# From e6300 to i5 2500k



## BlurryS (Sep 10, 2011)

hello guys! im new in this forum and i have a problem. Im going to upgrade from old e6300 to a new i5 2500k. I know that i5 is much better in every way but thats the problem, my expectations are way too high. 

My current pc specs:
Intel C2D E6300 1.86 ghz @ 2.94ghz
Gigabyte P965-S3  rev 1.0 
XFX HD 5770 1GB XXX OC-ed Edition
3 GB DDR 2 ram
Thermaltake Toughpower 650w
2x Samsung HDD-s 1TB & 500GB

After upcoming upgrade:
Intel i5 2500k 
GIGA-BYTE MB H67 S1155 ATX/GA-PH67-DS3-B3
4GB Kingston HyperX DDR 3 RAM 1333mhz
- everything else stays the same

As i said im expecting a huge performance improvement in GAMING. Playing games like GTA IV, Shift 2, TDU 2, and upcoming games like bad company 3 etc. Should i lower my expectations ? Im 100% that im not going to be dissapointed but yeah...you know...


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 10, 2011)

i think most of people on tpu will agree with me that you should see a nice bump in gaming performance despite keeping the 5770. i dont know amd all that well but the 5770 is a pretty good mid range card and with the added power of an i5, especially if you overclock it, you should be pretty happy with the end results in the games you are playing. and hey, if you are not totally satisfied save up some cash and buy a newer gpu in a month.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Sep 10, 2011)

yea you will see a big jump in games like BC2 etc

a friend of mine went from a Athlon X2 5000+ with an 8800GT getting 25-30fps in DX9 mode to getting 45-55fps in DX9 with the same gpu on an i5 2400,

it should be mentioned you cannot overclock on H67 boards

i see you overclocked the Core 2 Duo and may be expecting to overclock the 2500k in reality you need a P67 or Z68 motherboard to overclock and only K series chips will do so.


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## BlurryS (Sep 10, 2011)

Thank you for a fast answer!
Yeah, i was thinking about my 5770 but at the moment it works quite well in all the games,seems like my cpu is the biggest issue at the moment.


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## BlurryS (Sep 10, 2011)

H67 doesnt allow to overclock at all ?

For the start, i think stock i5 2500k is enough. But is this overclocking like 100% disabled ?


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## Red_or_Dead (Sep 10, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> As i said im expecting a huge performance improvement in GAMING.



yeah, how do you say it >>>>


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 10, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> yea you will see a big jump in games like BC2 etc
> 
> a friend of mine went from a Athlon X2 5000+ with an 8800GT getting 25-30fps in DX9 mode to getting 45-55fps in DX9 with the same gpu on an i5 2400,
> 
> ...



you can overclock, you just can't put the thing into super duper overdrive.


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## BlurryS (Sep 10, 2011)

Well okay, i never imagined that mobos would disable overclocking. Thats a bit of a problem now. Anyway, when it comes to overclocking ( i dont intend to overclock it at the moment ) then ill get a new mobo...again -.-


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## crazyeyesreaper (Sep 10, 2011)

correct H67 has 0 overclock features zip zero nadda goose egg.

if you plan to overclock at all get P67 or Z68 you dont even need a high end P67 or Z68 either
Asrock Extreme 3 SLI / Crossfire Z68 $125 with $10 promo code its $115
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI S...


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## BlurryS (Sep 10, 2011)

Does it atleast allow to keep my OC-ed 5770 ? if it blocked my gpu overclock too, id be pissed...


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## Easy Rhino (Sep 10, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> correct H67 has 0 overclock features zip zero nadda goose egg.
> 
> if you plan to overclock at all get P67 or Z68 you dont even need a high end P67 or Z68 either
> Asrock Extreme 3 SLI / Crossfire Z68 $125 with $10 promo code its $115
> ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI S...



i believe some h67 board you can indeed overclock it. not a lot mind you, but still some.

http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&...gc.r_pw.&fp=2ea25270560d40fb&biw=1160&bih=718


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## crazyeyesreaper (Sep 10, 2011)

mostly just bus clocking

but most boards and chips dont like anything past 103 since everything is handled by the CPU overclocking the bus can have wacky affects on the Sata HDDs, and a bunch of other things,

so 103 x 37 means youll get 3811 on average

where a cheap P67 board will  cost the same as a good H67 board and you can just up the multi

i have an utterly shit chip that dosent overclock i still hit 4.4ghz  thats an extra 600mhz over the H67 usual maximum,

last night Blu3flannel managed to get 4.8ghz and could boot at 5ghz just needs to tweak some settings, so as you can see, an extra 100mhz on H67 over turbo defaults vs an extra 1.1ghz from P67 / Z68


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## BlurryS (Sep 10, 2011)

I do hope that i can use that i5 for some time without any need to overclock it....


