Stuttering/low fps issue while gaming

[JumBie]

I had a thread pertaining to this topic in the Video card section but I guess this is better suited as an overall system problem.

A little background on the beginning of the issue at hand.

Over a month ago water spilt off of my desk and splashed on parts of my motherboard/power supply. This all happened while my computer was on. I immediately shut it down and tried my best to clean off (soak up) any splashes of water that I had seen. Upon doing so I turned my computer on (unaware I should have left it to dry) and all seemed fine until it blue screened and would not post after that. I tried removing all components individually until I realized one of the sticks of rams had completely been completely fine, I removed it and the system hasn't blue screened or done anything out of the ordinary since then.

My system specs at the time of incident were:
i5 3470
8GB Hynix DDR3 1600
XFX DD R9 270x
128GB SSD
500GB HDD
Asus P8h61-M LE/CSM mobo
550w Coolermaster v2

After losing one stick of ram to the unfortunate spillage, I decided it was best if I just went out and got another kit of ram, while I was at it, I also decided to get a R9 280. The new specs were as follows:

i5 3470
8GB Kingston 1333mhz DDR3
Sapphire Dual X R9 280
128GB SSD
500GB HDD
Asus P8h61-M LE/CSM mobo
550w Coolermaster v2

After installing the components I didn't really do much gaming so I thought all was swell. When I finally decided to play a few games I noticed that certain games that I was previously able to maintain a constant high FPS such as World Of Tanks, War Thunder, Smite, GTA V etc...were now unable to maintain 60fps and were stuttering constantly with huge fps drops during heavy action.

Other games such as league of legends were giving a much different issue. Playing League with vsync on was causing horrible fps drops into the 20's 30's during heavy action, while turning vsync off kept my fps from dropping below 100 but it still kept freezing and stuttering. This was never an issue before.

People have mentioned the PSU, RAM, or GPU being the cause. Its certainly not a driver issue as I have cleaned all drivers and done fresh installs. Even going as far as to reformat with no success. I know for a fact the PSU had water on the top of it near the fan, not sure if any got into it but I am sure if it did I would have known. Memtest has passed with no errors as well. No BSODS or problems at the desktop or while browsing either.

Could this be a case of the power supply not being able to provide enough steady power? Apparently it only has a max of 384w on the 12v rail but I am sure my system doesn't reach that.

 

[LTC8K6]

Have you tried putting the 270X back in?

 

[sandorski]

oops, nmd

 

[Ketchup]

Testing the system on the Intel HD Graphics 2500 should help you narrow it down to the video card or power supply.

 

[JumBie]

Have you tried putting the 270X back in?

The 270x is no longer with me.

Testing the system on the Intel HD Graphics 2500 should help you narrow it down to the video card or power supply.

Problem is testing it with the intel hd graphics aren't going to allow me to test out demanding games. So it's not going to be a good comparison. Like I mentioned there is no issue while browsing, video watching, and general computer use the issue only occurs when playing games.

 

[LTC8K6]

Have you run something like GPU-Z to see if the video card is overheating, throttling, or losing voltage?

 

[LTC8K6]

What happens when you make the games easier on the video card? Turn the quality down and play the games.

 

[Ketchup]

... Problem is testing it with the intel hd graphics aren't going to allow me to test out demanding games. So it's not going to be a good comparison. Like I mentioned there is no issue while browsing, video watching, and general computer use the issue only occurs when playing games.

It will be demanding for what you have. In case you haven't heard, Intel Graphics are capable of playing games.

 

[LTC8K6]

i5-3470 = HD2500= not much gaming.

 

[inachu]

It will be demanding for what you have. In case you haven't heard, Intel Graphics are capable of playing games.

Yeah they just no to long ago finally caught up to the gaming crowd like 2 years ago. Not common knowledge yet.

 

[JumBie]

Have you run something like GPU-Z to see if the video card is overheating, throttling, or losing voltage?

There was no throttling under GPU-Z, it maintained a constant core clock and memory clock. The card does reach temps over 70 degrees but that's completely normal, nothing ever above 70.

What happens when you make the games easier on the video card? Turn the quality down and play the games.

Turning down the quality in some games improves the maximum FPS achievable but does not stop the freezing/stuttering/fps drops. For instance lowering the quality in world of tanks allows me to keep 60fps in more areas but the frames kept dropping and the game felt like there was micro stutter.

It will be demanding for what you have. In case you haven't heard, Intel Graphics are capable of playing games.

Believe me the HD 2500 is not going to be able to play these games, I tried. I was able to use it to play League of Legends in a window on minimum graphics quality a while back.

 

[JumBie]

Okay...So what I have noticed is that while gaming randomly one or two of my cores will jump down to 1.5ghz or so and then jump back up. The VID also drops down when this happens, at that moment the game starts to stutter and fps will drop, then it jumps back up.

EDIT: Also appears that my GPU VDCC is fluctuating while playing games. Between 1.188-1.256