Upgrade Bug, or am I being dumb?

[illitirit]

Currently running a 3770k @ 4.9 ghz stable for the past 2 years.

I've not run into seeing some slowdowns until recently until i upgraded my computer to
6 screens from 3.

I always have tons of tabs / videos / programs open on any given and all screens so I am a power user and extreme multi-tasker.


While the slowdown is not bad at all, it does bother me since I dont like waiting for my system.


Do you guys think it would be worth it for me to upgrade to a 5960x or whatever the 6-core variant is? Or should I wait for the next big cpu, like maybe the 6960x with 10 cores lol.

I dont care about gaming, just extreme windows multitasking.

thanks for responses.

 

[mda]

Hard to say if it's the processor without checking CPU usage and RAM usage while the slowdowns are happening.

Throwing out a wild idea - what if it's the GPU that can't handle the pixel pushing?

Also, having lots of videos open takes its toll somewhere. Flash in particular slows down my system if it's in the background.

We'll need to first confirm what the cause of slowdown is before addressing it.

 

[Tsumi]

It's also possible that whatever is slowing down your computer is single-threaded. In which case, going to a slower 6-core won't do you any good, it'll make things worse (it's harder to overclock the 6-core processors).

The 5960X is an 8-core processor.

 

[illitirit]

most if not all my video is streaming video through chrome.

There is also a constant silverlight player stream I keep open for global news casts.

My cpu usage with 4 videos open is like 20% usage at most.

I have 16gb ram right now and it is pushing near 70% usage. Could it possibly be my ram?

This is usage with probably 30 extra chrome tabs open.

 

[Tsumi]

If it's not hitting 90+% RAM, it shouldn't be causing issues.

20% can be significant if whatever you're running is single-threaded. On your processor, maxing out one core is equal to 12.5%. Unfortunately, if you are suffering from a single thread slowing things down, there really is nothing that is faster than a 3770k at 4.9 ghz.

What's your GPU usage? If you don't know, download MSI Afterburner.

 

[Deleted member 238539]

Also adding to the graphics side questions. What are your resolutions that you are trying to run on the 7970? Also how are they hooked into the computer? USB dongles? Or DP adapters?

 

[dandragonrage]

Try different web browsers and try disabling various plugins that you don't need. Web browser performance is often an issue for me, too, and my PC is also pretty good. It's weird. No matter how fast my machine gets, web browsers continue to suck.

 

[Tsumi]

Try different web browsers and try disabling various plugins that you don't need. Web browser performance is often an issue for me, too, and my PC is also pretty good. It's weird. No matter how fast my machine gets, web browsers continue to suck.

I know right? Especially with the abomination called Flash.

 

[illitirit]

hey guys thanks for the replies.

My current monitor routing is as follows:

I actually dont use the 7970 anymore, gave it to my girlfriend, picked myself up a gigabyte 270x.

My main 3 monitors run through the 270x via DVI / HDMI / Displayport

the other 3 are actually coming from the intel igpu. intel hd graphics 4000?? i believe it was.

My gpu usge is usually under 40% when heavily streaming videos on the monitors connected to the 270x.

Streaming on the intel igpu, the usage is about 30% for that gpu.


I would love for it to be a non-chrome issue since I am so reliant on it with its great sync features. But I dont think chrome was designed for people like me who run 100+ tabs at once and 5+ streaming videos. Maybe I am just running it to its limit? Chrome actually crashes sometimes when I go nuts and open 40 tabs at once.

Is it chrome thats the problem?

I have used firefox before and really did not enjoy its UI

 

[Tsumi]

If anything, I think Firefox is worse than Chrome. Chrome actually runs separate tabs as separate processes, while Firefox has tabs in the same window running as one process.

It may actually be a flash issue. Unfortunately, nothing can really be done about flash. You can try Internet Explorer, it really has gotten a lot better. But Firefox with no separate processes for tabs is almost definitely a no-go for you.

 

[defaultluser]

All I can suggest is: make sure you're running the 64-bit version of Chrome. Otherwise you won't be able to use all that lovely ram.

But even so, you're not going to get a perfectly-smooth browsing experience. Chrome uses a single thread per-tab, so ultimately the rendering engine is still single-threaded (while you wait for the new tab to initially render). With most pages today pushing several megabytes of messy JavaScript, it takes some time to muscle through that.

 

[wdeydwondrer]

Try out slimjet. Based on chromium and far more secure and faster than google's chrome.

