Sandy Build - Gaming Performance

[1ceHacka]

I recently purchased all my new Sandy Bridge equipment and built out the PC. Here are some of the main components for background information:

GA-P67A-UD3-B3
Intel i5 2500K (OC'd to 3.8GHz stable)
2x4GB of G.Skill 1333 DDR3
PNY GTX 570
Mushkin 120GB SSD

My issue is with gaming performance. I am seeing some lesser FPS on games like World of Warcraft and BF Bad Company. I wouldn't expect this system to have any issues with these games at all. I'm running at 1920x1080 resolution currently on good to high settings within the games. While in game, I am checking CPU-Z and GPU-Z. On the graphics side, I am not seeing anything above 25% load on the GPU. In CPU-Z, I can see that my cores aren't even running at the full multiplier and clock speed. So this tells me neither are being maxxed out. Both games are also running off the SSD which is setup to use AHCI.

I'm at a bit of loss here as I'm not sure what could be causing the bottleneck. The frame rates I am seeing are around 40-45 where as a buddy ahs the same system but with a 2600K, and he sits at 60+ FPS even while frapsing at 60 FPS.

 

[mfenn]

Do you have the newest drivers for the GPU? Try backing off on your overclocks in case you're being throttled.

 

[1ceHacka]

Drivers are all the latest.

Not sure exactly what you mean by throttling because of OC'ing?

 

[mfenn]

If you overclock too high, the CPU might report a certain frequency at idle, but as soon as it is put under load, temps shoot up and the CPU throttles back to protect itself. The same thing can happen with GPUs. It's a pretty well-known phenomenon.