[SOLVED] System underperforming, need some help figuring out why.

[GreenGiant117]

So my build is fairly robust, but seems to be underperforming for some reason.
Build:
Motherboard: MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon
CPU: Ryzen 7 1800X
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z DDR4 3200 2x8GB
GPU: MSI GTX 1080Ti Gaming X
SSD: Samsung 960 EVO NVME 250 GB
PSU: Seasonic X-850 80 Plus Gold (SS-850KM3)

Main monitor: Acer Predator XB271HU 2560x1440 @ 144Hz

When I first built the machine it ran everything I could throw at it, but in the last couple years it's had some issues running things at higher frame rates. I'm not a hardcore twitch gamer, but I get the feeling that there are a lot of dropped frames, and/or stuttering at times, even in games that there really shouldn't be.
I have been able to fix some things, like remove a lot of background stuff, and auto running applications, etc, but even when I manually would go through and turn everything off I would still not see the frames I was expecting.

Most of the time I will use the Nvidia recommended settings for graphics, but sometimes I'll have to reduce it from there to get higher frames.
One of the big ones was Borderlands 3, I would most frequently hang around 70-80 fps, until I would get the settings down to near potato settings, but again I would get dropped frames left and right, and I would be more than happy at 70-80 if it stayed at that range.

I have attempted to push my 1800X and have found that anything beyond 3.9GHz is completely unstable no matter how much I play with voltage and speeds, and I can't really touch anything on the graphics card without it crapping out on me, I think I was able to raise the power to 105% , it's not a heat problem as even when synthetic load testing it peaks at about 65-70C.

But as things go on it seems to be getting worse, dropped frames in even minimally intensive games, I really feel like I should be getting better performance out of the GPU.

Any ideas as to how to quantify my experience of dropped frames and possibly check to see what I could do to improve the machine?

 

[Flayed]

So my build is fairly robust, but seems to be underperforming for some reason.
Build:
Motherboard: MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon
CPU: Ryzen 7 1800X
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z DDR4 3200 2x8GB
GPU: MSI GTX 1080Ti Gaming X
SSD: Samsung 960 EVO NVME 250 GB
PSU: Seasonic X-850 80 Plus Gold (SS-850KM3)

Main monitor: Acer Predator XB271HU 2560x1440 @ 144Hz

When I first built the machine it ran everything I could throw at it, but in the last couple years it's had some issues running things at higher frame rates. I'm not a hardcore twitch gamer, but I get the feeling that there are a lot of dropped frames, and/or stuttering at times, even in games that there really shouldn't be.
I have been able to fix some things, like remove a lot of background stuff, and auto running applications, etc, but even when I manually would go through and turn everything off I would still not see the frames I was expecting.

Most of the time I will use the Nvidia recommended settings for graphics, but sometimes I'll have to reduce it from there to get higher frames.
One of the big ones was Borderlands 3, I would most frequently hang around 70-80 fps, until I would get the settings down to near potato settings, but again I would get dropped frames left and right, and I would be more than happy at 70-80 if it stayed at that range.

I have attempted to push my 1800X and have found that anything beyond 3.9GHz is completely unstable no matter how much I play with voltage and speeds, and I can't really touch anything on the graphics card without it crapping out on me, I think I was able to raise the power to 105% , it's not a heat problem as even when synthetic load testing it peaks at about 65-70C.

But as things go on it seems to be getting worse, dropped frames in even minimally intensive games, I really feel like I should be getting better performance out of the GPU.

Any ideas as to how to quantify my experience of dropped frames and possibly check to see what I could do to improve the machine?

The 1800x is holding you back I think. Do you have your ram running at 3200Mhz?

 

[RodroX]

I would start by

1. Check your GPU and CPU usage in games, MSI afterburner is one of the best tools to do that with its OSD. There are lots of youtube videos tat teach you how to use it. You can donwload from Guru3D.

2. While checking usage also check temps of both CPU and GPU.

3. If temps are high, then maybe a clean of the inside of you PC may help, only if you know how to do it safe and right!

4. If you find your CPU usage is really high while gaming, and considering that your mobo only goes with Ryzen 1xxx and 2xxx series (zen and zen+), something like a Ryzen 3 3300X (or the cheapest of Ryzen 5 3600, 5600G, or 5600X ) + B550 ( like the micro ATX MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI ) mobo with your current RAM should give you a more stable gaming smoothness (better 1% low). If you use your PC to work, and you need the 8 cores 16 threads, then something like a Ryzen 7 3700X/Ryzen 7 5800X will do the job. Unless you don't mind going with intel, then the Core i5 10400 or 11400 with a B460/B560 will give you awesome performance and probably be a cheaper than the ryzen parts.

5. If you play at 1440p, the heaviest load should be on your GPU. So I wouldn't be surprised to see your GPU usage above 85% in GPU intensive games. Now if the GPU can handle the game but the CPU can not keep up with it, then you will see those stutters and frame drops.


6. Finally as Flayed wrote, Are we sure the RAM is working at 3200MHz and in dual channel?

 

[GreenGiant117]

The 1800x is holding you back I think. Do you have your ram running at 3200Mhz?

In game usage is not 100% in most games or anything, there are a couple that the CPU sits at a high usage but GPU is low, but those were all fairly new non-optimized games, so that was my thought on those... RAM is 3200 yes, that is 100% confirmed.

