I made a huge mistake buying this build. Bottleneck

Smoopity

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Feb 24, 2020
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Main specs:
MSI A320M PRO-VH PLUS
GTX 1050Ti
Ryzen 5 2600
8GB DDR4 2666MHz

I play on 1080p 75Hz.

A bit longer than one year ago I made a pc build which I was really excited about.
Back then I did not have much knowledge about computers in general, so I didn't buy an SSD with it, which already sucked.
My games never rendered good. For example, I love playing games like Witcher 3, but pretty much everywhere where I go in the game I have to stand still for a few minutes to render everything in the area, at first I blamed this on my HDD, but when I see people play on their HDD, everything seems to run fine.

But, to the point, I tried selling my computer on the local 'eBay' and someone send me a message, which said:
"I do not have any interest in your computer, but was wondering if you were aware of the fact it has a huge bottleneck.
I asked him what he was talking about and he told me about my CPU which is way better than my GPU, I checked it on a bottleneck calculator and it said 100%.

That's pretty much the story, which brings me to the question,

How do I fix this bottleneck?
-
Will upgrading my system fix this problem? I personally was thinking about reusing my CPU and buy me a GTX 1660 Super with a new SSD and RAM.
 
Main specs:
MSI A320M PRO-VH PLUS
GTX 1050Ti
Ryzen 5 2600
8GB DDR4 2666MHz

I play on 1080p 75Hz.

A bit longer than one year ago I made a pc build which I was really excited about.
Back then I did not have much knowledge about computers in general, so I didn't buy an SSD with it, which already sucked.
My games never rendered good. For example, I love playing games like Witcher 3, but pretty much everywhere where I go in the game I have to stand still for a few minutes to render everything in the area, at first I blamed this on my HDD, but when I see people play on their HDD, everything seems to run fine.

But, to the point, I tried selling my computer on the local 'eBay' and someone send me a message, which said:
"I do not have any interest in your computer, but was wondering if you were aware of the fact it has a huge bottleneck.
I asked him what he was talking about and he told me about my CPU which is way better than my GPU, I checked it on a bottleneck calculator and it said 100%.

That's pretty much the story, which brings me to the question,

How do I fix this bottleneck?
-
Will upgrading my system fix this problem? I personally was thinking about reusing my CPU and buy me a GTX 1660 Super with a new SSD and RAM.
get a better gpu and a ssd and your good for 1080p/60 w/high settings. is your 8GB 1x8 or 2x4?
 
It also matters what type of HDD you are using. If you have a cheap WD Blue as your drive, that gives a hefty performance penalty. The single channel RAM is the first thing I would fix, then the SSD. A 1050ti is fine for 1080p on moderate settings, I have one and its played GTAV, Farcry and Apex without issue.
 
Snip

That's pretty much the story, which brings me to the question,

How do I fix this bottleneck?
-
Will upgrading my system fix this problem? I personally was thinking about reusing my CPU and buy me a GTX 1660 Super with a new SSD and RAM.

If you follow through with this thought you will have a nice system that will game really well at 1080@75.
 
(1) Get a SSD (or two) and put your OS / games on them - this alone should net you some performance improvements, especially loading/streaming intensive titles

Later on, you could:
(2) Get another 8gb stick of memory, the exact same model/make/speed as the one you have now, and make sure you put it in the correct slot (usually its 1 and 3 but check your mobo's documentation)

Finally:
(3) Later this year, after nVidia announces the 3000 series, prices on some video cards will drop and chances there will be cheap/budget mid range card you could purchase, even if second hand, for a very nice gpu performance increase.

The rig is not a bad starting point, it's one of the advantages of PCs in that you could always upgrade bit by bit over time.
 
You could just turn dow the settings in the Witcher HDD makes no difference unless your loading the game or loading a new zone or area. If you have the cash I would pick up something like a 2070 RTX KO.
 
Get a higher end GPU, SSD or M.2 and for gods sake 2x either 4gbx2 (8GB) or 8gbx2 (16GB) of Memory. Preferably 16GB. NEVER Run single channel memory.

Don't be afraid to buy used either, there are some good deals out there, and check the forum here.
https://hardforum.com/threads/fs-ram-ssd-headphones-pixel2.1980722/ <-------GOOD deals here. Grab the RAM and a 500GB Evo
 
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You could grab a 500GB or higher SSD if you have the budget to see massive improvement in general system responsiveness. It will give a nice increase in load times but thats about it for gaming, but it worth it for making the system feel overall faster. Most SSDs also come with some sort of software to migrate your OS so you shouldn't need to reinstall the OS, but it might be necessary to avoid issues. Keep your hard drive as an additional storage device for media and other stuff you don't need to have on the SSD.

