My GPU is stronger than my CPU, and I'm experiencing huge hitches. Is there a way to fix this?

[Elarion]

I was originally running an 8700k, GTX 1080, and 32GB of RAM. I would get a pretty consistent 90-130 FPS in games, which was pretty good. I wanted to try and push the limits of my 165hz monitor though. I was lucky enough to get a 4070Ti, but I was not able to get a CPU upgrade to go with it. With the imbalance, I've noticed a new issue, where I get an extremely solid 160 FPS (this is where I lock it/limit it to in most games), but every 6-8 seconds, there is a HUGE hitch, with RTSS displaying 1% lows of 1-2 FPS.

 

Is there any way around this when you have a big imbalance between your GPU and CPU?

[Levent]

Overclock it.

[Eigenvektor]

Other than overclocking the CPU, the only other option would be to reduce settings that are taxing on it, which is game dependent.

 

For example for more open world games that might be something like crowd density.

 

Higher frames rates also means the CPU has to send new data to the GPU more often. So frame limit or more work for the GPU (e.g. higher detail levels) can help it, but I suppose that's counter to what you want.

[Fasauceome]

48 minutes ago, Elarion said:

and 32GB of RAM.

What speed? As the others have said, a CPU overclock should help. The ram speed matters too 

[podkall]

You could try setting fps limit if you don't have high Hz monitor, maybe to something like 120fps, if your PC can easily get 160, capped 120 might put less stress for CPU for when more demanding parts of the game come around and hit it, might drop less. Or less often.

[Elarion]

2 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

What speed? As the others have said, a CPU overclock should help. The ram speed matters too 

 

I started doing some testing to see if I should overclock my CPU. I ran Cinebench R23 and compared my scores to some of the others I found online, using the Nanoreview site.

 

I had nothing but HWInfo running in the background to make sure my cooling is adequate. It never exceeded 60 degrees in multicore with the dual fan NDH15 I have in there, and never exceeded 50 in single core.

 

It looks like the average 8700k gets 1216 in single core and 8844 in multi core.

My 8700k got 1143 in single core and 7314 in multi core. I don't know how much variance there normally is, but seems pretty bad to me. A loss of over 10% in multi core. Maybe I should try overclocking it. I just was under the impression that overclocking was dead at this point in time.

[Fasauceome]

52 minutes ago, Elarion said:

Maybe I should try overclocking it. I just was under the impression that overclocking was dead at this point in time.

It's not as impactful as it used to be, but it still helps. I myself am running an overclocked coffee lake i7 and it helps keep it relevant on modern games

 

With an NH-D15 I bet you can get 4.6 or 4.7 all core and still not have to worry about thermals

[Robchil]

if you do worry about thermals, you can delid it and apply liquid metal, 8700k is the last cpu before they got soldered, and get a temp drop on around 20C 

 

what resolution are your monitor on?, your rig is mostly suited for 1080p max. 

[Elarion]

19 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

It's not as impactful as it used to be, but it still helps. I myself am running an overclocked coffee lake i7 and it helps keep it relevant on modern games

 

With an NH-D15 I bet you can get 4.6 or 4.7 all core and still not have to worry about thermals

 

Alright, I'll give it a shot. I've never overclocked before, so I'll have to mess around in the bios for a bit to figure that out. One step at a time though, that's the advice I've always heard.

 

8 hours ago, Robchil said:

if you do worry about thermals, you can delid it and apply liquid metal, 8700k is the last cpu before they got soldered, and get a temp drop on around 20C 

 

what resolution are your monitor on?, your rig is mostly suited for 1080p max. 

I'm on 1440p. It's odd that you say that, the other places I've asked about this suggest trying to push the resolution even higher, since it's all GPU focused, in an effort to reduce the frames the CPU has to push. Yours is the opposite advice.