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Will my old setup create a bottleneck?

Hi there,

 

So I've been selling my game consoles because I've switch to PC gaming back in October. No before I go on, I need to clarify a couple of things:

 

1- With a few classic exceptions and modern indie games, I mostly play Japanese games ported to PC. So no, I don't play modern First person shooters, Fortnite, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, etc, nor do I play online with the exception of 1 old JPN MMO from 2012.

 

2- I don't have a PC monitor, I play my games on my 55" 4K TV with a max refresh rate of 60Hz, so 60 Max FPS and in 2160p when ever possible

 

Now here's the situation, I changed my casing, power supply, added some more SSD storage and added a GTX 1080. That being said, I kept the same motherboard from 2014, 8GB of DDR3 and while I did switch from an i3 to an i5, it's still a 4th gen i5. So now, knowing the type of games I play, my hardware and the fact that I game in 4K at 60 FPS, let me ask you, will I a lot of bottleneck issues or will I be fine (please justify your answer)?

 

Thank you

 

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1 minute ago, the_importer said:

Hi there,

 

So I've been selling my game consoles because I've switch to PC gaming back in October. No before I go on, I need to clarify a couple of things:

 

1- With a few classic exceptions and modern indie games, I mostly play Japanese games ported to PC. So no, I don't play modern First person shooters, Fortnite, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, etc, nor do I play online with the exception of 1 old JPN MMO from 2012. List of the games I have if you wish to know:

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198313094958/games/?tab=all

https://www.gog.com/u/the_importer/games?sort=recent_playtime&order=desc&comparedUserId=48490582180481973

 

2- I don't have a PC monitor, I play my games on my 55" 4K TV with a max refresh rate of 60Hz, so 60 Max FPS and in 2160p when ever possible

 

Now here's the situation, I changed my casing, power supply, added some more SSD storage and added a GTX 1080. That being said, I kept the same motherboard from 2014, 8GB of DDR3 and while I did switch from an i3 to an i5, it's still a 4th gen i5. So now, knowing the type of games I play, my hardware and the fact that I game in 4K at 60 FPS, let me ask you, will I a lot of bottleneck issues or will I be fine (please justify your answer)?

 

Thank you

 

I would get another 8 gigs of ram, and a 4th gen i7

You might have a slight bottleneck, but turning down settings like AA and shadows will help out a lot

Also keep in mind, that Japanese devs tend to favor Denuvo DRM (which kills your performance) {Yakuza on PC is really bad with it, in my experiences)

4K tvs are fine, I would just get a controller, or another solution for comfort reasons

i7 6700k, GTX 1080, Crucial MX 300, Maximus VII Hero, WD Blue, 16 GB RAM

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3 minutes ago, the_importer said:

I kept the same motherboard from 2014, 8GB of DDR3 and while I did switch from an i3 to an i5, it's still a 4th gen i5.

you are good, console ports arent that demanding.

also most of the ported games are designed to be very playable @ fps

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20 minutes ago, KING OF THE DIRTY DANS said:

I would get another 8 gigs of ram, and a 4th gen i7

You might have a slight bottleneck, but turning down settings like AA and shadows will help out a lot

Also keep in mind, that Japanese devs tend to favor Denuvo DRM (which kills your performance) {Yakuza on PC is really bad with it, in my experiences)

4K tvs are fine, I would just get a controller, or another solution for comfort reasons

Thank you for the quick reply. Ya, most of the games have pretty much have screen resolution as their only graphics configuration, so I don't need to worry so much about these sort of settings ?

 

As for Denuvo, it's not just a Japanese thing, Warner, EA and Ubi are also culprits (with those last 2 also having their own DRM on top of it): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denuvo

That being said, I only have 4 games that have Denuvo. It may get removed by the time I get around to play them, if not, I'm sure there's a workaround ?

 

I've checked Newegg.ca for DDR3 1600 and ebay for used 4th Gen i7, it would cost me +/- $300 CAD for the upgrade, worth thinking about it, thanks.

 

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If you're worried about the CPU being the bottleneck, it won't be at 4K resolution. 4K is pretty heavily GPU-Bound. That being said, your games should mostly stay around 60 FPS. Most of those ported-from-Japan games aren't as graphically demanding as other games. But either way, even if a game is more graphically demanding, the GPU will still be the bottleneck when it's not hitting 60 FPS.

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8 hours ago, jerubedo said:

If you're worried about the CPU being the bottleneck, it won't be at 4K resolution. 4K is pretty heavily GPU-Bound. That being said, your games should mostly stay around 60 FPS. Most of those ported-from-Japan games aren't as graphically demanding as other games. But either way, even if a game is more graphically demanding, the GPU will still be the bottleneck when it's not hitting 60 FPS.

