Extremely stuck with my build. Possible bottlenecking? (major FPS problems)

[kswan]

Hello there. I've trying to figure out what is wrong with my PC, but I don't know very much about computers. I was hoping someone could point out something with my spec and help me out a little. I've done some searching and it seems like my cpu is "bottlenecking" my graphics card? Or maybe its the other way around. Is that true? If so, is there anyway around it to get the most out of my build, or do I just need to get new parts? Or maybe I am completely off all together. Thanks for anything in advance!

UserBenchmarks: Game 77%, Desk 73%, Work 40%
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 - 61.7%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080 - 87.3%
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB - 119%
RAM: Crucial BLS8G4D30BESBK.8FB 2x8GB - 66.2%
MBD: MSI B150 GAMING M3 (MS-7978)

 

[Rowsol]

You aren't giving anything to go on. What problems are you having? There's nothing wrong with your gear. If you're having severe performance drops lower the settings of the game you're playing. If that doesn't work and you think you might have a virus or something software related wrong, reinstall windows and start fresh.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

^ Bottlenecking of a GPU will depend on the game and the settings along with what you are trying to do in the background.

You will need to provide more detail in regards to symptoms and what you are doing to get those.

 

[toyo]

Hello there. I've trying to figure out what is wrong with my PC, but I don't know very much about computers. I was hoping someone could point out something with my spec and help me out a little. I've done some searching and it seems like my cpu is "bottlenecking" my graphics card? Or maybe its the other way around. Is that true? If so, is there anyway around it to get the most out of my build, or do I just need to get new parts? Or maybe I am completely off all together. Thanks for anything in advance!

UserBenchmarks: Game 77%, Desk 73%, Work 40%
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 - 61.7%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080 - 87.3%
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB - 119%
RAM: Crucial BLS8G4D30BESBK.8FB 2x8GB - 66.2%
MBD: MSI B150 GAMING M3 (MS-7978)

UserBenchmarks is not that useful a site. It does look that the 1080 is underperforming, yes, and the 4 core locked i5 CPU most definitely does not help. It should still do fine in many games, but the 1080 is a pretty good card, if you play at 1080p, especially if you lower settings, uncapped framerate, it will demand more than your CPU can offer. Another problematic scenario are older games depending on single core power, as WoW used to be (probably still is to this day, even after the multicore optimizations). Your CPU can't be overclocked, so you're stuck with that performance. Even if you get an unlocked i5 or i7, for example the 6700K, it will still run at stock speed.

Your motherboard also probably does not support XMP above 2133MHz, and this is also affecting CPU performance. Only way to make it faster is tighten up latencies, which I would not recommend bothering with unless you're really bored and feel like stresstesting for hours.

So what you can do to speed things up?

- best solution is probably start saving money for a new PC. You can keep the RAM (not ideal, but Google says it can do 3000MHz, which should be decent even for Ryzen), the 850 Evo SSD, and the GPU. You'll need a new motherboard (this time get one with a chipset supporting OC), a new CPU. You could get a Ryzen 3600 or something, and a motherboard that can handle it.
- if you can't spend on that, probably buy the cheapest used 7700K or 6700K you can find. It's somewhat of a waste of money I wouldn't bother with.

 

[Hyderz]

hehe time to buy new pc parts

 

[cucker tarlson]

Yes 6500 is too weak for 60 fps gaming in a lot of modern games while gtx 1080 is still plenty fast.
Od course lowering game settings won't help if the performance issues are CPU related.
Get a new CPU,mobo,ram.

 

[eidairaman1]

What is your power supply unit brand make and model please

 

[Hyderz]

You aren't giving anything to go on. What problems are you having? There's nothing wrong with your gear. If you're having severe performance drops lower the settings of the game you're playing. If that doesn't work and you think you might have a virus or something software related wrong, reinstall windows and start fresh.

like rowsol said, yeah id give windows a fresh install and then play the games just to rule out that other software is not affecting your gaming experience.
Also you can try disabling some of the background apps that is running with the latest windows 1903 build.

