CPU Bottlenecking me/suggestions

[StutterAndLag]

Budget (including currency): None

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mainly gaming, web browser and game running at once. 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Hey guys, I currently have Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10850K CPU @ 3.60GHz   3.60 GHz and I feel like its bottlenecking me pretty badly. I cannot play games such as hell let loose, or jedi survivor without having a major amount of stuttering/lag. I currently have ROG 4090, 32GB Cosair ram 2133hz is what its currently running at. 

So basically I'm looking at upgrading my CPU and motherboard, and probably ram as well. No real budget, but not trying to go all baller status for looks, however not against RGB. I have a white PC build right now other then the GPU being black with RGB. Debating if I should go intel or AMD. I've heard good things both ways, but I'm also looking at longevity purposes. Also not sure what ram I should be looking at getting. Wanting to step it up to 64gb tho. 

 

Thanks guys! Looking forward to hear from the experts! 

[Tetras]

You'd probably get a major boost in overall frame smoothness with a 4090 if you get your RAM running at the rated speed. 2133 sounds like you don't have XMP enabled.

[StutterAndLag]

7 minutes ago, Tetras said:

You'd probably get a major boost in overall frame smoothness with a 4090 if you get your RAM running at the rated speed. 2133 sounds like you don't have XMP enabled.

Thanks for the heads up, just went to bios and turned it on> ill see if it makes a big difference. Im still not sure tho if my cpu is bottlenecking me badly or not. Thanks! 

[Blue4130]

16 minutes ago, StutterAndLag said:

Budget (including currency): None

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mainly gaming, web browser and game running at once. 

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Hey guys, I currently have Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10850K CPU @ 3.60GHz   3.60 GHz and I feel like its bottlenecking me pretty badly. I cannot play games such as hell let loose, or jedi survivor without having a major amount of stuttering/lag. I currently have ROG 4090, 32GB Cosair ram 2133hz is what its currently running at. 

So basically I'm looking at upgrading my CPU and motherboard, and probably ram as well. No real budget, but not trying to go all baller status for looks, however not against RGB. I have a white PC build right now other then the GPU being black with RGB. Debating if I should go intel or AMD. I've heard good things both ways, but I'm also looking at longevity purposes. Also not sure what ram I should be looking at getting. Wanting to step it up to 64gb tho. 

 

Thanks guys! Looking forward to hear from the experts! 

Figure out your boost and ram speeds. You should be getting closer to 4.7 Ghz on all cores.

[StutterAndLag]

39 minutes ago, Tetras said:

You'd probably get a major boost in overall frame smoothness with a 4090 if you get your RAM running at the rated speed. 2133 sounds like you don't have XMP enabled.

I will say, after playing jedi survivor with XMP enabled it did make a huge difference. Still a bit stutter. but way better then any other solution. 

 

31 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

Figure out your boost and ram speeds. You should be getting closer to 4.7 Ghz on all cores.

How do I fix my boost speeds? I enabled XMP and it brought my ram to 3600mhz. 

[Blue4130]

3 minutes ago, StutterAndLag said:

I will say, after playing jedi survivor with XMP enabled it did make a huge difference. Still a bit stutter. but way better then any other solution. 

 

How do I fix my boost speeds? I enabled XMP and it brought my ram to 3600mhz. 

Run cinebench and doublecheck what the boost speeds are under load. It should be defaulting to boosting higher than 3.6 as is.

[StutterAndLag]

1 hour ago, Blue4130 said:

Run cinebench and doublecheck what the boost speeds are under load. It should be defaulting to boosting higher than 3.6 as is.

Under task manager its showing "base speed 3.60" and then speed being 4.79

[SkilledRebuilds]

1 hour ago, Blue4130 said:

Figure out your boost and ram speeds. You should be getting closer to 4.7 Ghz on all cores.

10850K is rated for 4.8Ghz allcore workloads, so you were close to the money for a guess.

If the motherboard uses a 125w PL1 he should still be seeing 4.3Ghz after minutes and minutes of a sustained AVX workload.

