# Is Core i5-7300HQ just a turd of a chip?



## Winudertas (Jan 5, 2019)

Hello, boys and girls,         

Maybe someone can confirm with similar setup (1060 or 1050 Ti). Is Core i5-7300HQ just a turd of a chip? Yeah, I have this laptop with GTX 1060 almost a year, paid about 1.1k EURO at Crypto Craze (with 16GB RAM too) and I'm not satisfied. People speculate, some say i5-7300HQ is decent, some say is shit, yeah, is average-low budget CPU, but still. In my case, it's not enough for stable 60 FPS at any settings in The Division, Destiny 2 - FPS drops. 60FPS manageable in good optimized games, like Forza Horizon 4 or Rainbow Six Siege. Does anyone can get stable 60FPS on The Division 2, or D2, or BF V, I mean heavy DX11 CPU Games? I remember my Core i7-4720HQ with GTX 870M was able to maintain 60 FPS on The Division. Yeah, low rez, low quality settings, but still. Stable 60 FPS With i5-7300HQ - is impossible in my case. Is it really?


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## newtekie1 (Jan 6, 2019)

I'm installing both Destiny 2 and The Division on my laptop now to test them.  I've got the i5-7300HQ with a GTX1050, so kind of close.  Once they are downloaded and installed I'll test them out.

I will say that I can comfortably play GTA:V on the laptop, which is a pretty CPU intensive game.


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## Mussels (Jan 6, 2019)

2.5Ghz base clock, seems like it'd be about on par with desktop sandy/ivy bridge hardware

cant be too bad for gaming, unless its thermal throttling or something


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## newtekie1 (Jan 6, 2019)

Mussels said:


> 2.5Ghz base clock, seems like it'd be about on par with desktop sandy/ivy bridge hardware
> 
> cant be too bad for gaming, unless its thermal throttling or something



It also runs at 3.1GHz under full load, unless heat is an issue as you said.  It doesn't seem to be that bad in my experience.


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## ShurikN (Jan 6, 2019)

Mine is working perfectly fine at 1080p and everything at mid-high, no matter the game. Lowered the vcore offset just for fun. Everything runs nice. There are some wierd areas in Destiny 2, where fps drops from 60 to around 45-50. Very rare tho.


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## eidairaman1 (Jan 6, 2019)

Everything relies on optimal ambient temperature, also airflow, if its full of dust yest it will run like crap


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## bubbleawsome (Jan 6, 2019)

Running GTAV at 60fps and even the horrible optimized FH3 at 30fps on a 7300HQ with a 1050. I may download Destiny 2 and update once I play some.


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## Winudertas (Jan 6, 2019)

Thank you guys for the answers and help. So basically, two games I have a lot of trouble are The Division and Destiny 2. A lot of FPS Drops in the areas of 55-49 FPS, that is annoying, of course. I still believe CPU is at fault. Temps are fine, CPU is always at 3.1GHz all cores with temps with -0.120V offset no more than spikes at 75C. I even tried Windows 10 1607 LTSB (basically clean Windows, without a lot of services, Xbox App and other stuff), it was the same with Destiny 2, I didn't tried The Division. Right now I'm on the latest Windows 10 build with all updates. I thought about changing thermal paste, but if CPU with -0.120V is at max 75C, and GPU is at 68-70C, I doubt it will change anything.



ShurikN said:


> Mine is working perfectly fine at 1080p and everything at mid-high, no matter the game. Lowered the vcore offset just for fun. Everything runs nice. There are some wierd areas in Destiny 2, where fps drops from 60 to around 45-50. Very rare tho.



In Gambit, for me it always drops below 60 FPS, no matter the settings. For fun, I will try to connect to external display, where Intel iGPU will be at idle.



newtekie1 said:


> I'm installing both Destiny 2 and The Division on my laptop now to test them.  I've got the i5-7300HQ with a GTX1050, so kind of close.  Once they are downloaded and installed I'll test them out.
> 
> I will say that I can comfortably play GTA:V on the laptop, which is a pretty CPU intensive game.



If you could test D2 and The Division, that would be very cool, man. D2 is so so, but The Division is insane in the Dark Zone - frequent FPS drops to 45-50 FPS. I never had that even with Core i7-4720HQ and GTX 870M.


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## Vya Domus (Jan 6, 2019)

I've seen this CPU being the limiting factor even with a 1050 in a game like Fortnite. Unfortunately yes, it's not a great CPU. I blame the lack of threads rather than the clockspeed.

Another thing it might hurt massively is single channel slow RAM.


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## cucker tarlson (Jan 6, 2019)

3.1ghz on a quad core, paired with slow ass laptop ram. you're getting cpu bottlenecks in fps games. nothing new. it's not a turd,but for a 1060 it's too slow.



Vya Domus said:


> I've seen this CPU being the limiting factor even with a 1050 in a game like Fortnite. Unfortunately yes, it's not a great CPU. I blame the lack of threads rather than the clockspeed.


4 cores,low frequency,slow ram - this is all a recipe for a cpu bottleneck.


