Mobo bottlenecking GTX 580?

[alverdeja]

I own a Gateway DX 4831-oe1 which I have been upgrading recently. The build has an i3 530, 6gb DDR3 1333, a 600w PSU. I recently purchased a GTX 580 and noticed my FPS were rather low compared to others(25-43 in crysis very high, Ive seen people get 30-45fps on a 560 ti same graphic settings!). What I would like to know is whether or not I should purchase a better mobo. Initially, I thought it may be my CPU, but I've seen a few benchmarks and the i3 only producing around .8 fps less than a i7 2600k at most.
What I have tried:
Uninstalling and reinstalling drivers (currently running 285.62).
"alt+enter"ing into windowed mode and then back.
Putting "power management" to "prefer maximum performance" on the nVidia control panel.
Overclocking my GPU.

My Benchmarks: (all very high with little aa 1680x1050 )
Crysis 25-43fps, Crysis 2 30-42fps(dx11 hi-res textures), Battlefield 3 30-50 fps, Metro 2033 25-38 (DOF off)

Also, if anyone has any suggestions for a decent motherboard bellow $175, I would be grateful! Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[alverdeja]

I've been looking at spec for my motherboard and Is it possible that It's PCI e? Evey spec sheet I find it just doesn't say whether its PCI, PCI e, PCI e 2, etc.

 

[cpitts1]

could be a bandwidth problem on the motherboard?
What are your PCI-E clots running at (16x, 8x, 4x)?

 

[clutchc]

I don't know which board is in that Gateway, but I doubt your board is the main issue. The 1st gen Sandy Bridge dual core is probably what is holding back the card's performance... if in fact you feel it is. Here is a hierarchy chart of gaming CPUs to use.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-5.html

The 3 games you list are probably the hardest games on framerates there are.

 

[alverdeja]

The board has 1 PCIe 16 slot.

 

[alverdeja]

@ clutchc
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i3-gaming,2588-7.html

Here is the article I read comparing the i3 530 with the i7 870(second tear, according to the hierarchy chart you posted). They were able to run Crysis at 31fps(very high 4x aa) with an i3 530 and an HD 5850. I'm averaging around 35fps(very high 2x aa) with a GTX 580.

 

[alverdeja]

@cpitts1
Is it possible that my PCI e slots aren't 2.0 and that's whats causing the slowdown?

 

[cpitts1]

Probably not, but it could be. Do you have another 1155 board to try it in?

 

[clutchc]

@ clutchc
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i3-gaming,2588-7.html

Here is the article I read comparing the i3 530 with the i7 870(second tear, according to the hierarchy chart you posted). They were able to run Crysis at 31fps(very high 4x aa) with an i3 530 and an HD 5850. I'm averaging around 35fps(very high 2x aa) with a GTX 580.

I see. What are you using to record your framerate? Have you cleaned your system of resource wasting crap and registry errors lately? If not, run CCleaner and do Clean and Registry both. Perhaps you need to clean out old driver remnants with Driver Sweeper. Run it from Safe Mode (after uninstalling the graphics driver) and have it remove any old remnants of AMD and Nvidia graphic driver files it finds. Re-install the new driver.

CCleaner: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
Driver Sweeper: http://phyxion.net/item/driver-sweeper.html

It would help if you knew the make/model of the motherboard in your system.

 

[alverdeja]

@cpitts1
Nope, just the one :/
@clutchc
I tried to D/L Driver Sweeper a while back but it had been discontinued from guru3d.com. I try and look else where though. Also, I'll try CCleaner as you reccomended. Any Idea how long of a process that is(for CCleaner)? I post back on here as soon as I try. Thanks for the help so far, guys!

 

[alverdeja]

I see. What are you using to record your framerate? Have you cleaned your system of resource wasting crap and registry errors lately? If not, run CCleaner and do Clean and Registry both. Perhaps you need to clean out old driver remnants with Driver Sweeper. Run it from Safe Mode (after uninstalling the graphics driver) and have it remove any old remnants of AMD and Nvidia graphic driver files it finds. Re-install the new driver.

CCleaner: http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner
Driver Sweeper: http://phyxion.net/item/driver-sweeper.html

It would help if you knew the make/model of the motherboard in your system.

