[SOLVED] Gaming related: High-end rig does not pull it weight, and the problem might be CPU-related.

[Drevsvy]

Hello everyone.

Long read ahead, but I appreciate your help - A lot!
I would really need your help, as I have been googling, asking and watching a lot of solutions and nothing seems to fix my issue, including the friend of mine who built my pc for me.
Please mind, that the post will relate to gaming. I will write benchmarks so people with no knowledge in these games can see how much I underperform.

I will split the post in the following sections:
1: My specs
2: My problems
3: The benchmarks
4: What I have been trying to do
5: Things I have considered or thought about

1: Specs
My specs are as follows:
GeForce MSI RTX2070
AMD Ryzen 7 2700x Eight-CRTe Processor, 16 CPU 3.7 gHz
CORSAIR 16GB RAMKit 2X8GB DDR4 3200MHz 2x288Dimm 16gb ram (Some high speed ones)
MSI B450 TOMAHAWK Mainboard Sockel AM4
SSD 1024GB Samsung 860 Evo SATA/M.2
CORSAIR RMx Series RM750x (80+ Gold)

PC is built by myself and a friend of mine. On desktop.

2+3: Problems and benchmarks
I have noticed that my computer severely underperforms in my competitive games. It might even underperform in high-end games, but I have no way of benchmarking. I simply assume so, based on the following experiences.
Do not judge - I play more than just these 😀 - But CS:GO and League of Legends are games in particular where this damage is heavy.

I play CS:GO/LoL in "Competitive" settings. This means all settings mostly low, native resolutions and some autoconfigs to maximize power.
I sometimes dip below the dangerzone of 144fps (My native refresh rate), and rarely 100 mark. The average seems, according to a FPS benchmark, to be 222 fps.
(Is more required for 144hz? A long discussion - Keep on topic regarding this, as it is a competitive setting, and higher framerate than refresh-rate does feel smoother =

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjWSRTYV8e0
)
My friend with a 1080 gfx and a AMD Ryzen 1600 runs this same benchmark at +300 fps. My old rig with a MSI 970 and i5-4690 ran it at 240. Only difference are resolutions as I run native 1080p and he runs 840.
But my dips in the game are what worries me. He never dips, however I do. With a far more superior CPU in a CPU intensive game, this shouldn't be the case, right?
(For the interested, my autoexec for CS:GO are as follows: -novid -high -tickrate 128 -threads 16 -console -mat_queue_mode "2")

Similarely, I just came from a game of League of Legends, playing in native resolution at low-medium settings. Mind you, with a MSI 2070 and AMD Ryzen 2700x, floating at an average 120fps. Dipped below a worrying 80 during a teamfight.
My friend on a Macbook, allthough all settings at low (Almost like me..!), ran at an average of 140 fps.

This is the point where I decided that something was absolutely wrong. And where I hope you can help..

4: What I have tried
I do not know for sure yet what causes these issues, but it looks more like a CPU-issue rather than my RTX.

• I have updated my graphics driver in Geforce Experience from when I installed my RTX 2070 over the previous GTX 970 (More on that in chapter 5).
• I have ran several autoexec's to and seen guides on how to "maximize" effort during loads, but most of them are already active.
• I have talked with my friend who built 90% of the PC, who believes it is a possible software issue, maybe that my CPU won't work at full load.
• I have tried running AMD-apps such as system monitor and overdrive. The overdrive-app actually gives me a blue screen with the sad smiley on every boot, so I have not tried it yet.

- I have NOT measured temps through an app. However, during CS:GO and LoL my pc is almost STONE COLD. In more intensive games such as Killing Floor 2, Squad and Arma 3, it gets hot - As it should during those loads.

