[SOLVED] Is my RTX 3070 underperforming, or am I full of it?

[Archon of the Valley]

Hi, I recently bought myself an RTX 3070. Last year, I built a new PC but ported over my previous GPU (GTX 980) since I couldn't afford a new GPU at the time. However, I decided to upgrade this year instead.

It performs pretty well on all games with ultra settings, even RT toggled on to max. However, with Cyberpunk 2077, the Witcher 3 next gen upgrade and Red Dead Redemption 2, I noticed that the card almost seems to be underperforming.

In Cyberpunk, having RT enabled drops my framerate into the 30s and 40s. Same with the Witcher 3 next gen. When I turn RT off, the framerate still isn't as good as I was expecting, typically hovering around the 50s with occasional dips.

In RDR2, I was under the impression (judging based on videos of the game in 1080p with this hardware) that it would run flawlessly on ultra settings, especially since I have a 900p monitor. However, I had to turn some stuff down and toggle DLSS on just to keep things around 60FPS.

This is confusing and somewhat disappointing to me. These are totally playable framerates for me (I used to play games in 20FPS on a laptop in the days before I had a rig) but I'm here to ask if this is normal or not.

DLSS helped in RDR2 but it didn't make any difference in Cyberpunk or the Witcher 3 remaster. Some info I found suggested CPU bottlenecking but I didn't think that'd be a problem with my CPU. Nonetheless, those two games never seemed to bring my GPU usage anywhere near 100%... but neither did my CPU, either, which is why I'm rather confused.

Is there something I can do to fix this, or do I just have to accept the disappointing performance? Considering I spent over $500 for a new GPU, I was hoping for better.

Thanks in advance for any help and advice. If I need to provide more info, please let me know.

SPECS:

• OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (22H2)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600g
• RAM: 16gb (2x8gb) DDR4
• Mobo: ASUS Prime B450M-A II
• GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3070 Gaming OC 8G (REV2.0)
• Storage: 2x Kingston SATA SSDs (480gb), 1x Seagate 7200rpm HDD (2tb)

 

[helpstar]

to have a look if there is a problem:
run userbenchmark.com and post the http link of your result, e.g. https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/28977730

 

[Archon of the Valley]

to have a look if there is a problem:
run userbenchmark.com and post the http link of your result, e.g. https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/28977730

Hi, this is my result https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/57628667

It appears to be a problem with my RAM or SSDs? If so, that makes little sense to me given the way only RDR2, Cyberpunk and the Witcher 3 remaster cause problems, but maybe someone has a suggestion on how to solve that (hopefully without having to replace those parts)? 🤷‍♂️

 

[drivinfast247]

Make sure RAM is installed in slots a2-b2 and XMP enabled in BIOS.

 

[sizzling]

Hi, this is my result https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/57628667

It appears to be a problem with my RAM or SSDs? If so, that makes little sense to me given the way only RDR2, Cyberpunk and the Witcher 3 remaster cause problems, but maybe someone has a suggestion on how to solve that (hopefully without having to replace those parts)? 🤷‍♂️

The RAM you need to enable XMP/DOCP in the BIOS and select 3200mhz, it’s currently running at 2400mhz and this will hurt performance. As for the SSD it’s >90% full, you ideally want an SSD to be <80% full to maintain performance.

 

[helpstar]

Is the system and are the games installed on a SSD or the HDD?

run https://www.kingston.com/en/support/technical/ssdmanager
to check your SSDs and eventually update the firmware of these to be sure there is no other problem than the "full" storage.

nonetheless setting the RAM to 3200Mhz by using the XMP profile option in BIOS could be the solution

 

[Archon of the Valley]

Hi all, thanks for your responses and sorry for the delay!

How do I change those RAM settings in my BIOS? I'm not super experienced with tweaking BIOS settings (never really had to do it much before) and I don't want to screw stuff up.

As for the SSD, that's just temporary as I'm trying out some games via a free trial of Game Pass. I normally keep them about 80% full or less.

Regarding what drives I have my games installed on... typically, I've reserved the SSDs for online games and for modern games that use stuff like ray tracing. I will definitely check that Kingston tool in a minute, thanks.

EDIT: Alright, looks like I'm all good on drive health and firmware. My system drive is at 87% life left, which is probably pretty good given the consistent use it has gotten over the past year.