The motherbaord is a Gateway MB-GAJ09-001. I looked and found little information on it. As for benchmarking, I use FRAPS. Also, so far I have ran CClean but saw no improvement on FPS. I'm about to run Driver Sweep in a moment.

 

[alverdeja]

Oh, and one more thing. Do I need to uninstall Audio drivers, etc. or just the graphic driver?

 

[alverdeja]

Alright, Uninstalled all but the audio driver; restated in safe mode; use Driver Sweeper; restarted again and still no improvement. Actually my FPS is slighly worse now. :/

 

[deadlee690]

what brand is your psu?

 

[alverdeja]

Corsair

 

[jhenydnuri]

this is a common prob..

 

[clutchc]

The motherbaord is a Gateway MB-GAJ09-001. I looked and found little information on it. As for benchmarking, I use FRAPS. Also, so far I have ran CClean but saw no improvement on FPS. I'm about to run Driver Sweep in a moment.

I haven't been able to find much info on that motherboard. Some places refer to it as a server motherboard. Your system isn't a server is it?

 

[wolfram23]

Corsair

Corsair what? (model/wattage)

There shouldn't really be any issues running the 580 for most games. Off the top of my head I think there might be software issues, if not a power issue.

You might want to check these PC Maintenance posts I made:
http://wolframpc.blogspot.com/2012/01/computer-maintenance-tips-and-advice.html
http://wolframpc.blogspot.com/2012/01/pc-maintenance-performance-tips.html

 

[alverdeja]

@wolfram23
It's a Corsair TX 650w (not a 600w after all).
@clutchc
Sorry for the mistake. I ran CPU-z and it turns out I actually have a H57M01.

 

[wolfram23]

The hardware shouldn't be an issue then. The Gateway website shows it has a PCIe 2.0 16x slot, so that's fine.

I'd probably advise you to try getting rid of this stuff:
Software:
Gateway Identity Card
Gateway InfoCentre
Gateway Photo Frame
Gateway Recovery Management
Best Buy Software Installer
Google Toolbar™and Desktop Search™
Microsoft® Works with Office Home 2007 Trial
Norton Internet Security™2009 (60-day trial)6

Essentially the only bundled software that isn't utter crap is:
Gateway Updater (debatable, I'm not sure what this does. Windows Update is usually the only thing you need, but this Gateway one might look for new mobo BIOS versions too)
Adobe Reader (available online anyway)
Cyberlink PowerCinema 6 for the BD player.

http://support.gateway.com/s/desktop/2009/gateway/dx/dx4831/DX4831sp2.shtml

Basically, it's possible there is a lot of background stuff happening that is slowing down your CPU/using cycles when you're trying to game, so you get a big CPU bottleneck.

 

[alverdeja]

Huh, that's strange. I can guarantee that there is only 1 PCI e 16 slot. There are 2 regular PCI slots however. I'll try to uninstall those programs and post the results later. Thanks!

 

[alverdeja]

The hardware shouldn't be an issue then. The Gateway website shows it has a PCIe 2.0 16x slot, so that's fine.

I'd probably advise you to try getting rid of this stuff:
Software:
Gateway Identity Card
Gateway InfoCentre
Gateway Photo Frame
Gateway Recovery Management
Best Buy Software Installer
Google Toolbar™and Desktop Search™
Microsoft® Works with Office Home 2007 Trial
Norton Internet Security™2009 (60-day trial)6

Essentially the only bundled software that isn't utter crap is:
Gateway Updater (debatable, I'm not sure what this does. Windows Update is usually the only thing you need, but this Gateway one might look for new mobo BIOS versions too)
Adobe Reader (available online anyway)
Cyberlink PowerCinema 6 for the BD player.

http://support.gateway.com/s/desktop/2009/gateway/dx/dx4831/DX4831sp2.shtml

Basically, it's possible there is a lot of background stuff happening that is slowing down your CPU/using cycles when you're trying to game, so you get a big CPU bottleneck.

Just checked that link, It says that there's only one PCIe x16.

 

[wolfram23]

Yeah... I didn't say there was more than one.

The 2.0 means it conforms to PCIe 2.0 specifications... you know, there's PCIe 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 2.1, and now 3.0.

 

[alverdeja]

Best answer selected by alverdeja.