9700k stuttering in games: hardware issue?

[spiralzebra]

I have what I’d think is a fairly beefy PC with an i7 9700k, a 2080, 16 GB 3200mhz RAM, 2 SATA SSDs, connected to a 1440p 144hz monitor. However, while playing Assassin's Creed: Origins, I frequently experience micro-freezes lasting anywhere from 2-3 seconds in Alexandria and other cities like Memphis, where my processor is pretty much constantly pegged at 100% usage. This only happens with an unlocked framerate, if I limit it to 60 in-game it has no issues. What I want to know is what is causing this. Is it my processor reaching 100% usage? Or is there something else wrong with my system? I have a laptop with an i7 8750h, a 2070, 32GB 2666mhz RAM an nvme SSD, and a 1080p 144hz monitor and I don’t experience these issues in big cities, which is strange considering it is a significantly less powerful system. I have also played Odyssey and the same thing happens in large areas when the processor hits 100% usage. However, my laptop's processor also hits 100% usage in Odyssey but doesn't stutter/freeze like my desktop, so I'm starting to worry something is wrong with my PC, or maybe I messed up when building it. Does anyone know what could be causing this? Is it the lack of hyperthreading in the 9700k or something more serious? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[xg32]

so ACO bottlenecks a 9700k too eh? good to know, it only happens in ubisoft games, i wouldn't worry about it too much.

[Mr.Mago]

Ubisoft Games are famous to kill any CPU that doesn't have 16 threads or more. Run Prime 95 and check CPU's stability, And try other CPU heavy games life BFV or Cities Skylines at max settings etc... If it keeps happening, contact to Intel.

[spiralzebra]

32 minutes ago, Mr.Mago said:

Ubisoft Games are famous to kill any CPU that doesn't have 16 threads or more. Run Prime 95 and check CPU's stability, And try other CPU heavy games life BFV or Cities Skylines at max settings etc... If it keeps happening, contact to Intel.

 

Good to know, but then why does it not happen on my laptop? It doesn't stutter like my desktop does. 

[chckovsky]

4 minutes ago, spiralzebra said:

Good to know, but then why does it not happen on my laptop? It doesn't stutter like my desktop does

Stutter is, at least in my experience, usually caused by cpu limitations. If your laptop has a proportionally better CPU compared to its GPU, that might be expected.

[xg32]

5 minutes ago, spiralzebra said:

 

Good to know, but then why does it not happen on my laptop? It doesn't stutter like my desktop does. 

do u also run it on 144hz on ur laptop? it should be a gpu bottleneck instead on ur laptop if it's 60fps~, at 144hz on ACO it's very taxing on the cpu.

[spiralzebra]

11 minutes ago, xg32 said:

do u also run it on 144hz on ur laptop? it should be a gpu bottleneck instead on ur laptop if it's 60fps~, at 144hz on ACO it's very taxing on the cpu.

 Yeah, both my desktop and laptop are 144hz

[xg32]

1 minute ago, spiralzebra said:

 Yeah, both my desktop and laptop are 144hz

but is the laptop running the game on 144fps? whats the gpu on the laptop, are u capping the fps on the desktop?

[spiralzebra]

24 minutes ago, xg32 said:

but is the laptop running the game on 144fps? whats the gpu on the laptop, are u capping the fps on the desktop?

Yeah games on the laptop are set for 144hz

 

I said it in the post it's a 2070

 

I wasn't before, then it was stuttering, so I capped it at 60 fps.

[Mr.Mago]

26 minutes ago, spiralzebra said:

Yeah games on the laptop are set for 144hz

 

I said it in the post it's a 2070

 

I wasn't before, then it was stuttering, so I capped it at 60 fps.

I played AC:Origins a year ago with my 4770k and my 1080ti at Max settings and I can say I experienced no stutter whatsoever. The only performance issues I had were in big cities like Alexandria. but even there. Instead of stuttering the only thing I got were FPS drops. and my CPU is also 8 threads so.... It could be some OC issues or stability related.

[spiralzebra]

33 minutes ago, Mr.Mago said:

I played AC:Origins a year ago with my 4770k and my 1080ti at Max settings and I can say I experienced no stutter whatsoever. The only performance issues I had were in big cities like Alexandria. but even there. Instead of stuttering the only thing I got were FPS drops. and my CPU is also 8 threads so.... It could be some OC issues or stability related.

That's worrying then. Outside of Alexandria it runs fine, no stutters except for once in a while. However, as soon as I get into Alexandria, it starts stuttering like crazy. I haven't OC'ed my CPU, so it can't be that. Also there was this one time when loading an area, the game froze completely right out of the loading screen. My computer didn't freeze, only the game. There was also another time when it was loading for 5 minutes before I finally gave up and restarted the game. 

