottleneck!