Upgraded Hardware Yet Downgraded Performance?

[pfizzle]

I've built a new system chiefly for video editing and upon upgrading every key component I've actually experienced a loss in performance.

Specs Before the upgrade:
P4 2.8ghz 533mhz FSB
ASUS P4S800 D-E Deluxe
1.5 Gigs of RAM (1gig of Kingston Hyper-X DDR 400 in dual channel and a stick of generic)
2 x 120gig Western Digital HDDs (IDE)
ATI x800 XT All-In-Wonder
Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer
520 Watt Aspire PSU

Specs After the upgrade:
P4 550 3.4ghz 800mhz FSB
ASUS P5P800
3 Gigs of DDR400 (2 Gigs of Corsair and the 1 gig of Kingston carried over from the old system)
76gb Western Digital 10,000rpm SATA 150 Raptor
120gb WD (from previous system)
ATI x800 XT All-In-Wonder (same from old system)
Bluegears Mystique-X 7.1 sound card
520 Watt OCZ PSU

I was loving the new system at first, was great to do a fresh install of Windows in 10ish minutes, but then I installed Battlefield 2 to see how it performed. Before the upgrade I was running BF2 with all the settings on high and 6x AA and it was as smooth as butter. After the upgrade I instantly noticed huge degrees of lag. It was taking ages (10+ minutes) just to join a game and once connect fps were horrible. I installed 3D Mark 05 and got a score of around 2200, almost half of the score of the previous system (4900ish if I remember right).

My CPU was running incredibly hot (around 80 C) so I went out this morning and bought some Arctic Silver thermal paste, cleaned off the CPU with some rubbing alcohol and put it on. I instantly noticed a 30 degree drop and an increase in performance (4700 in 3DMark05 w/o 6xAA), but I was still chopping up in BF2 (though not nearly as hard as before).

I've swapped out the RAM to see if they're problematic, but I've noticed no difference. It's a fresh install of Windows (Pro w/ SP1) with current drivers for all components. Can anyone help? I loved my system before and was glad as hell (and surprised) when it ran BF2 flawlessly and I was certainly not expecting such a downgrade in performance with such a noticeable upgrade in hardware.

 

[Underclocked]

Case? I would put a fan blowing over the ram and get a better heat sink on that cpu (you didn't say what you had on it did you?).

Sounds as if you are choking on temps.

 

[pfizzle]

After the new thermal paste it hovers around 60 degrees celsius with a Zalman.

 

[Tu13erhead]

60C is still much to high for an idle temp. Hell, it's too high for a load temp.

 

[pfizzle]

Originally posted by: Tu13erhead
60C is still much to high for an idle temp. Hell, it's too high for a load temp.

:

What's a quick (and permanent) way to cool it down? Aside from just pointing a huge fan into my case...

Edit: And what is a good temp for me to be at?

 

[Azarx]

I know for a fact that asus has been having problems with bios reading incorrectly the temps are you reading the tempeture directly from the bios screen or from the software once you boot windows another thing about BF2 is that it requires 2 gbs of ram to stop the hitching is the corsair memory in one or two sticks try just leaving in the corsair and the kingston out

 

[Tu13erhead]

40-50C load is acceptable. Though I usually try to stay under 40C load.

That Zalman should cool decently. Try opening up your case to make sure your CPU can get cool air and see if that changes anything. Also, make sure the HSF is securely mounted and finally that the CPU voltage is set correctly.

 

[Tu13erhead]

Originally posted by: Azarx
I know for a fact that asus has been having problems with bios reading incorrectly the temps are you reading the tempeture directly from the bios screen or from the software once you boot windows another thing about BF2 is that it requires 2 gbs of ram to stop the hitching is the corsair memory in one or two sticks try just leaving in the corsair and the kingston out

Wow, not a single punctuation mark or new paragraph there. If you're going to try helping people out with tech support, please make use of them. Your post is so hard to read it's next to useless.

Brandon

 

[PsYcHoCoW]

Originally posted by: Tu13erhead
40-50C load is acceptable. Though I usually try to stay under 40C load.

I think 40-50C load is good. My A64 runs at like 35C idle and 40C load, but he has an Intel processor... I think 50C-60C under load is "acceptable" for an Intel of that generation. They'll start throttling at above 70C.

 

[Tu13erhead]

Originally posted by: PsYcHoCoW

Originally posted by: Tu13erhead
40-50C load is acceptable. Though I usually try to stay under 40C load.

I think 40-50C load is good. My A64 runs at like 35C idle and 40C load, but he has an Intel processor... I think 50C-60C under load is "acceptable" for an Intel of that generation. They'll start throttling at above 70C.

