Problem with High CPU Usage and Stuttering

[Altu]

Hi, I have a problem with stuttering during gameplay in games like Warframe and Guild Wars 2. I've noticed that my CPU often hits 100% usage, which I suspect might be the cause of the stuttering and FPS drop during moments when a lot is happening on the screen. I usually play at 1080p 75fps. I'm considering whether it's a good idea to buy a used i7 9700 or i7 8700 to provide more headroom so it won't hit the limits all the time or should I just move to a different platform? I want to spend as little money as possible and avoid switching too many parts, as what I currently have is generally sufficient. The stuttering is my main concern.

My specs:

CPU: i5 9600k

Mobo: Asrock B365 pro4

RAM: 16GB 2666Mhz

GPU: RX6600

PSU: Corsair VS550

 

 

[bezza...]

i would recomend goint to am4 you can keep your ram and psu. get a cheap am4 board user or new and get a used r53600 or new r5 5500.

[YoungBlade]

It's probably time to abandon that platform. The i7 models are an incemental upgrade. The only real upgrade on that platform would be an i9, but those are really overpriced for what you're getting.

 

What country are you in? There are some options for going AM4 (AMD Ryzen) or LGA1700 (Intel 12th/13th gen) that are certainly worth considering that would allow you to keep everything but the CPU and motherboard.

[Bob__]

1 minute ago, Tomberry said:

i would recomend goint to am4 you can keep your ram and psu. get a cheap am4 board user or new and get a used r53600 or new r5 5500.

another thing he can do is be like me and OC the balls out of it, I can help you if needed but YT can give you everything you can need

[tkitch]

9th gen is a dead platform.  And the i7 9700 was a bad chip.  (No Hyperthreading or anything else?  WTF?)

 

If you're gonna put anything more than 50 bucks into this system, save it for an upgrade to a new platform. 

[bezza...]

Just now, Bob__ said:

another thing he can do is be like me and OC the balls out of it, I can help you if needed but YT can give you everything you can need

he could but....... might need a new cooler and oc ing is only going to do so much

[YoungBlade]

2 minutes ago, Bob__ said:

another thing he can do is be like me and OC the balls out of it, I can help you if needed but YT can give you everything you can need

1 minute ago, Tomberry said:

he could but....... might need a new cooler and oc ing is only going to do so much

B365 boards do not allow for overclocking. No CPU OC, no RAM OC. RAM speed is limited to DDR4-2666 for i5 CPUs.

 

If this was on a Z370 or Z390 board that would have been my first recommendation. Pushing the 9600K to 4.8GHz all-core gives a noticeable improvement in performance, as does pairing it with faster RAM, but that's not an option here.

[Altu]

7 minutes ago, Tomberry said:

i would recomend goint to am4 you can keep your ram and psu. get a cheap am4 board user or new and get a used r53600 or new r5 5500.

3 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

B365 boards do not allow for overclocking. No CPU OC, no RAM OC. RAM speed is limited to DDR4-2666 for i5 CPUs.

 

If this was on a Z370 or Z390 board that would have been my first recommendation. Pushing the 9600K to 4.8GHz all-core gives a noticeable improvement in performance, as does pairing it with faster RAM, but that's not an option here.

I was actually browsing the marketplace, and I noticed that many people are selling the R5 3600 or R7 3700X with a motherboard at pretty decent prices. If 2666MHz memory will be sufficient for Ryzen, then I think I'll go that route. I just hope that I will be able to sell my current i5 along with the motherboard. Would it also be possible to push the RAM to a higher frequency to boost performance? I currently have Corsair Vengeance RAM.

[YoungBlade]

1 minute ago, Altu said:

I was actually browsing the marketplace, and I noticed that many people are selling the R5 3600 or R7 3700X with a motherboard at pretty decent prices. If 2666MHz memory will be sufficient for Ryzen, then I think I'll go that route. I just hope that I will be able to sell my current i5 and mobo.

As long as the memory is dual-channel, it won't be too bad. And as long as you get a B or X series motherboard, you can always try overclocking your RAM. I'm running a Ryzen 9 5900X in my main system and I've overclocked the memory from DDR4-3000 to DDR4-3333. There's a fair chance you can get your RAM to run in the range of DDR4-2933, or maybe DDR4-3133 if you're lucky.

 

Ryzen does like fast memory, but especially a Ryzen 7 3700X will have a ton more CPU headroom than your current i5.

[Bob__]

1 minute ago, YoungBlade said:

It's probably time to abandon that platform. The i7 models are an incemental upgrade. The only real upgrade on that platform would be an i9, but those are really overpriced for what you're getting.

 

What country are you in? There are some options for going AM4 (AMD Ryzen) or LGA1700 (Intel 12th/13th gen) that are certainly worth considering that would allow you to keep everything but the CPU and motherboard.

an AM5 upgrade would be like https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NbxkZw

an am4 would be https://pcpartpicker.com/list/WkjDPV

and lga 1700 https://pcpartpicker.com/list/WBf3hk

[Bob__]

5 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

B365 boards do not allow for overclocking. No CPU OC, no RAM OC. RAM speed is limited to DDR4-2666 for i5 CPUs.

