Question Issues with game performance with an RTX 3080 GPU and AMD Ryzen 7 2700 CPU

Oct 27, 2022
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Hello.

I previously made a post on the PC gaming tech support reddit about this issue but didn't get much of a response. I found this forum and thought it might be helpful to share this here to get more feedback.

Recently my 4k 60hz monitor died and after some consideration I decided to replace it with a 1440p 165hz one. While I have been enjoying the higher refresh rate, the change in resolution is causing some games to run oddly. When my monitor first broke, I temporarily used my brother's old 1080p monitor as a stopgap and found that games ran at much lower framerates than they should at 1080p, and in the thread I made on r/buildapc they suggested this was due to a CPU bottleneck. Once I got my current monitor the game's performance improved, but still with some oddities.

However, the biggest issues have come this week when I tried A Plague Tale: Requiem on pc game pass. When I check my FPS, it says the game is running around 90-100 fps, but the game feels much slower. It stutters a lot, and has even frozen for several seconds at a time (with skipping audio) at several points. Upon reaching chapter 2, I found this particularly strange issue.

Standing at the same spot, with the same FPS, looking in one direction causes my GPU usage to go down to 30%, and the game becomes extremely sluggish and stutter-y. looking in the opposite direction (but not moving my character) will cause the GPU usage to go to 100% and the game runs extremely smoothly. The CPU usage always remains at 25-26%. I've also noticed games like Scorn having issues (though not as pronounced), and World of Warcraft (where strangely I get different FPS amounts depending on how I check. The in-game FPS counter says my FPS is going down to sub 40 while the monitor's FPS counter says I'm getting the same fps (averaging 80-90) as in smooth running areas.)

I ran a diagnostic with userbenchmark and got these results: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/55992358 It didn't find any issue besides it saying my background CPU was "sub-optimal" at 18% usage. But when I entered task manager to check, it's running at only 3%.

While doing further research, I found this odd result on "pc-builds.com" where I compared using an RTX 3080 GPU and AMD Ryzen 7 2700 CPU at different resolutions on Cyberpunk 2077 (I picked that as an example as it was one of the few games on their list that I have). It says the GPU and CPU are perfect for 4k, but that the CPU isn't powerful enough for 1440p. So could that be the problem?

Here are the comparisons:
https://pc-builds.com/games/bottleneck-calculator/result/0Qg174/3840x2160/2g/cyberpunk-2077/
https://pc-builds.com/games/bottleneck-calculator/result/0Qg174/2560x1440/2g/cyberpunk-2077/

For further information, here are the rest of my computer's specs:
AMD Ryzen 7 2700 Eight-Core Processor 3.20 GHz
16.0 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080
And my Local Disk is an SSD with 931 GB

I also took these screenshots showing how my GPU is running during games using the windows+G overhead. The CPU usage remains in the same range of around 25 to 30%. But the GPU's usage jumps all over the place from 100% to the 30% range. These drops match to when the game becomes stutter-y and slow, while it remains very smooth when at 100%.
It said "something went wrong" when I tried to embed the images in the post, so here is an imgur link instead. The games I took these samples from are A Plague Tale: Requiem and World of Warcraft.

View: https://imgur.com/a/34z3Vq8


Thank you very much in advance.
 

logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
Ignore bottleneck calculators, they are garbage. As you go down in resolution, your CPU becomes even more important, so yes your CPU isn't ideal, for that GPU, even at 1440p. WoW is very CPU dependent, as well. To put it in some perspective, even at 1440p, I saw a boost in my min fps, going from a 3700x to a 5800x, even when I was still using my RTX 2060. It doesn't help that 1st and 2nd gen Ryzen take a hit due to Nvidia's driver overhead. What motherboard do you have? If it is decent enough, it might be worth swapping that 2700x for a 5700x, after a bios update.

The driver overhead issue was discovered, by HUB.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLEIJhunaW8
 
Last edited:

Eximo

Titan
Ambassador
You are experiencing the difference between measured average frame rate and frame time generation variance. You can have a high FPS, but if each frame comes in at a slightly different time it can feel like it is much slower and stuttering.

Well, that motherboard complicates things. ASRock doesn't officially support it, they sold those only through CyberPowerPC. No idea if the BIOS updates for the regular one work on it.
 
Buying a new CPU is something I've been considering, but with what you mentioned about the motherboard complicating things, should I be concerned about that as well?

You'd need to see if there was a BIOS update that allowed it, maybe check out if Cyberpower have their own BIOS updates, in a similar way to where HP will make you go to their website for AMD video drivers as using regular AMD drivers bombs out with an error.
 

logainofhades

Titan
Moderator
Looking at the specs for that board, I'd go no higher than a 5600x. And cyberpower's website BIOS update page just redirects you to Asrock, so the BIOS for the non-CB looks to be compatible.