[SkilledRebuilds]

3 minutes ago, StutterAndLag said:

Under task manager its showing "base speed 3.60" and then speed being 4.79

Then it's running at 4.8Ghz (Don't worry about task manager being off by a little, it does that)

My 5Ghz allcore overclock TM says 4.97Ghz

 

But yours is running right, the 3.6Ghz is when power limits are 125watts and it's at 100*c it will throttle typically no less than 3.6Ghz, but your chip is doing 4.8Ghz not 3.6Ghz anyway.

 

With your XMP set at 3600Mhz, and 4.8Ghz, your machine is now in an optimal configuration

[Blue4130]

37 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

10850K is rated for 4.8Ghz allcore workloads, so you were close to the money for a guess.

If the motherboard uses a 125w PL1 he should still be seeing 4.3Ghz after minutes and minutes of a sustained AVX workload.

Depends on the load. That is why I said 4.7 (I chose the lower of speeds)

 

https://tpucdn.com/review/intel-core-i9-10850k/images/boost-clock-analysis.png

[StutterAndLag]

The big question is for everyone, is it my cpu bottlenecking me, or my ram? Im gonna assume cpu, which is why Ive been looking to upgrade it. Even after doing the Ram XMP adjustment games still lag. Mainly when CPU is stressed, such as multiple things moving at once (lots) 

[Blue4130]

17 minutes ago, StutterAndLag said:

The big question is for everyone, is it my cpu bottlenecking me, or my ram? Im gonna assume cpu, which is why Ive been looking to upgrade it. Even after doing the Ram XMP adjustment games still lag. Mainly when CPU is stressed, such as multiple things moving at once (lots) 

It's pretty easy to check. When gaming, have task manager or some other monitoring program open. Is one or more cores pegged at 100%? (set display to show all cores/threads)

[Likwid]

What is the CPU cooler, what's the temps.
And where are games placed, maybe drive is close to full?

[StutterAndLag]

30 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

It's pretty easy to check. When gaming, have task manager or some other monitoring program open. Is one or more cores pegged at 100%? (set display to show all cores/threads)

This is what it looks like. I believe I did it correctly. This is with the game running, in game, not paused. 

[StutterAndLag]

39 minutes ago, Likwid said:

What is the CPU cooler, what's the temps.
And where are games placed, maybe drive is close to full?

I have about 50GB of extra space on my SSD. But ive been at 100+ with the same issues. Temps sit around min 40c, max 63c

[BiG StroOnZ]

1 hour ago, StutterAndLag said:

The big question is for everyone, is it my cpu bottlenecking me, or my ram? Im gonna assume cpu, which is why Ive been looking to upgrade it. Even after doing the Ram XMP adjustment games still lag. Mainly when CPU is stressed, such as multiple things moving at once (lots) 

 

Pretty much unless you are running an AMD 3D V-Cache CPU or Intel 12th/13th/14th Gen i7/i9: chances are you are bottlenecking your 4090. Even then, many will argue if you are playing under 4K resolution (3840x2160p) with an RTX 4090; most CPUs are still going to bottleneck it (maybe not so much a 7800X3D or 14900k with 8000 MT/s memory).

 

In your case, if you're looking to get the most out of your 4090. You will probably want to go on AM5 with a 7800X3D for max FPS. If you do more than just game, perhaps try an i7-14700k with 7000+ MT/s memory instead. If you want to wait a little bit: Zen 5 and Arrow Lake are around the corner. If I was building now, this is probably what I would do: wait for independent benchmarks/reviews of Zen 5 vs Arrow Lake. In the case you have already decided on AMD; Zen 5 will be on AM5, so you can always upgrade to a faster Zen 5 V-Cache chip later on.

 

Still with your current system, this isn't the best case scenario I imagine:

 

41 minutes ago, StutterAndLag said:

This is what it looks like. I believe I did it correctly. This is with the game running, in game, not paused. 

 

It appears your RTX 4090 is barely being utilized. You can even tell from that temp. 

