Question Do I need a new CPU?

[honeypup]

Getting some pretty aggravating frame drops in games that I never used to have any issues in prior to installing my new power supply and graphics card today. I changed out my GTX 1660 graphics card and 600w power supply for a PNY GeForce 3070 GPU and a 850w PSU just for reference. As soon as I tested out a game I was getting inconsistent frames 50-400FPS. Prior to the new graphics card and the new psu I installed my frames would always be 200+fps never any significant dips, especially never as low as 50FPS. When I went to open my task manager I noticed my CPU was at 100%. I did not have anything else insane running in the background other than my game, Spotify and Discord. My memory under task manager appeared to be fine which is why I believe this is not a RAM issue. Do I really need a new CPU?




Motherboard: Asus Prime B360M-A
CPU: i5-9400F
GPU: PNY GeForce 3070
PSU: 850W
16GB RAM

 

[mc_spaceman]

have you checked your pc to see if it is in fact compatible with the games you play? i use this site to bench my computer to list compatibility between hardware and games.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

On to your question.. Does framerate affect CPU?

Yes, but it depends on the game by how much. Some games, such as first-person shooters and racing games are GPU dependent and the CPU has only a minor impact. Other games like 3rd person strategy games the CPU is very important.

In this case, i guess it would really depend on what games you are trying to play, and at what settings? If you primarily notice these drops while only in specific games, have you tried to lower your resolution and graphics settings in game to see if you could recover any fps?

if your cpu is higher than 95% while trying to play, and notice a substantial framerate drop, you've hit a cpu bottleneck. so in that case, yes a cpu upgrade would be beneficial. it could also be a bottleneck on the motherboard as there has been a few newer releases of the prime boards that are generally more pci-e 4.0 compatable.

now before a cpu upgrade, id suggest to look into making sure your bios is completely updated so it can accept the "supported" cpu list.

cpu support list with required bios revision : https://pangoly.com/en/compatibility/asus-prime-b360m-a/cpu .

Bios revisions: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/PRIME/PRIME-B360M-A/HelpDesk_BIOS/

edit/
the 3070 is pci-e 4.0, it may be trying to push too much data at your motherboard and cpu. a pci-e 4.0 cpu and motherboard would definitely benefit this card and remove bottlenecks.

please keep us updated and i hope my post helps a bit.

 

[honeypup]

have you checked your pc to see if it is in fact compatible with the games you play? i use this site to bench my computer to list compatibility between hardware and games.

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

On to your question.. Does framerate affect CPU?

Yes, but it depends on the game by how much. Some games, such as first-person shooters and racing games are GPU dependent and the CPU has only a minor impact. Other games like 3rd person strategy games the CPU is very important.

In this case, i guess it would really depend on what games you are trying to play, and at what settings? If you primarily notice these drops while only in specific games, have you tried to lower your resolution and graphics settings in game to see if you could recover any fps?

if your cpu is higher than 95% while trying to play, and notice a substantial framerate drop, you've hit a cpu bottleneck. so in that case, yes a cpu upgrade would be beneficial. it could also be a bottleneck on the motherboard as there has been a few newer releases of the prime boards that are generally more pci-e 4.0 compatable.

now before a cpu upgrade, id suggest to look into making sure your bios is completely updated so it can accept the "supported" cpu list.

cpu support list with required bios revision : https://pangoly.com/en/compatibility/asus-prime-b360m-a/cpu .

Bios revisions: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards-Components/Motherboards/PRIME/PRIME-B360M-A/HelpDesk_BIOS/

edit/
the 3070 is pci-e 4.0, it may be trying to push too much data at your motherboard and cpu. a pci-e 4.0 cpu and motherboard would definitely benefit this card and remove bottlenecks.

please keep us updated and i hope my post helps a bit.

First of all, thank you so much for all of the help and information! Especially the BIOS link, extremely helpful! To answer your question on the games, yes I can run the games I am playing. I tried lowering the graphics in one and still was getting frame drops and my CPU was still at 100%. I think it is trying to push too much onto my CPU. I also noticed my temperature for my cpu was getting high. I am trying to avoid the tedious task of replacing my motherboard and am looking into upgrading possibly to an i5-9600KF cpu with a new coolant fan and updating my BIOS. I am hoping this will fix or at least help my current issue but if you have any other recommendations please shoot them my way. Again, thanks so much!

