Bottlenecked GPU?

darno26

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I've been slowly upgrading parts of my computer and no matter what I upgrade it never seems to increase the performance of my machine in games.

Specs:

Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T 2.8 GHz
RAM: 2046MBs - 667 DDR2
GPU: ATI 5870 1GB DDR5
PSU: 750W
Motherboard: M2N68-AM
HDD: 320GB 7200 RPM
OS: Windows Vista 32 bit

After upgrading the video card twice (from a 8500GT to a 9500GT [not knowing they weren't gaming cards] finally to the 5870) I upgraded the CPU from a 2.6GHz Dual to the 6 core and noticed next to not improvement in the performance in games as well as general usage. I thought at first it was a CPU bottleneck so that's why I upgraded the CPU, but now that I have that CPU which should be more than enough (right?) I'm thinking it's the RAM? Though I heard that RAM shouldn't have that much of an affect on graphic performance in a game.

Games:

WoW: ~18fps with shadows on - 30 fps without shadows, everything else maxed.
Starcraft 2: ~45fps Everything maxxed - ~90fps Everything low, in Sotis (like Dota) pretty graphic intensive
 

darno26

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I play at 1280x1024 and I don't really play many other games. I play MW2 and it seems to run smooth but it doesn't look all that fantastic even with everything maxed...
 

reccy

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Upgrading the ram would help to 4GB DDR2.

Download CPUID and make sure the motherboard has reconigsed the CPU and is clocked and working correctly. (Sometimes disabling Cool 'n' Quiet in bios helps with speeds, similar issue with my fathers Phenom II 955BE CPU, was slow on everything, disable cool n quiet and seemed to speed up everything)

Ay 1280x1024 you will get very minimul frames boost even with the best system out there. 1600x900 (and the equivilent) is perfect for your setup with everything High to Maxed
 
WOW, HD5870 at 1280x1024 is too overkill. You can maxed out everything with only a single GTS250... :)

Well, low resolution is more CPU demanding than GPU.
How many sticks are installed on your system? just one? or two?
If you only use 1 stick of RAM then add another 1 stick so they will work on dual channel mode, make your system faster...
 

darno26

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Something else I noticed but I'm not to sure of is that only 2 of my CPU's cores are running? Looking at this PC Wizard thing it says only 2 of the cores are running and the other 4 are at a constant 0%
 

reccy

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download CPUID and it will give details of your hardware installed. Tjis will give us a better understanding of the installed hardware

But I still believe that:

1 - Too low of a resolution to get anything better than the FPS yoru getting now
2 - The Ram is struggling with your CPU and GPU, this needs to be upgraded to 2x2GB Sticks of DDR 800mhz
 
How many cores do you see in Task Manager? The M2N68-AM supports the X6 as of BIOS version 0603, so you should be fine as long as your BIOS is up to date.
As reccy suggested, download CPU-Z and check that your system recognizes the CPU correctly. Also, make sure that the CPU and the video card go to full clock speed while you are busy gaming. CPUID and AMD's Catalyst Control Centre should be useful here.
 

darno26

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CPU-Z version 1.55.2

Processors
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of processors 1
Number of threads 2

APICs
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Processor 0
-- Core 0
-- Thread 0 0
-- Core 1
-- Thread 0 1

Processors Information
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Processor 1 ID = 0
Number of cores 2 (max 6)
Number of threads 2 (max 6)
Name AMD Phenom II X6 1055T
Codename Thuban
Specification AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T Processor
Package Socket AM3 (938)
CPUID F.A.0
Extended CPUID 10.A
Core Stepping PH-E0
Technology 45 nm
Core Speed 2800.2 MHz
Multiplier x FSB 14.0 x 200.0 MHz
HT Link speed 1000.1 MHz
Stock frequency 2800 MHz
Instructions sets MMX (+), 3DNow! (+), SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4A, x86-64, AMD-V
L1 Data cache 2 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache 2 x 64 KBytes, 2-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache 2 x 512 KBytes, 16-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L3 cache 6 MBytes, 48-way set associative, 64-byte line size
FID/VID Control yes
FID range 4.0x - 16.5x
Max VID 1.475 V
P-State FID 0x11 - VID 0x06 - IDD 16 (16.5x - 1.475 V)
P-State FID 0xC - VID 0x0E - IDD 15 (14.0x - 1.375 V)
P-State FID 0x6 - VID 0x12 - IDD 12 (11.0x - 1.325 V)
P-State FID 0x10E - VID 0x16 - IDD 9 (7.5x - 1.275 V)
P-State FID 0x100 - VID 0x1A - IDD 6 (4.0x - 1.225 V)



In Task Manager there is only 2 Cores showing.. MY BIOS is up to date. I just remembered I have Crysis so I'm about to start that up and I'll tell you the fps in that.
 

darno26

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