Opinion on bottleneck

[Numbafieve]

So about 3 ish years ago after my last computer died i got a new one as a gift.  My parents got it and didn't know much so they just got a decent prebuilt from microcenter.  Since then I have changed almost everything in it so that the only OEM parts are the motherboard and memory.

 

Ill put my current specs below,  In skyrim and WoWs mostly I can be getting 60fps and then all of a sudden its ~30 and my GPU is only at 30% usage, CPU is at 24% and RAM is the usual 4GB used.  I can not figure out where the bottleneck is. I was about to buy some faster RAM today since that's basically the last component that isn't upgraded yet.  An employee at microcenter stopped me and said it was my motherboard causing the bottleneck.  I don't trust him since he said some other sketchy things that make me sure he was guessing.  His argument was that my PCIe bus was the bottleneck but i'm not sure a 2.0 x16 would do that and i'm not even sure if i have 2.0 or 3.0 since my motherboard has less than satisfactory info about it.  

 

so far I havent found anything on what revision of PCIe my motherboard has but if you can figure it out and tell me if you think its that or the RAM speed that would help.  Im at such a loss right now.

 

GPU: GTX1070

CPU: 3770 non K

RAM: 8GB 1330Mhz

Motherboard: H61H2-CM

Storage: some PNY SSD (the slower of their current two)

Resolution: 5760x1080

 

EDIT: It just hit me to search up the chipset and it is 2.0 so opinions on RAM or PCIe is all i need now

[SteinerW]

Doesn't sound like it's a hardware bottleneck then. If you're not running out of RAM, your temps are fine, and your powersupply is good enough, there should be no reason for you to have frame dips like that. most likely a software thing.

 

You aren't running vsync by chance are you?

[SteinerW]

Also are you running dual channel memory?

[Numbafieve]

2 minutes ago, 3DGamerOnSteam said:

Also are you running dual channel memory?

Yes amazingly

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

i blame software

[Numbafieve]

4 minutes ago, 3DGamerOnSteam said:

Doesn't sound like it's a hardware bottleneck then. If you're not running out of RAM, your temps are fine, and your powersupply is good enough, there should be no reason for you to have frame dips like that. most likely a software thing.

 

You aren't running vsync by chance are you?

Skyrim forces Vsync but its at 60 and I get 60 about 95% of the time

[SteinerW]

Just now, Numbafieve said:

Skyrim forces Vsync but its at 60 and I get 60 about 95% of the time

You sure it forces it? Vsync will drop your frame rate to 30 if you have any less than 60 fps. If you can turn vsync off, try it.

[Gonio]

Saying you PCIe gen 2 is the problem is garbage. That hasn't bottlenecked a GPU for ages. For the RAM 1333 is not the highest, but also not the lowest. Would not look at the speed being a problem unless it is other then specified.

 

Could still be your RAM, but you sure about your CPU usage during gaming and when it happens?

[Numbafieve]

3 minutes ago, 3DGamerOnSteam said:

You sure it forces it? Vsync will drop your frame rate to 30 if you have any less than 60 fps. If you can turn vsync off, try it.

It doesnt behave exactly like normal Vsync with the mods i have but it acts more like a cap of 60  

[Numbafieve]

2 minutes ago, Gonio said:

Saying you PCIe gen 2 is the problem is garbage. That hasn't bottlenecked a GPU for ages. For the RAM 1333 is not the highest, but also not the lowest. Would not look at the speed being a problem unless it is other then specified.

 

Could still be your RAM, but you sure about your CPU usage during gaming and when it happens?

Yah i have a 4th screen just for MSI afterburner so i can watch the graphs as im playing and i even checked it with task manager.  Cpu caps at 24% usage on skyrim.  I had an i5 3450 before this and would hit about 70% usage but with the higher clocked i7 there is still no difference.

[Gonio]

Ok, are drivers up to date? Do you have background stuff running like recording programs etc? No internet hickup causing connection issues?

[Numbafieve]

2 hours ago, Gonio said:

Ok, are drivers up to date? Do you have background stuff running like recording programs etc? No internet hickup causing connection issues?

Yah recently Nvidia messed up my whole setup so i ended up updating everything.  I dont usually have background programs up but even when i do i never see a performance hit.  And as for my internet connection its pretty fast to begin with but skyrim doesnt use it.

[Gonio]

It's a oddball this one since your usage of parts don't seem to be the issue, however the problems you describe looks like the GPU is held back.

 

Tried messing around with videosettings? Is Vsync on? If possible disable buffering and see if that helps. Been a while for Wow, but there was a option for it in the past. Do you also encounter this if you play on 1 screen?

[Numbafieve]

34 minutes ago, Gonio said:

It's a oddball this one since your usage of parts don't seem to be the issue, however the problems you describe looks like the GPU is held back.

 

Tried messing around with videosettings? Is Vsync on? If possible disable buffering and see if that helps. Been a while for Wow, but there was a option for it in the past. Do you also encounter this if you play on 1 screen?

Ill go do that but if i remember correctly it didnt do it as often on one screen.  It did this same thing with my 390

[DunePilot]

Are you watching netflix on another screen in Chrome? I've seen it where Chrome will make your games drop down to 24 FPS or get hickups if you are watching netflix or Hulu on another screen if your game is in windowed fullscreen mode. If you use the netflix app you won't have that problem, probably not your issue but just tossing that info out there.

[Numbafieve]

On 11/8/2016 at 7:00 PM, DunePilot said:

Are you watching netflix on another screen in Chrome? I've seen it where Chrome will make your games drop down to 24 FPS or get hickups if you are watching netflix or Hulu on another screen if your game is in windowed fullscreen mode. If you use the netflix app you won't have that problem, probably not your issue but just tossing that info out there.

sorry for the late response but no i usually do 1 thing at a time and never stream and play at the same time.

[Numbafieve]

On 11/8/2016 at 3:54 PM, Gonio said:

It's a oddball this one since your usage of parts don't seem to be the issue, however the problems you describe looks like the GPU is held back.

 

Tried messing around with videosettings? Is Vsync on? If possible disable buffering and see if that helps. Been a while for Wow, but there was a option for it in the past. Do you also encounter this if you play on 1 screen?

So i bought some 2400Mhz ram that is only running at 1600 right now but i have had a frame rate increase so i think the problem is the software might have been making too many draw calls or something for the CPU and it in return needed RAM to do stuff which it couldn't keep up with.  just the 300Mhz higher RAM is giving me about 7 more FPS on average when it drops.  So im going to try and get it to run faster and hope that does the trick.