[SOLVED] Referred with high praise...

[TheWoodshed]

Hello all-

It’s been an interesting couple of days. A very good friend of mine has an esteemed computer building business among other things, and helped build me a new business workhorse/gaming powerhouse. I am experiencing, however, some frustrating issues. I have, to no avail, exhausted his time and patience (I am sure) and he has been so very kind in helping me try and sort this out. Let’s give him a break.

The specifications are as follows:

AMD Ryzen 7 3700x
Gigabyte RTX 2070 Super Windforce OC 3X 8GB
ASRock B450m/ac
Corsair CX650m
WD Blue Nvme m.2280 500GB
G.Skill Ripjaws 3200mhz 16gb (2x8)

Looks beautiful!

For the sake of time, I’m going to copy an excerpt from a Reddit thread where I asked the same question a day or two ago, just to save you time in figuring out all the odds and ends with my predicament:

“Sadly, in spite of our best efforts, it seems that, even after referring to benchmarks and demonstrations using nearly identical builds with the same settings applied, I am getting around 10-20fps less than what I’ve seen others achieve (stock), and besides Gears of War 5, I experience micro stutters [not more than a nano second long, almost like FPS lag or a single frame drop] throughout (Warzone, BF5).

I can assure you that the PC was built with extreme care and to my knowledge all the little things like XMP, bios updates, driver updates, optimization settings, RAM tunings, etc... was taken care of - this young man is absolutely no slack with that. I also double checked a few things. Specifically, in BF5 and Warzone, I see others with nearly identical builds achieving 105-120Fps regularly [would be happy to provide eons of links], where I am more in the 80-90 range, again, with stutters here and there. (Yes, I’ve tried V-Sync, etc... still stutters, and that shouldn’t be an issue anyway).”

Now I know many of you will say “lower this setting” and “optimize your options in game”, but with all due respect, such a sacrifice is simply not justified with the price paid to put this together.

As of the last day, I’ve experienced some positive results in BFV and what not, getting frames above 100 finally, however that is where it stops. And even still, intermittently I’m experiencing very very subtle, but noticeable micro stutters. Little tiny ones. Still, COD Warzone performance is inconsistent and not consistent with what others have quoted and demonstrated with similar systems.

I have been referred here by many who believe your community is more than capable of helping solve the issue. This is a very important project to me, and I dearly ask for your expertise. I sincerely look forward to your help, and I thank you for your time in advance.

 

[TheWoodshed]

I'd like to add to those interested, my card doesn't often clock and hold at 1980, it gets there, but it doesn't hold, though I hear from most who have the Gaming OC 3X version of the 2070 Super as I do usually get it up to 1995. Mine dances between 1935-1965. Don't know if that means anything but I thought I'd mention.

 

[CountMike]

Interesting. Most of my gaming is done at 1440p. I don't think I've used this for anything at 1080p since it was put together.

But at stock, shouldn't my CPU be doing just as fine as most others' at stock? Like I said I feel like there's something I'm missing. Also, I noticed some discrepancies when changing from HDMI to DisplayPort yesterday (had to RMA a monitor for pixels and this new monitor did not come with DP so I had to use HDMI until the cable came in) as far as performance etc... This monitor has Adaptive Sync (PA278QV by ASUS) and I understand that when introducing a DP cable it becomes available, however, I know there are variables in how applications and the Nvidia Control Panel process and apply G-Sync with all the variable settings.

Any tips?

That's just a side note - if you check out some of those videos I'm sure you'll see what I'm seeing about the FPS fluctuations etc...

I can do some tests when I get back from some errands today with everything closed for you to know how everything is firing at this point, up to you all. Thank you nonetheless for your support and time you've given me so generously over the past half day.

P.S.: I mentioned this earlier, but could it have anything to do with playing Gears through Xbox Game Pass? If I played through Steam, would I get better performance?

Depends on how much time, effort and money you are prepared to spend in optimizing system and what you are going to gain. Is it just because of few frames in games ?
3700x is more than ready to take on any game with any GPU. Best all round performance is achieved by good cooling, fast RAM and turning on PBO. Stationary overclock helps in games and programs if they always run with multiple cores but unless you can hit stable 4.4GHz that results with a bit lower single core/thread performance comparing to full boost by PBO.
I don't know about that busies about Gears thru Steam or Xbox Game Pass but I'm not sure it would make any difference, all work is done in your machine.

