SWTOR Damaged My i7 2600K

I've come to the conclusion that this game is literally dangerous to run on a gaming PC.

I know that can sound hard to believe for some, but let me explain.

To begin, here are my system specs:

Intel Core i7 2600K
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 Pro heatsink/fan
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 motherboard
16GB Mushkin Blackline 2133MHz DDR3
2 x EVGA GTX460 1GB in SLI
Crucial M4 128GB SATA3 SSD 6Gb/s
WD Raptor Enterprise 10K RPM SATA3 3Gb/s
Creative XFi Platinum
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Cooler Master HAF932 Gaming Tower
Cooler Master 850W 80Plus Certified PSU
etc.

This is obviously a fairly powerful gaming rig and I built it and maintain it meticulously; actually I'm a PC repair shop owner and I've been involved in the PC industry for many years. I've been an avid gamer since the early 1980's.

I normally do not buy into conspiracy theories nor do I allow my opinion about games to be swayed by anything but my own experiences. But my experiences with this game have convinced me there's something seriously, seriously wrong with it.

I can actually get SWTOR to run quite well on my system. I can maintain 60FPS almost everywhere outside, running at maximum details at 1920x1200 resolution with all quality-improving options in the Forceware control panel enabled. The game plays wonderfully and I have no problem with it as a game itself. I run into frustrating chugging when indoors, curiously fluctuating very rapidly between 59 and 60FPS. This occurs when I'm near walls, inside caves or corridors, inside my ship, etc.

I've done many things and attempted many tweaks to try to alleviate that, but eventually I gave up. I realized that I could just temporarily disable VSync in-game when in those situations to have my framerate shoot up to the high 90's and even 100's which results again in liquid-smooth gameplay. Once back outside, reenable and go along my merry way.

So what's my problem?

I have, previously before playing SWTOR, been able to reliably overclock my processor to 4.5GHz with absolutely no stability issues whatsoever. My system was solid as a rock for at least six months prior, through many hours of maxed out and heavily tweaked Skyrim, through playing Battlefield 3, through RAGE, etc. My system was so stable I could leave it sitting in any one of those games, video cards also healthily overclocked, and not have a single worry.

Lately, however, I've started getting BSOD's in SWTOR. They started getting more and more frequent. I began to worry. The bluescreens even started occurring outside of SWTOR, like when running 3DMark11 or even while just browsing the internet! It should be noted that while playing SWTOR, especially with VSync disabled, my system fans speeds would definitely shoot up, with GPU temps often approaching 80C. This is okay for short gameplay sessions, but definitely not okay for hours on end.

This evening, I was finally able to restabilize my system, now at 4.4GHz, which isn't much to give up, but when you consider that I had to do so simply after a couple of weeks of playing a MMORPG that has such (comparitively) simplistic graphics, it's quite disturbing. I honestly believe that had I not been running a somewhat bullet-proof system, the damage may have been worse. I now need to keep a very careful watch on my rig to make sure everything else is okay.

A word of warning to you all: If this game is pushing your system to its limits, you should ask yourself if it's worth it to risk its reliability in the long term. I have canceled my account, deleted my credit card info from this website, and will be washing my hands of the whole thing. I probably won't be buying another BioWare game ever again, due merely to spite over this.

Good luck. You may want to consider getting out while you can.

BioWare, thanks a lot. You suck.

I'm sorry man, as much as I am with you on that one.. How did you let a game run your CPU to 80C ? You don't test before overclocking??

You misread. Look again; I said my GPU temps would often approach that. These generations of video cards can handle that, but like I said you shouldn't submit them to those kinds of rigors for too long.

Get BlueScreenView, find what the issue is, please repost your results here and I'll see if I can help you. (I'm not staff, but I'd still love to help.)

Ah sorry, a bit tired here! I recently got myself the same CPU as you, I run mine at 4.1ghz and I get the same kind of FPS issues indoors and in corridors.

EDIT: misread

It seems like people with "K" Sandy Bridges are having a rough time operating this game. I've only got an i5 2400 (3.1/3.4TB) and one GTX460 (Aren't those sweet, little cards?) and it sounds like I'm getting far better performance than you are in the areas you described as having difficulty with.

My resolution is 1920x1080@60hz with all setting turned to max and I VERY rarely drop anywhere below 35fps, even when looking out to the horizon on planets such as Taris. Now, my GTX460 has a core overclock to 800 and I nudged the core volts up to 1050 to compensate for that (no driver crashes), but even that shouldn't make me run circles around your 2600K and SLi'd 460's.

My CPU temps spike to 60c and my GPU temps hit ~68c. No liquid cooling, stock cooler on my CPU, Intel TB turned on, XMP memory profiled and seated on a Gigabyte mobo.

Again, seems like the K's are getting the short end of the stick.

Edit: I do have Vsync on or I tear so freakin' bad because I'm using an LCD HDTV as my display.

Run circles around?

Didn't you see that I mentioned by turning off VSync I run in the 90's and 100's (FPS) indoors?

Anyway, the point isn't the performance I was getting. The point is that this game unnecessarily stresses system components and since it's an addicting and time-consuming game, it can lead to damage.

That's silly- the only difference between a K and a regular is that it's unlocked. Overclocked systems having a problem? Possibly. OC is hit and miss. It puts a lot more strain on a CPU than the OP may actually realize - and there are long term side effects that can be accounted for by examining the overclock much easier than looking at what software was running.

For the record- I don't see that wall-stutter you guys are describing. (i7 2600k)- I'm getting around 60fps consistently, max settings at 1280x1024- but next time I log in I'll try to repro the wall stutter thing.

I'm well aware of the hazards of overclocking. I've been doing it for years and I chose my system components very carefully to accomodate as such.

My processor, for example, rarely goes over 35C when under full load in the games I mentioned. The Arctic Cooling unit ensures that. And I've never needed to bump any voltages, the BIOS and quality of the Gigabyte motherboard taking care of that.

I acknowledge your point, but I would request you take into account everything I mentioned.

There are far, far too many complaints about this exact type of problem and with performance problems in general with this game to ignore.

Also, if I chose to run at such a low resolution I'm pretty sure those stutters would go away.