Gaming PC upgrade options: Grandson plays, Daughter pays

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OldGeek

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#306375 17-Jul-2023 14:39

Around 2 years ago my Daughter bought this rig for her (15-year-old) son on my recommendation:

https://tinyurl.com/6nd3rphu

Said son is now finding performance to be a bit slow on some games (principally Steam games such as Valorant but could be other games). I have been asked again to advise on performance improvement options. I am not a gamer but do understand Windows and PC hardware basics

From the research I did at that time it seemed clear that the video card (GE Force RTX3060) drives gaming performance more that the PC's CPU. At first Grandson used WIFI networking (PC has a 'WIFI 6'card in it), Router is the standard supplied by Sky Broadband - supposedly also WIFI6) but this was replaced with a CAT5E cable after a few months (reportedly addressed latency issues). The original motherboard-mounted SSD was replaced with a 1TB unit that is now fairly full so this will also be replaced.

I am wondering whether upgrading to a later video card (such as an RTX4060 or 4070 etc) would deliver an improved gaming experience worth the modest cost. If I also need to upgrade the CPU and/or motherboard then I would prefer to go down the track of a new build, but I am trying to avoid this if possible.

Just looking for feedback on which approach to take.

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#3105085 17-Jul-2023 15:17

there should be zero issues playing Valorant at 1080p or 1440p with that hardware, suspect there is more going on there

you also need to define what "slow is"

Qazzy03

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#3105106 17-Jul-2023 15:28

Agree the RTX 3060 is more than enough for Valorant or any game at 1080p and most "esports" games at 1440p.

My first thought goes to is there a software issue, (aka something eating up CPU usage).

As long as there is at least 16gb of ram, Ram shouldn't be an issue... unlesss chrome is open with a billion tabs.

CPU could be a bit of a bottleneck, could be thermals (if high temp just a re-paste).

If CPU is 100% usage, depends where that usage is going, if all to the game, might need to turn game settings down or an upgrade.

my 2cents.

I have found a fresh install of the O/S can help increase performance, easy to get lots of software "junk".

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#3105115 17-Jul-2023 15:58

At QHD (1440p) you should be theoretically getting greater than 150fps on Vaporant. As above there’s likely something less going on.
https://pc-builds.com/fps-calculator/result/0YL185/4B/valorant/2560x1440/

shrub

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#3105118 17-Jul-2023 16:35

I'd be looking at CPU temperature first. If it's thermal throttling and lowering clocks then it's a bad time.
Next step is a DDU on all gpu drivers and fresh install them.
3060 with that CPU should be good for 100+fps on medium in any game don't try RTX it's not worth the performance hit.

OldGeek

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#3105197 17-Jul-2023 19:46

Jase2985:

there should be zero issues playing Valorant at 1080p or 1440p with that hardware, suspect there is more going on there

you also need to define what "slow is"

I am not a gamer and generally I am not around to observe what my grandson considers is "slow". My guess would be perceived delays in interactions with keyboard/mouse.

It would help if there was any performance measurement software available that could report CPU and IO activity for later analysis. I am aware of task manager but that is purely interactive. Naturally any such software would itself take away scarce resources but at least there would be something to work on when the grandee is at school.

I am aware that from time to time C: is over 98% full (freespace = approx 20MB?). That is where pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys reside. There are 3 SSDs, drive 1 is an SSD (C:) in a motherboard slot, drive 2 (D:) is an SSD in a SATA enclosure, drive 3 (e:) is an SSD in a USB3 enclosure. Today I got free space on c: up by 30 gigs (it is a 1TB drive) by moving a Steam game to D:.

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#3105213 17-Jul-2023 20:07

I have also just noticed, using NVIDEA Control Panel to display 'system information', that it is using (round numbers) 20 gigs of graphics memory, being 12 gigs of 'shared system memory' and 8 gigs of 'dedicated video (GDDR6) memory'. The 12 gigs of shared system memory takes a fair chunk of the 16 gigs of system memory available and I would expect logically this will drive demand for virtual memory storage that might have been constrained with C: being so full. Are these normal numbers in these circumstances?

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Handle9

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#3105214 17-Jul-2023 20:12

OldGeek:

Jase2985:

there should be zero issues playing Valorant at 1080p or 1440p with that hardware, suspect there is more going on there

you also need to define what "slow is"

I am not a gamer and generally I am not around to observe what my grandson considers is "slow". My guess would be perceived delays in interactions with keyboard/mouse.

It would help if there was any performance measurement software available that could report CPU and IO activity for later analysis. I am aware of task manager but that is purely interactive. Naturally any such software would itself take away scarce resources but at least there would be something to work on when the grandee is at school.

I am aware that from time to time C: is over 98% full (freespace = approx 20MB?). That is where pagefile.sys and swapfile.sys reside. There are 3 SSDs, drive 1 is an SSD (C:) in a motherboard slot, drive 2 (D:) is an SSD in a SATA enclosure, drive 3 (e:) is an SSD in a USB3 enclosure. Today I got free space on c: up by 30 gigs (it is a 1TB drive) by moving a Steam game to D:.