 

If you wanted to see if this can be improved. I recommend backing up all your files and doing a clean install of either Win10 or Win11. This will eliminate any possibility of you working with a 'bloated and bogged down' OS install (as LTT calls it). This can happen after some years accumulate from your initial OS install after various flushes of software, drivers, and registry files. This could somewhat be the culprit with your performance issues, since unless you reinstalled your OS recently, it could be a 4-year-old install at this point. Also, update your motherboard BIOS to newest revision, see if your SSD drives have any firmware updates, GPU too. This can all breathe new life into an aging system. Especially after installing the newest OS updates, chipset and graphics drivers. It all can revitalize an otherwise healthy system to its maximum potential again. I only recommend doing this if you are having issues though or are planning on upgrading anyway (as it is quite tedious). Since the main attributors to time consumption are what else to install right after you finish the OS install (which itself is usually done in 10-20 minutes). After you get everything set up again to your liking (easier, if you have the backups and 'software install prepping' taken care of ahead of time). You usually will notice an improvement in performance right away, assuming you didn't break anything (no PEBCAC).

 

Another consideration, you don't mention where the games are installed (SSD or HDD?). Some games this can affect performance; not having it on an SSD. Also, as mentioned: What are temps and usage in Cinebench R23, UNIGINE: Superposition, 3DMark FireStrike and 3DMark Time Spy? Might be time for repasting too. 

[StutterAndLag]

5 minutes ago, BiG StroOnZ said:

 

Pretty much unless you are running an AMD 3D V-Cache CPU or Intel 12th/13th/14th Gen i7/i9: chances are you are bottlenecking your 4090. Even then, many will argue if you are playing under 4K resolution (3840x2160p) with an RTX 4090; most CPUs are still going to bottleneck it (maybe not so much a 7800X3D or 14900k with 8000 MT/s memory).

 

In your case, if you're looking to get the most out of your 4090. You will probably want to go on AM5 with a 7800X3D for max FPS. If you do more than just game, perhaps try an i7-14700k with 7000+ MT/s memory instead. If you want to wait a little bit: Zen 5 and Arrow Lake are around the corner. If I was building now, this is probably what I would do: wait for independent benchmarks/reviews of Zen 5 vs Arrow Lake. In the case you have already decided on AMD; Zen 5 will be on AM5, so you can always upgrade to a faster Zen 5 V-Cache chip later on.

 

Still with your current system, this isn't the best case scenario I imagine:

 

 

It appears your RTX 4090 is barely being utilized. You can even tell from that temp. 

 

If you wanted to see if this can be improved. I recommend backing up all your files and doing a clean install of either Win10 or Win11. This will eliminate any possibility of you working with a 'bloated and bogged down' OS install (as LTT calls it). This can happen after some years accumulate from your initial OS install after various flushes of software, drivers, and registry files. This could somewhat be the culprit with your performance issues, since unless you reinstalled your OS recently, it could be a 4-year-old install at this point. Also, update your motherboard BIOS to newest revision, see if your SSD drives have any firmware updates, GPU too. This can all breathe new life into an aging system. Especially after installing the newest OS updates, chipset and graphics drivers. It all can revitalize an otherwise healthy system to its maximum potential again. I only recommend doing this if you are having issues though or are planning on upgrading anyway (as it is quite tedious). Since the main attributors to time consumption are what else to install right after you finish the OS install (which itself is usually done in 10-20 minutes). After you get everything set up again to your liking (easier, if you have the backups and 'software install prepping' taken care of ahead of time). You usually will notice an improvement in performance right away, assuming you didn't break anything (no PEBCAC).

 

Another consideration, you don't mention where the games are installed (SSD or HDD?). Some games this can affect performance; not having it on an SSD. Also, as mentioned: What are temps and usage in Cinebench R23, UNIGINE: Superposition, 3DMark FireStrike and 3DMark Time Spy? Might be time for repasting too. 

Hey thanks for the good reply! 

