Question Do I need a new graphics card?

deediegraphiti

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Aug 22, 2012
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I recently bought the Samsung CHG90 monitor (3840x1080) and my GTX 1070 8GB is not cutting it for most games. I struggle to get more than 30 fps is most major titles, even on low settings. Is it time for an upgrade or am I missing something? I have followed many guides for specific games, but it seems the Battlefields of the world are content with not running smoothly at this resolution.

Also, Speccy is showing 4GB of memory on the card, yet nvidia is showing the full 8gb.

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Check GPU usage while playing the games, a 1070 shouldn't give such terrible performance. Also check temperatures and clock speeds of both CPU and GPU when playing games. Use MSI Afterburner's on-screen display.

Edit: Actually, now that I did some further digging into the 3840x1080 resolution, the 30 FPS might just be justifiable. Still, check the above things, maybe we can find something.
 
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deediegraphiti

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Aug 22, 2012
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Check GPU usage while playing the games, a 1070 shouldn't give such terrible performance. Also check temperatures and clock speeds of both CPU and GPU when playing games. Use MSI Afterburner's on-screen display.

Edit: Actually, now that I did some further digging into the 3840x1080 resolution, the 30 FPS might just be justifiable. Still, check the above things, maybe we can find something.
Will do. BO4 runs fine at about 50-60 fps on moderately high settings. The weird thing with BF5 is that low settings and ultra settings are virtually the same FPS.
 
Will do. BO4 runs fine at about 50-60 fps on moderately high settings. The weird thing with BF5 is that low settings and ultra settings are virtually the same FPS.

Then that's CPU bottlenecking, you'll probably see the GPU usage droop down as you decrease the quality settings. BF5 multiplayer is a bit heavy on the CPU, but singleplayer should run fine on an i7... If you are talking about multiplayer, then you should probably look at a CPU upgrade to a 6 or 8 core processor like Ryzen 5 2600X or i7 8700K.
 
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deediegraphiti

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Aug 22, 2012
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Also, just checked single player in BF5. Getting about 25 fps on high settings. The video cutscenes play around 35 fps.

Either this game is just poorly optimized for this resolution or I have a hardware issue. If I were to replace the CPU, is that possible while keeping the same MOBO/chipset? Also, would it be best to just replace the whole system with a new build?

Edit: installing Win10 1809 since I read it has performance improvements over 1803.
 
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You can see the GPU usage all over the place but never getting close to even 80%, your CPU is the bottleneck in at least this game. Do the Windows 10 update and try again, and if you want to upgrade to latest generation CPU then you'll need a different motherboard as well as DDR4 RAM. A new build with reused parts from this one will work just as well.
 
Are you sure the mini displayport connector has enough bandwidth for your monitor's capability? I don't think the mini displayport can support 144 Hz with such a big resolution...did you try using a displayport cable instead?

As for CPU suggestion, I would say i7 8700K or 9700K, and a good CPU cooler so that you can overclock the processor as much as possible, that will remove CPU bottlenecks in many games at 144 FPS.
 

deediegraphiti

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Aug 22, 2012
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10,510
Are you sure the mini displayport connector has enough bandwidth for your monitor's capability? I don't think the mini displayport can support 144 Hz with such a big resolution...did you try using a displayport cable instead?

As for CPU suggestion, I would say i7 8700K or 9700K, and a good CPU cooler so that you can overclock the processor as much as possible, that will remove CPU bottlenecks in many games at 144 FPS.
From what i've read, the only difference between DP and Mini DP are the connectors. Same standard.

Ty for the CPU rec. I'm leaning towards the 8700K, or whichever one does not need special cooling for OC.
 
Both of them will need an aftermarket cooler, the 9700K will just run hotter on the same overclock. I would still suggest you to try and change the cable you're using, and make sure it isn't longer than 3-5 metres, because the resolution and refresh rate of your monitor needs some serious data transfers, so a good cable is essential for proper functioning. It wouldn't be a bad investment to buy a high quality DisplayPort cable, you'll need with a new CPU too, so might as well get one now.

Go through this thread, and you'll get why I'm saying this. You can consider your monitor to be somewhat similar to a 1440p 144 Hz monitor in terms of bandwidth required:

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/3uvp02/a_holiday_reminder_on_quality_displayport_cables/