Perceived "slowness" is usually related to latency and often abnormal frame times. You can measure/display this using software such as MSI Afterburner. There's a fair bit of a learning curve with this sort of software.

Having 20MB of free space on the C drive will certainly cause lots of problems.

Jase2985

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#3105234 17-Jul-2023 21:02

if they have a 1tb drive that's full then they need to clear it out as it will be hindering performance. especially if they have a separate drive they could put some things on.

Ask them to define what they percieve "slow" to mean. they will allow us to better diagnose what the issue could be and be able to recommend a solution.

could try something like HWiNFO64.exe and have it log in the background, problem is it save data to a .CSV files and it has a heap of rows of data you would need to sift through to find any abnormalities. bit of a PITA.

i would first try and establish what temperatures the PC is running at, cpu and gpu, HWiNFO64.exe can do that without logging the data and will display max and minimum values, along with an average.

MSI afterburner and rivatuner are a good place to start for onscreen statistics

Qazzy03

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#3105239 17-Jul-2023 21:36

OldGeek:

I am aware that from time to time C: is over 98% full (freespace = approx 20MB?).

I think we have a grandson issue, not a PC issue (Joking~partially).

I just saw the tinylink you had to the specs of the PC, I missed that because i was on moblie.

The PC machine specs are great, upgrade not required.

First thing i would do is rule out CPU thermal temps.

Like suggested use software like HWiNFO64.exe to see tempature.

Then i would stress the CPU, such as prime95 (there might be better tests out there but i am an amature, so shrugs, what i would use).

Run a test for say 10-15 minutes, google says this:

"sustained operating temp for the i5 under load is probably anything under 75°C with occasional peaks up to 85°.

If you see temps regularly reaching 90° there is a good chance your processor is thermal throttling."

If you see normal temps with the CPU test my main guess is either something simple as C: drive way too full or software issue.

Two pathways you could go down here:

1) Move all steam games to other drives, back up word docs, photos, or other personal data and then nuke C: drive with a fresh install of the windows O/S.

My money is on that will make the computer run as new....

Look i remember being a young teen and downloading an awful lot of shit including malware in my mistaken youth.

Only way to fix it was nuking the system HOWEVER their is the second pathway.

2) This one might end in the same result as number 1 but could be better for your grandson's future, iIf time permits ofc.

This pathway would be needing to spend time with your grandson diagonising the issue, watch him play his games and have software diagonitic software up.

What is using the ram?

What is using the CPU?

Is anything accessing SSDs?

What programmes are installed?

Why does C: drive have only 20mb?

Basically spending time with your grandson, teaching, learning and researching together.

Could be great problem solving and quality time.

There was something on reddit once about a younger people coming into the workforce with little to no computer or tech skills because apps, phones, pc generally just work.

There is no trouble shooting, problem solving, researching into why something is broken or how to gank something together etc.

"back in my day....." lol.

But yeah ....just my 2 cents.

TLDR check CPU thermals under load, if good, reckon software issue.

Yes, i include too much data on an SSD as a software issue.

networkn

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#3105247 17-Jul-2023 21:58

If it's an older SSD, then it likely has a significant issue with being more than 75% full.

Free up some space, esp on the C: and then create a new user called test and try under that profile.

Jase2985

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#3105293 18-Jul-2023 07:39

networkn:

If it's an older SSD, then it likely has a significant issue with being more than 75% full.

so your saying with more than 750GB of data on a 1TB drive you will have significant issues? sorry but that's not correct. anything less than about 10-20Gb you will start having issues. drives that use their internal space for cache (dont have a specific dram chip for it) may run more slowly but its still going to be faster than a SATA SSD and you will likely never notice it unless your copying large files which you cant as you have no space left.

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cddt

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#3105295 18-Jul-2023 07:43

Back up any personal data, and then do a fresh install of Windows. This is the best way to sort it out.

I know things are better these days but when I was a student tech at a boys high school half the Windows machines were unusable due to the malware, adware, spyware, viruses, you name it.

Does your grandson know that he can uninstall games in Steam and reinstall them later? Could explain why there is no space on the drive...

Jase2985

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#3105296 18-Jul-2023 07:45

also maybe try asking them to uninstall some of the lesser used games to free up more space, it still keeps all the setting etc just removed the game files

trig42

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#3105302 18-Jul-2023 08:02

All the above points are great.

You also mention there is a USB SSD connected. Just make sure the computer isn't trying to read/write to that disk all the time as well - USB will be a bottleneck is the computer is trying to use the drive like it would if connected to the mainboard. Does the computer run 'faster' if the USB SSD is disconnected?

Sounds like he has a heap of things on HDDs - any reason for so much storage? Admittedly it's been a while since I played games, but filling up a 1TB, then two more (you don't mention capacity of these, but I'd assume one is the old 512GB the PC came with) seems like he could do with culling a couple of old games.

My first action would be checking CPU temps, then clearing a heap of space on C:. Blowing Windows away and a fresh install is a great idea, though if you can clear enough space, a new temp user profile to test would be good to see that a fresh install will work.

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#3105320 18-Jul-2023 08:20

Also for playing ping sensitive FPS games like valorant, I would go ethernet if possible. It is a must have for completive play.

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