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## crazyeyesreaper (Sep 10, 2011)

overclocking is so damn easy tho theres no reason not to

up cpu multi on the turbo from 37 to 45, set voltage +30-40mv or 1.35v under load boot test stability its pretty much that easy.


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## BlurryS (Sep 10, 2011)

So you are saying that it is still possible to overclock h67 boards but with big limitations ?


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## crazyeyesreaper (Sep 10, 2011)

you max out at the turbo multi of 37 

usually it only hits 37 on 1 core you can most likely set that to all cores and hit 3.7ghz under load as a quadcore, with bus clocking you might get 103 stable which puts you at 3.8 even so any P67 board will take you 600-800mhz higher on air and if you have a really good CPU, upwards of over 1ghz higher then the max turbo multi.

essentially with a great chip and a P67 / Z68 board youll hit 4.4ghz - 5ghz on  2500k with good cooling

on H67 youll max out at 3.7-3.8

and honestly i dont know why we are having this conversation

the cost of the PH67 board your getting vs the cost of the Asrock Z68 is $10 thats the difference between 3.8 and possibly 5ghz $10

GIGABYTE H67 S1155 ATX/GA-PH67-DS3-B3   *$115* is the avg price i see
Asrock Extreme 3 Gen 3 Z68 *$125* promo code *EMCKAKA32* its *$115*


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## BlurryS (Sep 10, 2011)

Ofcourse i'd get the P67 motherboard if i'd havent already ordered these items.

Hardware OverVoltage Control IC - Enabling Extreme Overclocking 

GIGABYTE Hardware Overvoltage Control ICs feature more voltage control options than before for the CPU North Bridge and memory. The overvoltage controllers also provide hardware linear real-time voltage control, which means there is no delay compared to the GPIO controller in past implementations. 

Found that on the official gigabyte site under PH67 mobo which im getting...seems like its wrong tho.
Anyways, thanks


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## crazyeyesreaper (Sep 10, 2011)

Its a possibility they will let you overclock further but ive seen 0 reviews on Gigabytes PH67 boards, from any reliable sources seen nothing but previews.


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## BlurryS (Sep 10, 2011)

Okay, anyway im gonna wait that mobo and im going to test it right away. But i really hope that stock i5 is more than enough at the moment.


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## arnoo1 (Sep 10, 2011)

2 years ago i went up from a amd athlon 6000 ( 90nm?) To a intelcore 2 quad q9550 and in gta 4 i went from 22fps to 59fps with a 9800gtx 840mhz core, 2000mhz mem, 
So upgrading to a 2500k is a good choice, real solid cpu and maybe a new gpu, you are lacking behind with that 5770


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## wolf (Sep 10, 2011)

you will notice a huuuuuge difference, even if you leave the 2500K at stock. I moved to one from a PII X6 1090T and even then I'm certain overall the system is markedly faster. basically your doubling the core count, for core's that are not only considerably faster clock for clock, but also clocked faster.

enjoy!


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## BlurryS (Sep 10, 2011)

Thanks for positive answers, i will still keep my hopes up^^ 
Even though, my new mobo possibly wont allow me to overclock this beast 2500k


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## Dent1 (Sep 10, 2011)

Ish...


5770 is a limiting factor. I can remember a couple of years back the 48xx used to struggle on GTA IV, so the 5770 which is equivalent most probably will too. You'd get good frame rates but you isn’t maxing it out. Battlefield 3 nobody knows the full specification, but using Bad Company 2 as an example the 5770 could just about max it out at a respectable frame rate. If Bad Company 3 is more significantly more intensive I'd say a 5770 would struggle at anything above medium settings (online with 64 Players). Saying that the game hasn’t been released so I'm talking speculation. I feel 3 GBs becoming borderline minimum of ram these days on a modern operating system (Vista/Win7) I'd be looking to upgrade ram and video card within a year or so.