 

If this was on a Z370 or Z390 board that would have been my first recommendation. Pushing the 9600K to 4.8GHz all-core gives a noticeable improvement in performance, as does pairing it with faster RAM, but that's not an option here.

whelp should have read the whole post

[Altu]

I found an R7 3700X for 110 euros. I'll look for a suitable motherboard for it, and based on all your feedback, it should be fine, I guess. I'll also try to find an R5 3600 at a good price, as I don't think I need that much headroom.

[YoungBlade]

Just now, Bob__ said:

an AM5 upgrade would be like https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NbxkZw

an am4 would be https://pcpartpicker.com/list/WkjDPV

and lga 1700 https://pcpartpicker.com/list/WBf3hk

No, I said "keep everything but the CPU and motherboard," so AM5 is out.

 

My recommendations, if the OP is in the US and wants to go new, would be:

 

AM4 -

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/nvkmk9

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($127.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus Prime B450M-A II Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $207.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-05-10 09:38 EDT-0400

 

LGA 1700 -

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qxhXfv

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor  ($214.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI MAG B660M BAZOOKA DDR4 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($104.00 @ Newegg)
Total: $318.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-05-10 09:40 EDT-0400

[Altu]

2 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

No, I said "keep everything but the CPU and motherboard," so AM5 is out.

 

My recommendations, if the OP is in the US and wants to go new, would be:

 

AM4 -

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/nvkmk9

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($127.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus Prime B450M-A II Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $207.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-05-10 09:38 EDT-0400

 

LGA 1700 -

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qxhXfv

CPU: Intel Core i5-12600K 3.7 GHz 10-Core Processor  ($214.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI MAG B660M BAZOOKA DDR4 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($104.00 @ Newegg)
Total: $318.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-05-10 09:40 EDT-0400

No, I'm in Germany, so it's Europe overall. I've always bought used stuff, so I think I'll keep it that way.  Thank you all for suggestions!

[Bob__]

1 minute ago, Altu said:

No, I'm in Germany, so it's Europe overall. I've always bought used stuff, so I think I'll keep it that way.

there are some pretty good AM4 bundle deals on ebay so use that information as you will

[YoungBlade]

1 minute ago, Altu said:

No, I'm in Germany, so it's Europe overall. I've always bought used stuff, so I think I'll keep it that way.

There are some good options right now for new hardware in Germany. You can get a Ryzen 5 5600 and B450 board for around 200 Euros. The Ryzen 5 5600 is faster for gaming than the 3700X while having comparable multi-core performance.

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/n8bdDq

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  (€127.99 @ Galaxus)
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING B450M-PLUS II Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (€79.90 @ Alza)
Total: €207.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-05-10 15:42 CEST+0200

[Altu]

5 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

There are some good options right now for new hardware in Germany. You can get a Ryzen 5 5600 and B450 board for around 200 Euros. The Ryzen 5 5600 is faster for gaming than the 3700X while having comparable multi-core performance.

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/n8bdDq

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  (€127.99 @ Galaxus)
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING B450M-PLUS II Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (€79.90 @ Alza)
Total: €207.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-05-10 15:42 CEST+0200

Looks very good, will look in to that . Found used R5 3600 for 60 euros aswell, need to decide which way I should go :).

[Tegneren]

37 minutes ago, Altu said:

Looks very good, will look in to that . Found used R5 3600 for 60 euros aswell, need to decide which way I should go :).

A Ryzen 5 3600 will not be a upgrade to the i5 9600K for gaming. At best its equal, but mostly it falls slightly behind. its a little bit better at production/multicored tasks.

So unless you get something like a R5 5600(x) I wouldn't bother with a platform change.

 

[Altu]

On 5/10/2023 at 3:44 PM, YoungBlade said:

There are some good options right now for new hardware in Germany. You can get a Ryzen 5 5600 and B450 board for around 200 Euros. The Ryzen 5 5600 is faster for gaming than the 3700X while having comparable multi-core performance.

 

PCPartPicker Part List: https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/n8bdDq

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor  (€127.99 @ Galaxus)
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING B450M-PLUS II Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  (€79.90 @ Alza)
Total: €207.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-05-10 15:42 CEST+0200

I'll likely buy the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and Asus TUF GAMING B450M-PLUS II for unfortunately 230 euros, given that the prices you provided are no longer applicable. Plus, I'll get Norton 360 Deluxe for one year for free. Will the motherboard support this CPU right out of the box?

[YoungBlade]

13 minutes ago, Altu said:

I'll likely buy the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and Asus TUF GAMING B450M-PLUS II for unfortunately 230 euros, given that the prices you provided are no longer applicable. Plus, I'll get Norton 360 Deluxe for one year for free. Will the motherboard support this CPU right out of the box?

At this point, it should - unless it's been sitting on a shelf collecting dust for a while and wasn't recently manufactured.