5: Things I have considered or thought about

• My friend mentioned that when you go from GTX to RTX, there are sometimes issues with drivers.
• I fear that I have installed my CPU incorrectly. MY friend claims it wouldn't boot otherwise and that I shouldn't worry.
• I have, as mentioned, not measured data, since the app wasn't working.
• That my CPU wont overload to compensate for lifespan (However this contradicts why it gets hot during those other games - But maybe that was the GPU getting hot?)
• That my GPU is pushing the CPU, or in general, the system into "idle" mode, albeit it is too strong. As in: Run all settings on low can impact perfomance, due to GPU idling, rather than running it on high.

Here is a picture of my PC's CPU perfomance in CS:GO after the "Benchmarking". Please note how it is not even hitting 70%. The Graphics card is down at <10% load.

https://imgur.com/a/gegUp8g

View: https://imgur.com/a/gegUp8g



This is all I have for now. Please note, I am not super great with hardware nor the software to support said hardware.
I sincerely hope you might be able to solute this problem for me.

Any spelling mistakes or errors, sorry, I am no native speaker of english.
Best wishes - Drevsvy

 

[Karadjgne]

Well, 4k DSR will make a considerable difference for sure, if I try that on my 970, I get like 90fps at best, averaging about 60fps. All that is is where the gpu takes the data from the cpu, renders it as 4k resolution, then down scales to meet your 1080p monitor. So not only does it work harder during the render, but does more work on the down scale.
Probably should apologize, I'd not even considered the 4k DSR, as it's almost always changed when ppl say they are running 1080p, getting decent results but just not quite what they expected.

Are you using GeForce Experience for that? I had to manually set the resolution for 1920x1080 when I first set that up. Also, I lowered the slider for grass detail to medium, max looks good, but I'm not really all that interested in how the grass looks in those maps, too Intent on not getting snap shot killed.

I haven't been on the competitive maps much, actually not since they changed the setup. I'm usually on the standard maps. So there could very well be a difference there as different maps will have different amounts of detailing. I got used to voting for 1 of 7 other maps, just in standard, that's been flipped and now seperated. I didn't mind Office, but every other map was annoying. I could assume that the other maps, like Sand II might be somewhat higher polygon/particle counts than Office , which would explain fps differences. Many of the competitive maps are not actually CSGO native, but adopted by CSGO after submission from users who got a popular vote.

Changing the resolution to 720p shouldn't have had any affect on fps, resolution is all a gpu thing, not cpu. The only way that should have changed fps is if the gpu is severely underperforming and the lower resolution gives it a break. Regardless, the fps limits are still set by the cpu, you won't get more than what the cpu gives to the gpu. So if you are capping at 277ish, that's the best it'll do, details/resolutuon/DSR can only go lower, not higher. Different games, different code, different maps even all have quirks. In one of the Far Cry games, there's a stairwell, a plain Jane flight of stairs outside a building, that's as plain concrete as anything else, was dropping ppl with OC i7-8700k and gtx1080ti to 20fps. It was never explained why, but everybody got it, no matter how big or bad a system, best you'd get on that one particular stairwell was 20fps. 200fps everywhere else. It happens.

Could my pc be dipping below 290-300? Could be, never noticed, just every time I looked at the counter, it was 290-300, standing still for a second so I can take my eyes off what else is going on. It could simply be you notice the dips that I don't.

At the end of the day, your minimum fps is still way higher than monitor refresh, so isn't going to really make any difference, it's a benchmark number. Put the settings to where you prefer them and enjoy the game for what it is. I play on 60Hz screens, so I could even set regular v-sync and it wouldnt change the game any at all. I play on ultra for the immersion, but changing to low would only change that, not make the game more fun.

 

[Drevsvy]

Thanks for the post and read.

Maybe you are right regarding that my CPU simply cannot handle more, but I refuse to believe it is the cause.

https://imgur.com/a/ApJGjjP

View: https://imgur.com/a/ApJGjjP


This feature is still unsolved. We have come a long way optimizing my PC, but I am certain that something still is wrong, especially with the CPU since it runs at 100% EDC.
I have tried the fix from previously stated by Dark, it had no effect.

