Low FPS GTX 1080 Ti i7 6700k

[Aidan5206]

I recently upgraded from a gtx 970 to a gtx 1080 ti expecting way higher fps, however, I was disappointed to find that my fps wasn't nearly as high as it should be. 

System Specs:

Evga GTX 1080 TI

i7 6700k @ 4.4GHz

8gb ddr4 2133 MHz

240GB SSD

Z270x Gaming 5 Aorus Motherboard

When I play games such as COD BO4: Blackout, no matter the graphics setting I use, I hover around 60-70fps with crazy stuttering. (3440-1440 120hz monitor). I suspect that I need to upgrade my ram to 16GB rated at a faster speed, but do I need to upgrade my CPU because I would think that an i7 is good enough for this graphics card. However, most games have at least 70% utilization and some such as Gta 5 and Battlefield are almost always maxing out the CPU at 95%. The GPU usage never reaches 100%, sometimes it is stuck around 30. This seems really odd for an i7 to be struggling like this, is it possible that I have a bad chip or something. 

[Spotty]

6 minutes ago, Aidan5206 said:

When I play games such as COD BO4: Blackout, no matter the graphics setting I use, I hover around 60-70fps with crazy stuttering.

8gb ddr4 2133 MHz

The RAM is your problem. 8GB of RAM is not enough for modern AAA titles these days. Is it a single 8GB stick or is it 2x4GB sticks?
I'd recommend swapping it out for a 2x8GB 3000MHz kit.

 

The CPU should be fine, especially at 3440x1440 resolution when the GPU will be doing most of the heavy lifting.

[Aidan5206]

7 minutes ago, Spotty said:

The RAM is your problem. 8GB of RAM is not enough for modern AAA titles these days. Is it a single 8GB stick or is it 2x4GB sticks?
I'd recommend swapping it out for a 2x8GB 3000MHz kit.

 

The CPU should be fine, especially at 3440x1440 resolution when the GPU will be doing most of the heavy lifting.

Ya I thought the ram would be an issue. But also (i updated my post) almost every game I play is stressing the CPU heavily which is odd because I thought it would be chilling at almost 4k res. 

[Spotty]

32 minutes ago, Aidan5206 said:

However, most games have at least 70% utilization and some such as Gta 5 and Battlefield are almost always maxing out the CPU at 95%. The GPU usage never reaches 100%, sometimes it is stuck around 30.

Battlefield games are incredibly CPU intensive due to their physics and destructible world environments. I see 40-70% CPU usage in GTA V as well. Are you checking total CPU usage or individual core usage? Sometimes individual cores that are tasked with a specific task can be stressed harder than the other cores.

 

16 minutes ago, Aidan5206 said:

Ya I thought the ram would be an issue. But also (i updated my post) almost every game I play is stressing the CPU heavily which is odd because I thought it would be chilling at almost 4k res. 

It's not due to the CPU. Regardless of what resolution you are at, your system still needs adequate memory to run the game. If you check task manager, or better yet MSI Afterburner, while you are playing the game, it will likely show you sitting at around 7.5+ of 8GB used, and at this point your system will start relying on the pagefile (SSD) to handle memory.
The reason your GPU is dropping down to 30% utilisation is likely because it is waiting for information from the CPU and memory - in this particular case most likely the memory.

 

I would hazard a guess that in GTA V when you drive around you will experience some heavy stutters and hiccups while CPU usage and GPU usage will be relatively low when it happens? I probably see one thread here every week with users running 8GB of RAM having the exact same issues in GTA V; regardless of what CPU, GPU, resolution, and settings they're using.

 

Unfortunately changing the settings to a higher resolution or higher graphical settings won't help, and may even just make things worse as it could require more system memory at higher settings. Best thing to do, until you're able to upgrade the RAM, is ensure any programs you don't need running are shut down and there aren't any unnecessary programs running in the background while you are gaming. Closing your browser can save you between 500MB to many GBs of RAM usage depending on what plugins you have, what websites you have open and how many tabs are open. Though, I think even doing this may not help you in games such as GTA V and Battlefield V.

[Aidan5206]

7 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Unfortunately changing the settings to a higher resolution or higher graphical settings won't help, and may even just make things worse as it could require more system memory at higher settings. Best thing to do, until you're able to upgrade the RAM, is ensure any programs you don't need running are shut down and there aren't any unnecessary programs running in the background while you are gaming. Closing your browser can save you between 500MB to many GBs of RAM usage depending on what plugins you have, what websites you have open and how many tabs are open. Though, I think even doing this may not help you in games such as GTA V and Battlefield V.

 

I guess I'll pick up a kit of 16GB 3200MHz Trident RGB ram and see how it goes.