 

Luckily, the board has BIOS Flashback - a feature where you can just insert a USB with the appropriate BIOS and press a button on the board to have it flash itself - no CPU required. So even if the board doesn't support the CPU out of the box, you won't need to find a random old Ryzen CPU to fix the issue.

[Altu]

On 5/12/2023 at 4:45 PM, YoungBlade said:

At this point, it should - unless it's been sitting on a shelf collecting dust for a while and wasn't recently manufactured.

 

Luckily, the board has BIOS Flashback - a feature where you can just insert a USB with the appropriate BIOS and press a button on the board to have it flash itself - no CPU required. So even if the board doesn't support the CPU out of the box, you won't need to find a random old Ryzen CPU to fix the issue.

All of the TUF units are sold out in most of the shops. Would this motherboard work fine? 

[YoungBlade]

4 hours ago, Altu said:

All of the TUF units are sold out in most of the shops. Would this motherboard work fine? 

For the Ryzen 5 5600, that board is fine. It's probably also fine for an upgrade to a 5800X3D down the line. However, I would not recommend upgrading to a Ryzen 9 on that board, as the VRM quality isn't great.

 

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't choose that board. I just want you to be aware that the VRM isn't as strong as on the TUF model.

[Altu]

4 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

For the Ryzen 5 5600, that board is fine. It's probably also fine for an upgrade to a 5800X3D down the line. However, I would not recommend upgrading to a Ryzen 9 on that board, as the VRM quality isn't great.

 

This doesn't mean that you shouldn't choose that board. I just want you to be aware that the VRM isn't as strong as on the TUF model.

Ok, I managed to get a TUF anyway. After some searching, I found a shop with one unit left. Out of curiosity, is there a significant difference between the B450's PCIe-3 and the B550's PCIe-4 GPU wise?

[YoungBlade]

16 minutes ago, Altu said:

Ok, I managed to get a TUF anyway. After some searching, I found a shop with one unit left. Out of curiosity, is there a significant difference between the B450's PCIe-3 and the B550's PCIe-4 GPU wise?

Only for GPUs with low numbers of PCIe lanes, especially ones like the RX 6500 XT with just 4 lanes. There can be a massive 25%+ difference between Gen 3 and Gen 4 performance in a not insignificant number of games. You can see testing with the RX 6400 and RX 6500 XT in this video from Hardware Unboxed to get an idea of how bad it is with 4 lane cards.

 

There's a minimal impact on GPUs with 8 lanes, like the RX 6600 XT or RTX 3050. The upcoming RTX 4060 Ti might not be a good option for this reason. However, it's not huge. You can see the results in this Hardware Unboxed review of the RX 6600 XT - I started at the timestamp where he goes over the PCIe bandwidth testing. The difference is 5% on average, with one outlier (Doom Eternal) showing a 25% difference.

 

However, for GPUs with 16 lanes, it's basically a non-issue, with a difference of 1-3%. Gamers Nexus did some testing with the RTX 4090 and found only one instance where it mattered - a 15% decrease from Gen 4 to Gen 3 with Total War Warhammer III - but they were pretty sure that it was mostly driver related, and not an actual PCIe bandwidth issue.

 

So basically, any 16 lane card is fine. With 8 lane cards, it should be considered, but isn't a huge factor. And 4 lane cards are to be avoided if at all possible on a PCIe 3.0 system.

[Altu]

43 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

Only for GPUs with low numbers of PCIe lanes, especially ones like the RX 6500 XT with just 4 lanes. There can be a massive 25%+ difference between Gen 3 and Gen 4 performance in a not insignificant number of games. You can see testing with the RX 6400 and RX 6500 XT in this video from Hardware Unboxed to get an idea of how bad it is with 4 lane cards.

 

There's a minimal impact on GPUs with 8 lanes, like the RX 6600 XT or RTX 3050. The upcoming RTX 4060 Ti might not be a good option for this reason. However, it's not huge. You can see the results in this Hardware Unboxed review of the RX 6600 XT - I started at the timestamp where he goes over the PCIe bandwidth testing. The difference is 5% on average, with one outlier (Doom Eternal) showing a 25% difference.

 

However, for GPUs with 16 lanes, it's basically a non-issue, with a difference of 1-3%. Gamers Nexus did some testing with the RTX 4090 and found only one instance where it mattered - a 15% decrease from Gen 4 to Gen 3 with Total War Warhammer III - but they were pretty sure that it was mostly driver related, and not an actual PCIe bandwidth issue.

 

So basically, any 16 lane card is fine. With 8 lane cards, it should be considered, but isn't a huge factor. And 4 lane cards are to be avoided if at all possible on a PCIe 3.0 system.

Oh, I wasn't aware of that. Considering my RX6600 has 8 lanes, I'm contemplating whether I should spend an extra 15 euros for the Gigabyte B550M AORUS ELITE. This would give me peace of mind that I'm not limited by anything, particularly as I'm not planning to upgrade this PC anytime soon. What do you think? Also, thank you for being so patient with me :).