I have answered in my very first post, why more frames per second is important, and why staying at as stable as i can at 300 is important even with a 144hz monitor.

 

[xravenxdota]

This could be a good read, if you haven't seen it yet, either of you.
https://community.amd.com/community/gaming/blog/2017/04/06/amd-ryzen-community-update-3

Thank you for clearing that up.I had mine on ryzen power plan just didn't know the in depth story behind it.

 

[Darkbreeze]

AMD says to ditch the Ryzen balanced power plan, and use the Windows balanced power plan.

https://community.amd.com/thread/230768#comment-2892723

I've also found a lot of information pointing to the idea that the EDC readings are a bunch of nonsense and to ignore them. Personally, I think they are only half right because these problems with EDC seem to only show up on low to mid tiered boards running 8 core Ryzen 2000 series parts. I haven't seen anybody running a higher end B450 or X470 board having this problem so I don't believe EDC is actually directly CPU related. I think it has something to do, fundamentally, with the VRMs. Unfortunately I don't have a Ryzen system to test the theory out on yet. Planning to probably do a Zen 2 build but that probably doesn't help me solve Ryzen 2nd gen problems.

Going to bring in another person with Ryzen specific experience to see if they can shed some light on the issues you've been having.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Darkbreeze told me about this thread.

Strange problem indeed. But IMO I am reasonably sure that your problem is that MSI Tomahawk B450 Motherboard. 4+2 power phase on that board, more than one of our users has had strange problems with it, and the fact EDC is at 100% on that board tells me you're having power issues which is likely throttling the CPU.

I can't tell you if its just defective or it sucks (probably some combo of both). We do have users that have that board and no problems, but I am not sure they are running a 2700x. Personally if you can return it, do so and buy anything else, a decent X470 board preferably, like the ASUS Prime.

 

[Darkbreeze]

I have to agree that to me it seems to be a VRM issue and that RL is correct that we've seen a lot of these Tomohawk and Mortar boards with power delivery issues so it's very possible that it's related. And if it is, then the throttling would explain your drop in FPS.

 

[Karadjgne]

I had thought of that, but the Tomahawk uses 4 mosfets per phase, 2 on high side and 2 on low side, and from everything I've seen, MSI has been leading the pack with high grade mosfets on the VRM's with Gigabyte close on its heels. So unfortunately I discounted it as a reason, which is my bad, but those same B450 msi/gigabyte boards were also cleared for use with the supposed (at the time) power hog 3000 series.

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
Arthur Conan Doyle

Didn't see that board as being a root cause, but I've never known RL to be wrong about anything he knows for fact.

 

[Rogue Leader]

I had thought of that, but the Tomahawk uses 4 mosfets per phase, 2 on high side and 2 on low side, and from everything I've seen, MSI has been leading the pack with high grade mosfets on the VRM's with Gigabyte close on its heels. So unfortunately I discounted it as a reason, which is my bad, but those same B450 msi/gigabyte boards were also cleared for use with the supposed (at the time) power hog 3000 series.

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
Arthur Conan Doyle

Didn't see that board as being a root cause, but I've never known RL to be wrong about anything he knows for fact.

Thanks!

You're correct about the design on their VRMs, in theory it should be fine for any 2xxx CPU, but We have seen more than one problem with this specific board for me to be skeptical. After all the other things that you guys went through in this thread, and considering that EDC reading, to me it makes sense.

 

[Karadjgne]

Got a lemon...

 

[Drevsvy]

I changed to balanced powerplan, and my EDC reading are no longer hitting 100% during idle use, or even light games. thanks @Darkbreeze

Do you guys really think that my MB might be the reason, or....?
Makes me worried to think that, not that your arguments wouldn't make sense, but still..

I want more confirmation to this before I buy a new one.
Ditching it is not possible as this build is like 4-5 months old, with the exception of the GPU which was added very recently.

 

[Darkbreeze]

Confirmation is going to be...........problematic, because about the only way to fully confirm that the VRM configuration is causing or allowing throttling is to try a different, higher end board with a better VRM configuration and see if the problem is still happening.

