Why are my games still lagging on Quad Core CPU & RX 460?

Metrion_45 · Oct 18, 2017

Hi, I recently upgraded my CPU to go with my RX 460 2GB and my games are still not 100% smooth 60FPS even with Vsync on or off. The CPU is the AMD A10 7870k Quad Core OC to 4.1Ghz. I have 8GB HyperX Fury Ram @1600Mhz, Asrock Motherboard V3(Don't remember the full details for it)120GB SSD(For OS)3TB WD HDD and a lame 600W PSU. I mainly upgraded my CPU so I could play Black Ops 3 Multiplayer and GTA 5 without stuttering, cause the open world obviously needs a Quad Core to perform better, but this BS is happening. My FPS says 60, but it's not "Smooth" at all and even if I uncap the FPS it is still very choppy. I have tried every resolution under the damn sun that is supported by my Monitor and GPU and tried lowering and raising Texture details to give the GPU the most work and nothing helps. This has been my 3rd PC that still can't run games smoothly. I'm so fed up with Pc Gaming now, tbh.

James Mason · Oct 18, 2017

Well, cores and ghz alone don't really mean any measure of performance.
The a10 7870k just isn't a very good CPU no matter, and easily get's beaten by dual core i3s.
If this is your 3rd PC, then you haven't learned about what parts of a PC allow a game to run smoothly.
Choppiness can be cause by quite a few things, it could be a bad monitor, or bad PSU (though that's more with FPS drops).
Slow response monitors can definitely result in choppiness, especially when their cheap ones meant for like cheapo web browsing PCs.

Metrion_45 · Oct 18, 2017

James Mason :

My Monitor is 60Hz and goes all the way up to 1680x1050. And I've been through countless amounts of reviews and videos and forums over the years and they all say the same thing. Get a Quad-Core CPU and MAINLY a good GPU. I know Ram hardly matters. I find it hilarious also how every time I check benchmark videos they show the parts performing great for current gaming, then I buy the part and it totally sucks for me. I'm losing my faith in the PC Master Race to be honest. Consoles just seem to work for gaming and run pretty smoothly, but PC's always have a noticeable bottleneck, especially since there's more running in the background and way too many GPU's & CPU's in the world that games & programs need to be optimized for. Sigh.

DSzymborski · Oct 18, 2017

Metrion_45 :

James Mason :

My Monitor is 60Hz and goes all the way up to 1680x1050. And I've been through countless amounts of reviews and videos and forums over the years and they all say the same thing. Get a Quad-Core CPU and MAINLY a good GPU. I know Ram hardly matters. I find it hilarious also how every time I check benchmark videos they show the parts performing great for current gaming, then I buy the part and it totally sucks for me. I'm losing my faith in the PC Master Race to be honest. Consoles just seem to work for gaming and run pretty smoothly, but PC's always have a noticeable bottleneck, especially since there's more running in the background and way too many GPU's & CPU's in the world that games & programs need to be optimized for. Sigh.

I think the issue is more your expectations with entry-level parts than anything wrong with the parts.

Metrion_45 · Oct 18, 2017

DSzymborski :

Dude, the A10 7870k is not as bad as James seems to think it is and the RX 460 was MADE for modern gaming at 1080p Medium to High Settings@60FPS. Whoever tells me otherwise is just being a hater/troll trying to trigger me. As I have previously stated, I have tried tons of mixtures of Graphics settings and Resolutions to give the CPU more work as a test and to then give the GPU more work. I mainly go for a balance so both are playing fair and I still get choppy 60FPS and below which is IMPOSSIBLE for the CPU & GPU combo I have. Why does everyone bash my hardware. Watch me buy the new Ryzen 5 CPU, get a bottleneck and people tell me Ryzen isn't good. Man, Pc gaming is too complicated. Screw it.

DSzymborski · Oct 18, 2017

Metrion_45 :

DSzymborski :

Dude, the A10 7870k is not as bad as James seems to think it is and the RX 460 was MADE for modern gaming at 1080p Medium to High Settings@60FPS. Whoever tells me otherwise is just being a hater/troll trying to trigger me. As I have previously stated, I have tried tons of mixtures of Graphics settings and Resolutions to give the CPU more work as a test and to then give the GPU more work. I mainly go for a balance so both are playing fair and I still get choppy 60FPS and below which is IMPOSSIBLE for the CPU & GPU combo I have. Why does everyone bash my hardware. Watch me buy the new Ryzen 5 CPU, get a bottleneck and people tell me Ryzen isn't good. Man, Pc gaming is too complicated. Screw it.

PC gaming isn't too complicated. The problem is that you don't know half as much as you think you do. Thankfully, you've made it clear that you're only here to go on unhinged rants, not for any actual questions or give-and-take; we can all safely unfollow this thread.

Metrion_45 · Oct 18, 2017

DSzymborski :

Metrion_45 :

PC gaming isn't too complicated. The problem is that you don't know half as much as you think you do. Thankfully, you've made it clear that you're only here to go on unhinged rants, not for any actual questions or give-and-take; we can all safely unfollow this thread.

