I have bottlenecks..Please help me identify them! (or plan new rig)

Chris Atherton

Chris Atherton

Chris Atherton

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Joined
17 Nov 2019
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9
Hi,

I recently purchased a GeForce GTX 1660 6GB XC Ultra Turing Graphics Card, thinking it would help me smooth out some of the games i play for 1080p gaming. I was kinda right, but also wrong.

Some of the main games i play are Anthem, RDR2 and Metro Exodus

My setup struggles in most of the games i play, with lots of lag spikes like something is holding it back.

My rig is from 2014, so the question is, is something specific holding my rig back or is it time to update it, even just for 1080 gaming

Current rig:
Intel Core i5 4670K Quad Core Retail CPU (Socket 1150, 3.40GHz, 6MB, Haswell,
G.Skill 16GBXL Main Memory DDR3 8 GB PC1600 CL9
WD 1 TB 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive - Black
MSI Z97 Gaming 3 Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard
Coolermaster Real Power 700w Modular

I have looked around and done a bit of research, and if necessary i will upgrade

If i do, I'm thinking of upgrading to an i5 9600k, however after having problems with the killer network adapter on my MSI motherboard I'll be looking into other boards.

New rig so far (if you think it's necessary):
Intel Core i5 9600K 3.7GHz (4.6GHz Turbo) CPU - 9 MB - Socket 1151 - 6 Cores
Corsair 16GB DDR4 Vengeance LPX 3200MHz Memory Kit for Skylake

I'm not sure on the board, and I'm not sure what's best out of an SSD or an nvme? Can anyone help with that? All i do really is play games.

Thanks for your time

Chris
 
Hi Chris, welcome to the forum.

Yeah it'll be the CPU. Just 4 cores/4 threads. And the 9600K with 6 cores/6 threads will land you in the same boat sooner rather than later, especially gaming @ 1080p with more frames.

You should look at AMD Ryzen 3600 (6 cores/12 threads) and a B450 motherboard. The best B450 boards happen to be MSI though. I don't think it's a "thing" that there are issues with the network adapters on B450 boards. And in any case the one on the Tomahawk MAX (for example) is a Realtek adapter.

NVME SSDs are faster than "regular" SATA SSDs and some of them are now the same price. Look for ones like Sabrent Rocket 1TB, Corsair MP510 960GB or Seagate Barracuda 510 1TB. All very similar.

Which case will it all go into?
 
Hi Danny, thanks for your response.

I've looked at comparisons between the i5 9600k and the 3600 and the majority of the tests came out with the intel on top for gaming, however with application benchmarks the 3600 won all i think due to the extra threads.. When you say I'll be in the same boat sooner or later though, will the 3600 become greater down the line than the 9600 due to improvements in games? Sorry if i'm asking a simple question it's been a while since i was into the technical side.

Funilly enough I've been looking at the Sabrent Rocket 1TB tonight. Seen a few little complaints about the access times though saying apps load slower in the background compared to SSD's. This is something I will have to look into though as I'm aware of the read/write differences from an nvme to a regular SATA SSD.

I'll have a look into the b450 boards now

The case is the Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case
 
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Just a FYI, i was looking at the Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280.

However, I'm guessing it's going to be a lot better than what I have now.


How does this look:

Processor AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6GHz Six Core with SMT
Motherboard ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz DDR4
Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280
 
Watch the below review to get a feel of what happens in some games with 3600 v 9600K. Notice how the 9600K generally improves when resolution goes up to 1440p (less frames, less CPU usage). Some games are using a lot of CPU already but it's also a graphics card upgrade in 2/3 years you may want to consider as that will affect CPU usage as well. Once you're hitting 100% CPU usage regularly in a game you like, you're back to square one as you now found with the 4670K.


If you fancy giving Asus a shot, then it "has to" be the B450-E which you can find for about £130. Don't get the F, they didn't do a good job with VRMs/VRM cooling. Trouble is, it may or may not have an updated BIOS for Ryzen 3. Whereas boards like the Tomahawk MAX do (the "MAX" indicates it is up-to-date). Recommend you ask the vendor about this, and what process they offer to update the BIOS for you because sometimes it involves sending the board back to them after you receive it.

Crucial Ballistix LT 3200 DDR4 (Micron E-die) tends to overclock nicely in general, and there's a very good thread over in the Memory forum where you can see how to push it to 3600 and get the timings close to 16-16-16-36.
 
I watched that video about an hour ago ha, It's definitely opened my eyes. As you say, my CPU is constantly at 100% usage in these games with my current setup.