In most of of the games that I tried, they seem to stay between 56 and 60 FPS, would that be the bottleneck you are referring to?

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3 hours ago, the_importer said:

In most of of the games that I tried, they seem to stay between 56 and 60 FPS, would that be the bottleneck you are referring to?

In the cases where it's at 56, yeah, it's most likely the GPU not keeping up. To know for sure, use an overlay to see your GPU and CPU usage. Whichever one is at or near 100% usage is the "bottleneck." 

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3 hours ago, jerubedo said:

In the cases where it's at 56, yeah, it's most likely the GPU not keeping up. To know for sure, use an overlay to see your GPU and CPU usage. Whichever one is at or near 100% usage is the "bottleneck." 

Any overlay recommendations (freeware if possible)?

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Just now, the_importer said:

Any overlay recommendations (freeware if possible)?

MSI afterburner with Riva Statistics. You then enable each item you want to monitor on the overlay and press the hotkey to enable it.

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1 hour ago, jerubedo said:

MSI afterburner with Riva Statistics. You then enable each item you want to monitor on the overlay and press the hotkey to enable it.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, I went and installed the i7-4790 that I purchased on ebay, which from my researches, should be the highest I can go with my motherboard. Using before and after data that I gathered by using MSI Afterburner and Steam's FPS counter, I noticed a difference in all of the games I tested except one: Cyber Dimension Neptunia 4 Goddesses Online. During gameplay, frames can dip as much as 47 :(

 

I included a screenshot of the game with MSI Afterburner info in the top left corner and Steam FPS in the bottom right one, anyone has any clue why this is happening.

Untitled.png

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57 minutes ago, the_importer said:

Well, I went and installed the i7-4790 that I purchased on ebay, which from my researches, should be the highest I can go with my motherboard. Using before and after data that I gathered by using MSI Afterburner and Steam's FPS counter, I noticed a difference in all of the games I tested except one: Cyber Dimension Neptunia 4 Goddesses Online. During gameplay, frames can dip as much as 47 :(

 

I included a screenshot of the game with MSI Afterburner info in the top left corner and Steam FPS in the bottom right one, anyone has any clue why this is happening.

Your CPU temperature is 100C?!

Intel Core i9-10900X, Asus TUF X299 Mark 1, 64GB DDR4 3200MHz, Asus GTX 1080 Strix, 2TB 970 EVO Plus, 2TB SN570, 8TB HDD, DC Assassin III, Meshify 2

Old PC: Intel Xeon X5670 6c/12t @ 4.40GHz, Asus P6X58D-E, 24GB DDR3 1600MHz, Asus GTX 1080 Strix, 500GB, 250GB & 120GB SSD, 2x 4TB & 2x 2TB HDD, Fractal Define R5

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42 minutes ago, Pasi123 said:

Your CPU temperature is 100C?!

Yup and that what happens when you don't double check your work and don't notice that one of the wires of the CPU fan is caught in the fan. Good thing the case is well ventilated and the thermal paste is fresh or this could have cause some major damage. I uploaded a new pic with better temperature for the cores, but same FPS results at the end of the day :(

Untitled.png

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13 hours ago, the_importer said:

Yup and that what happens when you don't double check your work and don't notice that one of the wires of the CPU fan is caught in the fan. Good thing the case is well ventilated and the thermal paste is fresh or this could have cause some major damage. I uploaded a new pic with better temperature for the cores, but same FPS results at the end of the day :(

Untitled.png

It's the GPU in this case. It's at 94% usage and it's right at the default thermal throttle temperature. You can change the temperature target on Afterburner. Change it to 90C. That might get you up to 99% usage instead. You won't get 60 FPS though. I'd expect about 50 or so FPS.

 

If you need 60 FPS, your best bet is to lower to 1440p. Your TV will upscale to 4K anyway (if your TV is any good). 

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12 hours ago, jerubedo said:

It's the GPU in this case. It's at 94% usage and it's right at the default thermal throttle temperature. You can change the temperature target on Afterburner. Change it to 90C. That might get you up to 99% usage instead. You won't get 60 FPS though. I'd expect about 50 or so FPS.

 

If you need 60 FPS, your best bet is to lower to 1440p. Your TV will upscale to 4K anyway (if your TV is any good). 

You mean I've spent $630 back in November for a GTX 1080 and I can't even get a steady 60 FPS at 2160p for every game that I'll play?