One thing you can try is playing at Ultra settings at the maximum resolution your monitor supports and see if you still see similar drops in frame rates. Obviously you're not going to see the same FPS at Ultra settings that you see at say, medium or high, but you might still be able to get a feel for whether or not there is an unexplained drop regardless of what your average FPS is or whether it is only happening when you are hitting very high FPS for extended periods.

 

[Drevsvy]

Confirmation is going to be...........problematic, because about the only way to fully confirm that the VRM configuration is causing or allowing throttling is to try a different, higher end board with a better VRM configuration and see if the problem is still happening.

One thing you can try is playing at Ultra settings at the maximum resolution your monitor supports and see if you still see similar drops in frame rates. Obviously you're not going to see the same FPS at Ultra settings that you see at say, medium or high, but you might still be able to get a feel for whether or not there is an unexplained drop regardless of what your average FPS is or whether it is only happening when you are hitting very high FPS for extended periods.

Interesting. Will see if I can test that.

Might I add, I've been playing DayZ:SA for the past 2 days and been hitting very good fps (110-200) on high settings, with my CPU being at 20-30% load, and the gpu at 70-85% load.
So after this, I've concluded that maybe my single core perfomance might be sluggish...

 

[Rogue Leader]

Interesting. Will see if I can test that.

Might I add, I've been playing DayZ:SA for the past 2 days and been hitting very good fps (110-200) on high settings, with my CPU being at 20-30% load, and the gpu at 70-85% load.
So after this, I've concluded that maybe my single core perfomance might be sluggish...

Have you tried setting the system to High Performance instead of Balanced, thats a way to test that. But again the chances of your single core performance being "sluggish" means you have a defective processor which is HIGHLY unlikely. But if you set HP and have problems it could also again be a power delivery problem. You need to look at the telemetry and see what clock speed the processor is running at while gaming, and of course the % load, but maybe in something more demanding than DayZ (because 20% is nothing).

 

[fagetti]

Do you have now latest bios installed? First update it to latest with insturctions what other people told already. Tips below will increase power limit meaning higher temperatures and better cooling needed. What is your cooler and max temperatures under load ( vrm / mos and cpu core)?

1. You need latest bios to get offset cpu voltage which is the option you need
2. Go to bios and under cpu options / cpu overclocking there is option called "precision boost overdrive" , set it manual and set all values max ( PPT 1000W , EDC 1000a AND TDP 1000A)
3. Disable "spread spectrum" option

However you need to set your vcore / cpu core voltage lower so you wont thermal throttle. This is where you need to use CPU negative offset.
1. under voltage settings set CPU core voltage to "offset" mode, under that set "cpu offset mark" to minus ( - )
Then below that option set "cpu offset voltage" to 0.1000 volts, you can tweak this later on. Too high voltage means very high temperatures, so you need to use offset, going below 0.1v is better but you might encounter stability issues depending on chip. This can be tested.

Load up these settings and monitor temperatures and stability.

 

[Karadjgne]

Welcome to overclocking....

As a general thought OC is increasing speeds above stock settings, while lowering the heat producing voltages to absolute minimums allowable for stability. But there's some leeway there, as stock bios generally also runs higher than necessary voltages to guarantee stability in any cpu. Every cpu is different, your 2700x might require Cv at stock with Da amount of current, a different 2700x might require Bv and Aa for stability. So amd sets Nv and Na to cover everyone. Meaning you could drop that Nv to Ev and still have plenty of stability, yet drop a good chunk of voltage used, heat output, VRM stress and temps. (that's alphabet Volts and Amps)

Which is still overclocking. Or undervolting if you want to look at it that way. Either way, you are changing stock bios parameters to tailor your cpu to your wants/needs.