I've switched back over to MSI, with the
MSI Arsenal Gaming AMD Ryzen 2ND and 3rd Gen AM4 M.2 USB 3 DDR4 DVI HDMI Crossfire ATX Motherboard (B450 Tomahawk Max)

regarding the memory, are these the same?
Ballistix Crucial Sport LT BLS2K8G4D32AESEK 3200 MHz?
 
Chris Atherton said:
I watched that video about an hour ago ha, It's definitely opened my eyes. As you say, my CPU is constantly at 100% usage in these games with my current setup.

I've switched back over to MSI, with the
MSI Arsenal Gaming AMD Ryzen 2ND and 3rd Gen AM4 M.2 USB 3 DDR4 DVI HDMI Crossfire ATX Motherboard (B450 Tomahawk Max)

regarding the memory, are these the same?
Ballistix Crucial Sport LT BLS2K8G4D32AESEK 3200 MHz?
Click to expand...

That's the one, yes. Think you can find them in Grey, White or Red. If it has "AES" in the name then it's Micron E-Die, apparently.
 
Chris Atherton said:
Thank you for your help. I've got 4 items sat in my account for £444. Just contemplating eating bags of rice and noodles for the month ahead before proceeding with the checkout :D
Click to expand...

Don't forget some protein and fibre. :)

Stews are great in that respect (saving money and eating healthy while still filling you up with all that liquid). Lost 17 pounds in weight last two months with the help of those + exercise (flab needed to go lol).
 
I love a good stew tbh, or a lobby

(just in case you're not from north england) Lobby consists of minced or diced beef or lamb, diced potatoes, onions, carrots, leeks, and root vegetables bulked up with pearl barley and seasoned. It's got more juice than a stew, usually made in a massive pan :D I'll be eating that with bread. The kids can do without presents this christmas :D
 
Chris Atherton said:
I love a good stew tbh, or a lobby

(just in case you're not from north england) Lobby consists of minced or diced beef or lamb, diced potatoes, onions, carrots, leeks, and root vegetables bulked up with pearl barley and seasoned. It's got more juice than a stew, usually made in a massive pan :D I'll be eating that with bread. The kids can do without presents this christmas :D
Click to expand...

Sounds delicious. :)
 
Chris Atherton said:
My setup struggles in most of the games i play, with lots of lag spikes like something is holding it back.
Click to expand...

Before hitting the buy button, you need to find out exactly where your bottlenecks are. Fire up Task Manager on a second monitor and watch the CPU usage and GPU usage. Make sure you show individual cores. If your core / CPU usage is hitting 100% then you are bottlenecked by your CPU; if your GPU is hitting 100% then it's your GPU. Note that it may be both!

Chris Atherton said:
Motherboard ASUS ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING
Click to expand...

You want the MSI Tomahawk Max (ATX) or Mortar Max (mATX) for immediate Ryzen 3xxx support.
 
interesting thread. In a similar boat myself in regards to CPU. i was thinking that upgrading my GPU (780ti) would improve the performance i have in games but i know that what im looking at (5700) would be heavily bottlenecked by my CPU so was wondering whether to sort that first?

would a CPU upgrade improve gaming performance or is it simply a GPU issue?
 
joelk2 said:
interesting thread. In a similar boat myself in regards to CPU. i was thinking that upgrading my GPU (780ti) would improve the performance i have in games but i know that what im looking at (5700) would be heavily bottlenecked by my CPU so was wondering whether to sort that first?

would a CPU upgrade improve gaming performance or is it simply a GPU issue?
Click to expand...

What cpu is is that you have?

Chances are the gpu will give a nice boost, but if there are bottlenecks, you'll be back at square one. Cpus with single threads per core are struggling now, HT is the way to go.
 
Just to follow up on this, i purchased:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600 Processor (6C/12T, 35MB Cache, 4.2 GHz Max Boost)
MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX Motherboard ATX
Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD
Ballistix Crucial Sport LT BLS2K8G4D32AESEK 3200 MHz, DDR4

my god the difference is amazing. Not really in a boost in FPS but just the smoothness of all the games now and the fps no longer shoot to 0 all the time.

For general use, everything loads instantly, even loading about 5 programs at once they all load seamlessly.

Installed windows 10 in under ten minutes.

RDR2 on very high settings and it runs smooth, Metro exodus runs smooth, outerworlds runs smooth.

Bar far the best upgrade I've done.

Well worth it. Thanks for your help Danny
 
I'm glad i went for it and did it, setup took me about an hour. Make sure you purchase some good thermal paste. I used stock cooler that come with it and all my temps seem fine.

Honestly the speed, you literally do not wait for anything to load. Nothing lags. I used to open up origin, steam, rockstar app, epic games store, and uplay all together and it would take about 2 minutes. Now it takes about 10 seconds for them all to appear.
 
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