A GPU upgrade will probably see the biggest FPS improvement. Another 8GB of RAM is also nice but I don't think it will give as much FPS as say a GPU upgrade, but RAM prices is pretty good now and you might want to take advantage of that if you have the budget.

Hope you are able to improve your system so you are able to enjoy the games you play.
 
Video card is the biggest bottleneck. The GTX 1660 SUPER is a great choice for 1080p/75Hz.
 
then add another 8GB, try and get another of the same stick. running in single channel is a massive performance hit. do those things and you should be happy for a couple/few years.
I agree with this. All three things mentioned are a potential bottleneck for you. If you fix any of these, you will then have one of the others as your bottleneck. No need to scrap the whole system though. A few upgrades and you will have a good rig for 1080p as others have mentioned. You can do it slowly if money is an issue for you.
 
Major pop in issues usually indicate that you're running out of system memory and the game is having to use the page file but if you're using one stick in single channel at a low speed it might even just be a lack of bandwidth. You could use resource monitor which is built into Windows to check if you're running out of memory; just open it and click on the memory tab, run the game for a minute, and then alt+tab out to check the graph and see if physical memory used was maxed out with the game running.

That there's only one stick of RAM and it's 2666Mhz makes me wonder if it's some low end generic stuff which could make it hard to find something that will properly pair with it and run in dual channel. If that's the case I would suggest getting a moderately priced 16GB kit(something like 3200Mhz C16 from a reputable brand), the good news is that memory prices are much cheaper than they were when you likely bought that system.

I would recommend an SSD for Windows and games if you can afford it, mainly for load times and general system responsiveness. I wouldn't bother with NVME if you're on a budget.

I wouldn't really consider your GPU a bottleneck but it's certainly holding your performance back while your CPU really isn't unless your looking for super high FPS(think triple digit). Most games aren't that GPU intensive at 1080p but if you make the other changes and still want better performance that would be the next logical step but do make sure that your power supply can handle whatever you get.
 
Video card is the biggest bottleneck. The GTX 1660 SUPER is a great choice for 1080p/75Hz.
Yes. I have this for the wife system which is on a 1080p HDTV and the 1660 Super for the cost is really powerful, and you can find them on sale often at or just below the $200 mark.

If OP just gets another stick of RAM for dual channel support and a better GPU his system is pretty decent.

Not utilizing dual channel on a Ryzen system will just kill performance.
 
Major pop in issues usually indicate that you're running out of system memory and the game is having to use the page file but if you're using one stick in single channel at a low speed it might even just be a lack of bandwidth. You could use resource monitor which is built into Windows to check if you're running out of memory; just open it and click on the memory tab, run the game for a minute, and then alt+tab out to check the graph and see if physical memory used was maxed out with the game running.

That there's only one stick of RAM and it's 2666Mhz makes me wonder if it's some low end generic stuff which could make it hard to find something that will properly pair with it and run in dual channel. If that's the case I would suggest getting a moderately priced 16GB kit(something like 3200Mhz C16 from a reputable brand), the good news is that memory prices are much cheaper than they were when you likely bought that system.

I would recommend an SSD for Windows and games if you can afford it, mainly for load times and general system responsiveness. I wouldn't bother with NVME if you're on a budget.

I wouldn't really consider your GPU a bottleneck but it's certainly holding your performance back while your CPU really isn't unless your looking for super high FPS(think triple digit). Most games aren't that GPU intensive at 1080p but if you make the other changes and still want better performance that would be the next logical step but do make sure that your power supply can handle whatever you get.
A bandwidth issue will be compounded when also faced with an out of memory condition. 100%, get a second stick of ram – for both bandwidth and capacity, it's a good investment.

With two sticks of ram, 16GB total, you should have no issues loading areas in most games, as they cache them either predictively ahead of time or at game startup. Startup time will still be a bit slow, but if you don't mind that then the ssd can wait.
 
Another 8gb ram stick first, matching make/model if possible or just get 8gbx2 for 16gb matching pair of 3200mhz. Second, get a SSD preferrably to used as the OS drive. Then evaluate system performance from there.
 
