So I've just switched my X4 860K from an ASUS A88X-PLUS motherboard into a smaller Gigabyte motherboard, (otherwise same exact hardware) and now some of my games are struggling because the CPU is under load way more than the GPU. This never used to be the case - Mad Max, for example, was running flawlessly alongside my GTX 960 but now I'm getting choppy performance and crap frame rates (CPU is at 100% whilst GPU is at about 50% load). I will admit, I stupidly decided not to buy any thermal paste remover and reapply the thermal paste - could this be it?
I didn't reinstall Windows, no. Yes, motherboard was the only thing I changed. I've always been running it at the stock 3.7ghz although I did use Gigabyte's easytune to bump it up to 4.1 ghz (although am back at stock now). Temps are 60 to 70 degrees on the cpu.
I don't want to be that guy that always says "You should reinstall windows.". But you should probably look into reinstalling windows. A chipset swap is a large upgrade for windows. I'm surprised it didn't break your Window's activation. Whats you're FPS drop, like 10fps or 30?
It did... I've got the 'Activate Windows' message floating around. I bought a PC from PCSpecialist but I only have the Windows 8.1 disk and not the activation code (which was embedded into the mobo anyway).
I was running at AT LEAST a smooth 60 fps on Mad Max but now it's at about 30-40 fps but that isn't even consistent it's dropping frames left right and centre.
You could try reinstalling every driver that pertains to the motherboard. The motherboard should have a driver CD that came with it. That might get you somewhere. I'm thinking a driver from the old motherboard is interrupting the CPU causing frame drops.
Okay, fair enough thanks for that, I appreciate it. Out of interest, because I will need to buy another windows key and I will at some point reinstall windows completely - have you any experience in doing so? Is it as simple as buying one of those £20 keys, reinstalling windows and using that key?
An mATX board will almost always perform worse than an ATX board, as a general rule. Reading the reviews for this specific board, it also seems like these type of performance issues are typical.
Reinstalling Windows is a good first step for optimizing your software/firmware, but your really going to want a different motherboard if you want serious performance. If I were you, I would pick up something different and return the GA-F2A78M.
Check in system, device manager, what could have a question mark or exclamation point ! Indicating a missing driver or inadequate driver. I , personally, always reinstall the Intel inf driver file when moving anything related to CPU,HDD, SSD or other ! (IMO)
When you install Windows the OS does the best it can optimizing itself. However you should always install the most updated driver supplied by the OEM for each device.
I always recommend Asus, because statistically they are the most reliable board. I would never buy a budget board, not because I want all the bells and whistles, but because I want higher reliability and I don't want my components fried because of a cheap motherboard.
Also, remember to check RAM compatibility. Some motherboards like certain RAM and it will work way better. It's easy to assume that all DDR3-1600 is the same, but it's really not.