Question Sudden FPS Drop on All Games (60 FPS on Max to 30 FPS and under on Max)

[SmugSultan]

I'm going to try and be as specific as possible, if anyone has any questions please let me know. Apologies in advance for my limited computer knowledge.
I recently purchased a brand new Skytech Shadow 3.0 off of Amazon and I believe it came here on September 11th. When I first booted it up, everything was fine, all of my games from Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, Total War Warhammer 3, Battlefield 1, etc were all playing at around 50 to 60 FPS on all max settings with no hitching or stuttering whatsoever. A couple of days ago, I woke up and discovered that all of my games have been running at a far lower FPS than they should on this card, hitting at max 30~ FPS and never crawling over or around 60. This started the morning after a very long session of gaming, around 12 hours with my friends on Total War Warhammer 3.

Elden Ring is probably my most graphically intensive game that I have, so I did a little experimenting. If I look towards the horizon, my FPS runs at around 25 to 30 on Max settings, but when I look at the ground where there is quite literally nothing to look at, my FPS goes back up to around 60, only to drop back down to 30. If I turn all of my graphics to the lowest settings possible, everything runs at 60 FPS and almost never dips underneath. Cyberpunk is another story, and it does not go above 30 with close to 100% of my GPU being used according to the Nvidia overlay on Max settings. I have not tried turning the graphics down for that game yet, but I could assume it would have a similar effect.

I've seen multiple posts with similar issues but none of the solutions work. I sincerely hope I don’t have to RMA my computer, but could it be possible that after playing for so long I may have fried my CPU or GPU? None of my games crash or freeze and my computer does not randomly restart or hitch whatsoever except for this one instance where I put it to sleep and everything slowed to a crawl, causing me to do a hard reset. I've read that doing a hard reboot of your system can help but I only want to do that as an absolute last resort.

Information is readily available from my Dxdiag, I simply ask for anyone helping me to supply me with specifics and I will get you what you're looking for in a timely fashion.

Thank you for your help.

Methods already used to fix this
Full system virus scan via Windows Defender AND Malwarebytes Premium
SFC and DISM commands (SFC found corrupted files and fixed them)
Tried messing with the Voltage on my GPU to no avail
Reinstalling drivers via Geforce Experience
A light stress test on OCCT with no issues
Changed my power options to Performance Mode
Everything in Task Manager is working fine

Specs:
GPU: NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3060 /// Driver Version: 516.94
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor
RAM: 16 GB

 

[4745454b]

30 and 60fps? That's vsync. You need to turn that off in game and drivers.

 

[SmugSultan]

I tried turning V-sync off, it simply doesn't do anything. I ran 3D Mark just a few minutes ago and my PC is definitely underperforming, no doubt about that. I've taken screenshots and uploaded them to Imgur, maybe you can tell me what's wrong with it? My thinking is that my CPU may be bottle-necking, I don't think 85 degrees C is normal for an average, but like I said things were fine up until a few days ago. [3D Mark]

 

[SmugSultan]

I've already posted something similar on other forum threads, I think on Systems and Hardware, but nobody really has a definitive answer for what's going on. I'm hoping I can be helped here. The link to my original post is here if you want to take a peak [Forum]

So recently I just bought a Skytech Shadow 3.0 off of Amazon for around $1,300 dollars [Product]. For the first week, everything ran as smooth as butter, I was playing Cyberpunk, Elden Ring, Total War Warhammer 3, etc perfectly fine anywhere between 50 to 60 and more FPS. I turn my PC off for the night and then turn it back on, only to find those 3 pretty graphically intense games run at around anywhere from 20 to 40 FPS now depending on what I'm doing and where I'm looking.

I ran 3D Mark to see what's wrong, and I can definitely tell that my PC is underperforming, I'm thinking maybe thermal throttling, seeing as my CPU shouldn't be running at 85 degrees C on average, but how could that be? Jumping from being fine one day and then performing like a budget PC the next?

Here's the link to the screenshots for 3D Mark:

https://imgur.com/a/anv5HBq

View: https://imgur.com/a/anv5HBq


I've tried a multitude of things from running a virus scan, to turning of V-sync on everything, reinstalling old and new drivers, quite honestly anything you can think of barring a complete Windows reset and trying spare parts. I have an AMD Ryzen 2600 sitting in my old PC, I can probably clean that out and try it, but I really do not want to void the warranty whatsoever.

I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place, I need desperate help. I should really put emphasis on the fact that my PC was working fine one day, and then literally the next, it started slowing down. Is there anything that I can do, or do I truly have to RMA this thing, its under warranty for a year (parts and labor).

I should also note that I can play less graphically intense games like Age of Empires 2, Mordhau, and Phasmophobia no problem at all, each of which is running 60 or more.

Specs for my Current Build
GPU: NVIDIA Geforce RTX 3060 /// Driver Version: 516.94
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor
RAM: 16 GB

 

[DavidM012]

Yes well I think you need a cooler cooler but really you need to send it back because you basically bought a system with apparently reasonable specifications but it does not strictly specify what the components are eg. make a and model of mobo, ram, power supply, even though the cooler should be an amd wraith it isn't as good as a stronger aftermarket cooler.

So you had your heavy gaming session and the system didn't really hold up and the problem could be mobo partially working so since it could be that it's not worth messing around since putting another cooler on it may not rectify what went wrong in the first place.

So the story goes you bought a system you thought was reasonable specifications and it should hold up since it has the 'stock cooler' but it would run cooler with an aftermarket cooler I mean they swear by it enough to sell it... without a better cooler so make them reconsider their ways and sell pc's with a better cooler.

Ask for a refund and maybe assemble your own from parts one reason for doing so is eVga has a top of the line Power supply on offer at the moment.

Another reason is, if you can identify your motherboard using hwinfo you can choose to buy a better one in your process of selecting parts: cpu, cooler, mobo, memory, disk, gpu, case, and optional fans. Or at least avoid the one you ran into trouble with.

So get your money back rebuild other way. I wouldn't have bought a machine that is sketchy on it's specifications eg. 1 tb ssd - what's the make and model? Gold Power supply... what's the make and model? Since there could be more than one problem to troubleshoot it's not worth the trouble of messing about with if you can get a refund.

Basically buying a prebuilt, is not necessarily less hassle than assembling a pc from parts particularly if the 'system integrators' don't select a good cooler for example.

Make sure your gpu voltage is set to default. You only messed with it a bit after the system 'sagged' somehow just so no-one quibbles you did something to it. I don't think you did anything wrong particularly but simply buying the machine with vague specifications means you couldn't really assess it and look up reviews of the parts and so on.

So basically consumer expects pc from mainstream retailer to simply work & is disappointed when it didn't hold up.