Aside from those two games, you shouldn't have an issue maxing out most games, huge upgrade from a core 2 duo to an i5. Enjoy


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## BlurryS (Sep 11, 2011)

We will see. 
I dont intend to max out GTA IV, but gta iv is very cpu intensive game, and ive seen some people running it at quite high settings with hd 5770 and quad cores. About 3 gb ram, in my first post i said that im gonna upgrade from 3gb random memories to 4 gb kingston xyperx ddr3 memories . Also my 5770 is overclocked in msi afterburner too. Im planning to upgrade my vga soon too but at the moment my cpu is 5 years old already, and vga about 1 year. I usually upgrade my graphics in 1-2 years but right now, cpu is a major priority one. 
Anyway, i can see that its a good upgrade so i cant wait !


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## Riotpump (Sep 11, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> a friend of mine went from a Athlon X2 5000+ with an 8800GT getting 25-30fps in DX9 mode to getting 45-55fps in DX9 with the same gpu on an i5 2400.



I have experience in exactly what Crazy mentioned.  My previous build was an Athlon X2 5200+ dual core default 2.7GHz.  When I upgraded to the i5-2500k, it literally doubled my GTAIV FPS. It was in the 20's and 30's as well...went up to 60+ and once I overclocked it performance improved further.  With the default clock you will definitely notice an improvement with all your current games.  My gpu is a 5750 clocked up to 5770 so I had similar concerns about it slowing down the experience.  It is a solid mid range card that is fully utilized with a quad core since it is no longer bottlenecked by your older cpu.  As others as stated now it is the bottleneck ;p

The beauty of Sandy Bridge CPU's is that they speed themselves up based on demand.  in GTAIV for example you will be playing at 3.7 turbo instead of just the 3.3 normal clock...and it works the exact opposite in just say internet browsing.  Prior to my oc up to 4.2GHz my i5 would normally operate at around 1.8GHz and that was perfect for normal usage(internet browsing, watching movies, listening to music).  Even though some games are poorly optimized(damn console ports).  Seriously the jump from dual core to quad core is worth it...especially for gaming.


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## BlurryS (Sep 11, 2011)

Nice, every positive comment makes me wanna more ! 
I dont think my gpu would be a big bottleneck ? its clocked to 900/1300


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## Crap Daddy (Sep 11, 2011)

GTA 4 benchmark - C2D E8400 3GHz with GTX275 732 core, around 35 FPS, i5-2500K stock, same card same settings - around 55 FPS. So yes, you'll get a new life out of your 5770 but don't expect miracles in BF3. It will still require a powerful GPU. Pretty bad that you didn't ask before you ordered the mobo. For just a little more money you could have got a board with overclocking potential.


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## BlurryS (Sep 11, 2011)

i know, only thing that makes me sad is the mobo  for 13 more euros i could get P67 board, shame on me. By the time BF3 comes out, ill probably get a new gpu, just hoping that i5 2500k would be enough for it. And i think when i get a new mobo when it comes to overclocking, it should be enough cause its quite a beast isn't it


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## Crap Daddy (Sep 11, 2011)

With a better GPU, even at stock, the 2500K will be enough for BF3. As Bad Company 2 already uses all four cores, BF3 will do the same and your 2500K runs all four cores at 3.4GHz in turbo.


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## Dent1 (Sep 11, 2011)

I used to have a two overclocked 4850s in crossfire.

A single overclocked 4850 isn’t too far behind a 5770 at stock. 

A single 4850 could run GTA with settings at a mixture of medium and high. There was still elements of occasional dips in frame rate but was more than playable. In crossfire mode (two 4850s working together) the frame rate increased dramatically, and allowed me to have more of the sliders on high. But I definitely couldn’t put all the graphical sliders to the far right (very high settings) unless I wanted to play a slideshow.

Again, you'll still have a wonderful experience with a mixture of medium and high, game still looks gorgeous. As for the quad core issue, I can confirm when I disabled a core or two on my quadcore GTA IV didn’t like it. It's a quad core beast and the i5 is equipped for it.

