Decent hardware, poor gaming performance

[asciidic]

Looking for advice on how I can remedy this issue I'm having. I just upgraded my motherboard, cpu and memory from an Opteron 150, 2gb OCZ ddr 400 and some Asus nforce 4 board. Here's my complete list of my current relevant parts:

Asus P5B Deluxe mobo
Core 2 Duo E6420 oc'd to 3.2ghz, 1.375v
Corsair Dominator DDR2 800 4-4-4-12 2T 2.1v
Geforce 7800gtx 256mb 450/1250
WD Raptor 74gb hard drive
Antec Neo 480w power supply

My 3dmark06 score with this setup is 2880. In games that I never had a problem with on my old setup, I'm now getting poor frames and choppiness. I'm on a fresh copy of Windows XP Pro and all my drivers are up to date. I've tried going back to default timings. I ran memtest for 10 hours with no errors. Haven't had any hard lockups or restarts so far. Temperatures look good.

I know my video card is a bit outdated now but it did fine before I changed out the board, cpu and memory. The only thing I can think of at this point is maybe the power supply? Figured I'd get some input from you folks before swapping out parts, though.

Thanks
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[Snake91839]

hmm, I've had numerous problems like this. The first time it was because the OC on the GPU was unstable, and I didn't realize it until I put it back to clock speed. One time it was because of an outdated hard drive. It was an old drive with a new mobo, and I dont think that really "got along." lol, dunno if that's really what it was, but a new HD fixed the problem.

I really dont think that it would be your power supply, but I guess that it is a possibility. But really, I've heard of things like this being the motherboard, in this case I highly doubt it, but it is possible I guess.

The only thing that I can really think of to try that you havn't is re-formatting, and, you probably have already done that.

Those are just some things I've had problems with that are similar, Don't think it will help a lot, but it might

 

[Nitestick]

try again with the processor at stock speed and also try an older version of the drivers (preferably the ones you used before),

 

[khan008]

maybe you oc too much? did you do it in small steps to make sure its stable?

 

[joshd]

provided the PC is stable, the PSU is good enough, try upping the PCI-E frequency in the BIOS from it's default 100 to 105-110.

On my board, if it is set to the default freq. while the CPU is OCd, I drop ~20fps in 3dmark and game performance is generally poor. I have no idea why, but it is worth a go.

 

[asciidic]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I've formatted and am on a day-old install of xp pro.

I've wiped the drivers and reinstalled them, and, at the suggestion of someone I know, disabled the paging file. No difference.

I can easily push the CPU higher but I like keeping it under 45 degrees under load. Not bad for the stock cooler. And it's rock solid stable. But I've tried using default out-of-the-box settings with no change.

I changed the PCI-E freq to 110. No difference.

I really hope it's not the motherboard.

 

[joshd]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes, I've formatted and am on a day-old install of xp pro.

I've wiped the drivers and reinstalled them, and, at the suggestion of someone I know, disabled the paging file. No difference.

I can easily push the CPU higher but I like keeping it under 45 degrees under load. Not bad for the stock cooler. And it's rock solid stable. But I've tried using default out-of-the-box settings with no change.

I changed the PCI-E freq to 110. No difference.

I really hope it's not the motherboard.

I'd test the PSU then. Got a multimeter handy? Test the 12v rail when the PC is idle and under load, and post results here. If not, then I suppose you could try a different PSU on it, preferrably a fairly decent one, and see if that makes a difference. The antec neo isn't an amazing PSU to be honest, with only 18A and 16A on it's 12v rails.

 

[asciidic]

Got a friend bringing over an FSP 600w. If it does the trick I'll buy it from him.

I'm going to try putting the fsb back to 266 and leaving the PCI-E clock and memory timings where they are and see if that does anything.

Edit:
That brought my 3dmark06 score up to 4916.

 

[joshd]

Got a friend bringing over an FSP 600w. If it does the trick I'll buy it from him.

I'm going to try putting the fsb back to 266 and leaving the PCI-E clock and memory timings where they are and see if that does anything.

Edit:
That brought my 3dmark06 score up to 4916.

That score is more or less right for a 256 7800GTX, maybe it should be a little higher with the Core2 though.

those PSUs are good solid supplies.

 

[asciidic]

Ok, I have the psu and I picked up a radeon x1950xt. Although my 3dmark scores are much higher, I'm having the same problem as before - I cannot oc my cpu without my frames diving. 6222 3dmarks at stock speeds, 5077 oc'd to 3.2ghz. That's with the PCI-E freq at 110.

Bad board maybe? I have the latest bios. :/