Question PC suddenly underperforming within the past few months

Yutrzenika117

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To preface, this is my current build: https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/bVFRFG

So back in December shortly I got my new GPU, an RTX 2070 Super, I noticed my PC was starting to underperform. I had first noticed it in the game Control, which on my GTX 1070 I had no trouble playing, was now unplayable on my RTX 2070 Super, I'm talking very poor framerates even at the lowest settings. Some games were affected less severely than others, Modern Warfare for example ran fine, but began experiencing stuttering that wasn't there before, and Battlefield V didn't see any apparent increase in performance over my 1070, but was also experiencing stuttering, then games like Rainbow Six Siege, and Mordhau saw increases in performance, without stuttering, however what performance increases I do get don't seem to be in line with what other people experience, I get at most 90 or so FPS in Mordhau, but most people say, with builds similar to my own, they get well over 100 FPS. Even in Doom 2016 I get these framerate drops, it'll be running at 144 FPS or higher, then suddenly dip down to about 60 for a very brief moment before shooting back up, regardless of whether or not I'm in a high intensity moment in the game.

I've run the 3DMark Fire Strike benchmark, which you can see the results of here https://www.3dmark.com/fs/21924566
It seems to indicate that I'm not doing as well as most people with a build like mine, and I can't narrow down the cause for it. I ran MSI Afterburner during some of my more graphically demanding games, like BFV, and I can't see anything that looks immediately off, but I'm also no expert, you can find a screenshot of BFV with the MSI Afterburner OSD active here
viDjHj2.jpg


It's not unusual for me to hit well below 60 FPS in some cases in BFV with a mix of high and low settings.

I've tried many different things to try and narrow down the issue, but so far am at a loss. I've updated my BIOS, reinstalled windows, formatting the SSD the OS is installed to and everything, I've removed and reinstalled the GPU drivers using DDU multiple times, I've even tried reinstalling my old GTX 1070, and the issues I have currently persist with the old GPU, telling me it's not a defect in my new one either. I purchased a new PSU, as my previous one was 520w (the RTX 2070 Super asks for 650w), which didn't improve anything, closing literally anything that could be running in the background didn't improve things either. My last result was actually taking my PC in to a repair place to see if they could narrow it down, but unfortunately they couldn't either.

Is there anything I could try to help narrow it down? Is there anything in what I've provided that might tell you guys what the issue could be? I'm kinda at the point where I might try replacing my mobo, ram, and cpu, as I've heard my CPU could potentially be the bottleneck for my GPU, and my mobo and ram are very basic, could they be the issue at all?
 

Phaaze88

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*Checks 3D Mark results
*Notices the 'Brawn Achievement': Your GPU is ready to rumble, but your CPU doesn't want to play.
That's probably a good place to start.

Gigabyte GA-H110M-A
That's a very basic motherboard indeed - no VRM heatsinks either... not the best housing for a 6700K.
The VRMs might be overheating, then throttling down, and thus causing the cpu to do the same. MIGHT.

I don't think it's the mis-matched memory, because incompatible memory kits act up far worse - crashing, freezing, BSOD...
Here, you're just seeing some 'hiccups', and it's not like the games are unplayable.

That's what I gathered from what you've posted so far - I could be wrong though.
 

Yutrzenika117

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Jan 30, 2016
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*Checks 3D Mark results
*Notices the 'Brawn Achievement': Your GPU is ready to rumble, but your CPU doesn't want to play.
That's probably a good place to start.

Gigabyte GA-H110M-A
That's a very basic motherboard indeed - no VRM heatsinks either... not the best housing for a 6700K.
The VRMs might be overheating, then throttling down, and thus causing the cpu to do the same. MIGHT.

I don't think it's the mis-matched memory, because incompatible memory kits act up far worse - crashing, freezing, BSOD...
Here, you're just seeing some 'hiccups', and it's not like the games are unplayable.

That's what I gathered from what you've posted so far - I could be wrong though.
Yeah, I noticed that achievement too. I just wanna make sure that I know what the issue is before I invest money in getting a new mobo or cpu.

But yeah, it has been for the most part just been "Hiccups", nothing super major, the worst case being Control, which generally can't stay at 60 fps even at all low settings. I would like things to be running smoothly, and to get the full potential out of my rig, but like I said, narrowing down the cause is the hard part. I can't see anything abnormal in any of the little readouts on MSI Afterburner, but I also don't wanna drop money on new stuff just to find out that wasn't actually the issue.
 