If that's true, then that's likely his problem. I haven't owned an Intel CPU in forever so I'm not as up to par on its throttling techniques and such.

 

[pfizzle]

Originally posted by: Azarx
I know for a fact that asus has been having problems with bios reading incorrectly the temps are you reading the tempeture directly from the bios screen or from the software once you boot windows another thing about BF2 is that it requires 2 gbs of ram to stop the hitching is the corsair memory in one or two sticks try just leaving in the corsair and the kingston out

I get the same reads from bios and from the ASUS Probe. The corsair is in two sticks. I'll give that a go, but hopefully that's not it (otherwise I've just got a gig of ram sitting around).

I think I'll pick up a VGA Cooler, any thoughts about that?

 

[RBauer]

To be honest with you you didnt upgrade much as far as CPU is concerned 2.8 - 3.4 not a big jump.. Also you are not running the memory in a dual channel configuration are you? For video edditing I would of went with a Athalon 64 X2 or a Pentium D. I know thats not an option know. VGA Cooler probably wont change things much. Try running with the case open to help with the heat.

 

[pfizzle]

Originally posted by: RBauer
To be honest with you you didnt upgrade much as far as CPU is concerned 2.8 - 3.4 not a big jump.. Also you are not running the memory in a dual channel configuration are you? For video edditing I would of went with a Athalon 64 X2 or a Pentium D. I know thats not an option know. VGA Cooler probably wont change things much. Try running with the case open to help with the heat.

Yeah, I know the jump wasn't huge, but the processor was free and checking benchmarks for video editing, the difference between better processors wasn't worth the money I'd of spent on them instead of the free P4 from a friend. I am running the memory in dual channel configuration, should I not be?

Edit: Just noticed something. I was running a personal statistic's script on irc and noticed it reports "Running with 0/2048MB (0.00%) of memory." Not that scripts like that are completely accurate or anything, but the ASUS probe also sees 2097151k Total and 2097151K free. The Window's system report reads 3 Gigs though as does task manager... Any thoughts? My guess is nothing is wrong and that the probe and script are just reading things wrong, but figured I'd mention it...

 

[RBauer]

No you want to run in Dual Channel gets you the best performance. And if the CPU was free well it was a nice upgrade

 

[Ff3j]

My BF2 is choppy as hell also.... not sure if it is my computer or a problem similar to yours. Fill me in when you find out.

 

[Azarx]

Well have you checked the drivers for your new sound card. I havent heard of that soundcard maybe it has problems with windows. Sometimes you just need the most up to date drivers. Make sure all drivers are working by checking in windows device manager. Usually drop in performance means you have a bottleneck somewhere or drivers arent working up to par. BF2 is choppy because it is a very video card heavy and ram heavy depedent game. One thing about the ram is low latency like 2 and make sure you read your motherboard and what dimms you have to populate to enable dual channel cause running dual with 2 gigs is way faster than non dual channel 3 gigs

 

[Pr0d1gy]

In BF2, you will need to use the following settings for your X800XL.

VIDEO
Shadows-low or off
Lighting (both)-low or off

AUDIO
Hardware
low or medium
EAX off if nothing else works

The video settings are important & also the soft/hard audio setting. You may have to play with these settings a few times. You have plenty of RAM & a good card so the only thing that could be causing the problems is expecting too much of the x800xL or the audio setting. Also, make sure to set your internet connection to cable/dsl in the general settings.

Here is a link:
Battlefield2 tweaks/fixes

 

[pfizzle]

Originally posted by: Pr0d1gy
The video settings are important & also the soft/hard audio setting. You may have to play with these settings a few times. You have plenty of RAM & a good card so the only thing that could be causing the problems is expecting too much of the x800xL or the audio setting. Also, make sure to set your internet connection to cable/dsl in the general settings.

Here is a link:
Battlefield2 tweaks/fixes

Then why, with my P4 2.8, could I play with everything on high and 6x AA without one single glitch? :-


I've been going through an ATI Guide and was performing the recommended changes for SmartGart and noticed that it says my current AGP speed is 0x and if I try to set it to 8x, upon a reboot it defaults back to 0x. The guide says that SmartGart will default to whatever your BIOS is set to and maybe I'm just retarded, but I can't find the BIOS setting for AGP speed at all...

 

[pfizzle]

For anyone keep track, I've fixed the problem. I installed the Intel Chipset drivers from the ASUS website, despite the fact that it said they were for 64bit systems, and all is well. Though I'd still like to cool my system down more (it runs around 60 with the case closed, 50 with it open)