 

[TheWoodshed]

Depends on how much time, effort and money you are prepared to spend in optimizing system and what you are going to gain. Is it just because of few frames in games ?
3700x is more than ready to take on any game with any GPU. Best all round performance is achieved by good cooling, fast RAM and turning on PBO. Stationary overclock helps in games and programs if they always run with multiple cores but unless you can hit stable 4.4GHz that results with a bit lower single core/thread performance comparing to full boost by PBO.
I don't know about that busies about Gears thru Steam or Xbox Game Pass but I'm not sure it would make any difference, all work is done in your machine.

Very interesting.

How does one fuss with PBO safely? And what do you think about the DisplayPort conundrum?

 

[TheWoodshed]

I should note also-

Timespy graphics score comes out around 30-80 points under what I see others get on average, which is not the same case for the PassMark scores, which come up in the 95-97th percentile.

 

[CountMike]

Very interesting.

How does one fuss with PBO safely? And what do you think about the DisplayPort conundrum?

In most cases it's enough to enable it, some motherboards have few steps for finer tuning. It's safe enough because it's just enabling all CPU features, not your ordinary OC. Temperature control is also essential.

 

[TheWoodshed]

In most cases it's enough to enable it, some motherboards have few steps for finer tuning. It's safe enough because it's just enabling all CPU features, not your ordinary OC. Temperature control is also essential.

That’s done in Ryzen Master, correct?
Also! Currently rocking an ASRock B450m ac

if I switched to an ASUS Prime B550m-A WiFi, do you think I’d see improvement?

 

[CountMike]

That’s done in Ryzen Master, correct?
Also! Currently rocking an ASRock B450m ac

if I switched to an ASUS Prime B550m-A WiFi, do you think I’d see improvement?

Can be done thru RM but it's better in BIOS itself.
Performance wise a b550 wouldn't bring you anything unless you want to have a super-duper fast M2. NVME drive. On the other hand it's better MB and assured of compatibility with 4000 series Ryzen.

 

[TheWoodshed]

Can be done thru RM but it's better in BIOS itself.
Performance wise a b550 wouldn't bring you anything unless you want to have a super-duper fast M2. NVME drive. On the other hand it's better MB and assured of compatibility with 4000 series Ryzen.

So I would see no change in performance if I swapped that motherboard for the one that I mentioned… Got it. Just trying to find the weak link if there is one. Could it be that I haven’t received the May Windows update that came out with direct X 12 ultimate? Could that have any issue since my computer was built only weeks ago?

 

[CountMike]

So I would see no change in performance if I swapped that motherboard for the one that I mentioned… Got it. Just trying to find the weak link if there is one. Could it be that I haven’t received the May Windows update that came out with direct X 12 ultimate? Could that have any issue since my computer was built only weeks ago?

DirectX 12 ultimate is supposed to bring better conformance to Ray tracing only so unless you have an RTX card and using games with ray tracing, it's not any improvement.
Spring W10 update (2004) is pretty sketchy right now, many have problems with it and MS is pretty cautious about pushing it, Next Tuesday we can expect some patches to fix those bugs now present. It's possible to force update (I did it first day) but I had full system backup so it wasn't much of a risk as could get to my 1909 in few minutes. If you don't have such backup (you really should have it anyway) better wait until it has been offered by MS.

 

[TheWoodshed]

DirectX 12 ultimate is supposed to bring better conformance to Ray tracing only so unless you have an RTX card and using games with ray tracing, it's not any improvement.
Spring W10 update (2004) is pretty sketchy right now, many have problems with it and MS is pretty cautious about pushing it, Next Tuesday we can expect some patches to fix those bugs now present. It's possible to force update (I did it first day) but I had full system backup so it wasn't much of a risk as could get to my 1909 in few minutes. If you don't have such backup (you really should have it anyway) better wait until it has been offered by MS.

Got it. My only concern was really my TimeSpy score, which is DX12, because FireStrike does a good job with my system. Thinking that may be the key, get DX12 under control?

