Your benchmark results seem typical for your system.
Your benchmark results seem typical for your system.
It's a bit lower than expected, but not too much. Likely most people who run a 4790K at 4.5GHz might see this, which can affect the results. It could also be due to a messy Windows installation lowering benchmark scores. Maybe just one or two cores are running at full capacity, but overall usage stays low. For CPUs, benchmark averages aren't very useful in games because most don't run efficiently with more than a few threads. Focus on per-core stats instead.
If you're not pushing performance beyond limits, it looks suitable for your setup.
It might simply be the state of your Windows setup that's affecting your benchmark results. I recently completed a fresh Windows installation, then fetched drivers from MSI and Nvidia's support pages and installed them. I also ran a few updates using AVG driver updater. There seems to be some concern about one or two of your cores operating near full capacity. I tested by running several games to check if any core reached 100% usage, but none did. I displayed all eight processor cores via MSI afterburner. Chivalry 2 Gpu usage ranged from 45% to 75%, with occasional spikes where a core hit 100%. CPU usage generally stayed between 60% and 80%, with one core reaching up to 81%. Marvel's Spider-Man GPU usage was around 65%-77% in busy environments, and one core hit 91% at its peak.
This will likely reduce benchmark ratings. Many popular antivirus programs such as AVG and Norton are expected to drop scores, especially on older hardware like 4790Ks. The game is well-known for its memory bandwidth issues, which probably stem from slow memory speeds. I don’t have much experience with other titles, so I can’t offer much insight. A memory bottleneck seems plausible, though I’m not entirely confident.
Recently, I found out my rams were on single channel instead of dual, so I switched them to the correct slots to make them dual. I noticed a performance boost and increased GPU usage in games. Still, my constant GPU usage hasn't reached over 90%. Is this typical? My updated 3DMark score is here: https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/89062196. This might affect benchmark scores, as many antivirus programs like AVG and Norton can reduce them, especially on older hardware such as the 4790K. The AVG driver updater is a tool for updating drivers, not an antivirus. I removed it after installing the drivers. Did you mean it was an antivirus?
There seems to be a lingering performance issue somewhere. Many recent titles are quite sensitive to memory usage, which probably plays a role here. Still, around 80-90% utilization is acceptable and not something I'd be overly concerned about. This matches what I anticipated from AVG's security tool. I wouldn't suggest relying on such utilities, as they often turn out to be ineffective or potentially harmful. The only drivers that genuinely boost performance are the Intel Management Engine and GPU drivers; everything else stays current through regular Windows updates. Even Intel ME functions reasonably well with updates, though manual updates might be needed if problems arise. GPU drivers include their own update feature, which doesn't help much. You can also select text and choose "Quote selected" to emphasize parts of a response, making it easier to understand.
The reason I relied on AVG Driver was because many technology platforms praise it as secure and effective. For instance, Techradar rates it with 4.5 stars at https://www.techradar.com/reviews/avg-driver-updater. If there’s anything that improves speed without altering your PC components, please share it with me. Over the years, I’ve always used it in single-channel mode, which sometimes affected game performance.
It remains clear that the update isn't particularly beneficial. Windows updates are sufficient, and for items not already updated, an automatic updater works well. Switching to dual channel will make a big difference, though a RAM overclock could add more if desired. Most DIMMs should handle at least 1866MT/s, with some reaching over 2400MT/s. However, overclocking RAM offers only modest gains on standard platforms, so it might be better to keep things as they are and appreciate the current setup.