Games start at crisp steady 75 fps, then lower to a consistent stuttery 40fps.

Mar 1, 2024
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I bought this prebuilt maybe 4 years ago. I don't understand all of the terminology, but here is a recent benchmark I did. I was surprised how its holding up to its age (14% above average for similar specs)

My GPU is performing super low at 12% percentile and my SSD drive also low at 25% percentile. My DDR4 memory is great at 90% percentile and i7-8700 great at 95% percentile. It gave my PC a "93% gaming score" (whatever that means) and says it can handle almost all games at ultra levels

When I play new games on they always start at a crisp 75FPS. But after playing for a while or playing with many people it goes to 40fps and stutters a lot. It happens on Helldivers 2 and DayZ. I only play on medium-low and 1080p Fullscreen. I don't think its thermal throttling because my limit is 88C, I manually turned my fans up and temperature seems to be stabilized to around 70C looking at MSI afterburner.

Is this performance just age and to be expected or a sign there is a fixable problem? Could I provide any other details to help you guys tell why this happens?
 
You have given a lot of percentile figures but no make model of your componants such as what make is your graphics card. If you are not sure how to find all this information download a free program called belarc advisor you will surprised at just how much information it will list about your pc.

Your graphics card fans should spin a few seconds at start up then not turn back on till the temp gets to around 74 degrees. Stuttering can be caused by
  • Malware or RAM problems.
  • Underpowered GPU.
  • Overheating.
  • High RAM usage.
  • CPU bottleneck.
Can you give a bit more information on what problems you are wanting to fix.

Their are many reasons why frame rate and performance in general goes up and down.

1. a busy screen such as big battles or lots of machines moving or in races lots of action.
2. is the pc capable of running a certain game or is it only just managing.
3. individual setting of a game can have a big impact on how a pc runs a game.
 
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playing with many people it goes to 40fps and stutters a lot.
looks like cpu overhead to me. what memory do you have ? is it some basic 2133/2400 or is it some faster 3200-3600 ddr4 ? single or dual channel ?
if you play with low-med settings on rtx2080 at 1080p and it still happens, it does certainly look like cpu overhead to me.
download msi afterburner, enable osd in game and tell us if gpu usage drops when this happens.
 
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Mar 1, 2024
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You have given a lot of percentile figures but no make model of your componants such as what make is your graphics card. If you are not sure how to find all this information download a free program called belarc advisor you will surprised at just how much information it will list about your pc.

Your graphics card fans should spin a few seconds at start up then not turn back on till the temp gets to around 74 degrees. Stuttering can be caused by
  • Malware or RAM problems.
  • Underpowered GPU.
  • Overheating.
  • High RAM usage.
  • CPU bottleneck.
Can you give a bit more information on what problems you are wanting to fix.

Their are many reasons why frame rate and performance in general goes up and down.

1. a busy screen such as big battles or lots of machines moving or in races lots of action.
2. is the pc capable of running a certain game or is it only just managing.
3. individual setting of a game can have a big impact on how a pc runs a game.
Unless I messed up I linked both the exact prebuild I have and I linked a benchmark test that also shows all of my specs and other facts about their performance
 
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Mar 1, 2024
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looks like cpu overhead to me. what memory do you have ? is it some basic 2133/2400 or is it some faster 3200-3600 ddr4 ? single or dual channel ?
if you play with low-med settings on rtx2080 at 1080p and it still happens, it does certainly look like cpu overhead to me.
download msi afterburner, enable osd in game and tell us if gpu usage drops when this happens.
"HyperX® 16 GB DDR4-2666 SDRAM (2 x 8 GB)"

Does CPU overhead mean it is using too much of my CPU and not enough of my GPU?

Edit: my GPU usage during good fps is like 70% and during the bad fps its like 55%, not a huge difference but maybe that makes a big difference?
 
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CPU overhead, commonly known as a bottleneck. Quite likely in the types of games you mentioned with the age of your CPU, and with the fact you now said your only getting 50-75% use out of the GPU.

It was the fact you said it always starts off at 75 frames and then over time comes down lower that made me wonder if youre also getting CPU thermal throttling due to a dusty heatsink and case fan filters, possible the thermal paste on CPU dried up as well.

Its worth cleaning out the case and heatsinks with a can of air or a blower of some sort. Just make sure you dont go rubbing the electronics with a cloth or using a vacuum directly in the case. To replace the TIM you can easily find a good guide on Youtube or somewhere else on the web, sure Linus or Jayz2cents will have a video on that.
 
"HyperX® 16 GB DDR4-2666 SDRAM (2 x 8 GB)"

Does CPU overhead mean it is using too much of my CPU and not enough of my GPU?

Edit: my GPU usage during good fps is like 70% and during the bad fps its like 55%, not a huge difference but maybe that makes a big difference?
55% is awful, that's why the drops happen. CPU overhead means that in games that are very single threaded, your old cpu is struggling if it can't use all 6 cores. Needs a newer cpu and faster ram. 8700 non-K and 2666mhz ddr4 just isn't cutting it anymore for new, single threaded games. 5600x/11400f + 3200 ram seems like a bare minimum to me atm to fully utilize a gpu like 2080 at 1080p, it's still plenty fast at that resolution. You can try to get a used 9900k and swap the ram for 3200, should be the cheapest option to upgrade. See if your board supporst them though.
 
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