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## Winudertas (Jan 6, 2019)

Vya Domus said:


> I've seen this CPU being the limiting factor even with a 1050 in a game like Fortnite. Unfortunately yes, it's not a great CPU. I blame the lack of threads rather than the clockspeed.
> 
> Another thing it might hurt massively is single channel slow RAM.



Yeah, I saw FPS drops in Fortnite too, but it wasn't as bad, as like in the really CPU intensive game, like The Division. I had one 8GB stick at 2400MHz, right now my setup is Dual Channel 16GB at 2400MHz. It helped a little, but not that much as I hoped. Still, even at lower resolution i7-4720HQ with DDR3 was able to maintain 60 FPS, three generations old laptop CPU. Insane.


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## Aquinus (Jan 6, 2019)

The two really aren't too different other than the number of threads though. I suspect that the new laptop is thermal throttling or something because if you're CPU bound, going from single channel to dual-channel can actually make quite a bit of difference, even more so for a quad-core.

How hot is the CPU running when you're playing these games and what does CPU usage look like as well?


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## Winudertas (Jan 6, 2019)

Aquinus said:


> The two really aren't too different other than the number of threads though. I suspect that the new laptop is thermal throttling or something because if you're CPU bound, going from single channel to dual-channel can actually make quite a bit of difference, even more so for a quad-core.
> 
> How hot is the CPU running when you're playing these games and what does CPU usage look like as well?



I will post some AfterBurner graphs very soon, but thing is, i7-4720HQ was able to maintain 3.4GHz all cores, plus 8 threats. i5-7300HQ are 4 core CPU without extra threats, plus 3.1GHz all cores, but I believed before buying it can't be slower, than three generations old i7-4720HQ. Maybe I was wrong? I also read a lot of reviews about that CPU, so I cheap out and bought not i7-7700HQ, but i5-7300HQ thinking that would be enough to not bottleneck GTX 1060. Nobody talked about that, including articles and YouTubers. I have two answers in my had: 1. i5-7300HQ is just not a CPU to maintain 60 FPS at any settings (Low, Medium, High, doesn't matter) on DX11 CPU heavy games, like BF 1, The Division or Destiny 2. 2. My laptop is somehow defected.


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## Aquinus (Jan 6, 2019)

Winudertas said:


> I will post some AfterBurner graphs very soon, but thing is, i7-4720HQ was able to maintain 3.4GHz all cores, plus 8 threats. i5-7300HQ are 4 core CPU without extra threats, plus 3.1GHz all cores, but I believed before buying it can't be slower, than three generations old i7-4720HQ.


Different laptops have different abilities to cool their components. The TDP of your current chip might be configured to be lower than the max because of the laptop's cooling capability. This is part of the reason why I mention temps because what kind of CPU you have says nothing about it's ability to handle heat.


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## cucker tarlson (Jan 6, 2019)

4720hq is gonna be a lot better for this type of cpu heavy games


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## ShurikN (Jan 6, 2019)

Winudertas said:


> In Gambit, for me it always drops below 60 FPS, no matter the settings. For fun, I will try to connect to external display, where Intel iGPU will be at idle.


Never had a single issue in Gambit, runs perfectly stable on my setup (Alienware 15 R3). I might attach my settings from D2 later.
Single channel 2400 ram. CPU boosts to 3.3GHz single and 3.1 all core
Running on an external monitor exclusively.

Check temps.
Get Intel XTU, undervolt the CPU vcore offset by 100mV.

It's not the issue with the CPU, mine works like a charm. It's either cooling or ram, if it's even a hardware problem.


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## Winudertas (Jan 6, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> Never had a single issue in Gambit, runs perfectly stable on my setup (Alienware 15 R3). I might attach my settings from D2 later.
> Single channel 2400 ram. CPU boosts to 3.3GHz single and 3.1 all core
> Running on an external monitor exclusively.
> 
> ...



So maybe try to RMA my Dell Inspiron 15 7577? I attached my AfterBurner metrics. First is with external display, second - with laptop's display. My offset is 120mV, it's stable. Temps look fine, to be honest, I don't know where to look anymore. Do you really can get 60 FPS without any drops in Gambit? I can try just 8GB RAM, but I have that in the pats, it was even a little bit worse. Also, you can't see FPS, because Destiny 2, but on external display I saw drops, but not that much. My settings? Low to Medium, so basically not that much. Maybe it's faulty hardware, I don't believe it's software, because I tried many WIndows 10 versions and drivers.


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## ShurikN (Jan 6, 2019)

Yeah, no drops that I can recall, especially not the ones you are experiencing, as I would definitely remember them.
Bear in mind your gpu is Max-Q, mine is regular 1060. There will definitely be a performance difference, but by how much, that I don't know.
Also it doesn't necessarily mean the device is faulty. It could just be that Dell decided to keep boost frequencies on the GPU more restrictive in order to keep it cool.


