Random lag in games. Please help.

Out of curiosity what clock speeds are you running your 8320 at?
Because I may copy your profile to see how it works out.


And just a general offtopic question, If I was to replace my cpu cooler at any point would you guys have any recommendations. I was originally planning to get a noctua cooler (can't remember the model), but was advised against doing so by the guys at scorptech as it may not have been able to fit due to some high profile ram I have installed. So If I were to look into another cooler (probs air cooler) at any point in the future again I would have to take that into account.
(That's similar what it looks like for those who are curious)

I'm an Aussie so parts are likely to be a lot more expensive here in Aus as well.

EDIT:
This is the cooler I was originally going to buy before I ended up getting the corsair h55 (Got the model number mixed up before).
http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Cooling/CPU_Coolers_-_AIR/36260-NH-D14

why not just remove those ridiculous looking heat-sinks (ridiculous because nothing about them optimizes catching airflow or spreading heat) I had the exact same vengeance ram (1600Mhz) and removing the heatsinks did nothing to their temps.

I'd stick with the h55 personally.

As for settings, I dialled the cpu back to 3.8ghz, and reduced core voltage to 1.25 (do this incrementally and test for stability, in 0.05v steps).

I also put a custom profile on my cooler where I run the pump and fan at 100% once temp hits 55, whilst I let it drop down when the machine is idle to help maintain pump life.

Ok so I had a quick game of Act Of Agression today, and after monitoring temps and lag, I've come to the conclusion that temps and throttling is definiety the most likely issue. Temps do exceed 60 then after a bit lag sets in, temps rapidly drop to high 40's low 50's then the game speeds up again.

So not yet decided what to do. Checked my voltage and it is a factory settings still. (Haven't tried to down it yet).

Not sure about this yet, but thinking of possibly putting the h55 in the system im going to sell and going really overkill with air cooling in the main comp. something like the Noctua NH-D15 http://www.scorptec.com.au/product/Cooling/CPU_Coolers_-_AIR/54914-NH-D15
(There are stores that sell it $30 cheaper as well).

Still may not end up doing this but the option is looking tempting at the moment.

I have my temps spike to around 90 on large PA games and starmade under high load. Also when I'm running multi clients. I've got none of these issues because temp throttling is disabled. Disable it in the bios. F2 when you start the PC. Your cpu can run hot (70-80) for a few hours without serious damage being caused.

If you don't like those temps, I would un over clock the pc.

Just wondering mered if you have an amd or Intel cpu? Since they tend to handle temps really differently.

With this amd fx CPU 70 c is the limit and you can kill it real fast if you hang around or above that temp a lot.(from what I've read elsewhere anyway)

Overall not really keen on upping the temp further.

Ah. Yeah I'm running Intel. I guess you'll have to run better coolers (cough liqiud magic cough) or tone down the over clock or try cd's voltage suggestion.

Yeah under volting really helps, and as the fx is a really mature core chances are most should stay stable at the lower voltage.

I don't get how people claim to run these at 5ghz overclock though. I'm guessing it simply throttles in games lol.

I don't why you need that high. I bought a 4.0 cpu so I didn't need to over clock for planetside.

Well the FX is designed for high frequency as it's IPC (instructions per clock) are much lower than Intel.

A single FX core at 4ghz is roughly the same as a single Intel core running in the 2.8 - 3 ghz range.

FX 8 core at 5ghz is roughly equal to a stock i7 (just with way higher power usage). The thing is though the FX is an old design. I expect the situation to improve with the release of Zen next year (as that has been built from ground up for might higher IPC).

#justuseintelyoupeasants

Meh, AMD do an important job of keeping Intel honest Also over the years they've had some fantastic processors offering a lot more for your money than Intel did.

The reason I have the FX now is because AMD maintained socket compatibility from Phenom though to FX 8300 series meaning I could jump from my venerable but old Phenom II X3 to a FX 8320 without changing my main board.

