I upgraded from an Intel i5-4690K with 16 GB of RAM to a Ryzen 5 5600X with 32 GB of TeamGroup 2666 MHz memory. I kept my older Radeon RX 570 graphics card. Before the upgrade, Dota 2 usually ran around 70–90 FPS. Now the frame rate repeatedly swings from about 120 down to 75 and back every few seconds, with occasional brief stutters or hangs that feel like texture or memory streaming. The CPU is only around 15% utilized and the GPU is around 40%. I'm confused about why the game feels worse after installing the faster CPU and more RAM.
2 Answers
Check that your in-game settings are identical to the old setup. Some Dota 2 options, such as tree wind and cloth simulation, can put more load on the CPU even when overall CPU usage looks low. Windows 11 graphics settings can also affect frame pacing, especially Memory Integrity/Core Isolation and the optimizations for windowed games. Try toggling those settings one at a time and compare the frame-time behavior, not just the average FPS.
Since you changed from Intel to AMD, a clean operating-system installation would be a good troubleshooting step. Old chipset and processor drivers can remain behind after a platform swap and sometimes cause inconsistent performance or stuttering. Also install the latest AMD chipset drivers and make sure the motherboard BIOS and GPU driver are current.
I didn’t reinstall the operating system after the hardware swap. I later upgraded to Windows 11 through the normal update process, so I’ll look into doing a clean install and installing the chipset drivers properly.
Low total CPU usage doesn’t necessarily rule out a CPU-side issue, since one game thread can be heavily loaded while the overall percentage remains low. Monitoring per-core usage and frame times may reveal what is causing the regular drops.