Edit:

In regards to BF3, you have to keep in mind that playing offline is not the same as online, in terms of GPU intensity. Offline its very rigid and scripted with very few CPU characters’ to render. Online you are going to be in a much larger map with up to 64 players on screen at the same time with shooting, driving, flying helicopters and planes and REAL players thinking for themselves.

Same with BFBC2, most modern CPU + GPU could max it out in campaign, but online the same CPU + GPU  might not be enough for it at the same graphical settings.


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## BlurryS (Sep 11, 2011)

Well this mobo supports crossfire, it has 2 pcie x 16 slots but when 2nd card is added, then one slot will run 16x and other 4x. I wonder if i added 2 5770s and one in 4x mode, would it reduce the cards performance dramatically ? keep in mind that both of them are 2.0 pciex, even the 4x one. Usually the 4x slot used to be 1.1 or something like that


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## Dent1 (Sep 11, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> Well this mobo supports crossfire, it has 2 pcie x 16 slots but when 2nd card is added, then one slot will run 16x and other 4x. I wonder if i added 2 5770s and one in 4x mode, would it reduce the cards performance dramatically ? keep in mind that both of them are 2.0 pciex, even the 4x one. Usually the 4x slot used to be 1.1 or something like that



In crossfire the 5770 would perform closer to a 5850 or 6850,or slightly behind a 5870 or 4870X2. In crossfire you'd be performing closer to a high end card of today and I doubt you'd need to worry about BF3 or GTA IV.

No 4x mode will not degrade performance (much).


See how the 5770 performs in Crossfire in Crysis Warhead, you can change the game yourself with pretty much consistent results in most games http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-5770-review-test/18


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## BlurryS (Sep 11, 2011)

This is cool !
Nowadays 5770 is quite cheap too, i think instead of buying a new card, ill just add one 5770 !


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## xenocide (Sep 12, 2011)

Crap Daddy said:


> With a better GPU, even at stock, the 2500K will be enough for BF3. As Bad Company 2 already uses all four cores, BF3 will do the same and your 2500K runs all four cores at 3.4GHz in turbo.



It should be noted that BF3 scales up to 8 Threads, but BC2 only to 4 Threads.


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## BlurryS (Sep 12, 2011)

I really dont think that i5 2500k would not be enough. I've been using my E6300 for 5 years and until now, it has eaten all the games i throw at him, at very decent settings. I usually play games maxed @ 1920x1080, my 5770 has handled it well for now, but im quite sure when bf3 comes out, my gpu would not be enough, but i5 is more than enough i suppose...


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## brandonwh64 (Sep 12, 2011)

coming from a AMD 965BE to a I7 920, I seen a sizable difference so you coming from a older C2D to a SB quad will be OMGWTFBBQ status


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## Dent1 (Sep 12, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> I usually play games maxed @ 1920x1080, my 5770 has handled it well for now, but im quite sure when bf3 comes out, my gpu would not be enough, but i5 is more than enough i suppose...



WOE. Didn't realised you game at 1920x1080 i.e. 1080p. I can confidently say that you will not be playing GTA IV @ 1920x1080p with a 5770 without some frame rate drops, maybe at 1680x1050. 1920x1080 isn't happening with BF3 either. But yes the i5 is enough, but it isnt going to compensate for minimal ram and a average GPU.


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## JrRacinFan (Sep 12, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> Well this mobo supports crossfire, it has 2 pcie x 16 slots but when 2nd card is added, then one slot will run 16x and other 4x. I wonder if i added 2 5770s and one in 4x mode, would it reduce the cards performance dramatically ? keep in mind that both of them are 2.0 pciex, even the 4x one. Usually the 4x slot used to be 1.1 or something like that



No, you would notice quite a bit of a bump in games that like crossfire and even on ones that dont play quite as nice you will still see a bump.



BlurryS said:


> i know, only thing that makes me sad is the mobo  for 13 more euros i could get P67 board, shame on me. By the time BF3 comes out, ill probably get a new gpu, just hoping that i5 2500k would be enough for it. And i think when i get a new mobo when it comes to overclocking, it should be enough cause its quite a beast isn't it



Yeah, overclocking on an H6x board is near non-existent. Did you order that 2500K, may be going down to i5 2400 could be a better option if you don't want to mess around with getting a different board soon while saving a little bit of budget? Enough to maybe pre-order BF3 ... 



xenocide said:


> It should be noted that BF3 scales up to 8 Threads, but BC2 only to 4 Threads.



