[SOLVED] How to improve i7-7700K @ 4.20 GHz with RTX 2080 delivering disappointingly low FPS at 1080p in Valorant (Low Graphics)?

[zNoMaNz]

Hello,

I recently bought a 240 Hz monitor, but I cannot experience its full potential as my CPU is likely bottlenecking and doesn't deliver enough FPS.

It stabilizes at around 120-150 FPS when in a match. However, I have checked online that people who have benchmarked with a similar setup happen to get at least 300 FPS in low graphics.

I have literally set everything to low, turned off anti-aliasing, and whatnot. It's almost as if changing graphics quality made no difference at all. The FPS remained about the same regardless. My FPS is uncapped as well.

Overclocking my CPU is not an option as my current motherboard does not support overclocking.

It would be much appreciated if you guys could figure anything out and help me in any way possible. I do not have the budget to upgrade my CPU and motherboard after a big sum being spent on my recent monitor purchase.

My specifications:

i) CPU: i7-7700K @ 4.20 GHz
ii) GPU: RTX 2080
iii) Motherboard: ASRock B250M Performance
iv) RAM: 16 GB (8GBx2) @ 2400 MHz
v) PSU: 750 Watts Gold-certified
vi) Display: HP Omen X 25f

EDIT: UserBenchmark Test: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/43224300

 

[Myst_8362]

upgrade ram to 3600mhrz

 

[sizzling]

Monitor your cpu usage on each cpu thread while in game. If one or more are close to 100% then it is very likely you are cpu limited. If you are cpu limited and cannot overclock the cpu there is nothing you can do. As you have discovered reducing game settings doesn’t help when you are cpu limited.

 

[zNoMaNz]

Monitor your cpu usage on each cpu thread while in game. If one or more are close to 100% then it is very likely you are cpu limited. If you are cpu limited and cannot overclock the cpu there is nothing you can do. As you have discovered reducing game settings doesn’t help when you are cpu limited.

I believe this is what you were talking about?

Seems like it's averaging around 60 to 70 percent. None of them are hitting 100% at all. What else could the FPS limiting factor be?

 

[Jason H.]

Hello,

I recently bought a 240 Hz monitor, but I cannot experience its full potential as my CPU is likely bottlenecking and doesn't deliver enough FPS.

It stabilizes at around 120-150 FPS when in a match. However, I have checked online that people who have benchmarked with a similar setup happen to get at least 300 FPS in low graphics.

I have literally set everything to low, turned off anti-aliasing, and whatnot. It's almost as if changing graphics quality made no difference at all. The FPS remained about the same regardless. My FPS is uncapped as well.

Overclocking my CPU is not an option as my current motherboard does not support overclocking.

It would be much appreciated if you guys could figure anything out and help me in any way possible. I do not have the budget to upgrade my CPU and motherboard after a big sum being spent on my recent monitor purchase.

My specifications:

i) CPU: i7-7700K @ 4.20 GHz
ii) GPU: RTX 2080
iii) Motherboard: ASRock B250M Performance
iv) RAM: 16 GB (8GBx2) @ 2400 MHz
v) PSU: 750 Watts Gold-certified
vi) Display: HP Omen X 25f

If you think the CPU is a bottleneck, which there is most likely a slight bottleneck, then lowering the graphics will not help. When you run low graphics it takes most of the load off the gpu and puts it onto the cpu. If your cpu is already a bottleneck, then obviously this will not "improve performance".

When you raise the graphics, what happens? Do you go down in FPS?

120-150fps is not necessarily "stable". Thats a 30fps difference and is being caused by the CPU bottleneck. The CPU is responsible for the low end of your fps, the GPU is responsible for the high end. The GPU can only process as many frames as the CPU can feed it. When you have a drop from 150 to 120, or maybe you get lower drops (you can test this with Afterburner and using RTSS with benchmark mode ON and enabling 1% lows) it can cause "skips". These are called your 1% lows. You can even test for 0.1% lows which shows the absolute lowest FPS your game has run at. Either way, the CPU is responsible for these 1% and 0.1% lows and are what make a "bottleneck".

I would suggest raising the graphics a bit and seeing what happens because if it is indeed a bottleneck, lowering the graphics dont help.

Also, your ram is a bit slow. The standard nowadays is minimum 3200mhz for gaming. This may not be responsible for a large portion of lower fps, maybe a 10-15fps increase (moreso on CPU bound games), but it is not helping anything either. I would suggest upgrading your ram to 3200mhz ddr4 ram no matter what else you learn, or fix about your issue.

 

[sizzling]

Can you run userbenchmark and share the public link to the results.

