Is my Thermalright PA120 SE causing lag in Planetside: Aftermath?
Exploring alien worlds is a blast, but the second the load gets heavy, the frame drops start hitting. The PA120 SE struggles with sustained high TDP, letting the core temp climb to 92-96℃, which forces the clock to tank from 4.8GHz to 3.5GHz. I tried taking the side panel off my case, which dropped temps by 5℃ but turned my PC into a dust magnet and barely helped the FPS. I eventually overhauled the airflow to a three-intake, one-exhaust positive pressure setup and set a -0.05V offset in the BIOS. In actual gameplay, the stuttering in dense areas is way less noticeable, and I'm holding a steady 55-60 FPS. I did have a few crashes during loading screens when I first undervolted, so I backed it off to -0.03V for stability. Temps now hover between 78-84℃. Ran some stress tests and the performance is finally back to where it should be.