[Mr.Mago]

1 hour ago, spiralzebra said:

That's worrying then. Outside of Alexandria it runs fine, no stutters except for once in a while. However, as soon as I get into Alexandria, it starts stuttering like crazy. I haven't OC'ed my CPU, so it can't be that. Also there was this one time when loading an area, the game froze completely right out of the loading screen. My computer didn't freeze, only the game. There was also another time when it was loading for 5 minutes before I finally gave up and restarted the game. 

Hmmm...Does your Mobo have a decent VRM to keep the CPU up ? Even if your mobo Is not a great one, that shouldn't be the problem... Try tweaking something in the game settings like environment detail or CPU stressful settings.

[spiralzebra]

I've got a Z390 Aorus Ultra, so VRM is most certainly not the issue. I'm thinking of just refunding the processor and getting a 9900k to be honest. 

[spiralzebra]

Bump

[Lefteh]

6 hours ago, spiralzebra said:

That's worrying then. Outside of Alexandria it runs fine, no stutters except for once in a while. However, as soon as I get into Alexandria, it starts stuttering like crazy. I haven't OC'ed my CPU, so it can't be that. Also there was this one time when loading an area, the game froze completely right out of the loading screen. My computer didn't freeze, only the game. There was also another time when it was loading for 5 minutes before I finally gave up and restarted the game. 

check your hdd usage in task manager and see if its at 100% in the city, this is just a hunch but you never know.

[Mr.Mago]

10 hours ago, spiralzebra said:

I've got a Z390 Aorus Ultra, so VRM is most certainly not the issue. I'm thinking of just refunding the processor and getting a 9900k to be honest. 

If you are not willing to change your mobo. That could be a very decent upgrade. But keep in mind that in less than a month you could get the 3900x for the same price (excluding mobo)

6 hours ago, Lefteh said:

check your hdd usage in task manager and see if its at 100% in the city, this is just a hunch but you never know.

Yeah that seems to be a common problem in a bunch of games. Try checking this out

[DisguisedMonkey]

15 hours ago, spiralzebra said:

I have what I’d think is a fairly beefy PC with an i7 9700k, a 2080, 16 GB 3200mhz RAM, 2 SATA SSDs, connected to a 1440p 144hz monitor. However, while playing Assassin's Creed: Origins, I frequently experience micro-freezes lasting anywhere from 2-3 seconds in Alexandria and other cities like Memphis, where my processor is pretty much constantly pegged at 100% usage. This only happens with an unlocked framerate, if I limit it to 60 in-game it has no issues. What I want to know is what is causing this. Is it my processor reaching 100% usage? Or is there something else wrong with my system? I have a laptop with an i7 8750h, a 2070, 32GB 2666mhz RAM an nvme SSD, and a 1080p 144hz monitor and I don’t experience these issues in big cities, which is strange considering it is a significantly less powerful system. I have also played Odyssey and the same thing happens in large areas when the processor hits 100% usage. However, my laptop's processor also hits 100% usage in Odyssey but doesn't stutter/freeze like my desktop, so I'm starting to worry something is wrong with my PC, or maybe I messed up when building it. Does anyone know what could be causing this? Is it the lack of hyperthreading in the 9700k or something more serious? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I posted this issue a few days ago. I have an i7 7700k, 2080, 16GB RAM and a 1440p 144hz monitor and get the same stuttering on all new Ubisoft games and Battlefield V. I'm swapping to Ryzen next month and hoping to get 8C 16T. I can't stand the stuttering especially in a competitive multiplayer game.

[Damien19721508]

15 hours ago, xg32 said:

so ACO bottlenecks a 9700k too eh? good to know, it only happens in ubisoft games, i wouldn't worry about it too much.

thats strange my 8700K doesn't max out in ACO, I see you have a 9900K does it max out your 9900K ? if so then I must be doing something wrong that my 8700K isn't being maxed out.

[Damien19721508]

Just now, Damien19721508 said:

thats strange my 8700K doesn't max out in ACO, I see you have a 9900K does it max out your 9900K ? if so then I must be doing something wrong that my 8700K isn't being maxed out.

in fact I've seen videos of the 8700K running ACO at 4K and its around 70-80% utilization so it's not like the CPU isn't maxing out due to low resolution like 1080p as it can handle it even with 4k but the system at 4k was capped at 60fps but I mean still 60fps is fairly good for a 1080ti with a 8700K but if you run the games at higher fps you will hit a CPU bottleneck as its normally responsible for the limit once the GPU is being maxed out but there shouldn't be 2-3 second freezes if you're tryna run at over 100fps you should experience some frame drops but not freezing as far as I know, but I'm not claiming to know everything so if I'm mistaken here please tell me what I might have overlooked something I'm just stating what I know and am genuinely interested in tryna figure this out unless the 12 threads that the 8700K help it more than the 2 extra cores the 9700k has but I wouldve thought the 2 extra cores would help more than the 8700K's extra threads.

