How can I locate the origin of the issue?
How can I locate the origin of the issue?
Hey! I purchased and assembled this PC in July 2022, and since then I haven’t experienced any moment where I thought "Wow! This PC is so good." It handles games like CS2 and Valorant quite well—perfect for lighter titles—but struggles with heavier ones such as COD, Elden Ring (even though optimization isn’t ideal), and other applications. Even after adjusting settings, performance remains inconsistent.
Over the past two years I’ve attempted to resolve this repeatedly, but nothing worked. XMP is enabled, I’ve changed graphics settings, updated drivers for the GPU, and tried various configurations. There are so many options available, which makes it hard to know what to do next.
I’m not a big fan of having to perform a full clean install either. Here’s my PC specs:
- Operating System: Win11
- Display: 1440p
- CPU: i5 12600K
- Cooler: Corsair H150i Elite Capellix
- GPU: MSI 3080 Suprim X
- Motherboard: ROG STRIX B660 A Gaming
- RAM: Vengeance RGB Pro SL (2x16)
- Storage: 1TB M.2, 2TB M.2
- Power Supply: Corsair RM750x
In terms of temperatures, it rarely exceeds 50%, often dropping to 40% or lower, and around 30% during gameplay—sometimes it feels unusually low.
The two Time Spy benchmarks I shared show results with different power plans: one at "Ultimate" and another at "High Performance." I used the Ultimate plan for two years, but that’s not the main concern. About two days ago, I also ran a benchmark and achieved around 16.7k points.
I really value your help if you need more detailed tests. If you’d like, just let me know—I’m open to further analysis. Unfortunately, I’m quite confused about interpreting benchmarks and deciding which ones matter most.
Links:
https://ibb.co/rpk0L0D
https://ibb.co/ZfzwH7B
What do you anticipate?
Your CPU/GPU performance is solid.
Execute the cpu-z benchmark on your i5-12600K.
You should achieve a single-thread score around 773:
https://valid.x86.fr/bench/bhgfiz/1
Just a reflection on what you mentioned, the temperatures tend to stay moderate. This suggests the software isn't forcing the hardware beyond its limits. I can't confirm anything definitively, but it's likely the games are playing a role in this problem with the heavier titles you referred to.
For a GPU to perform better, it needs more data, which then requires the CPU to work harder. The CPU might need additional resources from RAM, the M.2 slot, or a network connection. This brings up two points to verify.
First, check if both the GPU and CPU are operating near their maximum potential. If the CPU is at 50% while the GPU is at 100%, it means the GPU is limiting performance. When both are around 30% or 50%, they’re considered balanced—good. If data flow isn’t the issue, the problem usually lies with feeding more information.
On the other hand, sometimes RAM doesn’t support XMP profiles (or something similar). You could look into your BIOS settings to see if any high-speed profiles are missing. Remember, I’m not talking about overclocking, just regular higher clock speeds that might not be set by default.
If the RAM is behaving as a single channel (as you mentioned having two sticks), it could be due to either (A) incorrect MOBO slots or (B) mismatched timings—meaning you likely bought them separately instead of a bundled set.
I also recommend ensuring you have at least 32 GB of RAM, which should handle most tasks without needing swap. Even for testing, disabling or removing any swap should help. If this resolves the issue, it might point to overclocking or hardware wear on your M.2 drives.
Hi, thanks for your reply!
I’ll need to run additional tests to be sure 100% whether one of those two is causing a bottleneck, but I’m leaning toward it being balanced. Do you know how to determine if one is slowing down the other? Also, how can I verify that they are operating at full capacity?
I plan to check the high-speed profiles in BIOS soon, as you suggested. I’m pretty confident the MOBO slots are correct—just not perfect, but functional—and I’m unsure if I interpreted you right since both sticks came from the same package.
Also, I want to read more about "swap" since I’ve never heard of it before.
Thanks!
My hopes were that the PC would operate smoothly at over 100 FPS regardless of graphic configurations. Some highly demanding games might struggle with more than 100 FPS on maximum settings, but at least they should run without noticeable lag. A note: I just need my PC to handle games effortlessly without issues. I don’t recall the exact reason for these expectations, and it’s frustrating if high settings don’t perform well yet.
I just ran the CPU-Z benchmark, and it’s a bit unclear where to find it. Here’s the link:
https://valid.x86.fr/e0qhhv
Does it matter if you close all other applications except CPU-Z?
The overall thread number, if interpreted correctly, is 6324 while other scores are higher, around 7220.
I believe many submitted results have overclocked their systems, which explains why yours appears lower.
My focus was actually on the single thread rating, which gamers most value.
Changes in settings and resolution mainly affect the graphics card.
Try this test:
Play YOUR games, but reduce the resolution and visual complexity.
This can slightly strain the graphics card.
If your FPS improves, it suggests your CPU is powerful enough to support better graphics settings.
If your FPS remains unchanged, you’re likely more constrained by your CPU.
I understand, I'll try that as soon as possible!
If the FPS actually goes up, it might mean I need to play at a lower resolution, which would be quite convenient and nice to see.
Also, when I assembled my PC, I made sure my GPU wasn't overloaded by my CPU. The 12600K was expected to have minimal bottlenecking.
I'm just puzzled about why such a relatively new PC with good components isn't running very well on its own.
Another thing I consider is my friend's new PC that I helped him build. It costs about the same as mine at that time, and yes, obviously newer parts will perform better than they did two years ago, though I never imagined his RX 7900 XTX + 7800X3D would be about three times faster than my setup.
Based on just the Time Spy results it seems like your CPU might be underperforming some. I'm guessing this is a DDR4 system which can certainly have an impact on certain games (latencies also can come into play). While the B660 platform prevents CPU overclocking it should be running Intel's standard turbo which it doesn't look like it is. The Time Spy results are showing what looks to be ~4.5Ghz which is definitely slower than it should be.
Check if you can execute this. Click the green human to proceed - UserBenchmark. If successful, share the results link once completed.