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    The PC (Personal Computer) is a highly configurable and upgradable gaming platform that, among home systems, sports the widest variety of control methods, largest library of games, and cutting edge graphics and sound capabilities.

    What is bottlenecking my PC?

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    BrotherBran

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    #1  Edited By BrotherBran

    I have an i7-4790 @3.60ghz

    8GB of RAM

    GTX 770 w/ 4GB

    ASUS Z87-PLUS LGA 1150 Intel Z87 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

    Newer games like Shadow of Mordor, and far cry 4 are not running like i would expect. I have Geforce experience and have kept up date on all those drivers

    Obviously i can run these games decently, but my frames are all over the place. I havent updated my MOBO driver in forever so maybe that?

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    Wipeout

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    Nothing hardware wise wrong there! I would stay away from setting MSAA/Anti Aliasing settings any higher than x4, people seem to think 16x is okay, and its essential to "max out" their experience, but 16 passes PER FRAME of re-sampling is so wasteful. If your AA settings are reasonable and your drivers and up to date maybe there is a thermal issue you need to address (processors throttle above temperature threshholds).

    Have you tried medium settings just to see what FPS improvements you get?

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    Yokelbloke

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    @brotherbran:

    What's the clock speed of your motherboard and RAM? You'd be surprised the difference slow RAM and motherboard will make. CHeck your RAM for errors as well, should be an option in BIOS

    Is your power supply enough? High enough wattage and in good nick? If your components aren't getting enough power, they will run slower.

    Do you have a lot of junky shit on your hard drives? I'd suggest a cleanup, can make a difference as well.

    Oh, and hard drive transfer rate.

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    mosdl

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    #4  Edited By mosdl

    Another thing is check the GPU temperature when playing those games, perhaps your card is overheating?

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    monetarydread

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    #5  Edited By monetarydread

    My first suggestion would be to run TDSSKiller then the Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool (Just to be safe), then do a clean install of Windows (the one where Windows formats your hard drive). Most people don't realize that a computer should be formatted, at least, once a year to maintain performance.

    That will most likely solve the problem. Although, 1080p 60fps is a lot more difficult to run than most people expect. Remember, most games have "Ultra," settings and these will never be meant for your video card, those are the "graphic fidelity at the expense of reasonable performance," options that only serve those with multi-GPU or $1000 video cards. Not even a 980 on a similar build to yours will run Far Cry 4 at "Nvidia," graphical settings with 60fps, though I am trying to run at 1440p.

    As someone who used to have a 680 (a close approximation of the 770) I would guess you would run Far Cry 4 on "high," to "very high" settings. If you are still having trouble, turn down your Anti-Aliasing or Ambient Occlusion, as they will likely be the biggest culprits.

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    korwin

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    #6  Edited By korwin

    Nothing really, the turbo clock on the 4790K is 4.4ghz which is huge. The 770 is the slowest part of your machine, after all the 770 was a rebadged 680 with an overclock and some better firmware (the GK104 core that runs in that card launched in March 2012). However it's rolling with 4GB of memory which is the biggest chocking point on earlier Kepler cards with modern game assets. I'd suggest just reviewing what settings your using at this point. In Farcry 4 make sure you are using SMAA at most for the anti aliasing solution, disable things like the soft shadows, move to a less demanding Ambient Occlusion setting and wind back the lighting and terrain detail a notch.

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    BrotherBran

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    i keep my harddrive pretty clean but ill check my ram speed but the mobo is 6gb/s, and temps

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    monkeystick

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    If you haven't dusted out your machine in a long time check it out. It's amazing how much gets in there and slows down everything from CPU to GPU.

    Get an air blower and go to down on it.

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    korwin

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    If you haven't dusted out your machine in a long time check it out. It's amazing how much gets in there and slows down everything from CPU to GPU.

    Get an air blower and go to down on it.

    Going off the CPU the machine he has built could have only been put together in the last couple of months, highly unlikely. Also I doubt there is anything wrong with the system anyway.

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    TheHBK

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    I would check the temps of the video card and what the power supply is doing. Perhaps there is not enough juice to the card.

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    mike

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    I think something that was missed is that he said he "isn't running the games like I would expect" - that is entirely subjective. The 770 wasn't a top end card when it was new, and even people with SLI 980s have been having problems with Far Cry 4. Even in Shadow of Mordor, a 770 won't max everything out at 1920x1200 and still be able to maintain 60 fps.

    Expectations of what the 770 is capable of may be a little high in this case, but it's hard to tell since so few details were given.

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    JoeyRavn

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    My first suggestion would be to run TDSSKiller then the Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool (Just to be safe), then do a clean install of Windows (the one where Windows formats your hard drive). Most people don't realize that a computer should be formatted, at least, once a year to maintain performance.