Phaaze88

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When fps doesn't improve even after lowering settings, that normally points to a cpu limitation - but this isn't a typical situation either.

You can try to stress test the cpu to see if the problem can be reproduced:

Cinebench R20: https://www.maxon.net/en-us/support/downloads/
Run, click File, then Preferences.
For Minimum Test Duration, enter 600 or so, click Ok, and then click Run.
The cpu should maintain scores of close to that of the 7700K for the duration of the test.

Asus Realbench: https://www.techspot.com/downloads/7050-asus-realbench.html
Run it and click on Stress Test.
Select a duration of 8hrs - you're probably gonna want to take a nap on this one...
For Memory, select half of your total, and click start.

I suggest using Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to monitor the cpu's behavior: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075/Intel-Extreme-Tuning-Utility-Intel-XTU
In the section of the app with the blue text and bars, click on the wrench on the upper-right area.
They may all be enabled by default, but make sure the following are checked:
-Thermal throttling
-Power limit throttling
-Current/EDP limit throttling
-Motherboard VR thermal throttling
-PMAX throttling
 

Yutrzenika117

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Jan 30, 2016
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When fps doesn't improve even after lowering settings, that normally points to a cpu limitation - but this isn't a typical situation either.

You can try to stress test the cpu to see if the problem can be reproduced:

Cinebench R20: https://www.maxon.net/en-us/support/downloads/
Run, click File, then Preferences.
For Minimum Test Duration, enter 600 or so, click Ok, and then click Run.
The cpu should maintain scores of close to that of the 7700K for the duration of the test.

Asus Realbench: https://www.techspot.com/downloads/7050-asus-realbench.html
Run it and click on Stress Test.
Select a duration of 8hrs - you're probably gonna want to take a nap on this one...
For Memory, select half of your total, and click start.

I suggest using Intel Extreme Tuning Utility to monitor the cpu's behavior: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/24075/Intel-Extreme-Tuning-Utility-Intel-XTU
In the section of the app with the blue text and bars, click on the wrench on the upper-right area.
They may all be enabled by default, but make sure the following are checked:
-Thermal throttling
-Power limit throttling
-Current/EDP limit throttling
-Motherboard VR thermal throttling
-PMAX throttling

Alright, so far I've just run the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility monitor during a match of Battlefield V, this is what it looked like.
dtTXoqn.png


And then I ran Cinebench R20, and this is where I ranked.
wa9nyFZ.png


I'll try running Asus Realbench when I have the time. A user on Reddit also suggested to me that I unplug my HDD, as that could be causing slowdowns, is this a possibility? Currently, my OS is installed to a 250gb SSD, my games and basically everything else are on a 1tb SSD, and then I just have a few movies and shows on a 1tb HDD, the drive is basically empty otherwise.
 
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Phaaze88

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The only reason I think the HDD would be causing slowdowns is if there was malware or a miner running from it...
The OS being on only 250GBs can be problematic if it's almost full, and the cheaper SSDs don't have any onboard Dram; they slow down even worse than a HDD when they're almost full.
 

Yutrzenika117

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Jan 30, 2016
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The only reason I think the HDD would be causing slowdowns is if there was malware or a miner running from it...
The OS being on only 250GBs can be problematic if it's almost full, and the cheaper SSDs don't have any onboard Dram; they slow down even worse than a HDD when they're almost full.
Yeah I kinda figured. The SSD is 70gb of 250 used so I doubt that's it, and I've run many malware and virus scans, and it's none of that. I also checked the health of all my drives and everything appears normal. Thing still boots as fast as I did the day I built it.

Nothing of note to be seen from my two screencaps, I assume?
 

Yutrzenika117

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Check Task Manager, You might see that Chrome is running with 20 threads open.
Besides that, your cpu is definitely the bottleneck. Should have got a 1080ti
I use vivaldi, but yeah, closing everything doesn't really make much of a difference in terms of performance, and it really shouldn't affect my performance as drastically as it has been with some games.

But yeah, I might just get a new mobo with new ram and a new cpu, maybe a Ryzen 3600 or something, unless you have something you'd recommend for a 2070 Super.
 

Yutrzenika117

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I ran MSI Afterburner during Half Life Alyx while I was encountering a rather large performance dip, my CPU usage dropped quite low here, not sure if there's anything here that's indicative of what's going on, but it doesn't appear to be thermal.
z0hlcrY.jpg