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## Winudertas (Jan 6, 2019)

ShurikN said:


> Yeah, no drops that I can recall, especially not the ones you are experiencing, as I would definitely remember them.
> Bear in mind your gpu is Max-Q, mine is regular 1060. There will definitely be a performance difference, but by how much, that I don't know.
> Also it doesn't necessarily mean the device is faulty. It could just be that Dell decided to keep boost frequencies on the GPU more restrictive in order to keep it cool.
> 
> View attachment 114107



Thank you so much for the info. I can try only one 8GB DDR4 2400MHz stick I bought from Crucial, I never tried that. Does anyone thinks that's a good idea? If you can get stable 60FPS in Gambit with Core i5-7300HQ and GTX 1060 (mine Max-Q is about 10% slower, but I can try even lowest settings, same FPS drops), I don't really know where the problem can be. Faulty power brick, RAM? If temps are fine, as you can see in the AfterBurner, can cooling be bad? As Aquinus said, TDP can be configured in the bad manner, but Dell has pretty decent cooling solution at hand. So, don't know, to be honest.


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## DR4G00N (Jan 6, 2019)

Are you sure there isn't anything running hidden in the background that's loading the cpu as well? (Like windows update). Maybe try closing Afterburner or any other extra software because they do use some of the cpu but not much.


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## ShurikN (Jan 6, 2019)

One last thing you could try is run prime95 and then check package TDP in XTU. For reference, on my laptop it wouldn't move beyond 28W.


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## Aquinus (Jan 6, 2019)

Temps look fine. Maybe it's power draw and a TDP limit? Do you know what the clock speed of the CPU is when the game is running? Is it boosting over 2.5Ghz at all?



ShurikN said:


> One last thing you could try is run prime95 and then check package TDP in XTU. For reference, on my laptop it wouldn't move beyond 28W.


Edit: You beat me to the punch.


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## Winudertas (Jan 6, 2019)

Aquinus said:


> Temps look fine. Maybe it's power draw and a TDP limit? Do you know what the clock speed of the CPU is when the game is running? Is it boosting over 2.5Ghz at all?
> 
> 
> Edit: You beat me to the punch.



Yeah, Afterburner says 3.1GHz all cores, at all times, as you can see in the graph. I will try to use Prime95 and I will see what TDP XTU shows.

P.S - Package TDP - 36W-35W. I think that's because I use laptop's screen right now, instead of like ShurikiN, but I can be wrong. Temps with Prime95 - 79-80C according XTU. Next I will try just one Crucial DDR4 2400MHz stick.


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## newtekie1 (Jan 6, 2019)

Winudertas said:


> If you could test D2 and The Division, that would be very cool, man. D2 is so so, but The Division is insane in the Dark Zone - frequent FPS drops to 45-50 FPS. I never had that even with Core i7-4720HQ and GTX 870M.



I played about a hour of each game on my laptop, and I have to say both were as smooth as I'd expect.  For the most part both games stayed at 60FPS.  Destiny 2 dipped down into the around 55 FPS some times in heavy action, but I attribute that more to the GTX1050 struggling at 1080p, because according to MSI Afterburner the GTX1050 was pegged at 100% usage the entire time I was playing.

The Division ran smoothly as well in DX12.  It did seem to be a little harder on the CPU, showing the CPU maxed out at times, but the game was still not dipping below 50FPS.


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## Cdawggg (Mar 2, 2020)

Idk if you still look at this because it's old but your problem is absolutely not the cou, I did research and the max q version of the gtx 1060 performs over 50 percent worse in games than the 1060 6gb and also even performs worse than the 1050 ti, so in other words you have to read the fine print, that gpu can't compete with an actual 1060


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## Toothless (Mar 2, 2020)

Cdawggg said:


> Idk if you still look at this because it's old but your problem is absolutely not the cou, I did research and the max q version of the gtx 1060 performs over 50 percent worse in games than the 1060 6gb and also even performs worse than the 1050 ti, so in other words you have to read the fine print, that gpu can't compete with an actual 1060


The MaxQ 1060 does better than a 750Ti and I can run those games on the Ti. Sure the MaxQ can't compete but at some point the cpu is the issue and nothing on the gpu side can fix it.


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## Cdawggg (Mar 2, 2020)

Toothless said:


> The MaxQ 1060 does better than a 750Ti and I can run those games on the Ti. Sure the MaxQ can't compete but at some point the cpu is the issue and nothing on the gpu side can fix it.


That's true but I can play those same games with my gtx 1060 which is over locked and I can maintain 65 fps so the cpu can't be the only fault


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## Toothless (Mar 2, 2020)

Cdawggg said:


> That's true but I can play those same games with my gtx 1060 which is over locked and I can maintain 65 fps so the cpu can't be the only fault


But is yours the MaxQ or not? You brought up the performance between the two. I'm just saying if the MaxQ can do it and it's not, then there's an issue somewhere and it might be the cpu.


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## Cdawggg (Mar 2, 2020)

Toothless said:


> But is yours the MaxQ or not? You brought up the performance between the two. I'm just saying if the MaxQ can do it and it's not, then there's an issue somewhere and it might be the cpu.


No that's what I'm trying to say, I know I made it confusing, I have the standard gtx 1060 6gb, and the same cpu as him buty games run fine, I'm not saying it couldn't be the cpu but if it is it might have something to do with the condition of it, because mine is fairly new, and it plays the games he named without going below 60. Not trying to be rude just trying to see if I could help with his problem


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