 

[mdd1963]

Going from a 9400 to a 9600K is still only 6 threads...

I'd try to find a 9700K or 9900KF/9900K (if pricing not bad only)...(either processor will require more than whatever minimal cooler the 9400 came with, so do please do not consider that as any sort of temp option)

 

[falcon291]

What are the games you mentioned? I can see that in some very demanding games some threads can be used a hundred percent with my 9700K. Battlefield V, RDR2, Battlefield 2042 or Cyberpunk are examples of such games.

 

[Bob.B]

Getting some pretty aggravating frame drops in games that I never used to have any issues in prior to installing my new power supply and graphics card today. I changed out my GTX 1660 graphics card and 600w power supply for a PNY GeForce 3070 GPU and a 850w PSU just for reference. As soon as I tested out a game I was getting inconsistent frames 50-400FPS. Prior to the new graphics card and the new psu I installed my frames would always be 200+fps never any significant dips, especially never as low as 50FPS. When I went to open my task manager I noticed my CPU was at 100%. I did not have anything else insane running in the background other than my game, Spotify and Discord. My memory under task manager appeared to be fine which is why I believe this is not a RAM issue. Do I really need a new CPU?




Motherboard: Asus Prime B360M-A
CPU: i5-9400F
GPU: PNY GeForce 3070
PSU: 850W
16GB RAM

When you replaced the gpu did you uninstall the old gpu drivers before installing the new gpu drivers?

 

[Wolfshadw]

When you replaced the gpu did you uninstall the old gpu drivers before installing the new gpu drivers?

The same driver package supports both cards. Removing the drivers is not necessary.

-Wolf sends

 

[Zerk2012]

Getting some pretty aggravating frame drops in games that I never used to have any issues in prior to installing my new power supply and graphics card today. I changed out my GTX 1660 graphics card and 600w power supply for a PNY GeForce 3070 GPU and a 850w PSU just for reference. As soon as I tested out a game I was getting inconsistent frames 50-400FPS. Prior to the new graphics card and the new psu I installed my frames would always be 200+fps never any significant dips, especially never as low as 50FPS. When I went to open my task manager I noticed my CPU was at 100%. I did not have anything else insane running in the background other than my game, Spotify and Discord. My memory under task manager appeared to be fine which is why I believe this is not a RAM issue. Do I really need a new CPU?




Motherboard: Asus Prime B360M-A
CPU: i5-9400F
GPU: PNY GeForce 3070
PSU: 850W
16GB RAM

I would run a stress test on the processor while checking temps you might of knocked the cooler loose.

 

[Nighthawk117]

Getting some pretty aggravating frame drops in games that I never used to have any issues in prior to installing my new power supply and graphics card today. I changed out my GTX 1660 graphics card and 600w power supply for a PNY GeForce 3070 GPU and a 850w PSU just for reference. As soon as I tested out a game I was getting inconsistent frames 50-400FPS. Prior to the new graphics card and the new psu I installed my frames would always be 200+fps never any significant dips, especially never as low as 50FPS. When I went to open my task manager I noticed my CPU was at 100%. I did not have anything else insane running in the background other than my game, Spotify and Discord. My memory under task manager appeared to be fine which is why I believe this is not a RAM issue. Do I really need a new CPU?




Motherboard: Asus Prime B360M-A
CPU: i5-9400F
GPU: PNY GeForce 3070
PSU: 850W
16GB RAM

Yes a 9400 will bottleneck a 3070 in a number of the most demanding games like Cyberpunk or when running at high refresh rates. A 9600KF will not fix your problem, it's not that much faster than your current chip. The 9900K would fix your issue but ideally you would want a board with much stronger power delivery. Unfortunately I think your best bet is to go to a new platform. If you can afford it, the i5 12600K is your best bet.

 

[geofelt]

There is no reason why a stronger graphics card should cause a decrease in performance.
If you were cpu limited before, your performance with a stronger graphics card should have remained unchanged.

You made two simultaneous changes; gpu and psu.

What is the make/model of the 850w psu replacement?
Some power supplies have cables that do not handle some signals from the 3000 class graphics cards well.

Look in task manager to see what process is using up that 100% cpu utilization.

If you are inclined to upgrade your processor, the best you could do on your motherboard would be a I7-9700K.
It is a fair upgrade that sells for $250 on ebay.

