Got a 3080 but I'm only seeing 50% of the FPS compared to online benchmarks

[Panda654]

I recently got an MSI RTX 3080 upgrading from TUF 3060.

My problem is that I'm not seeing the FPS improvement that I've seen online with the 3080.

- Witcher 3 (Ultra, 1440p): ~50-60 FPS

- Zero horizon Dawn (Ultra, 1440p): ~45-55 FPS (sometimes dips to high 30's)

 

When I try benchmarks, the performance seems to check out.

- Furmark 1080p: ~16500pts (reference)

- Heaven 4.0 1440p: ~3500 (reference post)

Note: I'm running at stock btw. So minor afterburner tweaks can get me to those reference numbers

 

 

I've tried to update to latest Nvidia Drivers ver. 527, Update to latest Windows 10 22H2 but still nothing.

 

Im not entirely sure why this is happening. I'm only getting around half of what I've been seeing online.

Online benchmarks say 120+fps on Witcher 3 on 3080 1440p and around 90-100fps on Zero Dawn 1440p.

Theres a bottleneck somewhere with actual games but no bottleneck for benchmarks. 

 

I would really appreciate the help since it tried so hard to get my hands on a 3080. Thank you in advance

Side note: Im planning to upgrade to a high refresh monitor so I set the fps limit to unlimited on the games.

But I should still be able to see those 100+ numbers on the fps counter

 

System:

GPU: MSI Trio Z RTX 3080 10GB

CPU: Intel i7-9700k (I don't really overclock)

Mobo: MSI Mortar B360M

Ram: 4x8GB Kingston HyperX (run at 2400mhz only)

Storage: Samsung NVME 980 1TB (boot) ; 2TB seagate HDD (steam lib)

PSU: Corsair RM750x

Monitor: Viewsonic 1440p 32" 60hz 

OS: Windows 10  22H2

 

Update 1: Im not CPU/RAM bottlenecked. Its my PCIE

For some reason my top slot is only giving me x1 while my bottom one is giving me x4

Once I made the change and it reflected as x4, my FPS doubled along wit CPU usage (although still no where close to being bottlenecked)

 

 

[BiotechBen]

12 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

I recently got an MSI RTX 3080 upgrading from TUF 3060.

My problem is that I'm not seeing the FPS improvement that I've seen online with the 3080.

- Witcher 3 (Ultra, 1440p): ~50-60 FPS

- Zero horizon Dawn (Ultra, 1440p): ~45-55 FPS (sometimes dips to high 30's)

 

When I try benchmarks, the performance seems to check out.

- Furmark 1080p: ~16500pts (reference)

- Heaven 4.0 1440p: ~3500 (reference post)

Note: I'm running at stock btw. So minor afterburner tweaks can get me to those reference numbers

 

 

I've tried to update to latest Nvidia Drivers ver. 527, Update to latest Windows 10 22H2 but still nothing.

 

Im not entirely sure why this is happening. I'm only getting around half of what I've been seeing online.

Online benchmarks say 120+fps on Witcher 3 on 3080 1440p and around 90-100fps on Zero Dawn 1440p.

Theres a bottleneck somewhere with actual games but no bottleneck for benchmarks. 

 

I would really appreciate the help since it tried so hard to get my hands on a 3080. Thank you in advance

Side note: Im planning to upgrade to a high refresh monitor so I set the fps limit to unlimited on the games.

But I should still be able to see those 100+ numbers on the fps counter

 

System:

GPU: MSI Trio Z RTX 3080 10GB

CPU: Intel i7-9700k (I don't really overclock)

Mobo: MSI Mortar B360M

Ram: 4x8GB Kingston HyperX (run at 2400mhz only)

Storage: Samsung NVME 980 1TB (boot) ; 2TB seagate HDD (steam lib)

PSU: Corsair RM750x

Monitor: Viewsonic 1440p 32" 60hz 

OS: Windows 10  22H2

 

 

Well, I can tell ya that the 9700K on a B series board is not helping your framerates. Neither is the 2400 MT/s RAM.

[Mark Kaine]

12 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

Online benchmarks say 120+fps on Witcher 3 on 3080 1440p and around 90-100fps on Zero Dawn 1440p.

ehh, and they have the *same* cpu than you?  (kinda doubt it) 

 

 

and opinions on this seem to change by the minute but i think the consensus always was a 9th gen cpu doesn’t cut it for a 3080, not even a 3070...

