Question New RX 6700 XT stutters in every game

[pepepapaujratam]

I just upgraded from a 4GB RX 580 to an RX 6700 XT and no matter what game I try I always have high average FPS but terrible stutters.
I have a 1080p 144hz display and I lock every game to that refresh rate. Basically all games look like this:
- Average FPS: 143
-1%: 120-140
-.1%: 6-12

Can my CPU bottleneck be this bad? I have a Ryzen 5 2600 which is definitely underpowered compared to the card but at 1080p the RX 580 was capable of pushing 100+ fps in a lot of games without any stutters in this same exact system. My plan was to upgrade the CPU later but this is far from the ideal gaming experience. I ran 3dmark TimeSpy and got an above average result even with this weak CPU.

Specs:
-Ryzen 5 2600
-XFX SWFT 309 RX 6700 XT
-Gigabyte B450m DS3H
-2x8GB 3000MHz
-Coolermaster litepower 650W
-Windows 11 Pro 21H2 22000.708

All games are running from an SSD. So far I tried:
-DDU, reinstall optional driver
-DDU, install older recommended driver
-Reinstalling Windows
-Changing supported titles from DX12 to DX11
-Upping the resolution to 1440p (resulting in same avg., 1% and .1% numbers)
-Updating the MB bios
-Disabling any power saving options in control panel

I also noticed power draw issues, it's all over the place. For example in Deep Rock Galactic it's 100-120W and when I have a frame drop to 7 fps, it goes down to 50W and immediately climbs back up. In Hitman (2016) If I stand in the middle of the map and I look in one direction I have 144fps and my card is drawing 165W but if i turn around it drops down to 65-75W and my frames go down with it. In Doom I just have ~40fps and 45W of power. Borderlands 3 is consistently drawing 180W and it dips down to 7fps as well but the power consumption stays the same. In graphically demanding games I have around 80-90% usage on the GPU but the CPU doesn't really go above 40%, it's usually around 20-30%. I had the chance to birefly try my card in a PC with an i5-8600 and the stutters were similarly present but that CPU is not much stronger than my R5.

Is there any other way to diagnose the source of the problem without buying a new cpu? If I played at higher framerates I would understand the stutters but same cpu, same games, same locked 144 fps and the new card produces terrible .1%s.

 

[rgd1101]

what the ram and ssd usage?
how full is the ssd?

 

[pepepapaujratam]

Ram usage is between 7 and 10 gigs depending on the game. The OS and the games are on two differend SSDs, both of them about half full. Afterburner doesn't log SSD usage and my task manager says the system ssd is 0% and the game ssd is between 0 and 4%

 

[geofelt]

Stuttering is usually caused by a temporary lack of a critical resource.
Most commonly the cpu.

Your graphics card changed what perhaps was a graphics limited game to a cpu limited game.
One possibility is that you may be thermal throttling.
What is the make/model of your cpu cooler?

Run hwmonitor.
Look at the max cpu temperature.
If you see something like 85c.(perhaps in red) you may have throttled.
When you throttle, the cpu lowers it's performance until the situation reverses.

Another possibility is that windows 11 is at fault.
I have heard about some performance issues with amd processors and win 11.
You could check into that.

 

[Artyom-16]

Ram usage is between 7 and 10 gigs depending on the game. The OS and the games are on two differend SSDs, both of them about half full. Afterburner doesn't log SSD usage and my task manager says the system ssd is 0% and the game ssd is between 0 and 4%

Hey i have yhe same config as you, getting the same problem, did you manage to solve it ?
I also did most of the steps you did, i even got an older version of the drivers....

 

[shady28]

If I stand in the middle of the map and I look in one direction I have 144fps and my card is drawing 165W but if i turn around it drops down to 65-75W and my frames go down with it. In Doom I just have ~40fps and 45W of power. Borderlands 3 is consistently drawing 180W and it dips down to 7fps as well but the power consumption stays the same. In graphically demanding games I have around 80-90% usage on the GPU but the CPU doesn't really go above 40%, it's usually around 20-30%. I had the chance to birefly try my card in a PC with an i5-8600 and the stutters were similarly present but that CPU is not much stronger than my R5.

You are almost certainly getting CPU limited. The 6700XT is a fast video card. and you're using a 4 1/2 year old CPU with it. The drivers are probably also sucking down more CPU cycles than you have available.

I looked up your DS3H B450 and according to Gigabyte's site, it will support a 5600X. That's probably your best option. If cost is a factor, you'd probably get a more playable system with a 6600XT + 5600X than a 6700XT + 2600. It's basically an imbalanced setup, which commonly results in stutters and bad 1% lows.

https://www.gigabyte.com/Support/CPU-Support

Edit : To give an example, see at the site below.

A 2600X with a 5700XT actually performs about the same as a 2600X with a 3070. What's more, the 2600X with a 3070 performs better than a 2600X with a 3090. So the 2600X is near maxed out with a 5700XT, which itself is 0-10% slower than a 6600XT.

So you are basically CPU limited above a 6600XT.

4 Years of Ryzen 5, CPU & GPU Scaling Benchmark

We want to see how the Ryzen 5 1600X, 2600X, 3600X and 5600X compare in half a dozen games using the GeForce RTX 3090, RTX 3070, Radeon...

www.techspot.com

 

[pepepapaujratam]

Hey i have yhe same config as you, getting the same problem, did you manage to solve it ?
I also did most of the steps you did, i even got an older version of the drivers....

Thank you everyone for the answers. Yesterday I finally had the opportunity to try my card in another friend's PC:
-i9-9900
-32gb 3600mhz DDR4
-800W PSU
-Win 10 clean install
And it behaves exactly the same. Stutters, frame drops, and drops in power consumption. So it had nothing to do with the bottleneck, the card is just faulty, therefore I'm returning it. Maybe it's the same with your card.

 

[RodroX]

You may have jumped into a conclusion a little too fast, I see 4 posible issues, and I believe a combination of 3 and 4 may be the problem here:

1. The GPU, yes the GPU could be bad, but Im not so sure in this case.
2. Windows 11, which for me still not ready for prime time
3. CPU performance, yes the R5 2600 its a little to little for such a powerfull GPU, specially at 1080p,
4. PSU, 650 watts is really the min requirement, in fact XFX stay its better to have a 750 watts unit. And your PSU if I remember correctly is a Tier D unit, not really a good idea to use it with such a system with that RX 6700 XT.

Does your friend have a good or very good 800 watts PSU?, cause if hes not the issue will still be there.

Just bacause a PSU have a 800 watts label, it does not mean it can deliver that.

Heres one of the many list about PSU TIERS: https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...er-list-rev-14-8-final-update-jul-21.3624094/

Uusually a good unit from Tier A or B should be enough for a mid-range system.

Cheers

 

[DSzymborski]

Thank you everyone for the answers. Yesterday I finally had the opportunity to try my card in another friend's PC:
-i9-9900
-32gb 3600mhz DDR4
-800W PSU
-Win 10 clean install
And it behaves exactly the same. Stutters, frame drops, and drops in power consumption. So it had nothing to do with the bottleneck, the card is just faulty, therefore I'm returning it. Maybe it's the same with your card.

There's a high chance that the "faulty" card is damage you caused with a junk-tier PSU.

 

[KananX]

It’s not the CPU and it’s not the operating system, the likeliness of either PSU or GPU being too bad or broken is high. Radeon is known for working well with outdated CPUs, to the contrary. And Windows 11 will not be it, it’s already on the level of 10.