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Provided that your fan and thermal paste are basically ok, my next guess is that you are
experiencing heat build-up inside of your case (i.e. other components are also hotter than normal).
If we can infer your case from your MOBO, you are using an ITX box. Nicer than clunky towers, but:
At a given airflow / cooling these cases are heating up much faster than Midi or Big towers.
Combined with e.g. rather weak Intel stock 4771 fans and non-blower style GPUs (your GPU exhausts
(most of) its waste heat into the case) the heat build-up is a recipe for disaster.
So radically improving the airflow into and out of the case is probably the best you can do -
but certainly no cakewalk if you are really limited to the ITX format. In addition, a better
CPU cooler could be necessary. (An AIO would be kind of an overkill regarding the age of the
CPU and the fact that you still would need to solve the GPU airflow issue and need space for
a radiator and its fan(s).)
Guys, I'm pleased to report the CPU temps were the entire problem. I pulled the whole rig apart and discovered that two of the pins that hold the fan to the CPU were not fully engaged. By the looks of the thermal paste underneath, it's been like this since day one, it was in it's original pattern from Intel and hadn't even spread out any. It was my first build lol
Thanks @DavidHP @Cloudy @choke35 for the tips and links to the monitoring software... it was an easy find once I could actually see what was going on LOL. I also spent a lot of time cleaning everything and rerouting all of the cables to improve airflow through the ITX box (good call Choke!) Airflow is very much improved, now temps are idling around 35*c, running three instances of Sierrachart over three monitors is around 50*.
GTA V plays buttery smooth with all settings maxed out and 1080P resolution... fantastic! This is what I was looking for the whole time LOL. I may still have to look into further improvements, during the most aggressive action I'm still seeing some temps in the 80-90* range but they are not very often.
It's really hard to believe the thing has survived five years of this... but it took gaming to push the system to the point that I actually noticed any type of performance deficit. The whole package is now very fast and very smooth.
One thing that puzzles me.. I have both games loaded on a 1TB HDD, and load times have improved dramatically... I mean substantially faster, at least twice as fast. For the record, I did move it from a vertical position to a horizontal one at the bottom of the case (which opened up more cooling on one side) but I wouldn't think that would affect loading performance?!
Looking at the airflow, the intake is at the front of the case and takes up most of the face, save for the CD/DVD. Both sides are about 75% ventilated and the top is about 50%. The PSU pulls cool air from the back and vents out the top, the GPU fans blow through the vents on the left side and the exhaust fan does the same on the right. Wonder if I can ditch the CD/DVD and install a bigger fan in the front. There's also lots of room for a larger exhaust fan on the right, and plenty of upgrades for the chip fan. Hmmm... might be worth looking at upgrades for all, and if it still struggles I suppose I could just transfer everything over to a bigger case with more volume.
Always good to see Occam's Razor in effect through the hardware monitoring, turns out the simplest solution was the answer in this case.
I like to play with cars but this PC stuff is pretty damn fun LOL... thanks again for the help you guys, cheers!
I agree with @choke35 that trying to build a gaming rig with an ITX case is a recipe for disaster. Your next rig should be ATX based. I particularly love the High Air Flow (HAF) series of cases from Cooler Master:
@tturner86 wow that looks like a pretty good deal... RTX2070?! I7 8700?! Yeah man... that should work nicely for some flight sim action What else do you play?