You are correct but pretty sure with a quick patch it could support even more if needed.



Dent1 said:


> WOE. Didn't realised you game at 1920x1080 i.e. 1080p. I can confidently say that you will not be playing GTA IV @ 1920x1080p with a 5770 without some frame rate drops, maybe at 1680x1050. 1920x1080 isn't happening with BF3 either. But yes the i5 is enough, but it isnt going to compensate for minimal ram and a average GPU.



Then again could always go ahead and reduce the playing resolution as you mentioned and up to 2x AA. I have barely noticed a difference going from 1600x900 4xAA to 1080p 2xAA. Then again I have bad vision LOL


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## BlurryS (Sep 12, 2011)

Yeah, that mobo stuff is stupid lol. Anyway i will upgrade to P67 board when i need to overclock this badass cpu. About gpu, probably im gonna wait 7xxx series and then upgrade it. I think it would be a good idea to get a new 7xxx series card and P67/Z68 board. But at the moment i think im good. 
@ Dent1
I play gta iv @ 1920x1080 with med/high settings 25fps+, some places it drops to 20. Im just gonna wait my cpu and im going to report my benchmarks back here !


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## Hübie (Sep 12, 2011)

If you´re going to run CFX you may buy a board with x16&x8slots (e.g. ASUS P8P67 Pro). The non Pro has a x16/x4 configuration.
Another option for saving money is to get a H-Series board and a non-k CPU. You can slightly overclock via the BCLK. Keep in mind that the new Core i-Series don´t support DDR2 RAM.


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## BlurryS (Sep 12, 2011)

I think ill just keep the K series, its easier to buy new mobo for 80 euros than spend another 180 for a a new cpu. I still havent decided about running CFX or no, i still have to decide, gonna wait for 7xxx series and then we will see. I never even thought about that i series would support ddr 2 ram, im buying ddr 3 kingston xyperx


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## Hübie (Sep 12, 2011)

Kingston is a good brand with long warranties. Maybe the KHX1333C9D3B1K2/8G are the deal for you. Fast, low price and fast enough (the new core i series wont benefit much from fast RAMs).
I had 3 Generations CFX (X850XT&X800XL, X1900XT&X1950XT, 2xHD4850) and i´m happy that i changed to single GPU back again. Too many trouble which isn´t worth the gain in performance you get. A good friend runs 2 HD 5870 and still has some problems like flickering screens (BFBC2 - solved already), black squares on alpha-textures (Crysis 2 - dunno if solved..) and other stuff. Most can be solved by the user itself, some require a new Cap/Drvier.
So i suggest u buy a faster single-GPU like the HD 6870 (i bought one last week for only 137 bucks here in germany).

regards


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## BlurryS (Sep 12, 2011)

Yes, we have 6870-s here too with quite a good price at the moment but since im low on the buck, i can afford only cpu, mobo and ram. And i think those are number one priority because this system is 5 years old, gpu is 1 year old. I'd better change the system and then when im able to afford a new gpu, i will have it. Prices will drop too so, soon i could get a 6870/6950/6970 for a quite a good price !


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## ViperXTR (Sep 13, 2011)

im comin from an X2 5200+ 2.7Ghz overclocked to 3.2Ghz to _just_ an entry level i3 2100 @stock of 3.1Ghz, and all CPU sensitive games such as GTA4, BFBC2, Shift/shift 2 and even non cpu bound games, received very noticeable performance boost, even doubled.
(incidentally PCSX2 and Dolphin is runnin mostly at full speed now hehe)


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## JrRacinFan (Sep 13, 2011)

ViperXTR said:


> im comin from an X2 5200+ 2.7Ghz overclocked to 3.2Ghz to _just_ an entry level i3 2100 @stock of 3.1Ghz, and all CPU sensitive games such as GTA4, BFBC2, Shift/shift 2 and even non cpu bound games, received very noticeable performance boost, even doubled.
> (incidentally PCSX2 and Dolphin is runnin mostly at full speed now hehe)



Res of the display 1280x1024 I presume? Just curious.


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## ViperXTR (Sep 13, 2011)

yeah, as stated on my specs. That way, my weak card won't get raped on doing 1080p XD, tho i might change it as well soon...