Well I'm pretty triggered cause everyone says that my parts are bad and that I'm wrong for expecting what I PAYED FOR! So basically eveything I said was wrong? I've been lied to then, because I made my purchases bases on extensive research and from watching reviews from big and small youtubers. Gg internet. Mixing settings, Quad Core CPUs and a great GPU really aren't what is needed for gaming after all. We all need 8 Core Intel CPUs, and a GTX 1080Ti to play games without any hicups. : )

James Mason · Oct 18, 2017

Metrion_45 :

The very first thing I said:

James Mason :

The FX 8300 series has 8 cores and can clock up to 5Ghz. But guess what? It sill runs like garbage.
AMD was a really bad choice for a CPU for a long time, and only in the last few months have they returned as a viable option.

Also, "choppiness" isn't so much your monitors refresh rate, is it's the "response time."
Anything above 5ms response time is bad for gaming, and you ideally want 1-2ms response time for a gaming monitor.
Your monitors low resolution makes me think it's already not very good. Do you have a regular TV you can try hooking up to see if you still have choppiness?

Assuming it isn't your hardware alone, did you install the drivers for your all hardware?
Are you sure you plugged in the video cable into the GPU and not the motherboard so you're not running off your integrated graphics?

THe 7870k will have a problem with "FPS lows" in GTAV, that's where when the FPS drops, it drops to a level you can see.

If you DON'T want any choppiness in your PC gaming experience, you have to fork out the money for a much higher end system, yours is really only entry level, which means you can PLAY the games you want, not that you get to play them perfectly smoothly.

Also don't even pretend that consoles don't suffer FPS drops and lag all the time while playing games because they do, and it's very noticeable.

CTurbo · Oct 18, 2017

Your parts are not "bad" per say, but they are definitely on the low end of what most of us would consider for a current gaming PC. I don't know how much you paid for your parts, nor does it matter at this point, but I'm pretty confident that you could have done better for your money. The RX460 in particular is on the extreme low end of what I would consider for a 1080p gaming machine. The fact that you settled on an A10 as your cpu choice tells me that you either did very little research or were misled by people that don't know what they're talking about. The A10 is NOT completely terrible, but you could have spent 60% of that price and got an Athlon x4 860k/870k/880k and got identical cpu performance which by the way would still not be as good as an i3 6100/7100. If it's one thing we learned from the FX cpus extremely weak single core performance is that more cores aren't always better. The A10s are in the same boat. They have 4 weak cores compared to the i3s' 2 very strong cores plus hyperthreading. Back to the gpu side of things, you could have got a GTX1050 for about the same price as the RX460 that would have performed a bit better. If you would have spent your money more wisely, you probably could have afforded a GTX1050ti or maybe even a RX470. And finally, somebody that does extensive research does not end up with a "lame 600w" psu.

I'm not trying to bust on you or beat you down. I'm trying to educate you so hopefully you can do better next time. Did you even make a thread on here before you purchased your parts last time?

Anyway, back to the parts you do have, you should still get relatively decent performance. A smooth 60fps on low-med settings seems realistic for a lot of games. Are your temps ok? Drivers updated? Have you tried hooking to a different monitor? I believe you will get better results from a better monitor.

ohiou_grad_2006 · Oct 18, 2017

A 460 and gtx 1050 should be the same roughly. 1050 slightly in the lead.

Unfortunately, as many have said, that cpu is just not a great cpu. The FX chips weren't the greatest, and the A10 for example were based on them.

I'm wondering if part of it is not his resolution, as in the 1680x1050. I wonder if he tried at 1080p, if on low settings he would do a little better. I'm guessing the guys on youtube etc you saw probably showed benchmarks at 1080p. Thing is, a higher resolution many times takes a bit of load off of the cpu, and puts it more on the graphics card.

By playing at lower resolution, you are flipping that somewhat, so since the cpu is already a little weak, it becomes more of a bottleneck than at say 1080p I'm guessing.

However, what you are describing sounds exactly like cpu bottleneck. No matter what details you lower etc, won't make any difference. I had that myself a few years ago on an older build until I could upgrade, so I know exactly how that feels. Basically the graphics card is processing pixels faster than the processor can organize everything and put it on the screen, so you are getting the lag. You either need to upgrade cpu, or overclock which you have done it sounds like, or try to go to higher resolution to take load off of your cpu and put it more on the graphics card, but that's a catch 22 since you have an entry level graphics card.

You might test by hooking it up to a 1080p tv if you have one you can test with, and load up something and see if it lags this way or does better. If it does better, you'll need to look at a better monitor. Thankfully though they aren't unreasonably high for say a 1080p these days.

