7800XT Atrocious Performance, Even After Driver Rollback

[RedMogg]

My son's PC has the following:

3800X (PBO enabled)

MSI B550 Tomahawk (Latest BIOS)

32Gb (4×8Gb) Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 3200Mhz (XMP 2 enabled) 2 sticks are recent warranty replacements and all confirmed working on my own rig.

Sapphire Nitro 7800XT (Currently on 23.12.1 Drivers after full safe-mode DDU, but have also tried minimal driver install) SAM is enabled in Adrenaline, custom fan curve but nothing else.

Fanxiang S880 1Tb (Pci-e 4.0) in M.2 slot 1
Sabrent Rocket 1Tb (PCI-e 3.0) in M.2 slot 2

MSI Mag A850GL (Cable extensions to Motherboard & GPU, 2x separate PCI-E , no pigtails used)

Lancool 2 Mesh RGB (plenty of airflow, fans on custom, fairly aggressive curve).

Monitor: Dell S3222DGM (1440p, 165hz, Freesync enabled, latest firmware).

Setup has been working great after an update at Xmas (New CPU, Motherboard, PSU & GPU), but the 24.xx Adrenaline drivers caused a drastic reduction in FPS across all the games he plays (Fortnite, Rocket League, Forza 5), even when stopping settings down to bare minimum.
The games are stuttering around 30-90fps, regardless of whatever troubleshooting I try, even after Safe Mode DDU & rolling back drivers to the 23.12.1 version

I'm at the limit of my knowledge in terms of getting his system back to the smooth, high FPS rig it was in January and would be grateful for any helpful input.

 

[RedMogg]

Are the stuttering issues present if you dont use any of the extention cables, just plug the psu cables directly into the components. Also never head of fanxiang, as above check temps and make sure it and the other drive and cool and not throttling.

Am currently in the process of elimination - possible bad ram pair, but will remove all extensions and try direct connections.

Fanxiang are pretty well reviewed; on par with Sabrent Rocket, as far as I've read. I do have a spare WD Black SN850 I can swap out if it comes to it.

 

[RedMogg]

Crystal Disk Info: both M.2 drives are perfect.
Checked both pairs of RAM, older pair working fine, but newest set (Warranty replacement in January this year) borked. Hopefully Corsair will replace as quickly as they did last time.

I am suspicious as to what rubbish my son's installing: we've an ongoing battle where my stern "Don't install anything without running it by me first" gets interpreted as "...except for that particular piece of dodgy software; definitely install it, then only tell me five hours after I've started head-scratching!"

 

[RedMogg]

Why haven't you setup his account as a user and you as the admin? Then he can't install jack ****?

A combination of limited Windows experience on my part and the fact my pc is next to his, whilst I sort my study. There's only so many passwords I can generate and remember, before I forget and have to ask him for a reminder

 

[RedMogg]

Am currently in the process of elimination - possible bad ram pair, but will remove all extensions and try direct connections.

Fanxiang are pretty well reviewed; on par with Sabrent Rocket, as far as I've read. I do have a spare WD Black SN850 I can swap out if it comes to it.

Well, removed dodgy ram pair (second set of Corsair Vengeance Pro 3200mhz - and it's the new replacements they sent in January!), reinstalled Windows and installed Adrenaline 23.11.1 rather than latest...

...and the system still grinds, stutters and refuses to play anything over 60-90fps, even at lowest settings.

Will replace the Fanxiang PCI-E4.0 SSD with one that's easier to pronounce, to rule it out.

Typical that this happens during the Easter hols - I've had to set him up with an account on my own PC, to stop mayhem spreading throughout the rest of the house...

Edit: Lesson learned: pay more attention to the negative reviews, especially for the sake of a tenner...

 

[RedMogg]

Have you tried flattening it and reinstalling windows?
If you suspect the little darling has been installing questionable software then who knows what state the OS is in!

SSD swapped out and things feel a lot smoother. Will return the Fanxiang drives for a refund and buy something more pronounceable.

 

[RedMogg]

the fanxiang drive uses slc cache tech which has some advantages over dram cache drives, but the main draw back of slc is drive endurance is impacted a fair bit compared to dram cache drives, although the fanxiang drive started strong the more time and use of the reads and writes will wear out very quick.

drives to look out for would be, Samsung, Crucial, Sabrent, Western Digital, Seagate, Kingston and Corsair, all make very good nvme style drives and traditional sata based drives.

Yep - I've got a WD Black as my OS drive and I've put his older Sabrent Rocket Gen3 back into use as his OS drive.

As I said, the reviews were mostly positive (and no doubt many were paid for), but a deeper dive showed over time many were disappointed by the same experience I had.

Pity, because when it worked, it was blisteringly fast.

Will watch prices on WD Black, Sabrent & Crucial gen 4 drives and pick one that suits.