I agree, at the moment if your building new, there isn't a worthwhile AMD option for high end gaming (their APU's make sense in budget machines though). That said they haven't released a processor* since 2012 so it's not surprising they're behind.

For the record I use a mixture of both- I just think people dismiss them too readily (especially on the graphics front where they're just as fast and usually offer you much more for your money).

*I'm referring to the high end here, the only new releases have been APU's aimed at the budget / mobile segments.

The downside to underclocking your FX CPU is that one AMD cycle can process about 65% of what one Intel cycle can. A 5GHz Bulldozer/Piledriver core is similar to a 3-3.5GHz Ivy Bridge/Haswell Core. Unless a program takes advantage of the multithreading, and unless it isn't limited by one thread needing to be very fast (like the PA Sim thread) then the 8 cores are never getting very close to a comparable performance. You should absolutely try to undervolt your CPU as low as you can get without touching frequency and see if that makes a noticeable improvement.

Edit: for stability, run IBT on Normal or higher for around an hour, AND pass Prime95 small FFT for 12, AND make sure you have no WHEA-Logger errors.

As for a cooler, don't get the Noctua NH-D14/D15. The Hyper 212+/EVO cools at about 75-80% as much for like 20% the cost. (I have both, and my Noctua dropped temps by like 15% maybe 20%.) I would recommend getting a good pair of matching (high static pressure) fans to go along with either if you think the performance isn't enough.

Edit: AMD has excellent price/performance only if you take into consideration the number of cores. Higher clock speeds and voltages scale very poorly with performance and power usage, which is why the TDP is so high, and they get so hot. To be fair, AMD's cores are probably way more efficient per watt per mV than Intel though. At this point, I would compare an 8 core AMD FX/whatever to a dual core HT i5, or maybe the lowest quadcore Intel offers. After the number of benchmarks I've run on my Kaveri, my school's FX 8320, Phenom II X6's and my i3-i5-i7/i7-E range, I can't argue much for them on a performance basis anymore. My Kaveri is literally less powerful than my C2Q Q6700 at the similar clockspeeds.

Edit: I may have oopsed a little about the numbers. They should reflect some more accuracy now.

Webster you've got those numbers a bit wrong The FX isn't *that* inefficient. Also a big issue was that Intel kinda screwed AMD by skipping the FMA instruction in their processors (which was one of the biggest performance advances AMD made with the dozer' series moving from Phenom). When using FMA, FX flies (as can be attested by various linux benchmarks that have been specifically compiled for FX). By not supporting this extension and instead pushing their own Intel effectively crippled the FX processors.

It probably wasn't a deliberate move by Intel mind you, just they decided to go in another direction. The problem is AMD is too small in CPU's for anyone to bother compiling for them over Intel.

From my experience, AMD processors and gfx cards brute force more than Intel does, thus costing them in power. Comparably the gfx performance is similar, but they've been so far behind on cpus for so long now that I just can not see using an AMD processor as a good thing in a semi-decent gaming/performance rig

Well, for me it was a case of £90 upgrade to the FX or £350 upgrade to a comparable Intel rig. In that context it made sense, and now I have the cooling worked out it's doing very well.

I agree though, I wouldn't recommend a new (high end) build based on AMD. If your on a very strict budget, I still maintain the Athlon 860K (apu with no graphics) + a decent FM2+ board is the cheapest way to get a half decent gaming rig going (you can buy those two for under £100, add a mid range gpu, 500w psu and a hdd and you've got a console level gaming machine for under £300).

Umm woops.
I went out and got the noctua anyway. Was in the process of taking my h55 out. Aaand this was the radiator once you took the fan off.

I've had that happen to a laptop, was like a new machine after peeling the dust layer off haha.

So I've installed and tested the new cooler. And it is glorious. Not one bit of lag.

Comp also runs at 9 c when idle and 28c roughly when playing bf4. Still havent tested pa and all that but its looking good.

Thanks for helping me out guys. Would not have known about the throttling issue otherwise.

Holy ****