Where could be the bottleneck?

[keasy]

[First of all: I am from germany so please excuse the mistakes I probably did during this Topic]

 

Hey Guys,

 

I got a problem, although I am not really sure if it's a Problem of Hardware, Software or Budget tbh.

When I play a Game like GTA V or League of Legends there is the Problem of FPS drops. But when I say FPS drops I don't mean the counted rate of frames per second, because they are actually constantly over min. 40 fps [GTA] and min. 80 fps [LoL] on max graphic settings, no I mean the frames that I actually spot with my eyes in terms of smoothness in gameplay.

 

Now the problem is although I actually got pretty decent FPS [srsly 40 fps aren't bad and should actually function smoothly enough so there will be no lags, right?] I notice lags, and they are actually quite heavy when the FPS drops under 120 [LoL]. Now LoL has the option of Vertical Synch, and that helps out [on synched 60fps I have mostly no problem unless the weather temperatur reaches 30 degrees of Celsius (86f) and I play on balanced cooling options for hours.(When I play on performance cooling options everythings fine,tho)] but that quite "hurts" because I start up with about 320 fps [no vertical Synch] and in pretty rough teamfights they tend to drop to 80fps but actually are about 140-200 constantly on casual gaming times ingame and playing on 144+ fps is so much smoother than 60fps even when your monitor only shows 60fps. GTA V on the other hand starts from 40 and goes up to 80 fps while it's constantly on about 60+fps. But the synch option for GTA V doesnt help at all, it actually makes everything clunky and less smoother than without, so that's not helping to solve my problem.

 

I tried pretty much everything that I knew bout on software bases. Renewed Windows/Drivers/Software, installed graphics software and overclocked CPU aswell as GPU till both reached their max. limit. I also tried out some changes in the NVIDIA Systemsettings like tripple Vertical Synch and all kinds of stuff that might help out. And I also tried out to run GTA V on min. resolution to see if the CPU is bottlenecking. It actually didn't seem like the CPU is bottlenecking. The GPU is a max overclocked GTX 1070 with 8gb ram, should actually handle GTA V well, or am I wrong?

 

So the point is: When I have fps like constantly on about 60fps and min. on 40fps. Why isn't the game running smoothly?

 

The Questions are:

Is the CPU the bottleneck?

Is the GPU the bottleneck?

Is the software the bottleneck?

Could it be the RAM?

or is it the Monitor? (Which is the question that I think is probably the right question)

 

My RIG:

CPU:                   Intel Core i5 4670K @ 3,4Ghz overclocked to 4,4 Ghz (stable)

GPU:                   MSI GTX 1070 (X-Version)

RAM:                  8GB (2x 4096MB) Corsair Vengeance schwarz DDR3-1600 DIMM CL9-9-9-24 Dual Kit

Motherboard:      Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H Intel Z87 So.1150 Dual Channel DDR3 ATX Retail

Power by:           730 Watt be quiet! Pure Power L8 CM Modular 80+ Bronze

SSD:                   128GB SanDisk X110 2.5" (6.4cm) SATA 6Gb/s MLC asynchron (SD6SB1M-128G-1022i)

HHD:                  1000GB Seagate Desktop HDD ST1000DM003 7.200U/min 32MB 3.5" (8.9cm) SATA 6Gb/s

 

Monitor:              Acer 24 TFT H244HABMID

 

I'm not sure where I can work on because the theoretical fps are provided but practically I don't see the smoothness that should actually come with them. And I am always thinking about and I am actually quite sure that my monitor (which is several years old now) is the bottleneck, but before I go and buy a new monitor which will probably cost 300+ € ($344,35+) because when I buy a new monitor I want 27", 144 fps (to provide no bottleneck) and a decent reactiontime, I want to hear some more thought from some enthusiast and hopefully from some experts (that's why I ask on Linus Tech Tips' Forum).

 

Thank you for reading, thinking, and answering in advance

 

Have a nice day!

keasy

[The Sloth]

1 minute ago, keasy said:

I want 27", 144 fps

get a i7 4770k or 4790k 

[LienusLateTips]

The CPU is the bottleneck. Do a quick upgrade to a i7 4770K or 4790K.

[Skiiwee29]

Thats called micro stutter and its going to be your CPU. I had an i5 4690k with a GTX 1070 and it was bottlenecking my graphics card as it could not keep up with the demand of the card. Once I upgraded to a 6700k, problem solved. 

[stealth80]

I would say here it could be a combination of 8gb ram (do you have other programs open?) and the CPU.  As @nerdslayer1 said, look at a 4790k as they are both quite CPU intensive games.

 

To be sure, grab some hardware monitoring software and watch your CPU, Ram and GPU usage/utilization whilst playing these games and see what the issue is when the FPS drops occur

[keasy]

How could the CPU be the bottleneck when I have 40fps+? And I read the stats about the 4790k and it actually showed up that the perfomance spike isn't high enough to defend the costs.

[LienusLateTips]

6 minutes ago, keasy said:

How could the CPU be the bottleneck when I have 40fps+? And I read the stats about the 4790k and it actually showed up that the perfomance spike isn't high enough to defend the costs.

With modern games, things are getting a lot more multithreaded. 

[keasy]

Just now, JDE said:

With modern games, things are getting a lot more multithreaded. 

I see. And the monitor can't be the bottleneck?

