Hello, I have a few questions about my computer's performance in some games, and I'm looking for some advice about what I should upgrade if I decide I want to.
First, I want to explain my situation. So I built my PC back in late 2017. I went for a budget build, trying to save money where I could while still getting decent 1080p performance. Here's the build:
AMD Ryzen 3 1300X
MSI B350M PRO-VH PLUS
Corsair Vengeance LPX 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 7200 RPM
Zotac GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB OC Edition
EVGA 430 W 80+ Certified
Later, in late 2018, I upgraded my graphics card to an MSI RX 570 8 GB ARMOR OC, since it was cheap at the time and a friend of mine was willing to buy my 1050 Ti off of me.
However, I started to notice some weird performance issues specifically in Ghost Recon Wildlands. Basically, my GPU usage would jump up and down constantly, back and forth from 99% to 0%, while my CPU usage would remain around 90%. Additionally, lowering the graphics settings did not increase the FPS as much as it should. For instance, I was getting 40-50 FPS at high settings in some areas, but if I dropped everything to lowest and even reduced the resolution scale, I would still not get over 60 FPS consistently. I sort of just ignored it though, since it was still more or less playable. And it was just one game, my other games ran great.
Then, I played The Division 2 and Devil May Cry 5, which came free with the RX 570. DMC 5 ran great, nearly max settings at a smooth 60 FPS. TD2, however, couldn't run smoothly even at lowest settings. It stuttered very frequently, and was mostly unplayable. After some tweaking and experimenting, I found it was acting very similar to Wildlands, in that the GPU usage would jump up and down like crazy while the CPU usage hovered around 90%. Once again, changing the quality settings did not affect the FPS as much as it should have. In fact it seemed to stutter a bit less when at higher settings.
Finally, this weekend, I got access to the Ghost Recon Breakpoint Online Technical Test, and found what seemed to be a similar problem to Wildlands. Except this time, it was like 40 FPS at low settings and 30 FPS at high. It's only just about playable, but given that it's a WIP version of the game, performance could be improved at launch.
So my best guess at what's happening is that it's a CPU bottleneck. It seems the FPS is being limited, and in The Division 2, it can't keep up and causes the constant stutters. This problem only showed up after I upgraded my graphics card, as Wildlands played at around 50-60 FPS (low-medium settings) on my 1050 Ti before, and both CPU and GPU usage were at around 100% at all times. As well, only a few games are affected, and they do seem to be pretty intensive on the CPU. That's why I think it's a CPU bottleneck, but I'm not really sure. Correct me if I'm wrong.
So my questions are, is this the expected performance I should get out of this system? I feel like it has the potential to run faster. Are there any ways I can improve performance software-wise? The CPU is already OC'd to 3.8 GHz and the GPU is at 1400 MHz core clock and 2000 MHz memory clock. I believe the RAM is just at the stock 2666 XMP setting. Should I try overclocking more? I'm not very confident with my OCing, and I don't have the best cooling or power supply, so I haven't gone very far with it. Are there other software tweaks I can do?
And if software tweaks won't cut it, what hardware should I upgrade to so that I can expect smooth performance in the latest titles? I'm on a tight budget here as I'm saving up money for Uni, so I want the most bang for the buck I can get. I haven't really been following tech news since after the RTX 2060 launched, so I'm hoping someone can help me catch up on the new things so I don't have to dig through a ton of stuff.
I live in Canada by the way, so listing Canadian prices would be nice. I'm also using Windows 10, if that matters. I hope I gave enough info, but if you want more, like benchmarks or something, ask and I'll post it.
First, I want to explain my situation. So I built my PC back in late 2017. I went for a budget build, trying to save money where I could while still getting decent 1080p performance. Here's the build:
AMD Ryzen 3 1300X
MSI B350M PRO-VH PLUS
Corsair Vengeance LPX 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666
Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB 7200 RPM
Zotac GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB OC Edition
EVGA 430 W 80+ Certified
Later, in late 2018, I upgraded my graphics card to an MSI RX 570 8 GB ARMOR OC, since it was cheap at the time and a friend of mine was willing to buy my 1050 Ti off of me.
However, I started to notice some weird performance issues specifically in Ghost Recon Wildlands. Basically, my GPU usage would jump up and down constantly, back and forth from 99% to 0%, while my CPU usage would remain around 90%. Additionally, lowering the graphics settings did not increase the FPS as much as it should. For instance, I was getting 40-50 FPS at high settings in some areas, but if I dropped everything to lowest and even reduced the resolution scale, I would still not get over 60 FPS consistently. I sort of just ignored it though, since it was still more or less playable. And it was just one game, my other games ran great.
Then, I played The Division 2 and Devil May Cry 5, which came free with the RX 570. DMC 5 ran great, nearly max settings at a smooth 60 FPS. TD2, however, couldn't run smoothly even at lowest settings. It stuttered very frequently, and was mostly unplayable. After some tweaking and experimenting, I found it was acting very similar to Wildlands, in that the GPU usage would jump up and down like crazy while the CPU usage hovered around 90%. Once again, changing the quality settings did not affect the FPS as much as it should have. In fact it seemed to stutter a bit less when at higher settings.
Finally, this weekend, I got access to the Ghost Recon Breakpoint Online Technical Test, and found what seemed to be a similar problem to Wildlands. Except this time, it was like 40 FPS at low settings and 30 FPS at high. It's only just about playable, but given that it's a WIP version of the game, performance could be improved at launch.
So my best guess at what's happening is that it's a CPU bottleneck. It seems the FPS is being limited, and in The Division 2, it can't keep up and causes the constant stutters. This problem only showed up after I upgraded my graphics card, as Wildlands played at around 50-60 FPS (low-medium settings) on my 1050 Ti before, and both CPU and GPU usage were at around 100% at all times. As well, only a few games are affected, and they do seem to be pretty intensive on the CPU. That's why I think it's a CPU bottleneck, but I'm not really sure. Correct me if I'm wrong.
So my questions are, is this the expected performance I should get out of this system? I feel like it has the potential to run faster. Are there any ways I can improve performance software-wise? The CPU is already OC'd to 3.8 GHz and the GPU is at 1400 MHz core clock and 2000 MHz memory clock. I believe the RAM is just at the stock 2666 XMP setting. Should I try overclocking more? I'm not very confident with my OCing, and I don't have the best cooling or power supply, so I haven't gone very far with it. Are there other software tweaks I can do?
And if software tweaks won't cut it, what hardware should I upgrade to so that I can expect smooth performance in the latest titles? I'm on a tight budget here as I'm saving up money for Uni, so I want the most bang for the buck I can get. I haven't really been following tech news since after the RTX 2060 launched, so I'm hoping someone can help me catch up on the new things so I don't have to dig through a ton of stuff.
I live in Canada by the way, so listing Canadian prices would be nice. I'm also using Windows 10, if that matters. I hope I gave enough info, but if you want more, like benchmarks or something, ask and I'll post it.