[spiralzebra]

10 hours ago, Damien19721508 said:

in fact I've seen videos of the 8700K running ACO at 4K and its around 70-80% utilization so it's not like the CPU isn't maxing out due to low resolution like 1080p as it can handle it even with 4k but the system at 4k was capped at 60fps but I mean still 60fps is fairly good for a 1080ti with a 8700K but if you run the games at higher fps you will hit a CPU bottleneck as its normally responsible for the limit once the GPU is being maxed out but there shouldn't be 2-3 second freezes if you're tryna run at over 100fps you should experience some frame drops but not freezing as far as I know, but I'm not claiming to know everything so if I'm mistaken here please tell me what I might have overlooked something I'm just stating what I know and am genuinely interested in tryna figure this out unless the 12 threads that the 8700K help it more than the 2 extra cores the 9700k has but I wouldve thought the 2 extra cores would help more than the 8700K's extra threads.

 

Someone on another thread told me that it's due to Windows NT scheduler. Basically when a processor has threads the NT scheduler uses those to run small background processes while the main cores focus on the game, and vice versa. However without hyperthreading the main cores have to momentarily stop what they are doing and run those processes, which causes the stutter that I'm experiencing. I'm just gonna get a 9900k and be done with it, don't feel like having to change motherboards just to change processor, even though the new AMD processors look pretty juicy. 

[Damien19721508]

1 hour ago, spiralzebra said:

 

Someone on another thread told me that it's due to Windows NT scheduler. Basically when a processor has threads the NT scheduler uses those to run small background processes while the main cores focus on the game, and vice versa. However without hyperthreading the main cores have to momentarily stop what they are doing and run those processes, which causes the stutter that I'm experiencing. I'm just gonna get a 9900k and be done with it, don't feel like having to change motherboards just to change processor, even though the new AMD processors look pretty juicy. 

oh okay, thanks for clearing it up. And yeah I agree the new 3000 Ryzen chips sound very tempting but I did dump a shit load of cash in the begging of 2018 into my build and its only a year old, so I think I'll try ride with my 8700K for another 5 years but if I was building a new system today id definitely get a Ryzen 3000 as I feel Intel is still being a bit stingy with the core count and AMD seems to be catching up with clock and IPC meaning Intel's only real benefit might be gone soon plus AMD is normally cheaper but I've heard the new boards are gonna be pretty pricy. I just hope this new core count race doesn't mean my 6 core 12 thread CPU doesn't become a bottleneck too quickly as I was really hoping that having 6 cores would be good for a few years but at this rate I'm starting to get worried. 

[-rascal-]

1 hour ago, spiralzebra said:

 

Someone on another thread told me that it's due to Windows NT scheduler. Basically when a processor has threads the NT scheduler uses those to run small background processes while the main cores focus on the game, and vice versa. However without hyperthreading the main cores have to momentarily stop what they are doing and run those processes, which causes the stutter that I'm experiencing. I'm just gonna get a 9900k and be done with it, don't feel like having to change motherboards just to change processor, even though the new AMD processors look pretty juicy. 

 

That makes sense.

Your Desktop i7-9700K is a 8-core 8-threads (e.g. 1 thread per core), while your i7-8750H is a 6-core 12-thread (e.g. 2 threads per core).

 

AC:Origin is also known to be an optimized piece of software, so it is not surprising it will eat up as much CPU resources as possible.

 

There's a part of me that hates Intel for disabling  dropping Hyper-Threading support on the Core i7's starting from the 9000 series.

 

[Noah0302]

My 8700k stuttered in some games like hell a couple of days ago, but only after I tried to OC my RAM. from 3466 CL16 to 3600 CL15. Aida64 was stable but my games werent. A lot of stutters and crashed games, not one Bluescreen though!

 

Have you checked if you might have a RAM problem? Because after I turned it back to stock it works like it should again.

[Leanora]

Check the power configuration, both in the OS as well as in your bios and make sure it's on max performance/ max settings.  That sometimes van cause some issues.

[spiralzebra]

On 6/17/2019 at 7:42 AM, Noah0302 said:

My 8700k stuttered in some games like hell a couple of days ago, but only after I tried to OC my RAM. from 3466 CL16 to 3600 CL15. Aida64 was stable but my games werent. A lot of stutters and crashed games, not one Bluescreen though!

 

Have you checked if you might have a RAM problem? Because after I turned it back to stock it works like it should again.

 

This could be a possibility, will check the RAM thank you.