System Bottleneck Appraisal: RAM Bottlenecked?

[denniskrq]

Hi LTT Forum, first time posting here. I have a question regarding my rig as Black Friday draws near and I'm eyeing for parts to purchase: I have a feeling that my system is RAM bottlenecked. When playing Destiny 2, whenever I load into the Tower, my framerate would frequently drop from a stable 60 down to a ~45, so I had HWInfo open in the background to collect some CPU & GPU usage - see attached. It seems that the thermals are no problem, and neither CPU nor GPU usage every goes above certain points (I'm especially suspicious that the GPU usage doesn't seem to go over 80% ever). I only have a single stick of 16GB 2400MHz DDR4 in my system, is running this single-channel setup bottlenecking the whole system? If it is, is it better for me to get another stick of 16GB identical to my current one or to get a new 16GB (2x8GB) kit at maybe 3200? I don't think I've ever even brushed close to using all of the 16GB. If it's not, please see detailed spec below whether anything else might be causing the bottleneck?

 

Details specs if necessary:

Ryzen 5 1500X

ASUS PRIME A320M-K (yes I know I cheaped out on the MB a lot, but it's adequate for now. Although, side question - is it worth upgrading to a B350/450 board from this if it's on sale?)

EVGA 500W PSU

1x16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 2400MHz DDR4 RAM

MSI Duke 1070 Ti 8GB

250GB 970 EVO NVMe for OS and common things

1TB WD Blue 7200RPM for games and media (pending immediate upgrade to SSD once I figure out my frame rate issue)

[LIGISTX]

1 minute ago, denniskrq said:

Hi LTT Forum, first time posting here. I have a question regarding my rig as Black Friday draws near and I'm eyeing for parts to purchase: I have a feeling that my system is RAM bottlenecked. When playing Destiny 2, whenever I load into the Tower, my framerate would frequently drop from a stable 60 down to a ~45, so I had HWInfo open in the background to collect some CPU & GPU usage - see attached. It seems that the thermals are no problem, and neither CPU nor GPU usage every goes above certain points (I'm especially suspicious that the GPU usage doesn't seem to go over 80% ever). I only have a single stick of 16GB 2400MHz DDR4 in my system, is running this single-channel setup bottlenecking the whole system? If it is, is it better for me to get another stick of 16GB identical to my current one or to get a new 16GB (2x8GB) kit at maybe 3200? I don't think I've ever even brushed close to using all of the 16GB. If it's not, please see detailed spec below whether anything else might be causing the bottleneck?

 

Details specs if necessary:

Ryzen 5 1500X

ASUS PRIME A320M-K (yes I know I cheaped out on the MB a lot, but it's adequate for now. Although, side question - is it worth upgrading to a B350/450 board from this if it's on sale?)

EVGA 500W PSU

1x16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 2400MHz DDR4 RAM

MSI Duke 1070 Ti 8GB

250GB 970 EVO NVMe for OS and common things

1TB WD Blue 7200RPM for games and media (pending immediate upgrade to SSD once I figure out my frame rate issue)

That should tell you everything you need to know

 

TLDR; yes, I would get another stick for dual channel.

 

[LIGISTX]

Although... hmm. a 1500x isnt' the fastest CPU in the world either. Just because its not at 100% doesn't mean its not a bottleneck. The fact the GPU isn't going above 80% means there is likely a CPU bottleneck. Although, it is possible the lack of memory bandwidth is causing some issues as well... Ryzen loves memory bandwidth.

 

This is actually harder to say than I thought. Its possible a CPU upgrade would benefit you more, in which case 2400 wouldn't be "the best" speed to have.

 

So, 2 options;

 

Try dual channel knowing it may not be enough and a faster CPU would help

 

or

 

buy a new CPU, and get new RAM to go with, preferably 3200.

 

The issue with option 1, if you buy another 16 GB stick of RAM and it turns out to not be enough, you would just spent some money "needlessly" as 2400 RAM on a new Ryzen chip would be less effective than ~3200. And 16GB is plenty for gaming, so for the price of the 2400 you could have just got some 3200. I guess, with that said, you can always buy a 8x2 kit of 3200 now, sell your 2400 for a few bucks, and then no matter what you have fast RAM. If its not enough, CPU upgrade is in your future.

[xg32]

the ram is 100% a bottleneck, at least get a second stick and see if you can run it at least at 2666.

[Fasauceome]

12 minutes ago, denniskrq said:

1x16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 2400MHz DDR4 RAM

I don't even have to read any of the other stuff in the post, this is a terrible memory config.