 

you'll have to upgrade your entire platform im afraid,  not just the gpu.

 

12 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

But I should still be able to see those 100+ numbers on the fps counter

not with such an old cpu and slow ram, i don't think so?

[Dukesilver27-]

Online benchmarks are not a reference, there's a lot of variables that contribute to performance. For example, their 9700K maybe OCed to the max, RAM speed difference, game on SSD or not.

In any case, to see the bottleneck, we need more information, namely CPU and GPU usage in said games.

3080 is a pretty powerful GPU, I highly doubt 9700K on a B board  with 2400MHZ RAM could fully utilize it at 1440p, my 12400 sometimes can't keep up with my 6800 XT.

[Mark Kaine]

ah, yeah i forget intel with their artificially limitations... also this cpu isnt even multi/hyper threaded? wow.

 

5 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

Online benchmarks are not a reference, there's a lot of variables that contribute to performance. For example, their 9700K maybe OCed to the max, RAM speed difference, game on SSD or not.

well they kinda are, if you know these things... but they also usually use the newest cpu and stuff, its probably hard to find something with that exact same setup (cause most people would buy a new cpu for their very expensive and powerful new gpu... i guess!)

 

[Dukesilver27-]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

ah, yeah i forget intel with their artificially limitations... also this cpu isnt even multi threaded? wow.

 

well they kinda are, if you know these things... but they also usually use the newest cpu and stuff, its probably hard to find something with that exact same setup (cause most people would buy a new cpu for their very expensive and powerful new gpu... i guess!)

 

I meant, you can't expect it to perform exactly the same, people seem to think just because they have the same CPU and GPU combo, they should get the same FPS. In reality, a lot of variables affect performance, such as windows version, drivers, other hardware differences, settings, and many more.

[Panda654]

Thank you for the responses. At least now I have many 2nd opinions.

As for my reference benchmarks links. Im not really targeting exact numbers just ballparks or where I should/could be targeting. And yeah its pretty hard finding exact build specs. 

 

I checked out my CPU usage for Witcher 3 1440p Ultra and its hovering 20-30% usage. GPU is at 99% which seems to be okay.

 

Is it right that the CPU is not being fed enough data? Maybe due to the slower B360M mobo chipset or the ram 2400 or both?

Would upgrading to a Z370 or a Z390 chipset fair better? (my ram can now do their 3000+mhz speed and OC the i7). As much as possible, I'd like to not upgrade my CPU yet. So alternatives would be great. Thanks

 

How do you think Furmark and Heaven did pretty well (within ballpark) in the benchmarks?

 

Side note: if I can do ~100-120fps on these games, that would be kinda okay for me

 

[Mark Kaine]

32 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

checked out my CPU usage for Witcher 3 1440p Ultra and its hovering 20-30% usage. GPU is at 99% which seems to be okay.

the funny thing about cpu usage is you need to check each core... if only one is at ~99% thats enough to make a game hitch or tank.

 

what you're looking at is overall usage which isn't really relevant (unless its 100%)

 

32 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

How do you think Furmark and Heaven did pretty well (within ballpark) in the benchmarks

fumark is trash, nvidia drivers also detect it and throttle slightly so they survive this "test".

 

heaven is a good benchmark,  for gpus,  it barely uses cpu though so it's not really relevant to your issue either 

 

 

u see, 10% usage @120fps (im using vsync) and ~50% gpu usage.

and yes, not showing cores, but i know heaven just uses 2 cores or so and then not much of them either.

 

 

heaven is typically used for gpu overclocking because you can run it windowed besides afterburner and well if your oc is unstable it tends to crash pretty quickly without crashing the computer.

 

either way check each cpu core in the games you have issues with, generally more or less random benchmarks aren't very helpful for this. 

 

ps: here's how i set up afterburner if i want to actually check cpu usage

 

 

(6c/12t cpu, game is Tomb Raider Anniversary, quite interesting usage pattern, i would say)

[Eigenvektor]

23 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

I checked out my CPU usage for Witcher 3 1440p Ultra and its hovering 20-30% usage. GPU is at 99% which seems to be okay.