Metrion_45 · Oct 18, 2017

CTurbo :

I don't have a better monitor that I can test on. I only have my Dell 1680x1050 Monitor and a TV that maxes at 1366x768. Also, my PSU was already in the system before my GPU & CPU Upgrade. I was going to get the FX 8xxx 8 Core, but they were sold out. But even then you guys seem to still think even thouse suck... I was a couple hundred short of a Ryzen 5 CPU & Motherboard. I didn't wanna add in for those caus then I'd have been broke. I was trying to save money. Now there's no going back, cause I know the place won't take back the A10. Also, Idk how my temps were doing, but my case has like 3 decent sized led fans along with the Stock CPU Cooler and I have a hugh ceiling fan always on high. And again, NONE of the settings I try fixes my problem to where the game runs smoothly.(Black Ops 3 Multiplayer anyway)Now I'd also like to mention that even after getting this CPU and a 120GB SSD and freshly installing Windows, my computer still randomly freezes completely at the desktop when I'm not using it and for a few hours. One thing to the next. Oi.

amdfangirl · Oct 18, 2017

Honestly.

This case is similar to asking someone "how many wheels should my car have?", to which someone replies "4 wheels" and then the guy goes out and buys the model T-1 Ford.

1280px-1909_Ford_Model_T_T1_Town_Car_%2812703369904%29.jpg

You bought the wrong CPU for the job. There's no getting away from that. That T1 Ford isn't going to hit 60mph. Ever. It might have 4 wheels but it's certainly not what you would want to use on a day-to-day basis. Technically it has 4 wheels but there are a lot of other factors to consider here.

There are a lot of quad-core CPUs out there. The Pentium N3710 is a quad-core as well but you'd be hard pressed to run Chrome with 20 tabs on it let alone any modern games. One of my friends made that mistake. Regardless, nobody here gave you the advice you worked on, so none of us are guilty of anything.

The typical gaming advice is that any Intel Core series (i3, i5, i7) quad-core CPU will run game well when paired with a GPU like an RX 460 or better.

Saving money is a good goal, but buying something that isn't adequate, whether intentional or not won't help you. I find that you need to pay above a certain amount to actually get a decent PC running.

amdfangirl · Oct 18, 2017

Metrion_45 :

CTurbo :

I don't have a better monitor that I can test on. I only have my Dell 1680x1050 Monitor and a TV that maxes at 1366x768. Also, my PSU was already in the system before my GPU & CPU Upgrade. I was going to get the FX 8xxx 8 Core, but they were sold out. But even then you guys seem to still think even thouse suck... I was a couple hundred short of a Ryzen 5 CPU & Motherboard. I didn't wanna add in for those caus then I'd have been broke. I was trying to save money. Now there's no going back, cause I know the place won't take back the A10. Also, Idk how my temps were doing, but my case has like 3 decent sized led fans along with the Stock CPU Cooler and I have a hugh ceiling fan always on high. And again, NONE of the settings I try fixes my problem to where the game runs smoothly.(Black Ops 3 Multiplayer anyway)Now I'd also like to mention that even after getting this CPU and a 120GB SSD and freshly installing Windows, my computer still randomly freezes completely at the desktop when I'm not using it and for a few hours. One thing to the next. Oi.

Run a Prime 95 stress test to see if the CPU cooling is adequate

https://www.mersenne.org/download/

Metrion_45 · Oct 18, 2017

amdfangirl :

Metrion_45 :

CTurbo :

I don't have a better monitor that I can test on. I only have my Dell 1680x1050 Monitor and a TV that maxes at 1366x768. Also, my PSU was already in the system before my GPU & CPU Upgrade. I was going to get the FX 8xxx 8 Core, but they were sold out. But even then you guys seem to still think even thouse suck... I was a couple hundred short of a Ryzen 5 CPU & Motherboard. I didn't wanna add in for those caus then I'd have been broke. I was trying to save money. Now there's no going back, cause I know the place won't take back the A10. Also, Idk how my temps were doing, but my case has like 3 decent sized led fans along with the Stock CPU Cooler and I have a hugh ceiling fan always on high. And again, NONE of the settings I try fixes my problem to where the game runs smoothly.(Black Ops 3 Multiplayer anyway)Now I'd also like to mention that even after getting this CPU and a 120GB SSD and freshly installing Windows, my computer still randomly freezes completely at the desktop when I'm not using it and for a few hours. One thing to the next. Oi.

Run a Prime 95 stress test to see if the CPU cooling is adequate

https://www.mersenne.org/download/

My CPU temp is 62 degrees with nothing running and then during the Prime95 stress test it went all the way up to 82 degrees.. That seems pretty damn hot for an open case pc with multiple clean fans.

ohiou_grad_2006 · Oct 18, 2017

Read that max temp for an a10 6800k max temp is 74 degrees, so it's possible that you are thermal throttling. You said you overclocked? What happens if you back the overclock off towards stock?

Might need to look into a better cooler.

Metrion_45 · Oct 18, 2017

ohiou_grad_2006 :

Oh sorry, those results were based on Stock. Not bothering with Overclocking.

ohiou_grad_2006 · Oct 18, 2017

Ah. Still pretty warm. The coolers that came with the older and CPUs weren't always the best in my opinion. I don't know how much room you have in your case, but it might be worth trying to look into a better CPU cooler since you said you have a lot of fans.

Why are my games still lagging on Quad Core CPU & RX 460?

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