Question Low FPS on a high-end system ?

[Victor_VI]

Computer Specs:

Processor: Intel i9-11900K - OC'd 61%
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Maximus XIII
QVL RAM: 64GB (4x16GB) DDR4 3200MHz
Graphics: EVGA RTX 3080Ti FTW3
Boot Drive: Samsung 980 Pro 1TB
Secondary Drive: Sabrent Rocket Plus 4TB
Tertiary Drive: Samsung QVO 8TB
PSU: Corsair HXi 1600W
Cooling: Custom EKWB Water Cooling - CPU Only
Operating System: Windows 10 Professional

Games in question:
Baldur's Gate 3
Cyberpunk 2077
No Man's Sky
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
(the last is most concerning, since it's relatively old.)

I am a tech who has been working with computers for nearly 20 years. However, I appear to have a blind spot when it comes to my own system. I have a relatively high end gaming system, but I'm getting poor performance from many games. Some of these games were working well, and then became sluggish. The performance issues have persisted with and without mods. Some of the games have improved with absolute minimum specs, but most have had performance issues even in those situations.

Process and tests so far:
OS, Drivers, and firmware updated
Furmark Stresstest of GPU showed no issues
Furmark and Cinebench CPU tests show no issues
Burnintest showed no issues with a general stress test
Memtest86 shows no issues with or without XMP enabled
All drives show no issues or bad sectors - All operate at around their rated speeds
SFC run without issues
Background applications turned off
Tested with and without mods
Settings dropped to minimum and gradually increased

Note: The over clock is recent, and is in response to the issues I've been having. I'm aware that overclocking is fairly moot.
Note: I have all of the listed games set to "High Performance" in the Graphics performance preference.

My cpu only gets to about 70°C under full load, and the GPU gets to about 75°C. I installed active cooling on the drives because I could, and the hottest tops out around 45°C. So it's not temperatures.

I'm partially inclined to think that it's a software issues. This is mostly because I played all of these games at their current settings without any performance issues.

I'm a little annoyed that I haven't been able to put a finger on what the issue is... So any potential help would be appreciated.

 

[Lutfij]

What BIOS version are you currently on for your motherboard? What version(not edition) of Windows 10 are you currently on? Did the issue crop up after an update? if so, try a system restore prior to the update.

Have you tried DDU in Safe Mode to remove all GPU drivers(intel, AMD and Nvidia) then manually reinstalling with the latest driver sourced from Nvidia's support site, in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator ... ?

 

[Victor_VI]

What BIOS version are you currently on for your motherboard? What version(not edition) of Windows 10 are you currently on? Did the issue crop up after an update? if so, try a system restore prior to the update.

Have you tried DDU in Safe Mode to remove all GPU drivers(intel, AMD and Nvidia) then manually reinstalling with the latest driver sourced from Nvidia's support site, in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator ... ?

I appreciate the quick response, but all of this was among the first steps I took. The BIOS was only one iteration out of date, and didn't resolve the issue. I only source drivers from the the brand sites - Nvidia from Nvidia, ASUS from ASUS, etc.

Initially, I believed that it was due to NVMe temperatures. I had installed a custom loop with a verticle GPU - Lian Li O11 Dynamic XL. With the first set up I had a 360 on the top and the bottom, with a fresh air vent on the side. This created a hot spot over the NVMe slots, which were getting up into the 60°s, Those aren't technically dangerous temperatures, but it was enough to make me concerned. So I drained my loop, took out the bottom rad, and put some active coolers on the NVMe's. The overall system temperatures dropped, and the NVMe's are not idling around 30°, but there was no overal change.

As to the Windows update... Unfortunately, there was a not-insignificant amount of time between my last playthroughs and my current attempts. During which, I have updated Windows several times. There are enough updates between those periods that it would be as much of a hassle to roll back as it would to simply reinstall. However, if a Windows update caused the issue, then that's a problem in its own right.

 

[boju]

Do you have a spare drive to test a fresh Windows reinstall? So that you don't waste your time if nothing changes but if something does change, either still continuing the same or not doing the same thing, would narrow your efforts towards a more narrowed path, be it software or hardware.

And if you do a Windows reinstall, the very first thing you do once you get into Windows is disable automatic device driver installation.