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

Okay, reporting ! 
I now have my new system components and i gotta admit im impressed. I could crank up the GTA IV settings to high/very high @ 1920x1080 and keep decent frames. 
BUT seems like there is another problem. My main harddrive, samsung 250gb sounds like its always being accessed by something and is under heavy load always, and thats not good because it makes my pc lag and getting hiccups in games. My other HDD 1TB Samsung Spinpoint is just fine.

And just checked the overclocking ability on my mobo. FSB is opened, i could change it but i didnt save it, dont wanna ruin the warranty on the first day. Was also able to change multiplier. So i think im able to overclock it with this board ?


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

Now i have a problem. Games dont work as well as they did with my C2D. For example, i checked my GTA IV benchmark, it used only 25% of my cpu. Started up The Witcher 2, used to run fine with my c2d at medium settings, lags with i5 2500k. Test Drive Unlimited 2, lags too. 
I dont understand whats wrong...:S


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## BarbaricSoul (Sep 14, 2011)

have you updated your drivers?


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

Im still running ati catalyst 11.7, 11.8 is latest but before they worked well...


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## BarbaricSoul (Sep 14, 2011)

I mean your drivers for everything, not just the GFX card. Also, have you checked your temps on everything?


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

Yes everything is up to date. My cpu is idling at 28 degrees celsius, and gpu at 44. Under load cpu doesnt pass 45 and gpu hits 65 sometimes


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## BarbaricSoul (Sep 14, 2011)

have you checked your voltages in bios to make sure they are properly set? I know I have to set the voltage for my RAM, otherwise my system only gives my RAM 1.8 volts, but it requires 2 volts.


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

Voltages are fine. 1.5 required, 1.5 given. From EasyTune i checked that when im idling and surfing, my cpu clock speed is jumping between 800mhz and 3700mhz, is that normal ? i know that it should use turbo while gaming but while idling...


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## caleb (Sep 14, 2011)

Maybe the samsung HDD is going to die soon?
Get a WD Black as main (freakin fast HDD), its a shame to run 2500K on an old HDD like your 250GB.


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

Maybe im just gonna install windows on my 1tb samsung spinpoint ? 32mb, 10 000rpm...atleast better than my old one


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## NdMk2o1o (Sep 14, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> Maybe im just gonna install windows on my 1tb samsung spinpoint ? 32mb, 10 000rpm...atleast better than my old one



Spinpoint's are 7.2K like most 3.5" hard drives with the exception of WD Raptors/enterprise class SAS drives. Still plenty fast enough though and would make a better boot drive than your 250Gb


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

Okay. I just ran prime95, as soon as i started it. My pc got all laggy and choppy, same as playing GTA IV. Seems like this stuff only occurs when cores are under load...


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## JrRacinFan (Sep 14, 2011)

Is there a 4 pin or 8 pin connection on that board?

EDIT:
4 pin; I have a feeling you may need to switch that board sooner than later. Just my thinking is that the board's phases can't supply enough power to the chip. Is this a fresh windows installation?


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

No its not fresh, it has been for a quite a long time. And yes, 4 pin connection


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## JrRacinFan (Sep 14, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> No its not fresh, it has been for a quite a long time. And yes, 4 pin connection



Reinstall OS and then go from there. Visit www.ninite.com it's a web installer for most up to date most used applications.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Sep 14, 2011)

Yeah it took long enough but they're are definitely a fair amount of games now that really benefit from more cores. Surely this will continue with the new titles on the horizon.


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## Hübie (Sep 14, 2011)

You should setup a new Windows installation. Old driver can occur errors...


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

Yeah, just finished installing. System feels more agile, and fast. Going to install few games and see how they work.


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## Dent1 (Sep 14, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> Okay, reporting !
> My main harddrive, samsung 250gb sounds like its always being accessed by something and is under heavy load always, and thats not good because it makes my pc lag and getting hiccups in games. My other HDD 1TB Samsung Spinpoint is just fine.



That is because you have minimal RAM. What is happening your RAM is running low so it borrows from the hard disk drive which is signficantly slower and hence why the HDD is always being accessed and why the frame rate drops in games. The Spinpoint has more cache and has faster access time, read/write than the other hard disk drive hence why it's less noticeable. But the underlying issue is not enough RAM.

