Zotac EN1070 CPU Upgrade

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
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So this is a build...of sorts. If I'm in the wrong spot please forgive me.

I've been running a Zotac EN1070 as a living room gaming PC for a couple of years now. Unfortunately, it's been struggling lately as games begin to take advantage of more threads. A good example of this would be Battlefield 1. If I got onto a 64 player server, even at 1080P low settings, I would see the frame rate tank to the high 20s when things got crazy on screen. Newer games were even worse. My CPU usage would be at 100% for all four cores of the stock 6400T.

Here is a quick review of the stock specs:

Intel 6400T (4 Core - 4 Thread 2.8GHZ Boost clock, 2.5GHZ all core turbo)
Nvidia GTX 1070 Laptop model. This will boost to about 1400mhz under heavy load. So about GTX 1060 Desktop performance.

To that I added 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD.

I needed more CPU speed and more threads. So the logical choice was the Intel I7-6700T. It boosts to 3.4GHZ with 4 Cores and 8 Threads. I got mine second hand by stripping it out of an HP officer machine.

The swap wasn't too difficult. I tore down the system, swapped the CPU, put fresh paste on, rebuilt it, and crossed my fingers hoping it would boot. Two beeps later, the BIOS recognized the CPU, and Windows loaded without a hitch. I did make one change: I allowed the internal fan to rev to 100% instead of just 80%. Other than that, I left everything else alone.

The system booted right up, with no issues. I loaded up Battlefield 1 and.....

HOLY CRAPOLA! It's like I'm using a different computer. The 6700T allowed the GPU to stretch its legs. My frame rate, at 1200P, Ultra Settings was as high as 100FPS range. I was normally in the 80 to 90FPS range with NONE of the CPU based drops I had before. Temps were good as well. The GPU was in the 70C range, and the CPU in the 80C range. Perfectly acceptable. The CPU boosted all the way up to 3.4GHZ all cores. Pure awesome.

To anyone running these systems, you should seriously consider doing this upgrade!
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
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I moved the 6400T back into the HP G2 EliteDesk....man this thing is tiny...... and now it's folding 24-7 next to the Zotac.
 
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Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
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Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
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Just an update... I saw the CPU core speeds dancing between 3.1 and 3.4 GHZ constantly. This was causing some odd frame behavior. To fix it I limited the 6700T to a 3.2GHZ all core turbo. Now it's rock steady at 3.2GHZ, and the frame issues have vanished. The system is currently folding 24-7 on the GPU for my team, Faulty Logic.
 

chromov113

Trash Compacter
Jan 14, 2020
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Just an update... I saw the CPU core speeds dancing between 3.1 and 3.4 GHZ constantly. This was causing some odd frame behavior. To fix it I limited the 6700T to a 3.2GHZ all core turbo. Now it's rock steady at 3.2GHZ, and the frame issues have vanished. The system is currently folding 24-7 on the GPU for my team, Faulty Logic.

You probably could solve it with just the Windows power consumption settings, have you tried?
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Original poster
Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
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2,809
You probably could solve it with just the Windows power consumption settings, have you tried?

I did, but it didn't seem to help.

I just played Battlefield 5 on it at 1200P, High settings getting mostly 60FPS the entire time for the last hour. The highest CPU temp I saw was 90C. Most of the time it was mid 80s. Not great, not terrible.

I'll pay the price of a hotter system to get the massive increase in performance over the 6400T.

On a side note, my 6400T has been folding 24/7 in an HP Elite Desk G2 at about 65C. Props to HP on this little awesome machine.
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Original poster
Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
1,735
2,809
Delid would help dramatically.

No doubt there. However, as the temps are within spec, and the 6700T is expensive to replace if things go sideways, I think I'm going to leave it for now. But it is in the back of my mind.

I also played around with BFV a bit more. I was able to get it to pretty much a locked 60FPS, Ultra settings, at 1920x1200 by switching to DX12. It's the first system I've had that didn't stutter when I did that.
 
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infernuz

Efficiency Noob
Aug 8, 2023
6
1
Reviving an old thread, I have a similar EN1070 but the fans go crazy noisy at 100% when gaming. Is this normal or did I miss any settings? I bought the system used and was in the process of replacing the 6400T with 6700T and re-pasting, plus fan cleaning.

The temps go average of 80-85c in CPU and 89c in GPU depending on games in 1080p/1440p mixed. Games tried are It Takes Two, NFS Heat and other racing games so far.

I didn't expect myself to be particular with the noise (thought similar to standard desktop) so was contemplating whether to upgrade the CPU or re-sell and build a matx HTPC instead.
 

Revenant

Christopher Moine - Senior Editor SFF.N
Original poster
Revenant Tech
SFFn Staff
Apr 21, 2017
1,735
2,809
Reviving an old thread, I have a similar EN1070 but the fans go crazy noisy at 100% when gaming. Is this normal or did I miss any settings? I bought the system used and was in the process of replacing the 6400T with 6700T and re-pasting, plus fan cleaning.

The temps go average of 80-85c in CPU and 89c in GPU depending on games in 1080p/1440p mixed. Games tried are It Takes Two, NFS Heat and other racing games so far.

I didn't expect myself to be particular with the noise (thought similar to standard desktop) so was contemplating whether to upgrade the CPU or re-sell and build a matx HTPC instead.

I gave mine to a family member but it never had the screaming fan issue. It really never got any louder after the upgrade, and I left the fans in the stock config. I did do a full clean and repaste of everything when I did the swap. It sounds like yours has some sort of fault to be that loud. Maybe it just needs to be cleaned. I'd start there. Additionally, leave the fan profile as stock as manually adjusting it causes them to scream.

That said, I wouldn't dump a lot of money into these systems anymore above the $70 or so it takes to get a 6700T. They're neat looking machines and fun, but extremely dated at nearly 7 years old. I don't want to discourage you though as it's still good for lighter and older gaming, but if you're dumping a ton of money into it, it might be better to get something else. Even a Ryzen 5600X ($110) paired with a RTX 4060 ($260 for Zotac SOLO model) would be substantially faster.

Regardless I'll help if I can.

I last ran 3DMARK TimeSpy on this in November of 2021, and it pulled a combined score of 4539 points. GPU was at 66C per that run.

1716399443350.png



Now in actual gaming ,it gets hotter though I don't recall seeing 89c. CPU temps seem about right though.
 
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infernuz

Efficiency Noob
Aug 8, 2023
6
1
Thank you for the response. I did not touch anything in the fan profiles in BIOS and just disable turbo boost because of the fan noise and temperatures. Yes I agree with you I am not spending anything big with this system and I have managed to find a used 6700T for $60. Will do the re-pasting and fan cleaning as you have said and hopefully it goes quiet at least.

The size just fits perfectly into my TV stand and honestly satisfied with the games I play with it and the performance minus the fan sound. I don't want to end up building a small HTPC with used parts instead (though very confident of the performance I can get with the price vs this).