 

[fagetti]

Hes throttling cause of EDC limit being at 140amps. This might not remove the problem (low fps in games) if is not caused by that and something else. And enabling PBO your also overclocking your CPU, but you can limit too high vcore by setting negative offset. like Karadjgne said it will be a mess but worth a try 😀
If you get huge boost from doing it then someone more advanced here in amd can help you to tweak most safe settings for your cpu.

 

[Drevsvy]

Do you have now latest bios installed? First update it to latest with insturctions what other people told already. Tips below will increase power limit meaning higher temperatures and better cooling needed. What is your cooler and max temperatures under load ( vrm / mos and cpu core)?

1. You need latest bios to get offset cpu voltage which is the option you need
2. Go to bios and under cpu options / cpu overclocking there is option called "precision boost overdrive" , set it manual and set all values max ( PPT 1000W , EDC 1000a AND TDP 1000A)
3. Disable "spread spectrum" option

However you need to set your vcore / cpu core voltage lower so you wont thermal throttle. This is where you need to use CPU negative offset.
1. under voltage settings set CPU core voltage to "offset" mode, under that set "cpu offset mark" to minus ( - )
Then below that option set "cpu offset voltage" to 0.1000 volts, you can tweak this later on. Too high voltage means very high temperatures, so you need to use offset, going below 0.1v is better but you might encounter stability issues depending on chip. This can be tested.

Load up these settings and monitor temperatures and stability.

Updating my BIOS happened several posts ago.
I will look into the manual setting.

@Darkbreeze the EDC setting on balanced works after a few tries. Not as low as people report it online, but below the 40% most of the time, sometimes 50, sometimes 20.

I am not sure if fagetti's post is something I am confident in checking. As mentioned, I am really bad with PC functionality, and I would be terrified to do something wrong, especially with overclocking that could cause component damage.

However, playing games like DayZ works like a breeze for some reason.

 

[Drevsvy]

However, playing games like DayZ works like a breeze for some reason.

What I ment to say was, maybe my Single Core perfomance just is bad compaired to a high end intel? I mean, I was aware of this from the start, but maybe I over-estimated its perfomance. I can try play some Squad later (mega demanding) and respond with the qualities.

But for now, DayZ has been a pleasant experience, and thanks a lot, EVERYONE, but especially @Darkbreeze for holding my hand through this like I was a baby.
Post not closed yet though, just wanted to get that out.

I don't know which post to Trophy, but I think the first one lol.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Single core performance is slower than Intel, this is a known fact, but "bad" is not even vaguely what I would call it. Its just not as good.

PBO as he suggested is an automated overclocking feature, but if your VRMs aren't up to the settings hes putting in there it could potentially burn them out. I am not familiar enough with using it to say what could happen for sure, this is just my knowledge of how it works. I wouldn't do it personally without MUCH more research.

Here is a good link to read up on it if you're interested:

https://community.amd.com/community...precision-boost-overdrive-in-three-easy-steps

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you want my honest opinion, which I know not everybody is going to agree with, however I'm going to offer it anyhow. I've seen enough people on this forum alone with Mortar and Tomahawk boards, that replaced them with something a little higher end, and had no more issues. At all. That, is what I'd recommend you look at doing. Maybe sell your current board or return it if that is possible, and go a step or two up. Maybe some flavor of mid to upper range X470 or at least a higher end B450. If you like MSI I haven't really seen any of these problems with people using the Pro Carbon. IDK, just my opinion. I like ASUS, ASRock and Gigabyte a whole lot better on the entire range from entry level to high end, regardless of chipset.

Plus, all of the B450 boards have either 4 power phases or less, so if you want to avoid similar issues it would be recommendable to move up to at least a six phase X470.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Thats what I was saying as well. Changing the settings to beat up the poor VRMs may bandaid the issue, except the board will fail earlier. IMO that board doesn't cut it for a 2700x, and honestly may have a design flaw as well.