For the same $ you can buy a i3-12100 processor that is considerably more capable as well as a lga1700 motherboard.
You could reuse your ddr4 ram.
Here is a review:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-core-i3-12100-12100f-review

 

[honeypup]

What are the games you mentioned? I can see that in some very demanding games some threads can be used a hundred percent with my 9700K. Battlefield V, RDR2, Battlefield 2042 or Cyberpunk are examples of such games.

I was on RD2 with my graphics optimized and cpu at 100%. I then went on fortnite with all graphics turned on low and my CPU was still at 100%. The game was using 88% of my CPU I believe.

 

[honeypup]

There is no reason why a stronger graphics card should cause a decrease in performance.
If you were cpu limited before, your performance with a stronger graphics card should have remained unchanged.

You made two simultaneous changes; gpu and psu.

What is the make/model of the 850w psu replacement?
Some power supplies have cables that do not handle some signals from the 3000 class graphics cards well.

Look in task manager to see what process is using up that 100% cpu utilization.

If you are inclined to upgrade your processor, the best you could do on your motherboard would be a I7-9700K.
It is a fair upgrade that sells for $250 on ebay.

For the same $ you can buy a i3-12100 processor that is considerably more capable as well as a lga1700 motherboard.
You could reuse your ddr4 ram.
Here is a review:

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-core-i3-12100-12100f-review

I will definitely look into the I7-9700K! That is not too bad of a price tag. I think my only hesitation with the i7's was that I heard the i5's were far superior for gaming? But I truly am less knowledgeable on mother boards and processors so I will definitely be looking into this. Thank you so so much!!

My AGK850w + 80 Gold PSU is by ARESGAME. I made sure and checked on PCPartsPicker to see if it would be compatible but it could definitely be wrong!

 

[honeypup]

I would run a stress test on the processor while checking temps you might of knocked the cooler loose.

Thank you! I checked the temp of my processor while I was in game and clocking at 100%. Temp of CPU was 77-79. I'm assuming this is not very good as I have read online that it shouldn't be any higher than 85!

 

[honeypup]

When you replaced the gpu did you uninstall the old gpu drivers before installing the new gpu drivers?

So I didn't wipe the drivers when I first installed my new gpu because I stayed within the same manufacturer! GeForce to GeForce. However I thought this may have been the issue so I went ahead and wiped the drivers using DDU and reinstalled. Still getting insane frame drops and CPU clocked at 100%.

 

[Bob.B]

So I didn't wipe the drivers when I first installed my new gpu because I stayed within the same manufacturer! GeForce to GeForce. However I thought this may have been the issue so I went ahead and wiped the drivers using DDU and reinstalled. Still getting insane frame drops and CPU clocked at 100%.

OK...that just gets that out of the mix.
What happens if you put the orig gpu back in the pc?
Does the cpu % drop back down and the frame drops go away?

 

[rcald2000]

Hello honeypup. I believe that I've located the answer to your original question. It would seem that Steve from Hardware Unboxed has nailed the explanation of your problem. Please initially watch the video between the time span that I've listed. Then you might consider watching the video in it's entirety for entertainment purposes.

Time stamp: Watch FROM 5m 55s TO 7m 43s

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlfwXqODqp4&t=355s

Time stamp: Watch FROM 5m 55s TO 7m 43s

 

[rcald2000]

honeypup Did you watch the video that I previously posted? Thoughts? Have you taken any actions?

 

[rcald2000]

Since you need more CPU performance, here is a suggestion:

Sell your used core i5-9400F and motherboard as a combo.
Buy a new core i5-12400F and B660 chipset motherboard using the proceeds of the sale plus an additional $150 USD out of pocket:

-------------------------
MSI PRO B660M-A WiFi DDR4
$149.99
https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813144524
-------------------------
Intel Core i5-12400F
$179.97
https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i5-12400f-core-i5-12th-gen/p/N82E16819118360
-------------------------

** Cinebench R23 single / multi core scores **

core i5-9400F: 1020 / 5581
core i5-12400F: 1623 / 12454

 

[drivinfast247]

Go to userbenchmark.com download and run the test. Be sure to close any overlay such as afterburner and disable gsync prior to running test. Link test results here.

 

[honeypup]

Hey everyone! Just wanted to give an update… I ended up with an i7-9700K and added in a nice coolant fan by Cool Master. It now works like a dream with my GPU! Thank you all so much for the helpful suggestions and recommending a new CPU!