Multimonitor choppy performance on mid-high end machine

AMDphreak · May 24

I have been using 2 monitors for about 6 years, and, in spite of several hardware upgrades and a careful audit of performance during reinstall that resulted in discovering a major performance problem with AMD's chipset driver (or driver conflict), I continue to have major performance issues on my desktop. The framerate often tanks during window operations on the desktop. Even something as simple as dragging a window's title bar out of full-screen mode causing it to redraw at a non-fullscreen resolution causes micro-lag with several visible redraws on the 144 Hz monitor. Typical workload is about 50 tabs open in chrome-based browsers (Vivaldi and Edge sharing 50 tabs). I have 32 GB of DDR4-4000 RAM underclocked to DDR4-3200 to satisfy CPU overclocking limitations. All of it is used or cached (standby). The system performance tends to be significantly better on a fresh copy of Windows before completely installing all of the software I use for media creation, software development and gaming. I reinstalled in January of this year. The performance is still much better than it was, but this choppy context switching is really annoying. Aside from gaming while editing videos, I believe my machine should be able to handle all modern workloads.

Is my hardware insufficient in any known way? What would I need to buy to guarantee smooth operation? Is my GPU not appropriate for multi-monitor operations? Is it not suitable for greater than 1080p monitor workflows?

Screens:

BenQ SW2700-PT photography monitor at 1440p, 60 Hz, 10-bit color. (Screen A)
ASUS VP249 gaming monitor at 1080p, 144 Hz, 8-bit color. (Screen B)
Both of these are color managed using DisplayCal Loader running at 10-bit depth (meaning I have limited the daemon is to 10-bits for calculations). The 8-bit monitor uses an 8-bit per channel color profile.

Moving window from Screen A to B or B to A causes a huge drop in FPS during the transition. Minimizing windows on screen A in particular (but also often on B) frequently has major fps drops and it will just look very choppy. Sometimes this happens on Screen B too, but less likely.

System Information Report (Based on CPU-Z TXT Report)

Software Versions:

CPU-Z Version: 2.15.0.x64
Windows Version: Microsoft Windows 11 Professional (x64), Version 24H2, Build 26100.4061
DirectX Version: 12.0

Core Components:

Processor (CPU):
- Name: AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with Radeon Graphics
- Codename: Cezanne
- Specification: AMD Ryzen 7 5700G with Radeon Graphics
- Package: Socket AM4 (1331)
- Technology: 7 nm
- Core Speed: ~3798.7 MHz
- Number of Cores: 8
- Number of Threads: 16
Motherboard (Baseboard):
- Vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
- Model: ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING WIFI II
- BIOS Vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
- BIOS Version: 3611
- BIOS Date: 09/29/2024
Chipset:
- Northbridge: AMD Ryzen SOC rev. 00
- Southbridge: AMD B550 rev. 51
- Graphic Interface: PCI-Express 4.0
Memory (RAM):
- Type: DDR4
- Size: 32 GBytes
- Channels: 2 x 64-bit
- Frequency: ~1597.8 MHz (1:16)
- CAS# latency (CL): 24.0
- RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD): 23
- RAS# Precharge (tRP): 23
- Cycle Time (tRAS): 52
- Command Rate (CR): 1T
- DIMM #1: Patriot Memory 16384 MBytes, DDR4-4000 (2000 MHz), Part Number: 4000 Series
- DIMM #2: Patriot Memory 16384 MBytes, DDR4-4000 (2000 MHz), Part Number: 4000 Series

Graphics Adapters:

Display Adapter 0:
- Name: AMD Radeon(TM) Graphics
- Board Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer Inc.
- Memory size: 512 MB
- Driver version: 31.0.21921.1000
Display Adapter 1 (Primary):
- Name: AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT
- Board Manufacturer: GIGABYTE Technology
- Memory type: GDDR6
- Memory vendor: Samsung
- Memory size: 8176 MB
- Driver version: 32.0.12036.8

Storage Devices:

Drive 0:
- Name: Mobius H/W RAID5
- Capacity: 7451.9 GB
- Type: Fixed
- Bus Type: SATA
- Controller: Serial ATA Controller - AHCI
Drive 1:
- Name: CT500MX500SSD1
- Capacity: 465.8 GB
- Type: Fixed, SSD
- Bus Type: SATA
- Controller: Serial ATA Controller - AHCI
Drive 2:
- Name: Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB
- Capacity: 232.9 GB
- Type: Fixed, SSD
- Bus Type: SATA
- Controller: Serial ATA Controller - AHCI
Drive 3:
- Name: CT500P1SSD8
- Capacity: 465.8 GB
- Type: Fixed, SSD
- Bus Type: NVMe
- Controller: NVM Express (NVMe) Controller
Drive 4:
- Name: WD_BLACK SN850X 2000GB
- Capacity: 1863.0 GB
- Type: Fixed, SSD
- Bus Type: NVMe
- Controller: NVM Express (NVMe) Controller

System Information (DMI):

System Manufacturer: ASUS
System Product: System Product Name
System Version: System Version
Baseboard Vendor: ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
Baseboard Model: ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING WIFI II
Baseboard Revision: Rev X.0x

Monitors:

Monitor 0:
- Model: BenQ SW2700
- Manufacturing Date: Week 24, Year 2017
- Size: 27.2 inches
- Max Resolution: 2560 x 1440 @ 59 Hz
Monitor 1:
- Model: ASUS VP249
- Manufacturing Date: Week 2, Year 2021
- Size: 24.0 inches
- Max Resolution: 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz

AMDphreak · May 24

I can provide PerformanceTest 10.2 results if necessary.

UDPATE: I had a multi-GPU setting in BIOS enabled, because I had previously experienced improved performance in games if I offloaded the Photography monitor to the iGPU. This significantly contributed to the fps drop between monitors and with restoring windows from full-screen, however the performance issues are not all gone. They have changed in characteristic. Now, I get random fps drops during normal window move operations in the same monitor. They are not as significant as the previous issues, but I want a SUPER SMOOTH experience. Note that the fps drops do not always happen. I will be monitoring this to see what triggers it now.