With the benchmarks, should I be going through and closing ANY and all background processes, even the small ones like Nvidia Control Panel and GeForce Experience, etc?

 

[TheWoodshed]

DirectX 12 ultimate is supposed to bring better conformance to Ray tracing only so unless you have an RTX card and using games with ray tracing, it's not any improvement.
Spring W10 update (2004) is pretty sketchy right now, many have problems with it and MS is pretty cautious about pushing it, Next Tuesday we can expect some patches to fix those bugs now present. It's possible to force update (I did it first day) but I had full system backup so it wasn't much of a risk as could get to my 1909 in few minutes. If you don't have such backup (you really should have it anyway) better wait until it has been offered by MS.

Ironically my G3D score for PassMark is ABOVE the average rating, while the TimeSpy rating is below by a little. Figure that one out.

 

[CountMike]

Got it. My only concern was really my TimeSpy score, which is DX12, because FireStrike does a good job with my system. Thinking that may be the key, get DX12 under control?

With the benchmarks, should I be going through and closing ANY and all background processes, even the small ones like Nvidia Control Panel and GeForce Experience, etc?

I don't see much use of any benchmark if it's not done in realistic conditions like having running anything you would run when playing a game for instance. Sure, some background stuff has some effect on the score but may also be necessary to run with games etc. Some turn everything off just to get better scores but that's not realistic scenario.

 

[TheWoodshed]

I don't see much use of any benchmark if it's not done in realistic conditions like having running anything you would run when playing a game for instance. Sure, some background stuff has some effect on the score but may also be necessary to run with games etc. Some turn everything off just to get better scores but that's not realistic scenario.

Understood. I’ve just recently changed my power plan to “Ryzen Balanced” and my Nvidia control panel power setting from “Maximum performance” to “optimal power” and I’m seeing some improvements. More to come!

 

[TheWoodshed]

You know what else? Seems that sometimes in game, my 3700x likes to get up to around 75-77 degrees and drop back down, sometimes, SOMETIMES around 82. Would that be poor or defective cooling, or even thermal throttling in action?

 

[CountMike]

You know what else? Seems that sometimes in game, my 3700x likes to get up to around 75-77 degrees and drop back down, sometimes, SOMETIMES around 82. Would that be poor or defective cooling, or even thermal throttling in action?

As I said before, temperature is critical for automatic boost, that doesn't mean that it's throttling, just that boost is getting limited. Real thermal throttling occurs at higher temps, close to 90c, total shutdown of a core at 95c.
Ryzen doesn't show temperatures for each core but there's internal sensor for each core. What you see in Ryzen Master is just temperature of hottest core, while other programs like HWinfo64 can also show temps by module and Package.
HWinfo also can show if thermal throttling has ocured at any time.

 

[TheWoodshed]

As I said before, temperature is critical for automatic boost, that doesn't mean that it's throttling, just that boost is getting limited. Real thermal throttling occurs at higher temps, close to 90c, total shutdown of a core at 95c.
Ryzen doesn't show temperatures for each core but there's internal sensor for each core. What you see in Ryzen Master is just temperature of hottest core, while other programs like HWinfo64 can also show temps by module and Package.
HWinfo also can show if thermal throttling has ocured at any time.

How do I check on the throttling then?

 

[CountMike]

How do I check on the throttling then?

HWinfo, under CPU temperatures at bottom there are 3 Thermal throttling scenarios

 

[TheWoodshed]

HWinfo, under CPU temperatures at bottom there are 3 Thermal throttling scenarios

Any particular markers for which I should be looking?

 

[CountMike]

Any particular markers for which I should be looking?

Everything.

 

[TheWoodshed]

Everything.

Sorry, I’m a bit new to all this, so you’ll have to forgive my naïvety. Just making sure I know what I’m reading when I take a look! Any other recommendations? Dangerous to have PBO for the CPU enabled WHILST also engaging an OC with the GPU?

thanks.

 

[CountMike]

Sorry, I’m a bit new to all this, so you’ll have to forgive my naïvety. Just making sure I know what I’m reading when I take a look! Any other recommendations? Dangerous to have PBO for the CPU enabled WHILST also engaging an OC with the GPU?

thanks.

Don't see what one has to do with the other, all dangers are associated with voltages and temperatures no matter which part is concerned.