Question In need of an upgrade

[Georgiaaa_J]

I am very new to PC gaming so will apologise in advance if I don't make sense or get things wrong. I recently bought a PC for gaming but it seems to be a little slow. Here are the details:

Dell Precision T3610 Xeon 1620v2 3.7GHz, 32GB DDR3 Ram, Nvidia GTX1060 6GB graphics, OS SSD.
These are the specs as they were listed on the ad.

I'm trying to play 7 Days to Die, but it's very slow in comparison to my other PC. What would you all recommend I do to try and improve this?

 

[Zoid]

Welcome to the forums!

It looks like the PC you got is an old office workstation (a precision with those specs was most likely a lab computer or other specialized application) that someone added a GPU to. That's not necessarily bad - it can be a good cheap way to get into a gaming PC, and the specs on this machine really aren't bad. You mention you have another PC - do you mind posting the specs of that?

Can you describe the performance you're getting a little more? When you say it's slow, does it just have a low overall framerate? Frequent hitching? Long load times?

Can you monitor your system utilization while you're gaming using something like MSI Afterburner, or even just Task Manager if you don't want to get a new program? You'll want to look specifically at your CPU, GPU, and Disk utilization while gaming. Pay attention to RAM too, but with 32GB that won't be an issue.

 

[Georgiaaa_J]

Hi Zoid!

Thank you for your response. I've had a little look at the new PC, and my old one, and have got the following info for you.

Specs for my old one:
Processor - Intel (R) Core (TM) i3-4350 CPU @ 3.60GHz
RAM - 8GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760
8GB DDR3

In terms of performance of the new one, it's the framerate that's slow, loading times aren't too bad but I think my old PC is slightly faster. I ran the game while looking at the task manager and got the following when:

CPU hit a high of 47% for the game and 90% overall
Disk hit 80MB/s and 100% overall
GPU hit around 50% overall from what I could see

I hope that makes sense?

 

[Zoid]

Hi Zoid!

Thank you for your response. I've had a little look at the new PC, and my old one, and have got the following info for you.

Specs for my old one:
Processor - Intel (R) Core (TM) i3-4350 CPU @ 3.60GHz
RAM - 8GB
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760
8GB DDR3

In terms of performance of the new one, it's the framerate that's slow, loading times aren't too bad but I think my old PC is slightly faster. I ran the game while looking at the task manager and got the following when:

CPU hit a high of 47% for the game and 90% overall
Disk hit 80MB/s and 100% overall
GPU hit around 50% overall from what I could see

I hope that makes sense?

Your new PC should definitely perform better than your old one, given those specs.

Can you let me know what settings you are playing on (including resolution) and what framerates you are getting?

If you have a program such as Afterburner or HWiNFO that can monitor temperatures, can you also let me know what temperatures you're hitting on your CPU and GPU?

Finally, are you seeing sustained 100% disk usage and sustained 90% CPU usage? Is this game installed on the SSD or is it installed on a mechanical hard drive?

 

[Georgiaaa_J]

Your new PC should definitely perform better than your old one, given those specs.

Can you let me know what settings you are playing on (including resolution) and what framerates you are getting?

If you have a program such as Afterburner or HWiNFO that can monitor temperatures, can you also let me know what temperatures you're hitting on your CPU and GPU?

Finally, are you seeing sustained 100% disk usage and sustained 90% CPU usage? Is this game installed on the SSD or is it installed on a mechanical hard drive?

The resolution on the game was set to 1680x1050. After reading your response I have switched it to 1366x768 to see if that would help and the framerate seems to be better on these settings. Do you think this could have been the main cause of it being slow?

I don't think I do have these programmes, would I just need to download them? Or is there another way to do this?

The computer doesn't have an SSD apparently, does this affect the speed?

Thank you again for your response. I'm sorry if I sound like an idiot.

 

[Zoid]

The resolution on the game was set to 1680x1050. After reading your response I have switched it to 1366x768 to see if that would help and the framerate seems to be better on these settings. Do you think this could have been the main cause of it being slow?

I don't think I do have these programmes, would I just need to download them? Or is there another way to do this?

The computer doesn't have an SSD apparently, does this affect the speed?

Thank you again for your response. I'm sorry if I sound like an idiot.