🚗💨 How To SPEED up Windows 10 1903

^check it out i used the link above to disable quite a-lot of the background apps. It helped my aging 6th gen i5 in my laptop, made the windows a bit snappier.
These are free solution and might not net you extra performance but its free before you spend any money id say.

 

[sepheronx]

The Core i5 6500, while isn't a bad CPU, it really isn't that great of a CPU either. Many games these days take advantage of multicore and the Core i5 6500 wasn't that massive of a leap in performance over the older CPU's like the 4xxx series and those bottlenecked the GTX 1080. The GTX 1080 though is a fantastic graphics card now like the AMD Vega 56's and should be more than enough to play many of the latest games on high/v.high at 1080p no problem.

So it does appear that the z170 chipsets were the ones that supported XMP profile above 2133mhz and so your RAM (3000mhz) is downclocked to 2133. You could set the settings to run above that (memory Overclock) but XMP will not see it above that 2133 according to what I can find online. So keep the RAM and just upgrade the motherboard and CPU. You could probably sell that CPU of yours for about $100~ and the motherboard for $50, or offer it as a package at $130~ and you could upgrade your system. If you want intel, a core i5 9400f and a Asrock B365 Pro4 Motherboard may be good enough. Or AMD offers the 3600 and a B450 motherboard will work too and will take more advantage of your memory.

 

[P4-630]

CPU bottleneck you got at higher fps and modern games, I've had a i5 6500 in the past and it was bottlenecking my GTX1070.

 

[Komshija]

Your CPU might be bottlenecking GTX 1080, but i5 6500 is in no way weak or dud CPU. It's still a good CPU and will remain such for a few more years for gaming and general tasks. If you can find a cheap i7-6700 non-K, go for it. If not, no big deal. That system should pull pretty much every game out there with high details to 50+ FPS at 1080p.

Maybe you have some low-end PSU that's causing you issues.

 

[phanbuey]

post a screenshot of your taskbar expanded.

 

[Vayra86]

We can't give you any good advice without knowing what you want in a gaming experience, and what its like now.

- What games do you play
- What FPS are you trying to get
- What FPS are you getting.
If possible, run MSI Afterburner while gaming, and after 15 minutes of play, screenshot the sensor log for us. Or another monitoring app that shows us GPU load and temps, preferably also CPU load (but not essential).

Other than that, some considerations:
- don't go on standardized 'userbenchmark' websites. Totally useless, or just plain giving you bad advice. There is no singular metric to gauge performance by in PCs. Especially for gaming. A good rig is about balance. You've clearly upgraded the GPU after the CPU (or you bought the latter 2nd hand), so the balance you may have had initially, is now gone. The GPU has become considerably faster than anything a Skylake quadcore was doing around its release.

- Quad core without HT/SMT (extra threads) is no longer a guarantee for a problem free experience. It used to be for nearly a decade. The next logical step is 6~8 physical cores, with or without HT/SMT. Note that, lacking HT, you may find yourself in a similar situation as today sooner rather than later. That mostly applies to a 6-core upgrade. Must have HT/SMT, or its a bad path.

- Gaming is more than FPS. I reckon your current experience is stuttery at times. That is what lack of CPU grunt looks like. Any CPU upgrade will certainly eliminate that part of it, even if you run something at 40-50 FPS. In that sense, if you are on a tight budget, grabbing a (very) cheap Skylake 6700K somewhere isn't entirely bad. Emphasis on cheap.

 

[Tatty_Two]

Immediate thought for cheapest improvement would be to sell the 6500 and invest in a 6600, that would give an extra 300mhz on the turbo boost, which will help otherwise at a little extra cost as someone above said, go 6700 as that will add 400mhz to turbo and provide the 4 additional threads...……… perhaps not all the problem solved but certainly an improvement.