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10 minutes ago, the_importer said:

You mean I've spent $630 back in November for a GTX 1080 and I can't even get a steady 60 FPS at 2160p for every game that I'll play?

sure if you turn down the settings.

 

also a 1080 ti is recommend for 4k over the 1080. 630 is the ballpark for a used 1080 ti.

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9 minutes ago, bomerr said:

sure if you turn down the settings.

 

also a 1080 ti is recommend for 4k over the 1080. 630 is the ballpark for a used 1080 ti.

I was told on the Steam forums last year that the 1080 was more than enough for 4K gaming at max settings if 60 FPS was my goal. Was I misinformed? 

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1 hour ago, the_importer said:

I was told on the Steam forums last year that the 1080 was more than enough for 4K gaming at max settings if 60 FPS was my goal. Was I misinformed? 

yes.

even the 1080 ti wont run all games at 60fps max

i turn down shadows and hairworks AA in witcher 3 and that is an old title.

likewise i turn down a few settings in tomb raider, shadows? forget which.

i recommend looking at the nvidia guide for game settings and reducing a few settings from ultra to high. generally settings like shadows result in little visual difference between high and ultra but cost a lot of FPS. 

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3 hours ago, the_importer said:

I was told on the Steam forums last year that the 1080 was more than enough for 4K gaming at max settings if 60 FPS was my goal. Was I misinformed? 

The 1080 was never really a 4K max settings card. That was reserved for the 1080 Ti. But even so, a year and a half later, even it can't hold 60 anymore in the latest titles at max settings. Right now the 2080 Ti can mostly do that, but even then not always. Metro Exodus is a good example of a title where even the 2080 Ti won't hold 60 with everything cranked up at 4K, and that's the best card you can get. Given another year it'll fall behind even more in titles coming out. That's why 4K gaming still sucks in my opinion. You're always chasing a carrot on a stick. It's the same with the consoles too. They target 30 FPS for 4k but with dips frequently into the 20s depending on the title. 

 

My strategy for my living room rig hooked up to a 4K TV is to try 4k first and if it won't maintain 60, I'll bump down to 1440p and let the TV upscale to  4K. Honestly it's hard to tell the difference between upscaled and native in most games. 

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7 hours ago, jerubedo said:

The 1080 was never really a 4K max settings card. That was reserved for the 1080 Ti. But even so, a year and a half later, even it can't hold 60 anymore in the latest titles at max settings. Right now the 2080 Ti can mostly do that, but even then not always. Metro Exodus is a good example of a title where even the 2080 Ti won't hold 60 with everything cranked up at 4K, and that's the best card you can get. Given another year it'll fall behind even more in titles coming out. That's why 4K gaming still sucks in my opinion. You're always chasing a carrot on a stick. It's the same with the consoles too. They target 30 FPS for 4k but with dips frequently into the 20s depending on the title. 

 

My strategy for my living room rig hooked up to a 4K TV is to try 4k first and if it won't maintain 60, I'll bump down to 1440p and let the TV upscale to  4K. Honestly it's hard to tell the difference between upscaled and native in most games. 

If I am to understand, you basically have to make a choice: Lower resolution but high settings and FPS or higher resolution but with lower settings at a lower frame rate, right?

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14 minutes ago, the_importer said:

If I am to understand, you basically have to make a choice: Lower resolution but high settings and FPS or higher resolution but with lower settings at a lower frame rate, right?

Correct. 

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15 minutes ago, jerubedo said:

Correct. 

Well, not much I can do about this then if that's technology's limitation. Most of my games don't have a 1440p option, hell, most of them seem to run at Windows' native resolution when going borderless. Guess I'll just have to live with the frame drops, still beats modern consoles and future consoles I guess. Still, happy I didn't invest in a 120Hz 4K TV.

 

Thank you for your time regardless. 

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12 minutes ago, the_importer said:

Most of my games don't have a 1440p option, 

Do they have a 1080p option? 1080p will also upscale. You can also set your Windows resolution to 1440p and then run the the game in full screen mode, forcing it to 1440p.

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1 hour ago, jerubedo said:

Do they have a 1080p option? 1080p will also upscale. You can also set your Windows resolution to 1440p and then run the the game in full screen mode, forcing it to 1440p.

Well in Windowed mode yes, but most of them will run at native resolution when you're in borderless or fullscreen. Regarding the game I was having issues with, one setting was the culprit, some sort of display level quality. When I dropped to setting from 4 (max) to 3, leaving everything else at 4 (max), I had 60 FPS all the time. I don't feel much of a difference when playing with the setting at 3 or 4 (this is a port that ran at 30 FPS on PS4), but I do see a difference, it's minor, but it's there.

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