I would advise that Windows and games are installed on the faster HDD and more RAM is installed.


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

I was thinking about ram too. Im gonna add another 2 or 4 gigs. But are you sure that its the ram ?


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## JrRacinFan (Sep 14, 2011)

4GB of DDR3 Dent1. I don't think that is the issue. Did the "lag" cease with the fresh install?


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## BlurryS (Sep 14, 2011)

No im still getting hiccups in Gta IV, probably in other games too. Between hiccups it runs about 45-60 frames with no problems but then suddenly it goes crazy. But surfing around in windows is very smooth and fast. Better than before. But possibly, could it be caused by RAM ?


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## Dent1 (Sep 14, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> No im still getting hiccups in Gta IV, probably in other games too. Between hiccups it runs about 45-60 frames with no problems but then suddenly it goes crazy. But surfing around in windows is very smooth and fast. Better than before. But possibly, could it be caused by RAM ?



It's a possibility, if you don't have enough. If you've got 4GBs should be fine. I was under the impression you had 3 GBs of RAM. But now I see you've got 4GBs of Kingston which should be fine. If it happens only in GTA IV then I wouldnt be surprised, the game is known to be buggy and has performance problems on many high end systems due to dodgy coding.

Maybe run Vantage Mark, your score will give us an indication as to whether your PC is performing as it should based on your end score. http://www.3dmark.com/3dmarkvantage/


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## ViperXTR (Sep 15, 2011)

the sudden drop of framerate seems to point out that something is throttling down during the event. Did you monitor the actual CPU and/or GPU clock frequency during that event? (IN realtime). Try running CPU-Z and/or GPU-Z w/ temp monitor and try prime 95/any CPU or GPU intensive task and try to look if the CPU/GPU frequency suddenly drops down (or sudden spike in temperature)


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## BlurryS (Sep 15, 2011)

I still think that its the RAM. Because, i ran NFS Hot Pursuit ( 2010 ), it ran beautifully. I could play it maxed out, with antialiasing, super sampling forced in catalyst. But when i run GTA IV or Prime 95, which both are stressing ram, then my computer gets all choppy and stuff.


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## ViperXTR (Sep 15, 2011)

GTA4 and Prime95 stresses the cpu more than HP afaik. MSI Afterburner, HWinfo or other monitoring software could help you see if the clocks are running optimally during high stress moments.


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## Bo$$ (Sep 15, 2011)

tried defraging? GTA is heavy on textures so it is natural that they lag as it loads them up


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## Hayder_Master (Sep 15, 2011)

Sure you really feel big improvment.


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## BlurryS (Sep 15, 2011)

@ Bo$$, so you are trying to say that my 5 year old C2D didnt lag while textures loaded and i5 does ? that doesn't make sense. Anyway, CPU and GPU clocks are all healthy^^. I'll get another 2 gigs of RAM tomorrow and see what will happen


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## JrRacinFan (Sep 15, 2011)

Have you ran Vantage? Sounds to me like it's only GTA4 causing problems.


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## BlurryS (Sep 15, 2011)

Also, i can confirm that Dead Island runs beautiful at max settings @ 1920x1080. 
It's weird because GTA IV used to run just fine...


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## BlurryS (Sep 16, 2011)

http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/5038/3dmarkp.jpg
 Tests were ran @ 1920x1080 on high settings.


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## JrRacinFan (Sep 16, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/5038/3dmarkp.jpg
> Tests were ran @ 1920x1080 on high settings.



Looks fine. Methink it's GTA4 acting weird.


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## Bo$$ (Sep 16, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> @ Bo$$, so you are trying to say that my 5 year old C2D didnt lag while textures loaded and i5 does ? that doesn't make sense. Anyway, CPU and GPU clocks are all healthy^^. I'll get another 2 gigs of RAM tomorrow and see what will happen



i mean no matter how fast the CPU if the HDD cannot load them quick the PC will lag, just defrag and update you video and sound card drivers


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## Dent1 (Sep 16, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> @ Bo$$, so you are trying to say that my 5 year old C2D didnt lag while textures loaded and i5 does ? that doesn't make sense.



