[SOLVED] Is my CPU bottlenecking my rig?

[dTuxz]

I have an RTX 2060 Super and an AMD fx-8350 on an asus m5a99fx pro r2.0 motherboard. I am constantly getting mid 60 fps on all low settings on current major titles like Modern Warfare and other games. SO the question is whether my CPU is the problem for me not being able to use my GPU to its full extent.

 

[jojesa]

I have an RTX 2060 Super and an AMD fx-8350 on an asus m5a99fx pro r2.0 motherboard. I am constantly getting mid 60 fps on all low settings on current major titles like Modern Warfare and other games. SO the question is whether my CPU is the problem for me not being able to use my GPU to its full extent.

I have tested the RTX 2060 and AMD FX-8350 and I was able to increase fps 39 fps on average by moving to the Ryzen 2600x.
So, yes the FX-8350 is hindering the RTX 2060 Super performance.

Pairing an 8-year old CPU with a modern GPU will have those results.
Have you check the CPU and GPU usage percentage when gaming at full load?
OCing the FX-8350 might give you some improvement.

 

[dTuxz]

I have tested the RTX 2060 and AMD FX-8350 and I was able to increase fps 39 fps on average by moving to the Ryzen 2600x.
So, yes the FX-8350 is hindering the RTX 2060 Super performance.

Pairing an 8-year old CPU with a modern GPU will have those results.
Have you check the CPU and GPU usage percentage when gaming at full load?
OCing the FX-8350 might give you some improvement.

Thank you for replying to my question so quickly jojesa, I am thinking about purchasing a Ryzen 5 3600 and am curious on whether you have ever tested out this cpu.

 

[LinuxDevice]

I found going from an AMD Phenom II x4 to the 3600x was a dramatic increase in fps. I did this long ago though, and I don't remember specifics. On the Phenom II I had used this over time and had upgraded from 960 to 1060 to a Titan Xp. Going from 960 to 1060 was a significant, but not large boost in fps. Going from 1060 to Titan Xp was almost no noticeable fps increase. When my CPU was upgraded to a 3600x with slow RAM settings there was a dramatic increase in fps, but it wasn't a "stable" increase. As soon as I set the RAM XMP to use full RAM speed there was another massive increase in fps, and that increase was consistent.

Going to a 3600x implies you would not only get a bit faster CPU, but also that you would get a good cooler. If you go to a plain 3600 I suspect you need to buy an aftermarket cooler or suffer mediocrity in the cooling department. A 3600x, combined with something like DDR4 3200 MHz RAM would be a definite bump in performance. Don't underestimate how much RAM will help when feeding a video card, especially with AMD CPUs.

 

[jojesa]

Thank you for replying to my question so quickly jojesa, I am thinking about purchasing a Ryzen 5 3600 and am curious on whether you have ever tested out this cpu.

I have tested the Ryzen 5 3600 and Ryzen 7 3700X with the GTX 1080. The GTX 1080 have similar performance than the RTX 2060 Supper.
The Ryzen 5 3600 and the the RTX 2060 Supper will work great together.

 

[Karadjgne]

So, yes the FX-8350 is hindering the RTX 2060 Super performanc

No. Not correct. The cpu pre-renders any and all frames. It sets the fps limit, whatever that happens to be. Then ships those frames to the gpu for finish rendering according to detail levels and resolution.

The gpu puts on screen whatever it can. If the gpu is physically more capable than the cpu it'll put up the maximum limit the cpu gives it and lowering or raising detail levels won't have much impact. If the gpu is weaker than the cpu, it'll not be able to put on screen all the frames the cpu gives it and lowering details will raise fps, raising details will lower fps.

But at no time will anything gpu related change how many frames the cpu can pre-render, that's determined by the game code and cpu characteristics.

The FX8350 doesn't hinder a 2060S's performance, it just won't pre-render as many frames as a stronger cpu like the R5 3600 can on a same-game basis.

 

[Redittuser25]

I have an RTX 2060 Super and an AMD fx-8350 on an asus m5a99fx pro r2.0 motherboard. I am constantly getting mid 60 fps on all low settings on current major titles like Modern Warfare and other games. SO the question is whether my CPU is the problem for me not being able to use my GPU to its full extent.

Hello. I am no expert in this area but this CPU is a huge bottleneck for your graphic card. Just out of curiousity, could you download MSI afterburner and Riva Tuner Statistics in order to tell us the GPU and CPU usage during the game? Also, you can basically crank up the details to high and set the resolution to your native. The game will run the same. (I had a similar bottleneck with Ryzen 1600 and GTX 1070 TI in Battlefiled 1 which is a CPU heavy game. I have recently upgraded my CPU from Ryzen 1600 to Ryzen 3600 and FPS are higher also the frametime is better.

 

[jojesa]

The FX8350 doesn't hinder a 2060S's performance, it just won't pre-render as many frames as a stronger cpu like the R5 3600 can on a same-game basis.

^In other words, the RTX 2060 Super performs better when paired with the Ryzen 5 3600 instead of the FX 8350.^

 

[Karadjgne]

No. It performs exactly the same. It outputs as much fps as it gets at 100% ability. The processor isn't slowed down due to a weaker cpu, it runs the same clock speeds, same vram speeds, same usage.

If you could run the 100 yard dash in 10 seconds flat, and run the 200 yard dash in 20 seconds flat, your performance doesn't change even though you ran twice as far. Or if you ran 50 yards in 5 seconds your performance didn't change just because you covered the distance in half the time. It's still a 100% effort.

Underperforming and under utilized are 2 somewhat different concepts.

The 3600 can pre-render more frames than the FX 8350, but that's not going to change the ability of the 2060S, not going to make it slower with the weaker cpu, it'll only change how hard it has to work to get all those frames rendered.