I'm trying to troubleshoot a new prebuilt PC that performs far worse than another system with supposedly weaker hardware. The problem PC has a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RTX 5070, 32GB DDR5, and a 2TB Kingston Fury Renegade NVMe SSD. It uses Ethernet and a 1080p monitor. My other PC has a Ryzen 5 9600X, RX 9060 XT, 32GB DDR5, and a 2TB SSD, yet it runs normally at 1440p over Wi-Fi.
In Minecraft Bedwars, the second PC gets roughly 2,000 FPS with the same launcher, settings, and mods, while the 7800X3D system gets around 700 FPS and crashes when joining a server. War Thunder takes a very long time to load, stutters badly even on Movie settings, and sometimes fails to load textures. Even browsing feels delayed: YouTube and normal webpages take about five seconds to open despite using the same browser and extensions.
I have reinstalled Windows, updated the BIOS, chipset drivers, and graphics drivers, disabled Hardware-Accelerated GPU Scheduling, confirmed the monitor cable is connected to the RTX 5070 rather than the motherboard, and enabled EXPO. CrystalDiskInfo reports the SSD at 100% health, PCIe 4.0 x4, and around 43°C. CPU and GPU temperatures also appear normal.
Could this be a faulty or poorly seated GPU, unstable EXPO memory, incorrect PCIe or Resizable BAR settings, a driver cleanup issue, or some deeper latency problem? What diagnostic tests would help identify the cause?
5 Answers
Start with a clean graphics-driver removal using DDU in Safe Mode, then install the current Nvidia driver directly from Nvidia. Also verify in the Nvidia settings that the RTX 5070 is selected as the preferred processor. A Windows reinstall does not always remove every driver component or configuration issue.
Temporarily disable EXPO and test the system at stock memory settings. For a proper memory check, provide the exact Kingston kit model, timings, and voltage; 6000 MT/s CL30 is common, but an unstable memory profile can cause crashes and strange game behavior. Resetting the motherboard BIOS to defaults before retesting is also worthwhile.
The memory is Kingston Fury, 2x16GB at 6000 MT/s and CL30. I’ll test with EXPO disabled and consider resetting the BIOS.
Run a repeatable benchmark such as the free 3DMark version and compare the score, GPU utilization, clock speeds, and temperatures with expected results for an RTX 5070. That should quickly show whether the card is underperforming, stuck at reduced clocks, or not receiving enough PCIe bandwidth.
Power the system down, reseat the RTX 5070 in the main PCIe slot, and reconnect its power cable. Then check the BIOS for the expected PCIe link mode and make sure Resizable BAR is enabled. Since this is a prebuilt, a card or cable that shifted during shipping is plausible even if the computer still boots.
Check the CPU and GPU clocks while the slowdown is happening rather than only checking temperatures. Also look in Task Manager and Resource Monitor for unusually high disk, CPU, or network activity. If the hardware looks normal in benchmarks but browser and game loading remain slow, test with the network adapter disabled to rule out a bad driver or network-related latency.
The normal drivers are already installed and the 5070 is selected, but I wasn’t familiar with DDU. I’ll try a full cleanup and reinstall.