It would handle a 5700x just fine. I wouldn't really go beyond that though. The problem is whether the non CB bios will work on their board.

OP: what is your budget for upgrade?
 
Oct 27, 2022
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It would handle a 5700x just fine. I wouldn't really go beyond that though. The problem is whether the non CB bios will work on their board.

OP: what is your budget for upgrade?

My budget would probably be around the $300 range, but cheaper if possible, as this all started from having to buy a new monitor last month.
 
Then you are in luck.

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X - Ryzen 7 5000 Series 8-Core Socket AM4 65W Desktop Processor - 100-100000926WOF - Newegg.com

And it comes with the uncharted game as well. If you never played that, great game. I beat all of the uncharted games on playstation except the very last one that's in the bundle. Was playing uncharted 4 last night though.

What cooler do you currently have? Probably the wraith prism or wraith max from your 2700x? If so that should work pretty well on the 5700x.
 
If you've got the cooling you can enable PBO. I have it enabled on my AsRock AB350 Pro 4 that has a 5900x in it. However that's something like a 125 watt cpu, but I have it under a 240mm arctic cooling liquid freezer 2. Just got that installed tonight but cinebench just now scored 21912 with my old b350 board:).
 
If you've got the cooling you can enable PBO. I have it enabled on my AsRock AB350 Pro 4 that has a 5900x in it. However that's something like a 125 watt cpu, but I have it under a 240mm arctic cooling liquid freezer 2. Just got that installed tonight but cinebench just now scored 21912 with my old b350 board:).

Enabling PBO increases VRM current, something perhaps not advisable with these boards. It'll work, but not sure about long term use. Chip might well stay cool, you'd need to ensure the VRMs also do the same.
 
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This is on my asrock board so others may different. But I think my ab350 pro 4 has a 6+2 power delivery and that hwmonitor was showing temps on the board staying just over 50 degrees Celsius. It does seem like when I was setting my cpu fan speed it had an option to go by the motherboard temp instead of the cpu temp so I may switch it to that.

But that Arctic cooling cooler I mentioned actually has a tiny vrm fan built into the aio. My 5900x loves being under water. It can hit over 22,000 in cinebench r23 now.
 
This is on my asrock board so others may different. But I think my ab350 pro 4 has a 6+2 power delivery and that hwmonitor was showing temps on the board staying just over 50 degrees Celsius. It does seem like when I was setting my cpu fan speed it had an option to go by the motherboard temp instead of the cpu temp so I may switch it to that.

But that Arctic cooling cooler I mentioned actually has a tiny vrm fan built into the aio. My 5900x loves being under water. It can hit over 22,000 in cinebench r23 now.

I guess that's the difference between VRMs, this 5900x scores 24000 points merely on air cooling, the chip will almost certainly be getting hotter than yours but the increased VRM cooling will no doubt help with that and maintain boost at slightly higher temperatures.
 
Yeah I’m not doing any manual overclocking. You must have a good sample cpu. When I was reading about the scores it appeared 21-22 was about average. I’ve just got mine now with pbo on. In hindsight maybe I should have just gotten the 5700x but on the other hand who knows if I get the itch I may build a new box next year if things come down.

I usually get a little money at Christmas, my birthday is the 30th of that month as well, so I usually end up with a bit. If ddr5 comes down more or if microcenter keeps up their offer of a free ddr5 kit with the purchase of a 7700x or better then it may be something to consider. On the other hand the 5900x is still a beast of it’s time. So I may see what the new gpus look like and sit on this box another year and part out the 5900x while it has value.
 
Yeah I’m not doing any manual overclocking. You must have a good sample cpu. When I was reading about the scores it appeared 21-22 was about average. I’ve just got mine now with pbo on. In hindsight maybe I should have just gotten the 5700x but on the other hand who knows if I get the itch I may build a new box next year if things come down.

I usually get a little money at Christmas, my birthday is the 30th of that month as well, so I usually end up with a bit. If ddr5 comes down more or if microcenter keeps up their offer of a free ddr5 kit with the purchase of a 7700x or better then it may be something to consider. On the other hand the 5900x is still a beast of it’s time. So I may see what the new gpus look like and sit on this box another year and part out the 5900x while it has value.

I do think this one is good silicon, second hand purchase as well.

I'd hang with the 5900x if I were you, upgrading to new Ryzen means early adopter territory but ultimately that's your choice.

In the OP's case, a 5700x would be a great upgrade.
 
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5700x is great for the person who just wants to set it and forget. You can go with the 5900x or 5800x3d, just be prepared to have to tinker or upgrade cooling, but for 8 cores to just drop in and use inexpensive cooling then not worry anymore 5700x should be good for that. But yeah for now I’ve got a 6700xt. Probably will see if there is just an exceptional value on the 7000 series cards or an out going 6900xt.
 
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