The OS was installed about 1 1/2 - 2 years ago. I would find it hard to believe a clean install would personally make that big of a difference, as I tend to keep the computer as clean as possible and remove unnecessary programs/files. The game (Mainly Hell let loose and jedi survivor) were first installed on my HDD. After trying everything I could do to fix it, I uninstalled and reinstalled to my SSD. I did see a bit of a performance increase, but nothing crazy. I've never personally have had a problem with ray tracing, or turning the graphics up (Figuring because I have a 4090) but mainly with games that have a lot of processes going on within them. For example, arma 3, hell let loose, jedi survivor etc. Ill have to get you the temps as I haven't checked that. I can definitely wait for the new CPU's to come out, as I didnt know they were just around the corner. Another tough question is AMD or intel, and what motherboard to go with for those. Granted, I guess when they fully get announced/released Ill know which one to go with. 

[BiG StroOnZ]

23 minutes ago, StutterAndLag said:

Hey thanks for the good reply! 

The OS was installed about 1 1/2 - 2 years ago. I would find it hard to believe a clean install would personally make that big of a difference, as I tend to keep the computer as clean as possible and remove unnecessary programs/files. The game (Mainly Hell let loose and jedi survivor) were first installed on my HDD. After trying everything I could do to fix it, I uninstalled and reinstalled to my SSD. I did see a bit of a performance increase, but nothing crazy. I've never personally have had a problem with ray tracing, or turning the graphics up (Figuring because I have a 4090) but mainly with games that have a lot of processes going on within them. For example, arma 3, hell let loose, jedi survivor etc. Ill have to get you the temps as I haven't checked that. I can definitely wait for the new CPU's to come out, as I didnt know they were just around the corner. Another tough question is AMD or intel, and what motherboard to go with for those. Granted, I guess when they fully get announced/released Ill know which one to go with. 

 

You're welcome.

 

If this is the case, that you keep your OS tidy, then you are probably right (that a clean install won't benefit you). You might want to try these CMD Commands as Admin alternatively:

 

sfc /scannow 

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth*

 

*Only used if other two DISM commands discover problems. 

 

Keeping games on the SSD can eliminate stupid bottlenecks, it's great to see you handled that already. Sometimes, certain games don't handle parked cores correctly. Are your cores parked? You can see this if you hover over each individual core in Task Manager. As far as temps and usage go, double check that in those specific benchmarks because that should really hammer the CPU/GPU.

 

Yeah, new CPU and GPU releases are soon. It's going to be an interesting battle for sure this upcoming gen. The question of AMD vs. Intel really is pretty self-explanatory, ATM. Are Intel going to beat a Zen 5 V-Cache CPU, the answer is probably not. However, what Intel is going to do is offer a new architecture that looks brilliant for mobile. How it's going to translate to the desktop, we will have to see. Best case scenario is stabler, lower TDP, more efficient Raptor Lake Refresh with better thermals. Worst case is some regression in performance. As far as motherboards go, both have decent budget options. But those usually take some time to come out. A few months after release, most people will have a good idea around here of how to throw together a nice system utilizing the newest platforms.

[Jeppes]

9 hours ago, StutterAndLag said:

I will say, after playing jedi survivor with XMP enabled it did make a huge difference. Still a bit stutter. but way better then any other solution. 

 

Some games will always have some stutter. Jedi Survivor is a UE4 open world so good luck finding a way to get rid of it all.

[Tetras]

9 hours ago, StutterAndLag said:

The big question is for everyone, is it my cpu bottlenecking me, or my ram? Im gonna assume cpu, which is why Ive been looking to upgrade it. Even after doing the Ram XMP adjustment games still lag. Mainly when CPU is stressed, such as multiple things moving at once (lots) 

It is hard to know without monitoring your usage more closely, sometimes these kind of issues (with lots happening on the screen) is an engine specific issue that can only be fixed by changing certain settings, or is just unfixable due to issues with the game itself.

 

You could upgrade to a 7800X3D which is the CPU that has the best chance of de-bottlenecking a 4090, but obviously that is going to cost you a lot of money and if I was not playing at a low resolution (e.g. 1080p or 1440p) or not a competitive gamer, then I'd stick with the 10850K.

 

In terms of memory, I don't know what the 10850K is normally capable of, but I think if you buy memory above what you have already (3600) you're likely to hit diminishing returns, so I'd be surprised if it was worth it. The issue with finding out is that the RAM benchmarks were done with much slower cards than a 4090, so I can't say how much faster RAM is capable of lifting the performance of the 10850K.