HP Z440 - Upgrade CPU for Gaming

[NonSequitur777]

@timwithtots,

Outstanding -I'm glad to hear it!

Let's go fix your (i7-6900K / HP Z440) performance issues.

Please follow the steps in this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkJBDEDDS5o&t=1287s. Only caveat is that when Panjno says to enter seven (7) f's (you'll know when that happens), it should be eight (8) f's.

After you have done this, please follow the steps starting at timestamp 5:08 through 6:17 in this Panjno optimization video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xq0GJLJdIs.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[timwithtots]

Quick update! I followed the steps you've recommended in the videos and ran a new benchmark test. 

TLDR on the results

• CPU shows a ~4% increase
• GPU shows a %5 decrease in performance

I knocked out a few hours of gaming last night (prior to completing all recommended tweaks. I only performed the changes in the first video) and the CPU stayed within range averaging ~72 degrees Celsius and I don't recall any slight freezing while playing this particular game. In the past with my Xeon I would experience slight freezing during gameplay which I believe stemmed from the Xeon hitting 100% overall utilization and bottlenecking.

Overall (so far with my limited testing) this CPU seems to be running more efficient than the Xeon. Curious how the machine will perform with the second round of changes made this morning.

If you have any further recommendations I'm all ears. Thanks again @NonSequitur777 !!

[NonSequitur777]

@timwithtots,

No worries, there are ways aplenty left to try to boost your desktop's performance.

First of all, uninstall the Nvidia RTX 3070 driver.

Then download and install the leanest RTX 3070 driver possible, the "Game Ready Driver" only: GeForce Game Ready Driver | 551.23 | Windows 11 | NVIDIA. Meaning, do not install the full "Studio Driver".

Then download, unzip/extract and install the Asus GPU Tweak III Install software from here: https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/Graphic%20Card/Unique_Applications/GPU-Tweak-III-v1723.zip.  Restart desktop.

You should see something like this showing up on your screen:

And as you can see from my own Tweak III settings, I have OC'd my RTX 3090 pretty much to full capacity.  The Tweak III software did wonders for my GPU performance: Asus PRIME Z390-P Performance Results - UserBenchmark. You'll have to experiment a little what is going to work for you -I used the MSI Kombuster software for that from here: MSI_Kombustor4_Setup_v4.1.27.0_x64.exe - BytesTransfer. 

Btw, remember not to exit the Tweak III screens, just minimize it so it will continue to run in the background:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777