Friend With Better (?) Gaming PC Getting Worse Performance?

Ratthew · 13 Nov 2025 at 22:43

Hi there,

My friend recently upgraded to a 5070 Ti from a 3070 Ti. His rig now is a 5800X, 5070 Ti, 16GB memory and 700W PSU.

My rig is a 5800X, 3070, 48GB and 750W PSU.

We thought after upgrading that he would obviously be getting more frames than me, but playing arc raiders no matter what we try, I'm averaging about 130~ and he is at about 100~. Same CPU settings.

What could be causing this? Lack of memory? Lack of power? Trying to figure it out before throwing money at the problem.

Any advice would be really appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom

InkZ · 13 Nov 2025 at 22:53

What’s his refresh rate set to?

Distracted · 13 Nov 2025 at 23:15

Are you both playing at the same resolution with the same gfx settings?

Ratthew · 13 Nov 2025 at 23:40

InkZ said:
What’s his refresh rate set to?

240Hz, Vsync off in both Nvidia control panel and in game.

Distracted said:
Are you both playing at the same resolution with the same gfx settings?

I'm actually playing at 1440p while he's playing at 1080p, but at the same resolution the problem still occurs. Exact same graphics settings though.

Tetras · 13 Nov 2025 at 23:42

Is it the same part of the map?

Ratthew · 13 Nov 2025 at 23:43

Tetras said:
Is it the same part of the map?

Yep, stood in the exact same place looking at the exact same thing. Even in the menu (which is still rendered in real time) he's hitting 20-30fps lower than me.

Quartz · 14 Nov 2025 at 00:07

What does Afterburner say about FPS, RAM, and VRAM usage?

Ratthew · 14 Nov 2025 at 00:09

Quartz said:
What does Afterburner say about FPS, RAM, and VRAM usage?

I'd have to test that when we play next, though I know that 15.9GB out of 16 were being used while playing. 15.2GB of my 48 were also being used. GPU utilisation was about 40% in general gameplay and FPS about 80-110.

Distracted · 14 Nov 2025 at 04:50

You could try this. Go into graphics settings in the Arc menu and scroll to the bottom under 'advanced'.

Set the in-game performance overlay to detailed and see if that highlights anything.

To compare the results between your systems I mean.

InkZ · 14 Nov 2025 at 09:11

Ratthew said:
I'd have to test that when we play next, though I know that 15.9GB out of 16 were being used while playing. 15.2GB of my 48 were also being used. GPU utilisation was about 40% in general gameplay and FPS about 80-110.

Check the CPU usage. If GPU is around 40% maybe you are both CPU bound which is why he's seen no increase. If lowering graphics doesn't increase frames then it's prob CPU. Doesn't explain the difference between you and him but would explain the lack of improvement. Maybe look to chuck an X3D on the board or time for a platform upgrade.

throwaway4372 · 14 Nov 2025 at 09:15

Too many variables. Find a benchmark and both run it. His card should smoke yours.

jigger · 14 Nov 2025 at 10:15

16gb of memory.

Ratthew · 14 Nov 2025 at 10:58

Distracted said:
You could try this. Go into graphics settings in the Arc menu and scroll to the bottom under 'advanced'.

Set the in-game performance overlay to detailed and see if that highlights anything.

To compare the results between your systems I mean.

His CPU (render time) was consistently about 2x higher than mine, while GPU utilisation was usually about half mine.

throwaway4372 said:
Too many variables. Find a benchmark and both run it. His card should smoke yours.

Will do.

jigger said:
16gb of memory.

This is what I'm leaning towards, will do some more tests first though.

Cydia · 18 Nov 2025 at 15:35

Could do with knowing what board/BIOS settings are also being run. What brand are the PSUs, as some lower quality PSUs cannot even supply close to their "rated" wattage.

Do we know whats temps his CPU is hitting. 1080p is more CPU-bound that 1440p but that was ruled out with testing both at 1440p.

Personally, I reckon it's their reduced amount of RAM causing the issue as 16GB isn't all that much these days with how garbage Windows is. I have 32GB and with Windows 11/background tasks and Chrome open, I am using 10GB already.

Ratthew · 18 Nov 2025 at 17:16

Cydia said:
Could do with knowing what board/BIOS settings are also being run. What brand are the PSUs, as some lower quality PSUs cannot even supply close to their "rated" wattage.

Do we know whats temps his CPU is hitting. 1080p is more CPU-bound that 1440p but that was ruled out with testing both at 1440p.

Personally, I reckon it's their reduced amount of RAM causing the issue as 16GB isn't all that much these days with how garbage Windows is. I have 32GB and with Windows 11/background tasks and Chrome open, I am using 10GB already.

I tried to match our BIOS settings as closely as possible. It's a 700W EVGA PSU.

Temps I'm not sure but can check later - could the CPU be throttled by it's temps when using PBO? Currently it's set to -10 all cores using the curve optimizer.

I'll also see if we can cut down his background task memory usage to see any improvement, and then try adding some more memory into the system.

Gray2233 · 19 Nov 2025 at 02:26

It's RAM, it's hard to say without which titles are in play but given you're not having any notable problems with a similar use case it's RAM.

Running on 16gb is pretty lightweight as of 2025, and depending on his setup and background usage it's very easy to run over the 16gb barrier regardless of resolution and game. If you run multiple tabs in a chromium browser etc, he needs more RAM. While I'd be concerned regarding other elements such as a 700W EVGA PSU, given the only ones I'm aware of at that exact wattage are crap, if it wasn't enough power it'd be shutting down the system rather than supplying less FPS.

Unfortunately we're in a period where RAM costs an absolute fortune and DDR4 at good prices is like hens teeth, it's not so simple as adding another couple of 8gb sticks on AM4 either as the CPU memory controllers for the platform are very iffy with anything beyond matched dual sticks. You could try it but it's a gamble as to whether or not it works, how far away do you live from your friend? Could you supply him two 16gb modules to test?

Ratthew · 19 Nov 2025 at 11:33

Gray2233 said:
Unfortunately we're in a period where RAM costs an absolute fortune and DDR4 at good prices is like hens teeth, it's not so simple as adding another couple of 8gb sticks on AM4 either as the CPU memory controllers for the platform are very iffy with anything beyond matched dual sticks. You could try it but it's a gamble as to whether or not it works, how far away do you live from your friend? Could you supply him two 16gb modules to test?

Yeah I noticed prices had gone up since I last had to buy any. I've never experienced issues running 4 memory sticks, I have 2x8gb and 2x16gb. It only means I have to cap the 16gb sticks at 3000MHz instead of 3200MHz.

Pretty close, I'm gonna lend them to him later today, I'll report back with the results.

hornetstinger · 19 Nov 2025 at 11:34

Not enough RAM, and check memory speeds also

16GB isn't enough

Dravic · 22 Nov 2025 at 11:17

Disable all unnecessary startup items and add some extra ram. Could be a good idea to have GPU-z monitoring running as that can tell if you're power limited.

hornetstinger · 22 Nov 2025 at 11:19

Dravic said:
Disable all unnecessary startup items and add some extra ram. Could be a good idea to have GPU-z monitoring running as that can tell if you're power limited.

yeah that helped on mine went from 200+ to 130 services

GitHub - Raphire/Win11Debloat: A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform various other changes to customize, declutter and improve your Windows experience. Win11Debloat works for both

A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform various other changes to customize, declutter and improve your Windows experience. Win11D...

github.com