 

[MGCJerry]

Try different web browsers and try disabling various plugins that you don't need. Web browser performance is often an issue for me, too, and my PC is also pretty good. It's weird. No matter how fast my machine gets, web browsers continue to suck.

In my opinion at least, browsers are fine but they're trying to be used as a system that is better left to a dedicated app. Javascript, & flash are not necessarily the most efficient for playing movies, games, & music. This is exactly what happens when people try using a system for stuff it was never originally designed for... We need powerful machines just to keep up with the browsers becoming a "jack of all trades" and doing poorly.

But, I'm old school. I use a video player to play movies and stream. I use a dedicated music application to listen to music. I use a web browser to browse the web.


Introducing the latest web experience appliance from: AMDtel 10000000THz CPU with 80EB of RAM. It has enough juice to power Chrome 20000, Firefox 20001, and/or Spartan IE 5.6.65.221 to do whatever you want! Play fully 4D 30 million FPS holographic web games while listening to 30 point surround sound music. *small print* Requires a Super-Duper Ultrahigh 65000 Gb speed internet powered by Chuck Norris riding a raptor that's farting cats that shoot nuclear bombs!!!
I couldn't help it.. really... </trololollll>


Back to the topic at hand. I think you may be pushing the limit of Chrome itself, or possibly any other browser. You got the resouces, see if you can have 2 copies of chrome running and load balance your tabs manually. Just a thought....

 

[Ruoh]

You're not multi-tasking, you just have too much crap open at once.

 

[primetime]

I have to agree with most here.....would try configuring the software a bit different first and stuff like load balancing could be the answer...i also wonder if adding another video card and using the outputs on the cards would help more than a new cpu/mb.
Like its been mentioned, if your cpu is not even being used fully then how is adding more cpu power going to help? I think you just have the upgrade bug

 

[xorbe]

6 is a lot of screens. Maybe GPU, not CPU. The 2D gpu speed might be too low?

 

[Willseyvilleny]

Are you still running a 128gb Samsung 840 like your sig says? I've done a ton of upgrades and always felt like faster hard drives and more free space make windows the happiest. Maybe if you've got the hard drive packed full, or have so much stuff going on that the computer can't temporarily cache all the info you are using that isn't in ram, you are feeling the I'll effects of not enough hd bandwidth.

 

[Quartz-1]

My cpu usage with 4 videos open is like 20% usage at most..

Look at the CPU graph in Task Manager and see if you're maxxing one CPU core. Then look in Chrome's Task Manager (Shift + Escape) to see which tab it is.

 

[Dayaks]

I'm having a hard time believing it's the 3770k at 4.9 Ghz. It's pretty safe to say it's not the 3770k. I'm more interested in how the hell he got it to 4.9 Ghz on air.

 

[Araxie]

I'm having a hard time believing it's the 3770k at 4.9 Ghz. It's pretty safe to say it's not the 3770k. I'm more interested in how the hell he got it to 4.9 Ghz on air.

delided or direct die cooling..

 

[Dayaks]

delided or direct die cooling..

That would make sense... I'm debating between a 5960x/5820k and 4790k. I'd delid the 4790k... but am currently leaning towards the 5820k which apparently trying to direct die a soldered chip is a great way to destroy it.

I do agree with all the comments about OP checking single thread performance because it's simple to do, not sure how he'd fix it. I don't know enough about 2D graphics mode to comment there.

 

[Voxata]

I'd just go for a delid on the 3770K Dayaks, keep what you've got buddy I don't notice a lick of difference between my two computers, aside from the fact that the 4790K sucks down more power, and out of the box ran much, much hotter (AVX2, was 100C throttling at 4.2Ghz+ right out of the box under an X61). The 4790K prettymuch required a delid to be OCd at all and stress tested, the 3770K required a delid for max OC.

OP, What vcore are you running for 4.9 btw?

 

[Brackle]

That would make sense... I'm debating between a 5960x/5820k and 4790k. I'd delid the 4790k... but am currently leaning towards the 5820k which apparently trying to direct die a soldered chip is a great way to destroy it.

I do agree with all the comments about OP checking single thread performance because it's simple to do, not sure how he'd fix it. I don't know enough about 2D graphics mode to comment there.

No need to upgrade. There is not 1 game out there that needs more then a 4.6ghz 3770k.

If anything you would be more GPU bound then CPU bound.

Now MAYBE if you ran 3x4k monitoring, you might need more CPU horsepower (Or PCI-E lanes). But honestly that might even be a stretch.

This is coming from a 4.6ghz 3770k user!