Gaming PC Builds

[John Price]

The GPU was definitely the part that I was the least sure about. I've honestly never heard about the 2070 before but that just shows how little I know about any of this stuff.  I basically built the pc based off what parts I recognized.

I've helped out quite a few people on here over the years, also sat on Whatsapp with Wastee while he was building his new monster, so sit on Uncle Chriseh's lap while he gives you the run down my boy.

Marceaux was on the money, go for a 2080 or 2080 super over a 1070ti just because they are mostly the same pricing and the 2000 series is obviously a more mature platform.

Remove the CPU cooler and go for a 500GB SSD boot drive: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=512GB+SSD&qid=1563274257&s=gateway&sr=8-4

Personally I would purchase 2 of those SSD's, one for your boot drive which you will keep mostly clean with that Hard Drive you have, 2TB is more than enough for your general usage and file drive. Then you can use the second one for any games that depend on load times, CS:GO, PUBG, Apex etc. just to name a few.

Marceaux goes abit overboard with the idea of a M.2. As you are a more basic user (making assumptions as you asked the question) you would not benefit from the advantage of having an M.2. They are expensive and more for either people who want their PC to boot in 10 seconds rather than 30 with a normal SSD, or they are running applications like Cinema 4D or Adobe Suit etc.

[Marceaux]

Yeah the m.2 nvme might be a tad overkill but for sure at least get some form of SSD to boot because its a game changer. I am just spoiled with my m.2.

[Marceaux]

The 2700x sold out.

[Marceaux]

Been getting some random FPS drops with audio cutting out and stuttering in multiplayer games (single player is fine) BF5 and Squad mainly. I have tried clean install of my graphic drivers and tons of other stuff and cant seem to figure it out. No overheating on cpu or gpu. Could it be from my CPU overclock or ram overclock? Or is it internet/network related perhaps? FPS will be solid 60+ but will have minor stutters or just almost freeze up for a few milliseconds and FPS will drop to 20-50 and sometimes the audio will cut out with it. I have also noticed my GPU utilization will go from 90-100% to 0-60% mid gameplay pretty frequently. I also ran some ping tests and i get frequent spikes to 300+.

Any help/ideas would be much appreciated!

[John Price]

Unstable overclock is possible, but unlikely. Normally it would just crash out.

Run your overclock at max power delivery ONLY for a few days and see if that fixes it. It will still max out the core clock as far as it can without the minimum that you set.

[Marceaux]

Unstable overclock is possible, but unlikely. Normally it would just crash out.

Run your overclock at max power delivery ONLY for a few days and see if that fixes it. It will still max out the core clock as far as it can without the minimum that you set.

When you say power delivery what are you specifically referring to? A bios setting like core voltage? Or like in my Radeon software power limit%?

[MrTiki]

Sounds much more likely to be internet related imo, considering it only being in MP plus the spikes to 300+

Do the same things occur on lowest settings, lower resolution etc in the same games?
If so, use ethernet instead of Wifi if you can, or otherwise try to move your router closer to your PC, make sure you're not using 5GHz wifi etc


In other news, User Benchmarks has just changed how they rate CPUs to favour Intel for no apparent reason. Instead of increasing the weighting of multithreaded performance (or even quad) to keep up with the fact that modern titles are utilising more cores more effectively, they've increased the single threaded weighting at the expense of multicore and quadcore weighting. I can only imagine they must have gotten a fat wad of money for it.
Old weightings: Single 30%, Quad 60%, Multi 10%
New weightings: Single 40%, Quad 58%, Multi 2%
https://web.archive.org/web/20190721115323/https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Faq/What-is-the-effective-CPU-speed-index/55
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Faq/What-is-the-effective-CPU-speed-index/55

Edit: It's lead to some pretty funny results, like the chip I used to have (i5 4670k) compared to it's big brother:
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-4770K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-4670K/1537vs1538

[Marceaux]

Sounds much more likely to be internet related imo, considering it only being in MP plus the spikes to 300+

Do the same things occur on lowest settings, lower resolution etc in the same games?
If so, use ethernet instead of Wifi if you can, or otherwise try to move your router closer to your PC, make sure you're not using 5GHz wifi etc


In other news, User Benchmarks has just changed how they rate CPUs to favour Intel for no apparent reason. Instead of increasing the weighting of multithreaded performance (or even quad) to keep up with the fact that modern titles are utilising more cores more effectively, they've increased the single threaded weighting at the expense of multicore and quadcore weighting. I can only imagine they must have gotten a fat wad of money for it.
Old weightings: Single 30%, Quad 60%, Multi 10%
New weightings: Single 40%, Quad 58%, Multi 2%
https://web.archive.org/web/20190721115323/https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Faq/What-is-the-effective-CPU-speed-index/55
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Faq/What-is-the-effective-CPU-speed-index/55

Edit: It's lead to some pretty funny results, like the chip I used to have (i5 4670k) compared to it's big brother:
https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-4770K-vs-Intel-Core-i5-4670K/1537vs1538

Well it appears i had/have multiple issues which i think i have solved/fixed most of them now. And yes Tiki regardless of my graphic settings being ULTRA or LOW i still got the same drops and issues and it didn't really change my fps much at all when changing graphic settings up or down.

