I don't like being fed inconsistent information.
This is a concern I shared too...
But after 11+ pages you don't find it a very odd that absolutely nothing has resolved the issue or even improved the issue(s) at-hand after all the suggestions (good, bad or questionable)? Keep in mind this is not the first tech forum or thread he's made on this very issue he's spent an incredible amount of time trying to resolve. Feel free to claim its not a platform issue...but in my eyes there isn't much left diagnostically except for the Dell platform. I believe this goes beyond simple drivers at this point...and I hope I'm wrong, but he's been trying all sorts of drivers since this thread began and likely before...hasn't fixed his issues yet.
I could put the OP's CPU in my machine and it would feel exactly like my 3820 as it's the same thing just in Xeon form.
Yep and your platform would handle it like a champ and game like a beast because it was designed to, his Dell clearly isn't when it comes to gaming in my eyes from what results we've seen thus far. What you suggest here would've been my next diagnostic step a week ago, take this dude's hardware (CPU and RAM specifically), put it in a different build and verify performance metrics to see if the issue transfers to verify if we have a CPU issue, memory module issue, or a platform issue. He cannot do that it seems, and nothing anyone including myself or you has suggested has made a lick of difference in the mixing pot of the OP's Dell workstation along with the OP trying to do his own diagnostics and blending it all together and posting results.
I haven't seen anyone prove or show that this isn't a Dell platform issue/design limitation here yet, and knowing it is a more budget-oriented workstation-class platform with Dell proprietary design from 2011, I am not surprised we're seeing performance/response issues in gaming. This machine was clearly not designed to do and keeps proving it again, and again, and again, as everything suggested changes nothing for the OP. OEM's design their boards and to stack em deep and sell em cheap, especially the budget options. They make design changes, cut out/gimp areas not necessary for their design intentions, use different grades of components (especially compared to enthusiast-grade boards), take shortcuts at the cost of performance that won't be noticed for the intended use of the platform. This is nothing new for OEMs as I'm sure you know. Again while I hope I'm wrong on this observation, so far the results aren't changing no matter what we suggest. That could still be user error, something that should've been RMA'd, or a design limitation.
My CPU usage has small spikes when I move the mouse around, honestly I don't think that's the issue here either. Granted I'm on a different platform altogether, but I have 0 issues while gaming. Those spikes would need to be more significant IMHO to make a realistic difference in gaming...but maybe there's a polling/cycle/interrupt issue that's causing the latency issues/stutter the OP is experiencing, but he stated it was more when something is loaded than when the mouse is moving...maybe we can try a PS/2 mouse if the board has a connection for it to verify. Seems far fetched, but at this point in this thread, that's what we're left with, trying everything for the sake of proving this machine can actually game smoothly.
@TwinDenis maybe you could look into doing an X79 build and reusing parts from your workstation rather than a totally new setup too. Would make it harder to resell the Dell if you were to do so. Hopefully someone will have a working solution for you. As I said earlier if this build were on my bench I'd be a lot more keen to diagnosing it any further. It depends on what you want to do, and how much more time you want to invest in this matter to see if a solution exists or if we're chasing unicorns.
On the BIOS downgrade, did this issue occur when you were on A12? I don't generally recommend this with OEM stuff, but if you feel it is worth a shot it is up to you.
Honestly as it stands right now if we're going to keep chasing this unicorn, I'd like to suggest another totally fresh start, format and OS install, fresh drivers, fresh testing. Using straight up WHQL Dell and Nvidia drivers for that OS. Be it 7, 8, 10. Use your SSD. Steer clear of the driver scanners and installer junk...please, stick to the OEM and Nvidia official drivers. I still feel it won't solve anything though, but a fresh slate might be worth another go here just so we can re-verify and resolve any doubts over previous results, and keep better consistency over the test metrics to be ran and analyzed. Maybe we can verify the data outputs and screenshots better so we're not making incorrect assumptions while trying to assist you.
Further research does show other issues experiencing stuttering shut of HT and were able to resolve that. But as you recently said that did not fix it for you... But maybe with the older BIOS + HT disabled it is worth a shot?
Did you review the release notes for the A14 release? How about A12? Dell usually shows some notes, though they can be very vague at times so it's kind of a crapshoot...