And a 4790K as well as a 4770k costs like a 6700k and a 7700k (€320+) but with the 1151-CPUs I need a new motherboard and a RAM upgrade to 16gb on DDR4 is actually a "must-have" (or not?) while the 4790k/4770k don't need a motherboard upgrade but don't enable DDR4 support and actually brings up less performance. From the wallert perspective the 4790k/4770k makes more sense temporary but from a long time perspective the amount of money "thrown away" for a rig that will be needed to be upgraded totally again is too high or will the 4790/4770k with DDR3 ram last long enough (about 3 years min.) to defend those costs?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

17 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

To be sure, grab some hardware monitoring software and watch your CPU, Ram and GPU usage/utilization whilst playing these games and see what the issue is when the FPS drops occur

This. What you are looking for isn't a bottleneck: it is a diagnose. In order to conjecture why it happens, you want to gather information on utilization and temperature of the different components while gaming.

 

18 minutes ago, keasy said:

How could the CPU be the bottleneck when I have 40fps+?

It could be, and it may not be. The average frame rate may hide tiny instants in which the CPU can't keep up, only to immediately go back to normal. Such spikes would cause a stutter, yet they won't amount to much for the average FPS of long gaming sessions.

So, as suggested by @stealth80, you want to look at CPU, GPU, and memory utilization while you game, and even better if you have that information around the exact time in which the stutter happens.

[Princess Luna]

Wenn ich zu erraten hätte, würde ich sagen, dass Ihr kühlsystem kaputt ist. Sie sollten Ihre temperaturen bei Volllast (Cinebench + msi afterburner) testen.

Bei hohen temperaturen einfach eine neue thermische paste anwenden und dafür sorgen, dass alles eng genug ist.

[stealth80]

7 minutes ago, keasy said:

I see. And the monitor can't be the bottleneck?

And a 4790K as well as a 4770k costs like a 6700k and a 7700k (€320+) but with the 1151-CPUs I need a new motherboard and a RAM upgrade to 16gb on DDR4 is actually a "must-have" (or not?) while the 4790k/4770k don't need a motherboard upgrade but don't enable DDR4 support and actually brings up less performance. From the wallert perspective the 4790k/4770k makes more sense temporary but from a long time perspective the amount of money "thrown away" for a rig that will be needed to be upgraded totally again is too high or will the 4790/4770k with DDR3 ram last long enough (about 3 years min.) to defend those costs?

Ok lets help clear some stuff up here 

 

Firstly as you asked earlier - why is it a bottleneck? Basically the CPU can't process the information fast in enough in order for the GPU to render the information at the rate it needs to in order to maintain that 80 FPS. So what happens is this - think of the information between the CPU and the GPU like a running hose pipe. What happens to flow from the pipe if you squeeze it with your fingers? It slows down.

 

Now imagine that the pipe is filling buckets of water that you need to keep emptying into a pond - what's gonna happen? The buckets are gonna fill slower due to the restriction in flow (GPU) and you're gonna see your pond fill slower (FPS) 

 

So if we increase the flow rate through the pipe we're gonna get buckets filled faster etc etc. 

 

now imagine we have a bigger bucket (better GPU) and we're gonna put 8 hoses into. If you squeeze 2 pipes you're still gonna have 6 pipes filling your bucket. This would be your i7 vs the original single core CPU

 

 

 

Sorry if that seems basic, just a really simple way of explaining CPU speed vs Cores.

 

 

now to your issue - Is it worth it? As you rightly said, the 4790K (the option you should pick in this scenario provided your board supports it) will give you great frame rates and is still a good CPU. I recently upgraded from it to a Ryzen 1700 - the resale cost of the CPU, board and 32gb ram payed for my CPU and board and 50% of my ram cost. 

 

For purely gaming, I wouldn't say a new platform is warranted provided you can pick up a 4790k for a good price, by that I mean < $200. If you're gonna spend $200 + on a CPU you may aswell get a Ryzen 1600 new board and ram and sell what you have now to get some of the money back. If you do go ryzen, don't skimp on ram, 3200mhz is a sweet spot

[stealth80]

5 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Wenn ich zu erraten hätte, würde ich sagen, dass Ihr kühlsystem kaputt ist. Sie sollten Ihre temperaturen bei Volllast (Cinebench + msi afterburner) testen.

Bei hohen temperaturen einfach eine neue thermische paste anwenden und dafür sorgen, dass alles eng genug ist.

I'm not sure, I would expect programs to shut down, cards only normally throttle to non boost temperatures (from my experience) if thermally throttling - at a 50% FPS drop you could expect (I know that it aint this simple) a 50% drop in clock speed - which seems excessive for it to reduce that far and not crash the driver. I mean, its not a totally unviable solution for sure and certainly worth looking at

 

Not sure if OP speaks german - i'm guessing so - but - basically, how are your temps and airflow? 

[Princess Luna]

@stealth80 Ever since this case scenario following:

I simply never ignore how likely a malfunctioning cooler can be on issues like this where performance is not desirable but the build is supposedly balanced.

[stealth80]

4 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

@stealth80 Ever since this case scenario following:

I simply never ignore how likely a malfunctioning cooler can be on issues like this where performance is not desirable but the build is supposedly balanced.

Wow that is .... even before I got serious about my modding, I still knew to clean my PC out twice a year and just a quick run over the external fan filters with the hoover .... (obviously the PC was switched off) 

[keasy]

25 minutes ago, stealth80 said:

I'm not sure, I would expect programs to shut down, cards only normally throttle to non boost temperatures (from my experience) if thermally throttling - at a 50% FPS drop you could expect (I know that it aint this simple) a 50% drop in clock speed - which seems excessive for it to reduce that far and not crash the driver. I mean, its not a totally unviable solution for sure and certainly worth looking at

 

Not sure if OP speaks german - i'm guessing so - but - basically, how are your temps and airflow? 

Yes I do speak german

My temperaturs on full load (overclocked) are about 80 degrees (CPU). My CPU is watercooled and my case has 4 fans, 2 dragging cold air 2 pushing hot air. My GPU temps don't go higher than 50/60 (full load) [degrees Celsius].