[SOLVED] RX 6600 Low Power Usage

[pcgamerg59]

PC Specs:
XFX SWFT 210 RX 6600
i7 6700 @ 3.7ghz turbo
XPG 16GB (2x8) 2133mhz dual channel
750W Thermaltake 80 plus
WD 1TB SSD
WD 3TB HDD
1080P 144hz (freesync tested on and off)

So a couple days ago I upgraded from an RX 580 to an RX 6600. Its performance has been very inconsistent. I play at 1080p with high presets for most games. Newer games run flawless usually around 100fps with no problems utilizing 90-100% of the gpu running at full boost (2491mhz) using between 100-120W of power. The low power draw problem im having is with older games. Mainly DirectX 11 titles especially having problems in Ghost Recon Wildlands and Fallout 4. In these games the gpu simply is not utilized. Terrible inconsistent fps and very low clock speeds. Cranking up or turning down settings gpu does not go past 60% usage with clocks hovering between 1100-1900mhz and around 60-80w the fps jumps all over the place. Cpu isnt bottlenecking either its only getting 50-70% max usage. Ive tried everything in afterburner and amd settings to force the gpu to run at full power with zero luck. I found out the card has a BIOS switch which I thought might be the cause of the problem. The left side looks to be a built in boost mode the fan speeds ramp up and clock speeds increase to 1574mhz. The right side is a power saving or quiet mode. Switching between these still doesnt not fix the low power usage. Could the bios settings be overriding my settings that I set in afterburner/amd software and forcibly limit my power usage even in demanding situations? Or is this straight up just bad optimization?

 

[cdrkf]

With DX11 Titles what you are describing is a CPU bottleneck - the total CPU usage doesn't tell the whole story. DX11 is written such that there is a single primary graphics thread (with up to two more 'helper' threads), so for graphics rendering a DX11 title can only use 1.5 cores to feed the GPU. The games can use other cores / threads for other functions (e.g. AI, audio, physics sim etc) which is why you see usage over 50% but your issue is you are hitting the limit on the primary thread as this can only use 1 core.

The i7 6700 is still a reasonable cpu but it's per thread performance is pretty slow these days vs the latest designs, and the RX 6600 is a really fast card (faster than many older top tier cards like 1080ti etc). This is less of an issue in newer titles written for DX12 or Vulkan as the new API's have been designed to spread the graphics load across many cores, so you will note your cpu usage is much higher and as a result the RX 6600 is being pushed harder.

What I would suggest to keep the frame rate under control in these older titles is to set an FPS cap, I believe there is an option to do this in the AMD Radeon software, or you can use V-Sync to cap the fps to your screen refresh rate. That should smoother the game out as it sounds your machine has more than enough power to play these games fluently however the variation in FPS will make the experience feel choppy.

 

[pcgamerg59]

With DX11 Titles what you are describing is a CPU bottleneck - the total CPU usage doesn't tell the whole story. DX11 is written such that there is a single primary graphics thread (with up to two more 'helper' threads), so for graphics rendering a DX11 title can only use 1.5 cores to feed the GPU. The games can use other cores / threads for other functions (e.g. AI, audio, physics sim etc) which is why you see usage over 50% but your issue is you are hitting the limit on the primary thread as this can only use 1 core.

The i7 6700 is still a reasonable cpu but it's per thread performance is pretty slow these days vs the latest designs, and the RX 6600 is a really fast card (faster than many older top tier cards like 1080ti etc). This is less of an issue in newer titles written for DX12 or Vulkan as the new API's have been designed to spread the graphics load across many cores, so you will note your cpu usage is much higher and as a result the RX 6600 is being pushed harder.

What I would suggest to keep the frame rate under control in these older titles is to set an FPS cap, I believe there is an option to do this in the AMD Radeon software, or you can use V-Sync to cap the fps to your screen refresh rate. That should smoother the game out as it sounds your machine has more than enough power to play these games fluently however the variation in FPS will make the experience feel choppy.

I get that my i7 6700 is bottlenecking but at the same time I dont. Most of the DirectX 11 games I play were released around 2015-2017 which is about time intel released 6th and 7th gen. So im a little confused on how the CPU is bottlenecking even in games it should be perfectly suited for. Would overclocking help at all or is 4c/8t just not enough in this day and age? If thats the case im strongly considering getting an 11th or 12th gen i5.

 

[Third-Eye]

I get that my i7 6700 is bottlenecking but at the same time I dont. Most of the DirectX 11 games I play were released around 2015-2017 which is about time intel released 6th and 7th gen. So im a little confused on how the CPU is bottlenecking even in games it should be perfectly suited for. Would overclocking help at all or is 4c/8t just not enough in this day and age? If thats the case im strongly considering getting an 11th or 12th gen i5.

