Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

Question

PC Underperforming, Need Help

Dec 25, 2014 6:10AM PST

Hello, I just completed a new build, and have been experiencing issues. In all of the games I try to play, I keep getting low framerates (nothing above 30) despite my attempts to raise or lower graphical settings. I have tried Skyrim, Fallout, Metro LL, and Crysis 3 so far with no luck. I am also not sure how hard my cpu should be working when sitting at the desktop.

My Specs:
-----------------------------------------------------------
CPU: AMD FX-8350 - Factory Clock (4 GHz) w/ Stock Cooler
GPU: Zotac Nvidia GTX 970 4GB
MOBO: Asrock Fatality 990fx Killer Motherboard
Storage: WD Red 3TB HDD & Samsung EVO 120GB SSD
RAM: 8GB Team Vulcan DDR3 1600 MHz
PSU: Rosewill ARC 750W
OS: Windows 8.1
------------------------------------------------------------

I've been scouring the web and it seems like others are having issues with their GTX 970 cards, experiencing extremely low fps for what should be a decent card, so I thought that might be the problem. I play at 1920x1080 resolution, and can't even get higher than 30 fps in fallout, which I was able to do on my old build with a Radeon 6870.

I also tried removing the stock cooler for my CPU, and reapplied the thermal paste, but it did not help at all. I know that AMD processors are not as good at single thread/core processes when compared to Intel, but In didn't think that it made this big of a difference. If anyone could offer help I would greatly appreciate it

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Answer
I take it this is a self built.
Dec 25, 2014 6:44AM PST

So the OS install can be treacherous with no one telling you which drivers and apps to install. There are summaries like 1. OS. 2. Chipset Driver. 3. Other drivers. 4. Helper apps. But it looks pretty new so why not RMA if the suppliers won't tell us what drivers and apps to install?
Bob

- Collapse -
Yes it is
Dec 25, 2014 6:49AM PST

It is self built, should I try reinstalling the OS then?

- Collapse -
Why do that?
Dec 25, 2014 7:08AM PST

Was there some issue during the install?

- Collapse -
No
Dec 25, 2014 8:13AM PST

I'm not follwing what your advice is then, when I was installing windows, I accidentally installed it on both drives, so I wiped them and reinstalled on my SSD, idk if that could be a problem

- Collapse -
So Windows is in.
Dec 25, 2014 8:31AM PST

But what about the post Windows work? I don't see a rundown here.
Bob

- Collapse -
Answer
Monitor Performance
Dec 25, 2014 8:51PM PST

You might want to reinstall the OS and then install the latest available driver for your card, cause sometimes a patch available for the driver helps it being optimize for a specific or set of games. This was the case happened to me with my AMD Radeon 7770. You should install some gadgets or applications that can portray you your CPU, RAM, GPU and HDD workload and performance so that you may get an idea what is happening at a specific instance. There are several programs available that might help you that make a graph of history of different components and their work load at different times.

- Collapse -
I tried this
Dec 26, 2014 3:48PM PST

I tried a clean install of windows and it did not hellp, and I have tried to install and uninstall each of Nvidia's drivers. I think it is a driver issue

- Collapse -
Nod.
Dec 26, 2014 11:59PM PST

That's the first I read here about the work we do after Windows. I don't see a good plan yet.

It's more like:

0. BIOS defaults with the one change you found you needed (most are fine without changes.)
1. Windows.
2. Motherboard chipset drivers.
3. Audio, network, video drivers in that order.
4. HELPER APPS!!! (this is new to most and on desktops not as many but still about half the desktops have such.)

Bob

- Collapse -
Answer
Direct X
Dec 26, 2014 1:13AM PST

Installed?

- Collapse -
But which DirectX?
Dec 26, 2014 2:02AM PST
- Collapse -
Yeah it is installed
Dec 26, 2014 3:48PM PST

It came with 8.1 I believe, but I double checked and it is in fact installed (DX11)