I would start by

1. Check your GPU and CPU usage in games, MSI afterburner is one of the best tools to do that with its OSD. There are lots of youtube videos tat teach you how to use it. You can donwload from Guru3D.

Ive used afterburner and for borderlands 3 GPU usage would ride about 95-100% and CPU would sit around 50-65% except for loading times where GPU would drop and CPU would spike, as expected.​

2. While checking usage also check temps of both CPU and GPU.

Temps on GPU never exceed 70, CPU never exceeds 60​

3. If temps are high, then maybe a clean of the inside of you PC may help, only if you know how to do it safe and right!

N/A I run a clean machine, clean it out once every 4-6 months or so.​

4. If you find your CPU usage is really high while gaming, and considering that your mobo only goes with Ryzen 1xxx and 2xxx series (zen and zen+), something like a Ryzen 3 3300X (or the cheapest of Ryzen 5 3600, 5600G, or 5600X ) + B550 ( like the micro ATX MSI B550M PRO-VDH WIFI ) mobo with your current RAM should give you a more stable gaming smoothness (better 1% low). If you use your PC to work, and you need the 8 cores 16 threads, then something like a Ryzen 7 3700X/Ryzen 7 5800X will do the job. Unless you don't mind going with intel, then the Core i5 10400 or 11400 with a B460/B560 will give you awesome performance and probably be a cheaper than the ryzen parts.

I started looking into building a new PC but after some research there isn't too much out there that will be a significant jump over the 1080ti which got me thinking more about if I could improve performance at all... I do a fair bit of photo editing so a beefier CPU definitely helps with the renders, I was leaning towards the 5800X or even jumping to a 10700.​

5. If you play at 1440p, the heaviest load should be on your GPU. So I wouldn't be surprised to see your GPU usage above 85% in GPU intensive games. Now if the GPU can handle the game but the CPU can not keep up with it, then you will see those stutters and frame drops.

Right but there are times where both will sit at sub 60% and I'm still getting frame drops and stints where frames drop to <40 fps, mainly noticed that on ROR2, even still, unless I see the CPU at 100% or spiking I shouldn't get those drops right?​

6. Finally as Flayed wrote, Are we sure the RAM is working at 3200MHz and in dual channel?

Yes and yes.​

See responses in red

 

[RodroX]

I see you got most of it cover it, then it may as well come down to bad game coding. Some times there is just poor coding making this strange frame drops and stutter, other times is only one visual setting causing all the mess, GPU drivers sometimes fix one game and break another one.

For me in Euro Truck Simulator 2, with everything maxed out I can run the game at stable 60FPS, but there are a some strange frame drops, lowering the shadow quality to High or Medium fixed the issue (and I run the game at 1440p with scaling at 300%)

You also wrote: "Main monitor: Acer Predator XB271HU 2560x1440 @ 144Hz", Have you tried to run your PC with only this one?. I mean if its your main one, your are probably runing with more than two while gaming, right? Perhaps one gaming, another sitting on the desktop doing who knows what?

 

[GreenGiant117]

I see you got most of it cover it, then it may as well come down to bad game coding. Some times there is just poor coding making this strange frame drops and stutter, other times is only one visual setting causing all the mess, GPU drivers sometimes fix one game and break another one.

For me in Euro Truck Simulator 2, with everything maxed out I can run the game at stable 60FPS, but there are a some strange frame drops, lowering the shadow quality to High or Medium fixed the issue (and I run the game at 1440p with scaling at 300%)

You also wrote: "Main monitor: Acer Predator XB271HU 2560x1440 @ 144Hz", Have you tried to run your PC with only this one?. I mean if its your main one, your are probably runing with more than two while gaming, right? Perhaps one gaming, another sitting on the desktop doing who knows what?

It's just really frustrating that I can't run at 1440p 144Hz with one of the best GPUs around.

I have not tried that, but I wouldn't think that would affect it right? I mean I should be able to play on multiple monitors without issue anyways, playing on one with the other doing almost nothing (either fixed screen or sometimes video playback) it shouldn't tax it that much I would think... ah well just gotta live with it.

I guess my justification for upgrading will be Windows 11 later this year/next year

 

[lordmogul]

Also note that when you're measuring the load, the CPU doesn't has to be on 100% to be limiting. The 1800X got 8 cores/16 threads, so in the worst case (single threaded games) you can be held back by as little as 6.25% total load. And since Windows shuffles the load around quite a bit, you can't even check in taskmanager if a core is pegged. If vsync is off and not framelimiter is set your GPU should comfortably sit >95% load.

Those framedrops sound more like the game has issues loading stuff. Might be worth checking disk activity during those moments. Or you might be running out of VRAM.

 

[RodroX]

Also note that when you're measuring the load, the CPU doesn't has to be on 100% to be limiting. The 1800X got 8 cores/16 threads, so in the worst case (single threaded games) you can be held back by as little as 6.25% total load. And since Windows shuffles the load around quite a bit, you can't even check in taskmanager if a core is pegged. If vsync is off and not framelimiter is set your GPU should comfortably sit >95% load.

Those framedrops sound more like the game has issues loading stuff. Might be worth checking disk activity during those moments. Or you might be running out of VRAM.

Exactly!

 

[Flayed]

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