You probably can't overclock your CPU if you're still using DDR 2133 which is pretty much the slowest speed available. You need a Z series motherboard to overclock either the CPU or the memory or to just use faster ram.

Fallout 4 is limited to 60fps unless you unlock it so the GPU won't run faster than required to hit 60fps with your settings. I don't know about Ghost Recon Wildlands, but you might be using vsync to lock it to 60fps with a 60Hz monitor.

 

[pcgamerg59]

You probably can't overclock your CPU if you're still using DDR 2133 which is pretty much the slowest speed available. You need a Z series motherboard to overclock either the CPU or the memory or to just use faster ram.

Fallout 4 is limited to 60fps unless you unlock it so the GPU won't run faster than required to hit 60fps with your settings. I don't know about Ghost Recon Wildlands, but you might be using vsync to lock it to 60fps with a 60Hz monitor.

I have a 144hz monitor so I use amd freesync and radeon chill to lock the fps since vsync causes terrible input lag and stuttering. I had no clue Fallout 4 had a 60fps cap I see the fps fluctuate between 65-135 depending on the area. Also turns out Wildlands is actually just a terribly optimized game (way to go ubisoft). I planned on getting a Z170 to OC but now I think id be better off upgrading to a newer faster i5 with a Z490/Z590

 

[Third-Eye]

I have a 144hz monitor so I use amd freesync and radeon chill to lock the fps since vsync causes terrible input lag and stuttering. I had no clue Fallout 4 had a 60fps cap I see the fps fluctuate between 65-135 depending on the area. Also turns out Wildlands is actually just a terribly optimized game (way to go ubisoft). I planned on getting a Z170 to OC but now I think id be better off upgrading to a newer faster i5 with a Z490/Z590

If you are getting over 60fps in Fallout 4, it means you must have manually unlocked the FPS cap. I could have worded it better what I was saying. It's been so long since I last played the game or even installed it, that I don't even remember how to unlock the fps cap. It's sometimes better not to though, since the physics are tied to the frame rate and the game expects 60fps on the PC version of all the Fallout games going back to Fallout 3. Elder Scrolls Oblivion and Skyrim are affected as well.

If you are going to upgrade, get at least a B560 motherboard (for memory overclock) with at least a 10400/F or 11400/F and at least DDR4 3200 CL16. A 12400/F with a B660 or H670 motherboard that use DDR4 will probably be about $60-100 more depending on the motherboard you pick.

 

[cdrkf]

I get that my i7 6700 is bottlenecking but at the same time I dont. Most of the DirectX 11 games I play were released around 2015-2017 which is about time intel released 6th and 7th gen. So im a little confused on how the CPU is bottlenecking even in games it should be perfectly suited for. Would overclocking help at all or is 4c/8t just not enough in this day and age? If thats the case im strongly considering getting an 11th or 12th gen i5.

It's only a bottleneck due to the graphics card you have paired it with - your system as it was before (with the RX 580) was well balanced with the gpu / cpu performance being evenly matched and of a similar generation to the games in question. With the upgrade to the RX 6600 you've moved to a much faster GPU which is capable of a much higher max frame rate than the CPU can support which is why you are having issues. This would be much less of an issue if you were playing at higher resolutions that would load the GPU more, however as you are aiming for high frame rates at a low resolution that pushes the load back onto the CPU more heavily.

If you are looking to upgrade look at Intel 12 gen for sure, it was quite a big jump over 11th and there are some very reasonable parts (the i5 12400F is regarded as the go to value king for gaming CPU's, whilst the i5 12600 parts offer some extra threads if you do any thread intensive tasks like rendering, encoding or cpu streaming etc).

 

[hotaru.hino]

I get that my i7 6700 is bottlenecking but at the same time I dont. Most of the DirectX 11 games I play were released around 2015-2017 which is about time intel released 6th and 7th gen. So im a little confused on how the CPU is bottlenecking even in games it should be perfectly suited for. Would overclocking help at all or is 4c/8t just not enough in this day and age? If thats the case im strongly considering getting an 11th or 12th gen i5.

It's because in most DX11 titles, the job that compiles work to send off to the GPU is typically limited to a single thread. So the performance of one core matters more than the overall performance of the processor. NVIDIA did find a workaround for this in the API, but AMD didn't take advantage of it.

Also unless you have a K processor, you're limited to BCLK overclocking. Since that touches everything, you're going to have to spend a lot of time tweaking the entire system than just the CPU parameters.