Poor performance on new gaming PC

[ghost1984]

Hi.
I'm just getting into pc gaming but since i had my new desktop build i haven't had the best results with gaming.
I get poor performance on pretty much every game i've tried from Mass Effect 2/ crysis 1 and 2 and now Arkham Asylum.
I get a lot of frame rate drops and in some cases like crysis 2 i can't even play on medium settings without massive drops.
I've tried a lot of tweaks, research etc but i'm pretty much going crazy here. Help me out.


Chipset : AMD 880G
Processor : AMD Phenom II X6 1090T @ 3200MHz
Physical Memory : 8192MB (4 x 2048 DDR3-SDRAM )
Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570
Hard Disk : Western Digital WD5000AAKS-00UU3A0 ATA Device (500GB)
Hard Disk : Hitachi HTS543232L9A300 (320GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : ELBY CLONEDRIVE
DVD-Rom Drive : ATAPI iHAS324 B
Monitor Type : Toshiba TOSHIBA-TV - 40 inches
Network Card : Realtek Semiconductor RTL8168/8111 PCIe Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
Operating System : Windows 7 Ultimate Professional Media Center 6.01.7600 (64-bit)
DirectX : Version 11.00

 

[wiseowl]

So are u sure your video card and CD player are up to date. It seems to me like your software is not up to date. U should install the latest software to make sure your games run right.

 

[ghost1984]

Well my GPU is up to date with latest drivers. What do you mean by "CD PLAYER"?

 

[MrBlkfx1]

Your low FPS with a machine like yours seems very strange. You should theoretically be able to rip through those games with ease, with maybe the exception being Crysis at max settings.

But yeah, usually in these situations, its just out of date drivers. If you are absolutely sure all of your drivers for MOBO,GPU..etc then we can rule that out.

Are you running any programs that may be pretty demanding during gameplay? Do you use any ADD-ons for your games, or programs to increase performance?

What resolution do you play at?

Also, make sure all your games have the necessary updates and patches. That too could cause some issues.

 

[be_patient]

Might be a weird one, and most likely not the case but I'll mention it anyways. Are you definitely using your discreet gpu card? Meaning you haven't connected to your motherboard video output have you? I'd also check the BIOS to make sure PCI-e graphics is the primary video output as with low fps like that it looks like your discreet GPU is not being used, or at least not correctly.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Are you running games off the 5400RPM drive by any chance? That might be one of the reasons for the frame-rate drop. You've got a ton of RAM though, so games shouldn't go to swapfile much, if at all.

Have you tried running benchmarking software like 3DMark?

 

[klepto12]

yeah i agree with rage is you are running games off that 320GB 5400 rpm drive you might have problems there.

 

[herpaderp]

Even though most of the games you mentioned are Unreal engine games, and therefore rely heavily on texture streaming, I highly doubt a slow hard drive is causing massive performance drops. Normally, a slow HDD would give you problems like stuttering and slow loading textures, but not large bouts of frame dropping/low performance.

I really think you should focus on stress testing your GPU. A GTX 570 is a power hungry card and can run quite hot if it's not getting proper cooling. Try running Furmark and monitor your temperatures & voltages with a software tool like EVGA precision, MSI afterburner or even GPU-Z. Look for excessively high temps (95C+) that might be making your card throttle, or large voltage jumps. I believe GTX 500 cards usually range from .95 to 1.025V, and most shouldn't greatly exceed 1.15V. Hopefully someone more familiar with the safe voltage ranges on a 570 can pitch in, but that's basically what you have to look for to make sure your GPU is operating correctly. Another indicator that there might be a problem with your card is if you see artifacting while running Furmark.

Hope this helps rule out your most expensive component.

-Edit-

You should also list your power supply. An underperforming/malfunctioning PSU can do things like affect system performance, and could even damage your system.

 

[Rage_3K_Moiz]

Furmark unrealistically stresses GPUs IMHO; it wouldn't hurt to try it, but it's not a very good benchmark of everyday gaming performance.