    What? This advice seems taken directly from 2000. And it's certainly not true at all. If you continuously stuff your PC with shit and bloatware it can get sluggish within a month from building it. Just in the same way that it can be in perfect condition two years later if you take care of it. Defrag your HDD regularly and keep the Trimm option on your SSD on. Only format when it's absolutely necessary, or when you're making substantial hardware changes (mobo, CPU and RAM, all at the same time, for example).

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    BrotherBran

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    sorry, to be clear im attempting to run with most settings on high, and bells and whistles on medium. I did switch everything to medium and to me, it looks worse than the console versions but does mostly hold at 60, much less dips than when i have things set to high

    to answer some of the questions, my RAM is a little old, its ddr3 1600 MGHZ

    Yes i have recently upgraded my card, and then cpu a couple months ago, but also keep my pc clean regularly anyway.

    I have a 750W power supply so i doubt thats the issue since i have a pretty streamlined rig, not that i could tell, i cant figure out what wattage this thing is supposed to get, but my sensor says its using 80%.

    That said it just sounds like the 770 isnt quite the card i thought it was. It seemed like the 4GB of onboard was more important based on system reqs for watchdogs and BF4, than anything else, but that seems to prove my ignorance more than anything.

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    BonOrbitz

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    #14  Edited By BonOrbitz

    I'm not sure about Mordor, but I've read in various places that FC4 on PC has a problem where the FPS dips quite a bit often and at random on PCs of various builds. That's happening to me even when I'm just walking around. Add that to the mouse acceleration that won't turn off even if the setting is set to "off," and the game is a little challenging to play if you don't have the patience for this. Total Biscuit's Port Report shows these things in action.

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    mike

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    #15  Edited By mike

    Your RAM is fine. It's a little late now, but you could have gone with an i5 instead of an i7 and then put that saved money into a better GPU. The i7's Hyperthreading that you paid extra for is going completely unused while playing games.

    Also you didn't mention that you upgraded your motherboard...which means you may have already had an LGA 1150 CPU...which means you may not have even needed to upgrade it at all and could have gone just straight GPU.

    Oh well, too little too late. The good news is that prices on the GTX 770 are dropping fast since the introduction of the 900 series cards, so you could add a second one later on.

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    kingspeedy

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    The real question is, what were you expecting? The 770 is essentially a souped-up 680 (GK104) which as of now is over two years old. 60fps at medium sounds like exactly what you should be seeing.

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    mike

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    #17  Edited By mike

    @kingspeedy said:

    The real question is, what were you expecting? The 770 is essentially a souped-up 680 (GK104) which as of now is over two years old. 60fps at medium sounds like exactly what you should be seeing.

    The 770 itself is already 18 months old. It's still a very capable card, but 18 months is an eternity when talking about GPUs these days.

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    BrotherBran

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    @MB should I try and grab another 770, or aim for a 970 or 980 on a deal?

    Never had an sli setup I know it's a little inconsistent in support if not performance gain

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    mike

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    @brotherbran: a single card is almost always more preferable. Depends on if you really think you need to upgrade that 770 and the deals you can find on different cards.

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    BrotherBran

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    #20  Edited By BrotherBran

    @bonorbitz: I just watched that and it's exactly what's happening to me.

    Actually now that I think of people where having this same issue with watchdogs, as was I. Hopefully they patch it soon because it makes the game a chore to play

    Thanks everyone for your suggestions though, They were helpful if not for this game.

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    monkeyking1969

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    "....to answer some of the questions, my RAM is a little old, its ddr3 1600 MGHZ"

    Check you BIOs because it might be 1600Mhz memory, but it might not be running at that rate. Check to make sure ist is running that fast. If you feel up to OC, you could try running that RAM at 1800MHz just to see if you could run it. There are diminishing returns for doing over extending you RAM in some cases, but ist is worth a look to make sure it is running its rated speed at least.

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    monetarydread

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    #22  Edited By monetarydread

    @joeyravn: You are basically right in that formatting might not be as necessary as it once was. The key argument you make is if the system was taken care of , but if the OP has a system that is not running properly so maybe its time to think about that solution. We do not know if he pirates software (I assume that most people on the internet pirate something), how much bloatware he has installed in the past, etc. Remember, it usually takes less time to format and reinstall Windows (about thirty minutes to an hour) than to clean a computer of a bad virus infection (it takes even less time if you have an Image of your drive).

    Edit: Plus, you are spot on with your assumption that my info comes from 2000... well, I am actually an old fart and I have been doing this since my first PC back in 82' (Apple II e for anyone that is wondering). So maybe I am just an old fart that is living in the past, but i feel that even a properly maintained computer can usually see a benefit from a clean Windows install.

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    hodor

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    Everyone else's suggestions have been great and I doubt this is it but did you make sure it is using your dedicated GPU and not the integrated GPU. A friend had a laptop with that problem.

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