One of my problems was that windows was caching TONS of ram and was never dumping the cache like it should so i set an automated task to run every 5 minutes to dump the memory cache. It seemed to pretty much fix the BF5 issues i was having completely. However in Squad i was still getting issues and still kind of am, however i believe its an issue with Squad not properly utilizing my CPU because like i said regardless of graphic settings i get 60+ fps until these weird stutters and drops come in. And it seems to only happen now when i am on a roof or hillside overlooking a lot of the map etc. Several other players reported these same issue's on a version of the game a few months ago so i am hoping that its just Squad not being fully optimized etc or some dumb bug. However it could be 2200G maxing out and causing the stutters? Squad does recommend a 6+ core cpu.

As far as the internet goes i still get the bad ping spikes and can feel them in games some times. I am on 5G wifi atm, should i switch to the normal wifi channel instead of the 5G one? And if so why exactly is 5G worse then the normal? I always thought the 5G band was meant for gaming and streaming etc. I do have Ethernet i can run but its a bit of a pain to have the cable going through my whole house lol.

I also did shit tons of tweaking/updates and cleaning to windows/bios/radeon etc so i am not positive what actually fixed BF5 lol. However i still feel alot of my games aren't as smooth as they should be, but i am starting to think its because i have been playing on a 55 inch 1080p TV and i think its causing screen tearing etc since the TV cant even come close to keeping up with the FPS my system is trying to output.

[MrTiki]

5G internet is faster but has worse connection and gets interrupted more easily, so if you're having connection issues (ie connection dropping) then it's worth using regular. Speed won't be noticeable in games as long as it's above the minimum required, it's more downloads where you'll notice it. Streaming would also require faster speeds but honestly you should be using ethernet if you're doing anything like that.

If the tearing is bad then enable vsync in games that you notice it in. It's not the best but it depends what's more noticeable, lower FPS or screen tearing, and if your TV has a low refresh rate anyway it's worth doing.
Screen tearing is very different to FPS drops though, and also not related to your CPU or GPU.

Personally I'd sort the internet first and then see if it persists.
Also what's your full setup, in particular your GPU?

[Marceaux]

Switched to the normal channel and now my ping tests seem much better SO FAR lol. And here is my current config:

CPU - AMD Ryzen 3 2200G 3.9 GHz OC Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler - AMD Wraith Stealth AirCooler
RAM - Team T-Force Delta RGB 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 MHz CL16 Memory
GPU - Sapphire Radeon NITRO+ RX 580 8GB Special Edition
Motherboard - Asus ROG STRIX B450-F GAMING ATX AM4
Power Supply - EVGA BT 450w 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply
Storage - Gigabyte 256 GB M.2 NVMe SSD / ADATA Ultimate SU800 512 GB 2.5 SSD
Case - Corsair Carbide Series 275R (White w/Tempered Glass) ATX Mid Tower Case
Fans - 3 Asiahorse RGB Model-X 120mm / 2 Corsair Black 120mm
Windows 10 pro.

Also i started using v-sync in squad and many other titles to test and it does seem to REALLY smooth everything out and i seem to be getting much less tearing and stutters. However i still get them in some games and they still dont seem as smooth as they should.

[MrTiki]

Which titles are still sketchy?
Also are you using the latest drivers?

Not really sure what else it could be at this point other than either poorly optimised games or simply your rig can't handle new titles at the resolution and/or graphics settings you're trying. If you turn down the details etc see if it improves, then at least you can see if your rig is up to scratch.
That's about as far as my basic troubleshooting will go though

[Marceaux]

Which titles are still sketchy?
Also are you using the latest drivers?

Not really sure what else it could be at this point other than either poorly optimised games or simply your rig can't handle new titles at the resolution and/or graphics settings you're trying. If you turn down the details etc see if it improves, then at least you can see if your rig is up to scratch.
That's about as far as my basic troubleshooting will go though

Mainly just Squad and occasionally BF5 but i need to test on more games. However i think i have got it figured out.

Now here is the important question for you all. Which should i buy?

Ryzen 7 3700x
L Shape Desk

OR

Ryzen 5 3600
L Shape Desk
1ms 144hz Viewsonic 24 inch Monitor

Price is about the same either way. Im leaning towards the CPU desk and monitor but the 3700x is very tempting. What do you guys think i should do?

Also what you all think about this monitor?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07JK6XMSN/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

[MrTiki]

Any remaining stutter could well be that BF5 and Squad are just a bit much for your CPU and GPU, but I'm just hazarding a guess at this point.


If you're keeping the same GPU (at least for now) there's no reason to get the 3700X as your GPU is going to be the limiting factor, even at 1080p.
Monitors are often slept on when it comes to rigs, so if it's a decent upgrade over what you currently have then I'd go for the 3600, desk and monitor.

As for if that monitor's any good, it's a TN panel, so very good for fast paced games like FPS, racing due to high refresh rate, low latency and Freesync is a nice bonus.
It won't look quite as fancy as an IPS for slower paced games (RTS/grand strategy etc). Depends on what you're playing really.

[Marceaux]

Sadly that Viewsonic monitor sold out and the sale ended before i could order. So i ended up going with this MSI one instead. Still 144Hz and 1ms but it is also curved. However its a VA panel so im a little worried about response time etc. But we will see! I got it for $149 after shipping and tax, pretty good deal i think.

https://www.msi.com/Monitor/Optix-MAG240VC/Overview

[MrTiki]

Why are you worried about response times? It's 1ms, same as the other monitor. Plenty of monitors have 5ms response times and are completely fine. Looks solid.