If the GPU's usage is 99%, you're GPU bound, which is what you want. The CPU is used to run the game's logic and feed the GPU with data. The GPU is the limiting factor and the CPU is running as fast as it has to. Increasing the CPU's speed shouldn't help in this case, since the GPU is at its limit.

 

What is the second percentage value shown in your GPU row?

[Mark Kaine]

6 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

If the GPU's usage is 99%, you're GPU bound, which is what you want.

good catch...! but, im not sure that's actually "3d" gpu usage or however you call it, you can show every single gpu "engine" in afterburner and frankly who knows what is shown here... i think OP should still check cpu on each core... exactly in that game and situation... just to make sure...

 

The thing is , according to guru3d,  a 3080 should do 180fps in witcher 3 "max" settings (whatever that is! lol) at 1440p... im not seeing that OP is anywhere close to 180fps... obviously.  still think it could be cpu, doubt ram alone would have such an impact??

[Panda654]

@Mark Kaine

thanks for the insight. I checked with afterburner and it seems that my CPU cores arent that far off from each other. most bounce from 15-30% load. averaging of the 20% total that I posted earlier

 

Do you think its my B360M chipset or Memory speed is cause for my CPU being "underfed"? Will upgrading to a Z370 mobo for 9th gen be a great uplift? (Can OC the cpu and ram to 3200mhz)

@Eigenvektor if I am GPU bound, would it be that ~60fps at 1440p is ALL a 3080 can do? A little hard to justify for 3080. Id me more looking into my system cpu mobo ram more closely. but thanks for the insight. 

[Mark Kaine]

11 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

if I am GPU bound, would it be that ~60fps at 1440p is ALL a 3080 can do? A little hard to justify for 3080. Id me more looking into my system cpu mobo ram more closely. but thanks for the insight.

see my post above,  3080 should do 180fps in witcher 3, max settings 1440p,  according to guru3d... who usually know what they're doing in their tests.

my 3070 would do 140... thats how much your system is underperforming... im really not so sure if not something else is wrong,  but drawing blank at the moment what that could be.

 

11 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

thanks for the insight. I checked with afterburner and it seems that my CPU cores arent that far off from each other. most bounce from 15-30% load. averaging of the 20% total that I posted earlier

 

Do you think its my B360M chipset or Memory speed is cause for my CPU being "underfed"? Will upgrading to a Z370 mobo for 9th gen be a great uplift? (Can OC the cpu and ram to 3200mhz)

well that is weird... i was thinking it should use more cpu... would have been an easy culprit too! but if it isnt then im also not sure tbh, i kinda doubt new motherboard would give you a big boost,  but im honestly not sure i don't have any experience with this platform,  but typically,  no, i can see that giving you 10-20fps more maybe, which would still be way below what it should be, but others can chime in on that.

 

 

[Eigenvektor]

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

good catch...! but, im not sure that's actually "3d" gpu usage or however you call it, you can show every single gpu "engine" in afterburner and frankly who knows what is shown here... i think OP should still check cpu on each core... exactly in that game and situation... just to make sure...

Yeah, it's worth checking out. Normally when the GPU is shown at 99% load it should mean it is running as fast as it can. But I agree it might just be Afterburner measuring things in a way that doesn't work well for Witcher 3.

 

3 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

The thing is , according to guru3d,  a 3080 should do 180fps in witcher 3 "max" settings (whatever that is! lol) at 1440p... im not seeing that OP is anywhere close to 180fps... obviously.  still think it could be cpu, doubt ram alone would have such an impact??

I would assume "Max" either refers to some preset or all sliders turned to their max value Haven't played Witcher 3 in some time.

 

2 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

@Eigenvektor if I am GPU bound, would it be that ~60fps at 1440p is ALL a 3080 can do? A little hard to justify for 3080. Id me more looking into my system cpu mobo ram more closely. but thanks for the insight. 

Yes, which seems a bit weird when compared to other benchmarks. Are you sure your settings are the same? Maybe they actually disabled some setting that is extra taxing.

 

Do you happen to own Shadow of the Tomb Raider? It includes a benchmark that shows a graph at the end that tells you how much of the benchmark was bound by the GPU and/or CPU.