 

[zNoMaNz]

If you think the CPU is a bottleneck, which there is most likely a slight bottleneck, then lowering the graphics will not help. When you run low graphics it takes most of the load off the gpu and puts it onto the cpu. If your cpu is already a bottleneck, then obviously this will not "improve performance".

When you raise the graphics, what happens? Do you go down in FPS?

120-150fps is not necessarily "stable". Thats a 30fps difference and is being caused by the CPU bottleneck. The CPU is responsible for the low end of your fps, the GPU is responsible for the high end. The GPU can only process as many frames as the CPU can feed it. When you have a drop from 150 to 120, or maybe you get lower drops (you can test this with Afterburner and using RTSS with benchmark mode ON and enabling 1% lows) it can cause "skips". These are called your 1% lows. You can even test for 0.1% lows which shows the absolute lowest FPS your game has run at. Either way, the CPU is responsible for these 1% and 0.1% lows and are what make a "bottleneck".

I would suggest raising the graphics a bit and seeing what happens because if it is indeed a bottleneck, lowering the graphics dont help.

Also, your ram is a bit slow. The standard nowadays is minimum 3200mhz for gaming. This may not be responsible for a large portion of lower fps, maybe a 10-15fps increase (moreso on CPU bound games), but it is not helping anything either. I would suggest upgrading your ram to 3200mhz ddr4 ram no matter what else you learn, or fix about your issue.

Raising the graphics only takes away like 10 FPS. But none of my CPU cores is even fully utilized, so I don't understand why I'd get such low FPS counts. And there are other people with the same processor getting about 300.

I understand my RAM is slower than it should be, and I plan to purchase a new set soon. Thanks!

 

[zNoMaNz]

Can you run userbenchmark and share the public link to the results.

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/43224300

 

[AlexTheFern]

Hello,

I recently bought a 240 Hz monitor, but I cannot experience its full potential as my CPU is likely bottlenecking and doesn't deliver enough FPS.

It stabilizes at around 120-150 FPS when in a match. However, I have checked online that people who have benchmarked with a similar setup happen to get at least 300 FPS in low graphics.

I have literally set everything to low, turned off anti-aliasing, and whatnot. It's almost as if changing graphics quality made no difference at all. The FPS remained about the same regardless. My FPS is uncapped as well.

Overclocking my CPU is not an option as my current motherboard does not support overclocking.

It would be much appreciated if you guys could figure anything out and help me in any way possible. I do not have the budget to upgrade my CPU and motherboard after a big sum being spent on my recent monitor purchase.

My specifications:

i) CPU: i7-7700K @ 4.20 GHz
ii) GPU: RTX 2080
iii) Motherboard: ASRock B250M Performance
iv) RAM: 16 GB (8GBx2) @ 2400 MHz
v) PSU: 750 Watts Gold-certified
vi) Display: HP Omen X 25f

EDIT: UserBenchmark Test: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/43224300

try disabling fullscreen optimization mode

C:\Riot Games\VALORANT\live\ShooterGame\Binaries\Win64

right-click on the VALORANT-Win64-Shipping.exe and press Compatibility, press “Disable fullscreen optimizations”.

 

[Phaaze88]

1)Gpu probably runs a bit warm.
Lower temperatures = higher sustained boost clocks under load = better performance, but that doesn't amount to much in games where the user is pushing for the highest minimum fps.
In these games, competitive settings or the like, push more load on the cpu + ram. The gpu kind of idles during these scenarios.

2)C drive is a WD Green, dramless SSD.
This can hurt performance via disk usage.
To try and keep it simple, these dramless units aren't worth the investment, running as slow, or even slower than a 7200rpm HDD. Running both Windows(which is never truly idle) and games off this probably leads to 100% disk usage spikes.
Time to separate the C drive and games library.


I don't see much that you can do here. The motherboard cripples like half your options: You can't put faster ram in, and you can't push the cpu any faster...
That leaves the storage, but the change to that won't be enough.
You're looking at a platform(cpu/mobo/ram) change.

 

[mranderson1]

maybe im a little late but , u have to push this cpu to 4.8ghz all cores with 1.260-1.3volt , adjust timings on ram or activate xmp , run afterburner and squeeze mhz on ur gpu , this will give u a bit boost on some games 20fps on other games less.

 

[SkyNetRising]

u have to push this cpu to 4.8ghz all cores with 1.260-1.3volt , adjust timings on ram or activate xmp

None of that is possible on ASRock B250M Performance.
Max is 4.5Ghz on cpu and 2400mhz on ram.

 

[USAFRet]

maybe im a little late but , u have to push this cpu to 4.8ghz all cores with 1.260-1.3volt , adjust timings on ram or activate xmp , run afterburner and squeeze mhz on ur gpu , this will give u a bit boost on some games 20fps on other games less.

Please don't dredge up ancient threads.

Especially with things that cannot be done.