Experiencing Stuttering w/ 1080 ti. Time for Me to Upgrade RAM?

[FuriousJaye]

I'm losing my mind trying to find a solution to the stuttering I'm experiencing in all of my games. I'm still using some components from a budget build i bought back in 2013 (RAM/HDD). These are my current specs:

CPU: i7-4790k (stock speed w/ turbo boost enabled)
Mobo: GIGABYTE z97x-ud3h
RAM: G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)
HDD: Seagate Desktop HDD ST500DM002 500GB 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5"
SSD: Toshiba OCZ TR150 120gb
PSU: EVGA Supernova NEX 650G (80 Plus Gold)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 GAMING
Case: Fractal Design Define R4

I actually ended up getting my 1080 ti replaced for a new unit when i first bought the card last summer - thinking I had faulty unit. The stuttering persisted and I've been dealing with it ever since. I've reinstalled my CPU Cooler numerous times (using Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound). My CPU peaks around 75° C in the most CPU intensive titles (i.e. Battlefield V) and I game in a room that's pretty warm (I live in south Texas). I figured those are reasonable temps. I recently tried disabling the XMP Profile in the BIOS and lowering my memory speed to 1600,1400, and 1333 MHz. The stuttering continued. I've reinstalled (clean installed) Windows 10 more times that I can remember and that didn't seem to help at all. I realize my RAM and HDD are over 5 years old now and seek advice on the next steps I should take to pinpoint the culprit. I am happy to provide any additional information that I can.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Monitor ram and pagefile usage during gaming session. Use MSI afterburner.
I'd suspect your system is running out of ram and using pagefile excessively.

 

[Calvin7]

How much free space is left on your Toshiba OCZ TR150?

 

[FuriousJaye]

Monitor ram and pagefile usage during gaming session. Use MSI afterburner.
I'd suspect your system is running out of ram and using pagefile excessively.

Just got afterburner. I will report back after some testing.

Edit: so after roughly 2 full length matches in Battlefield V beta, my pagefile usage hovers around 15.5 GB. RAM usage stays just around 5.5 GB. I'm not even sure what that means.

 

[FuriousJaye]

How much free space is left on your Toshiba OCZ TR150?

I haven't even put anything on it yet. I plan on installing my OS on it and nothing else.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Monitor ram and pagefile usage during gaming session. Use MSI afterburner.
I'd suspect your system is running out of ram and using pagefile excessively.

I agree with this. Also are you running Win 10 off the hard drive and not the SSD?

That hard drive is ancient and slow. With 8gb of ram if your pagefile is on there it will really make a difference.

 

[FuriousJaye]

Monitor ram and pagefile usage during gaming session. Use MSI afterburner.
I'd suspect your system is running out of ram and using pagefile excessively.

I agree with this. Also are you running Win 10 off the hard drive and not the SSD?

That hard drive is ancient and slow. With 8gb of ram if your pagefile is on there it will really make a difference.

Yes, everything is on the HDD at the moment. I can do a quick install of Windows on the SSD. I just got caught up in troubleshooting.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Edit: so after roughly 2 full length matches in Battlefield V beta, my pagefile usage hovers around 15.5 GB. RAM usage stays just around 5.5 GB. I'm not even sure what that means.

It means - system + game wants to use 15.5GB of ram, but you physically have only 8GB available. Any excess to 8GB is swapped in and out to virtual memory on HDD. HDD is several magnitudes slower than ram. Obviously you will experience stutters.
Suggest to upgrade ram to 16GB.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Monitor ram and pagefile usage during gaming session. Use MSI afterburner.
I'd suspect your system is running out of ram and using pagefile excessively.

I agree with this. Also are you running Win 10 off the hard drive and not the SSD?

That hard drive is ancient and slow. With 8gb of ram if your pagefile is on there it will really make a difference.

Yes, everything is on the HDD at the moment. I can do a quick install of Windows on the SSD. I just got caught up in troubleshooting.

Windows install on SSD with the pagefile should help considerably. Next up would be to go to 16gb ram. What resolution are you running at?

 

[FuriousJaye]

Monitor ram and pagefile usage during gaming session. Use MSI afterburner.
I'd suspect your system is running out of ram and using pagefile excessively.

I agree with this. Also are you running Win 10 off the hard drive and not the SSD?

That hard drive is ancient and slow. With 8gb of ram if your pagefile is on there it will really make a difference.

Yes, everything is on the HDD at the moment. I can do a quick install of Windows on the SSD. I just got caught up in troubleshooting.

Windows install on SSD with the pagefile should help considerably. Next up would be to go to 16gb ram. What resolution are you running at?

Dual Monitor setup. Both are 1920x1080 with my main display being 144hz.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Ok great 1080ti is overkill at that resolution so really just your system bottlenecks will show in that stuttering.

 

[FuriousJaye]

I can already see a major improvement after moving my OS over to the other drive. I'm going to go ahead order a 16GB RAM Kit along with a new HDD. I appreciate everyone's help and patience.