[Mark Kaine]

12 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

would assume "Max" either refers to some preset or all sliders turned to their max value Haven't played Witcher 3 in some time.

yes i also think thats some preset, which typically would put all sliders to max, but *not* things like msaa which could tank performance even on a even more powerful gpu (i suppose) 

 

 

as for the gpu, it actually makes no sense in this situation,  if its really 3d usage then the fps should be much higher obviously... unless op has some weird settings turned on like MSAA or RTX (not sure witcher 3 has RTX to begin with) every game has some weird settings that tank performance though (well almost every game)

 

ps: they're also using DIRECT X 11, not sure op's pc can do that??

 

@Panda654check your ingame settings... reset everything,  then set it to "max" preset, leave everything else alone lol and use DIRECT X 11 if you can and then restart the game and test it again. 

 

 

 

[Eigenvektor]

12 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

unless op has some weird settings turned on like MSAA or RTX (not sure witcher 3 has RTX to begin with)

Not yet, wasn't a thing when it came out. But the next-gen update which should be released on Dec 14 should have

[Panda654]

20 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

Do you happen to own Shadow of the Tomb Raider? It includes a benchmark that shows a graph at the end that tells you how much of the benchmark was bound by the GPU and/or CPU.

@Mark Kaine Sadly I don't.

 

18 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

@Panda654check your ingame settings... reset everything,  then set it to "max" preset, leave everything else alone lol and use DIRECT X 11 if you can and then restart the game and test it again. 

Reset everything then Graphics set to Ultra and post processing to High (theres no ultra in witcher 3). Same for zero horizon Dawn, Ultra

 

 

I found this reddit thread with some guy having ~similar problems. His CPU and GPU are underutilized compared to my GPU staying at 99% and CPU underutilized. Although not same build but ~similar enough to warrant some notice. Unfortunately his Update 4 didnt have a resolution if he fixed it.  Not pretty helpful but it doesnt seem to be a CPU bottleneck from the thread and updates...? Correct me if Im wrong though... I'm on new ground here with this kind of hardware tier. 

[Mister Woof]

28 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

@Mark Kaine Sadly I don't.

 

Reset everything then Graphics set to Ultra and post processing to High (theres no ultra in witcher 3). Same for zero horizon Dawn, Ultra

 

 

I found this reddit thread with some guy having ~similar problems. His CPU and GPU are underutilized compared to my GPU staying at 99% and CPU underutilized. Although not same build but ~similar enough to warrant some notice. Unfortunately his Update 4 didnt have a resolution if he fixed it.  Not pretty helpful but it doesnt seem to be a CPU bottleneck from the thread and updates...? Correct me if Im wrong though... I'm on new ground here with this kind of hardware tier. 

SotTR demo has the benchmark built in.

 

Can you see how much power the GPU is using? Can you run HWinfo64 and report if there are any limitation reasons listed?

 

1440p on witcher 3 capping out at 99% GPU with 54fps is mad broken

 

Edit: I just saw your other screens and showing 207w...that's very underpowered for a 3080, which should be around 320-340w at 100% power draw.

 

Unless I'm reading the rows wrong and it's not 99% usage, and it's that 60% metric.

[Dukesilver27-]

12 minutes ago, Shimmy Gummi said:

Edit: I just saw your other screens and showing 207w...that's very underpowered for a 3080, which should be around 320-340w at 100% power draw.

 

Unless I'm reading the rows wrong and it's not 99% usage, and it's that 60% metric.

Power draw actually varies between games, so can't really measure that based on 100% power draw. But yes, 207 is too low, even my 6800XT ranges between 220-250W with OC and Undervolt, sometimes 270W.

 

And no, 60% is probably the fan speed, I have my afterbuner OSD set up exactly like him. GPU usage is always 2nd on standard settings.

[Mark Kaine]

yeah im pretty sure thats not actually gpu usage... and frankly afterburner does a terrible job with the default settings and also explaining things so i don't even blame the op for that...

 

still *if* it is gpu usage then it just makes no sense, thing is wattage is so low... it can't be gpu usage lol...

 

@Panda654are you using two or 3 seperate pcie cables or a splitter of some sort? 

 

 

also can you reset afterburner monitoring?  cause that second value makes no sense... ive never seen that, unless i set it myself (which i did to show video decoding usage)  but at default it should not do that. pretty sure what you want it "3d gpu usage " and nothing else for gpu usage...