It does make sense because GTA IV is known to act unpredictably depending on the rig. Look back on old threads and you'll see users with ulltra high end (at the time) GTX 295s and 4870X2s sometimes ran like crap. Likewise sometimes people with a lesser rigs didnt experience issues. GTA IV's performance is very hard to predict. Its the game's bad coding.

I sort of knew this was going to happen to you, hence why I told you before you bought your parts that GTA IV was going to run with major frame rate drops.  




BlurryS said:


> http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/5038/3dmarkp.jpg
> Tests were ran @ 1920x1080 on high settings.



That doesn't tell us anything. You need to run Vantage at default settings and default resolution otherwise it makes it difficult to compare with other rigs.


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## BlurryS (Sep 16, 2011)

This was done with default settings


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## Dent1 (Sep 16, 2011)

The Tomshardware review show 3D Mark Vantage tested on a ATI 5770 with an Intel Core i5-750 (Lynnfield) 2.66 GHz. I'm just looking at the performance preset. I'm presuming your results were also done on the default performance preset too.



You scored 17155 which is expected as you've got a slightly faster/new CPU. They only scored 12977.







You scored 10491 in the GPU test, the 5770 in the review scored only 8379 - again this is expected due to you have a faster/new CPU.







Overall you scored 11620. In the review they scored only 9193. Again this is expected as as you have a faster/newer CPU.







From the results it seems both your CPU and GPU is performing well. The issue is with GTA IV and is probably an isolated issue.


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## BlurryS (Sep 16, 2011)

Yeah, they seem to work well in other games too. But for example GTA IV and The Witcher 2 both lag.


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## Bo$$ (Sep 16, 2011)

update you video and sound card drivers


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## brandonwh64 (Sep 16, 2011)

I had major issues with GTA4 with tearing and glitches but fixed it with a update.


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## BlurryS (Sep 16, 2011)

Video card drivers are the latest, sound also. Game is patched up to 1.0.7.0
Im going to borrow some ram sticks from my friend before i buy any, i really hope 
its ram lol


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## Hübie (Sep 16, 2011)

I have 8GB RAM and a swap-file of 256MB on my SSD. I don´t notice any hangs or stuttering in GTA4. So maybe it is caused by slow access on HDD or even the RAM.
But i must admit that GTA4 is a worst case because its not optimized for PCs (bad code).

bye Hübie


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## Dent1 (Sep 16, 2011)

Definitely bad coding. Like I said a few days ago I had occasional frame rates drop and stutter on my 4850 crossfire and I was running only 1440x900. 

So 1080p on a single 5770 is asking for trouble on a horribly optimised game


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## BlurryS (Sep 16, 2011)

Yes but the point is, this single 5770 used to work fine @ 1080p in gta iv.
It doesn't matter what settings i use. I put it on the 800x600 with low settings and i still had lock-ups.


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## BlurryS (Sep 16, 2011)

Okay now im quite sure its RAM. Just started some heavy unpacking and saw that physical ram usage is almost 95%, while cpu is only 0-3%. AND same kind of lock-ups, that occur in GTA IV, are right now occuring in windows. Maybe one of my ram modules has gone bad or something.


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## Dent1 (Sep 16, 2011)

BlurryS said:


> Okay now im quite sure its RAM. Just started some heavy unpacking and saw that physical ram usage is almost 95%, while cpu is only 0-3%. AND same kind of lock-ups, that occur in GTA IV, are right now occuring in windows. Maybe one of my ram modules has gone bad or something.



Maybe your issue isnt just capacity, maybe its bandwidth and timings...

Are you sure your memory is set to the correct bus fequency. Some motherboard's dont pick up on the bus/timings correctly and hence configure it to safe settings. i.e. a memory stick @ 1600MHz might get downclocked to 1333MHz automatically with much slower timings.

Run CPU-Z check it's memory settings and seeif they look correct according to Kingston's spec.

http://www.filehippo.com/download_cpuz/


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## BlurryS (Sep 16, 2011)

Everything seems fine. I should get another stick of ram soon. I'll let you guys know

EDIT: Okay, heres the deal. Checked CPU-Z again and realized something.
DRAM Frequency 665mhz ( ram should be 1333mhz, i think ) 
FSB: DRAM 1.5
others are 9-9-9-24

Is that okay ? im worried about the 665mhz stuff.

2nd edit: Did some research and it should be fine i think...


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