I recently upgraded from a GTX 1650 to an RX 9060 XT 16GB, but Minecraft with shaders is performing lower than expected. My system has a Ryzen 5 5600, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. Using Complementary Shaders Reimagined on the High preset with the Remarkably Optimized modpack, I usually get around 130 FPS at 1080p, while benchmark videos with similar settings show over 200 FPS. My GPU usage stays around 70–75%, whereas the benchmark systems show roughly 95–99% usage. CPU usage appears to be only about 20% overall. Could the Ryzen 5 5600 be limiting performance through a single CPU core, or is there another setting—such as a frame limiter, V-Sync, BIOS configuration, or shader setting—that might explain the lower GPU utilization?
4 Answers
Check the CPU usage per core rather than the overall percentage. Minecraft can be limited by one or two CPU threads, so total CPU usage may look low even when the game thread is maxed out. The Ryzen 5 5600 can bottleneck high-FPS Minecraft at 1080p, especially when comparing it with systems using newer gaming CPUs such as an X3D chip.
Make sure your BIOS settings are configured properly. Enabling the memory profile—XMP or DOCP, depending on the motherboard—and enabling PBO may improve CPU-limited performance. Also verify that the RAM is running at its advertised speed rather than a low default speed.
I’ll check the memory profile and PBO settings, then compare the results.
Double-check that nothing is limiting your frame rate. V-Sync, AMD frame-rate targeting, driver settings, or an in-game FPS cap can all prevent the GPU from reaching full utilization. Some driver updates can also enable a frame limit automatically, so inspect the graphics driver profile and Minecraft settings.
At 130 FPS, a 120 FPS cap or similar limit would be worth checking first, especially if the monitor or driver profile has a refresh-rate-based limit enabled.
The benchmark may not actually be using identical conditions. Render distance, simulation distance, resolution, shader quality, resource packs, Minecraft version, mod configuration, and the benchmark location can all change FPS substantially. A newer CPU in the video could also explain why its GPU stays closer to full utilization.
Overall CPU usage is not always a reliable indicator for games that depend heavily on a single main thread. Compare the exact CPU, render distance, resolution, shader options, and game version used in the benchmark.