You don't sound like an idiot at all! You're giving more thoughtful responses than most

Your 1680x1050 resolution should not be the problem. The GTX 1060 should be able games comfortably at that res, and you said it was only at 50% utilization most of the time, so I think we can eliminate it as the culprit.

If you only have a mechanical hard drive, and it's getting older, and you're seeing constant 100% disk usage then that may well be the culprit. An aging, failing mechanical hard drive can bring your system to a crawl. Keep task manager open while you're gaming or even just using the computer normally. If the disk usage is constantly near 100% for extended periods of time then I'd look at getting a new hard drive (preferably an SSD).

Your processor isn't the fastest gaming CPU out there, but it should do ok, as long as it's staying cool.

Yes, MSI Afterburner is a free program that offers a wide range of hardware monitoring with a nice in-game overlay. HWiNFO is another good option, also free.

 

[Georgiaaa_J]

You don't sound like an idiot at all! You're giving more thoughtful responses than most

Your 1680x1050 resolution should not be the problem. The GTX 1060 should be able games comfortably at that res, and you said it was only at 50% utilization most of the time, so I think we can eliminate it as the culprit.

If you only have a mechanical hard drive, and it's getting older, and you're seeing constant 100% disk usage then that may well be the culprit. An aging, failing mechanical hard drive can bring your system to a crawl. Keep task manager open while you're gaming or even just using the computer normally. If the disk usage is constantly near 100% for extended periods of time then I'd look at getting a new hard drive (preferably an SSD).

Your processor isn't the fastest gaming CPU out there, but it should do ok, as long as it's staying cool.

Yes, MSI Afterburner is a free program that offers a wide range of hardware monitoring with a nice in-game overlay. HWiNFO is another good option, also free.

I'm glad you think my responses are thoughtful, I was a little worried that my lack of knowledge would portray me as a time waster.

That makes sense, I'll start by getting an SSD for the computer. The CPU I can come back to if it's just a case of keeping it cool, so I'll definitely get one of those programmes to monitor it (it might even help me understand things better if I can see the effects).

There seems to be a few different SSD options out there. Which would you recommend? Is internal better than external? Some sites are saying that internal are better but others say they are almost the same. Considering the fact that my PC isn't as fast as most, I'm assuming that an internal SSD would be better.

 

[Zoid]

I'm glad you think my responses are thoughtful, I was a little worried that my lack of knowledge would portray me as a time waster.

That makes sense, I'll start by getting an SSD for the computer. The CPU I can come back to if it's just a case of keeping it cool, so I'll definitely get one of those programmes to monitor it (it might even help me understand things better if I can see the effects).

There seems to be a few different SSD options out there. Which would you recommend? Is internal better than external? Some sites are saying that internal are better but others say they are almost the same. Considering the fact that my PC isn't as fast as most, I'm assuming that an internal SSD would be better.

Buying a new SSD is not a bad idea generally, but I can't guarantee it will solve your issue. If you do decide that's the route to go though, you will want to buy an internal SSD.

If you post details on your specific motherboard I can take a look at whether an M.2 drive is a possibility. But the easiest bet would probably be a regular 2.5" SATA internal SSD. PCPartPicker is a good resource for comparison shopping these parts. Here's a list pre-filtered for 2.5" SSDs 500GB and up.

 

[Georgiaaa_J]

Buying a new SSD is not a bad idea generally, but I can't guarantee it will solve your issue. If you do decide that's the route to go though, you will want to buy an internal SSD.

If you post details on your specific motherboard I can take a look at whether an M.2 drive is a possibility. But the easiest bet would probably be a regular 2.5" SATA internal SSD. PCPartPicker is a good resource for comparison shopping these parts. Here's a list pre-filtered for 2.5" SSDs 500GB and up.

Don't worry, I won't come back and blame you if it doesn't.

I think I will probably go with the 2.5" SSD if it's easier. Plus I wouldn't even know where to start in terms of getting the motherboard info, there are so many different codes on that thing and not one of them stand out (could just be me though), so I think we'll skip that until I have better knowledge of what everything is.

Thank you for all your help and patience with this, I really appreciate it. And thank you for the link, I had a look around the website and there is so much info on there! When (not if) I need help in the future, I'll know who to look out for

 

[Zoid]

Let us know how things go!