 

[kerberos_20]

those ssds seems to be sloppy for sata ssd, but they dont have dram, so they excel at low power (ideal for notebooks)
SusWrite @10s intervals: 233 107 11 118 72 58 MB/s

those numbers looks horible, enen conventional HDD can do 150MB+ sustained read

mine weakest ssd is samsung 850 250GB
SusWrite @10s intervals: 412 297 297 297 296 296 MB/s
or wd blue 1TB (was dirt cheap)
SusWrite @10s intervals: 463 454 416 364 401 415 MB



but aside from slow SSD which shouldnt have that much impact on FPS
your ram is running in single channel, use A2 and B2 slots (grey slots) for your two modules...XMP is optional, it may add extra few FPS in few games, but dual channel makes bigger difference

 

[Archon of the Valley]

I hadn't heard any negatives about those SSDs when I bought them, sounds like I made a mistake. Unfortunately, I can't replace the system drive (not about to do a fresh install of everything) but I'll try something different when I get another SSD.

I'll have to take a look at which slots they're in and see if I can get them fixed up. This system was my first attempt to build a PC from scratch; any previous experience with hardware was simply small upgrades to my previous rig.

 

[Archon of the Valley]

I switched the RAM sticks so they're both in the gray ports. I also went into my BIOS and checked, XMP isn't available but DOCP was. I enabled that and will test soon.

I also noticed a tuning setting, "ASUS Optimal". Should I try enabling that if this doesn't improve my performance? I tried reading up on it but most info was really outdated. I don't want to brick my CPU or void its warranty, as it's still covered... but if neither of those will happen and if I could theoretically get better performance that way, it might be worth trying. I just want to get y'all's opinion on it first.

EDIT: Ran the benchmark again, got significantly better results: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/57660058 I'm guessing that probably fixed it but I'll run the aforementioned games to see if I'm getting noticeably better performance.

 

[kerberos_20]

I switched the RAM sticks so they're both in the gray ports. I also went into my BIOS and checked, XMP isn't available but DOCP was. I enabled that and will test soon.

I also noticed a tuning setting, "ASUS Optimal". Should I try enabling that if this doesn't improve my performance? I tried reading up on it but most info was really outdated. I don't want to brick my CPU or void its warranty, as it's still covered... but if neither of those will happen and if I could theoretically get better performance that way, it might be worth trying. I just want to get y'all's opinion on it first.

asus optimal is cpu overclocking
post userbenchmark result

 

[Flayed]

RDR2 needs a beastly GPU to run with everything on max.

 

[Archon of the Valley]

Awesome, that fixed it! Like I mentioned, I made sure both RAM sticks were in the gray slots and I enabled DOCP in my BIOS. The Witcher 3 remaster still runs pretty terribly with RT toggled on but it runs FLAWLESSLY without it. Cyberpunk runs quite well with RT GI and reflections enabled but starts to dip with the shadows enabled. Fallout 76 runs flawlessly, RDR2 runs mostly flawlessly unless I start switching some advanced features on. I even tested Ghostrunner, a game that ran decently with RT on, and I saw absolutely zero slowdown anywhere. In general, this is the performance I had expected judging by videos I had seen of people playing different titles.

Thanks so much for all of your help! Wish I could mark multiple posts as the solution!

asus optimal is cpu overclocking
post userbenchmark result

Will it void my CPU's warranty? Like I said, it's still covered so I'd hate to void the warranty for something that may or may not actually help.

RDR2 needs a beastly GPU to run with everything on max.

Apparently, it does. Even after fixing the issue I had, I still couldn't mess around with the unlocked settings. All of the standard settings run perfectly at max, though, so I'm content with that!

 

[kerberos_20]

Will it void my CPU's warranty? Like I said, it's still covered so I'd hate to void the warranty for something that may or may not actually help.

atm from your last reply, you seems to be GPU bottlenecked now, which is fine as CPU has headroom, so even if fps goes down, it should be playable

 

[Archon of the Valley]

atm from your last reply, you seems to be GPU bottlenecked now, which is fine as CPU has headroom, so even if fps goes down, it should be playable

My GPU is bottlenecking me now? So the RTX 3070 is less powerful (in computing power) than the Ryzen 5 5600g?

And I was under the impression that any OC'ing outside of programs like MSI Afterburner would automatically void your hardware's warranty. Is that not the case with ASUS Optimal?