 

[Drevsvy]

Hi, OP here, decided it was time that I wrote a conclusion and hopefully a fix for everyone interested in solving similar issues or closely related.
Let me start of by saying I have used both Reddit and Toms Hardware to fix this, and I specifically recommend THw, since they really go IN-DEPTH about solving problems related to PC.

Anyway, here is a LIST OF THINGS THAT WILL HELP YOU FIX PERFORMANCE ON YOUR PC.
They might not work for everyone, but trust me when I say this; I've almost tried it all at this point!
Solutions are ordered in a list of which solutions I believed could have the most impact and/or would be the most common to fix!
Huge thanks to DarkBreeze for some very in-depth explanations and help!

1. Check if your cables and hardware capabilities looks to be connected correctly. Wait with removing complicated parts until point 7.
2. Check if your game supports multi-core rendering. Enable this option any time. (With autoexec's and launch options, it is mat_queue_mode -1 OR 2) [Both work].
3. Check your NVIDIA Control Panel settings. Suited for your game, changing stuff here could be crucial for your perfomance. (I recommend the following changes specifically for competitive games - Changes at own risk!)
   1. Adjust image settings from QUALITY to PERFORMANCE.
   2. Manage 3D settings and pre-render frames: 1. Limits the frames your CPU has to render virtually. Good for CPU-heavy games.
   3. Manage 3D settings and texture filtering - quality: High Performance.
   4. Manage 3D settings and threaded optimisation: ON.
   5. Manage 3D settings and texture filtering - trilinear optimisation: OFF.
   6. Manage 3D settings and DSR - Factors: OFF (This one is tricky, but does the trick if your experience GPU boundaries in game. AFAIK only available on high-end card. This option renders your HD into 4K using scale technology, practically meaning you run games virtually on 4K. Only remove this if you experience high GPU usage and/or wish to improve frame-rates drastically at the cost of visuals) (And well not really since its a virtual 4k...)
4. Check if you have the latest drivers for your video card.
5. Check if you have the latest drivers for your motherboard. (BIOS). (To my surprise, a lot of people do not do this!)
6. Check if you have XMP enabled in your BIOS. Has to be enabled after a BIOS update and/or purchasing a pre-built PC. XMP is a safe function in your BIOS to utilise the full speed of your RAM! Enabling this option ment that I got +50 fps in average out of practically no-where. This will be enabled on some gamer-PC's, but several people online didn't know about this function and was blown away over this feature. Please note: This is not OVERCLOCKING and is regarded as HARMLESS.
7. At this point you have checked MOST software-related issues. I have not covered them all - To continue from here, I recommend downloading programs to track and monitor system status. A lot of programs will fit your needs. Monitor data and read where the problem could be (Cooling, CPU or GPU.) Having trouble reading data, I highly recommend heading over to Toms Hardware since it sports a lot of good people on this topic.

Depending on your specific hardware, using producer-related apps like MSI afterburner or AMD Ryzen Master is also recommended.
I hope this post will help others in the future. Please upvote if found relevant!

----------
Posted straight from Reddit, but took me some time to compile it into a smaller version, since this fix has been going on for long.
I will trophy this response, simply due to it compiling ALL the information needed, but truly a deep and big thanks to @Darkbreeze - A lot of your stuff was helpful!

In my case, enabling XMP and disabling DSR made the biggest differences. CS:GO now runs like a charm....! (And other games too...)

 

[Darkbreeze]

Unfortunately, that is distinctly against our forum rules and guidelines. We cannot allow anybody to select their own post as the best answer on their own thread. I'm sorry, but I can't make an exception even in a case where it IS the best answer. Fortunately your detailed post remains regardless of that fact.

 

[Drevsvy]

@Darkbreeze I didn't know that, which is sad cause it is indeed a run-down of everything. I will pick your FIRST answer, and hopefully people will somehow find their way. I am really sorry for the inconvenience 😀

 

[Darkbreeze]

Oh, it's no worry. Just one of those things we have to pick on because there are always a few people who will come along and try to game the system this way, so we have to apply the rule across the board. It's no negative mark against you.