SSD is a waste if he's trying to increase FPS. If he's fine with the slow loading times it doesn't make any sense to throw money at a SSD when the issue is frame rate.
 
Why is it PC gamers always assume the only thing people do with PCs is play games. Aside from the lack of dual channel memory and SSD, that machine would be appropriate for lots of stuff other than playing games. Though most people do some amount of gaming on their PC and that graphics card is down on the lowest end.

You pretty much have to spend as much on the graphics card as the CPU and motherboard combined. Though this latest machine I put together broke that paradigm for the first time. GPUs are getting more powerful and cheaper cards like the 1660 Super are good for 1080p now. I don't game very often and when I do it's at 1080p so I was able to drop down a couple ticks on the product line. I use the machine mainly for productivity stuff so I put the money I saved on the video card into that side.
 
Why is it PC gamers always assume the only thing people do with PCs is play games. Aside from the lack of dual channel memory and SSD, that machine would be appropriate for lots of stuff other than playing games. Though most people do some amount of gaming on their PC and that graphics card is down on the lowest end.

You pretty much have to spend as much on the graphics card as the CPU and motherboard combined. Though this latest machine I put together broke that paradigm for the first time. GPUs are getting more powerful and cheaper cards like the 1660 Super are good for 1080p now. I don't game very often and when I do it's at 1080p so I was able to drop down a couple ticks on the product line. I use the machine mainly for productivity stuff so I put the money I saved on the video card into that side.

Cool. What does this have to do with the OP's problem?
 
Why is it PC gamers always assume the only thing people do with PCs is play games. Aside from the lack of dual channel memory and SSD, that machine would be appropriate for lots of stuff other than playing games. Though most people do some amount of gaming on their PC and that graphics card is down on the lowest end.

You pretty much have to spend as much on the graphics card as the CPU and motherboard combined. Though this latest machine I put together broke that paradigm for the first time. GPUs are getting more powerful and cheaper cards like the 1660 Super are good for 1080p now. I don't game very often and when I do it's at 1080p so I was able to drop down a couple ticks on the product line. I use the machine mainly for productivity stuff so I put the money I saved on the video card into that side.
The OP literally is asking about gaming performance. Why are you assuming otherwise?
 
do people use this? According to this my 5700xt is bottlenecking my cpu. I need a 2080ti or 1070 x 3. Also, “AMD Ryzen 7 3700X will need at least 64GB of RAM to work well”. I thought I was on the high end with 32gb.
i dont know. you asked what it was i showed a bing search cause i guess yours isnt working ;)
 
That thing is stupid, honestly. It depends on what you want to do, and for gaming 16GB is still enough even for high-end 4K 2080ti pairing. I've only ever needed over 16GB when i'm doing a bunch of stuff in VM's for work.. And need ram.
 
"Your graphic card is too weak for this processor."

I mean, its not wrong. (2700x/1070)
 
OP,

As others have stated I agree that you should get dual channel ram going yesterday --meaning put another 8G stick in there first if you have to choose an upgrade order. After that SSD, or GPU or both . GPU first if gaming is priority and they are running less than ideally for you would be my pick.


GPU bottlenecks are not a big deal in the sense of "my computer has a huge bottleneck and is terrible." It's not. It means that your CPU is good enough to fully saturate your current GPU and that you can upgrade your GPU and the current CPU is good to go. On the other hand it can be very easy to "over GPU " a system, especially older ones, with the new GPU hotness and find that your FPS are well below the reviews because now you are now CPU bottle necked. Depending on your platform you may not have a CPU upgrade option and you have now purchased your GPU for your next build. :D

SO games you are playing now are running like ass and you are displeased? Upgrade the GPU after the Ram.

Finding CPU limits for pushing high end GPUs is why reviewers use 1080p and flagship GPUs for CPU gaming reviews. Or 720p back in the day for the same reason.

I'm going to type CPU and GPU one more time..

Cheers,
 
I'm not sure what the issue really is here; depending on the workload type, every computer is going to be bottlenecked by one component whether it be storage speed, CPU, GPU, etc. A 2600 matched with a 1050 ti doesn't seem to be that lopsided to me and ideally for gaming (key words) you would want your GPU to be your bottleneck and that usually depends on how demanding the game is and what resolution you're running at, hence why you see many CPU comparisons run less demanding games or games at lower than typical resolutions with high end cards in order to eliminate the GPU bottleneck and see how much performance they can get out of the CPU.
 
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