[Mister Woof]

58 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

Power draw actually varies between games, so can't really measure that based on 100% power draw. But yes, 207 is too low, even my 6800XT ranges between 220-250W with OC and Undervolt, sometimes 270W.

 

And no, 60% is probably the fan speed, I have my afterbuner OSD set up exactly like him. GPU usage is always 2nd on standard settings.

mine's been pretty consistent at 90%+, generally around 310-335w. Per hwinfo64 anyway

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Dukesilver27- said:

Power draw actually varies between games,

sure does, but typically when your gpu is 100% and boosting it'll use around close to max tdp at least ... which is why its pretty obvious that 99% cant be gpu 3d usage,  and if it is something else is wrong 

 

41 minutes ago, Shimmy Gummi said:

mine's been pretty consistent at 90%+, generally around 310-335w. Per hwinfo64 anyway

yup... it also depends on frequency i guess but generally yeah, my gpu is actually spot on at 100% usage 270w (record is 273w!) and im using hwinfo64 plus icue which is actually directly connected to my rmi ~

 

(and yes my 3070 tdp is 270w, not 220 or whatever is nvidia stock tdp)

 

ps: its also pretty funny its super obvious the gpu wants to use *more* (even though i pretty heavily undervolted it, or maybe because since it runs pretty cool) but it cant because the vbios doesn't allow it...

 

and no i don't want more power usage... i hate it, im most happy when my gpu is at 50% at 50c and fans are off!  xD

 

Like here one of my fav games (Project Zero)

 

 

Its not even boosting , but max settings/ 60fps

[Panda654]

2 hours ago, Shimmy Gummi said:

1440p on witcher 3 capping out at 99% GPU with 54fps is mad broken

 

Edit: I just saw your other screens and showing 207w...that's very underpowered for a 3080, which should be around 320-340w at 100% power draw.

 

Unless I'm reading the rows wrong and it's not 99% usage, and it's that 60% metric.

@Shimmy Gummi The 60% is the GPU power utilization. 60% of 3080's max wattage of 320w does equal to around 180-190w. Im only able to go near 85-95% power usage on it when running Heaven. 

 

Oddly enough, Im able to reach 65-67% power usage of about 240w in It Takes Two.

 

When Zero Horizon Dawn is optimizing before the game starts, Im able to use 100% of my CPU at 100W. Optimizing stats. In game stats, power usage is almost pinned at 60% power usage, same as Witcher 3.

 

I appreciate all your efforts.

Is there somehow a setting i might have missed on in game maybe Nvidia experience or drivers or something? I cant use more than 60% of the 3080 even if i have CPU headroom.

 

[Panda654]

I noticed something in GPU z... could be a suspect. 

 

could this be somehow the culprit? 

 

GPU z is reporting my 3080 is running PCIe x16 4.0@1 3.0 when rendering. PCIe x16 4.0@1 1.1 when Idle.

Could it be a bus interface problem? Should it not it be @16x 1.1 or @16x 3.0?

 

In Bios it also reports as x1 in the top slot

 

[Eigenvektor]

52 minutes ago, Panda654 said:

I noticed something in GPU z... could be a suspect. 

 

could this be somehow the culprit? 

 

GPU z is reporting my 3080 is running PCIe x16 4.0@1 3.0 when rendering. PCIe x16 4.0@1 1.1 when Idle.

Could it be a bus interface problem? Should it not it be @16x 1.1 or @16x 3.0?

 

In Bios it also reports as x1 in the top slot

Try clicking the ? next to it, to put some load onto it. The bus will drop down to lower levels while idle to save power.

[Panda654]

Guys, I figured it out!

 

My 3080 was plugged in my top slot which for SOME REASON is only PCIE x1 when it should have been x16 while my bottom slot is PCIE 4x.

 

Once I made the change, my FPS, CPU util and GPU usage doubled. 

Witcher 3 1440p Ultra 50-60fps => 90-100fps

Zero Horizon Dawn 1440p Ultra 40-50fps => 70-100fps

 

My fps is not yet what the 3080 is capable of but I'm getting closer. Now I know i'm not CPU or RAM but PCIE bottlenecked. Not bad for the 5 year old 9700k and 2400mhz ram lol

 

Now, any ideas on how I could get the full x16 bandwidth of my top slot?

So far only have my NVME ssd in the top m.2 slot.

 

_{Note: My card is a bottom}