I'm experiencing some frustratingly low FPS in games, even though my CPU and GPU stats seem fine. I've got an old Samsung RAM model (M378A1K43CB2-CRC) running at 2400MHz, and I'm starting to suspect it might be bottlenecking my performance, especially since it lacks XMP support. I'm using an i7 8700K processor and an RTX 3070 GPU, but I noticed that my friend with a better CPU is getting roughly double the frames per second with the same GPU. My CPU utilization sits around 45-60% during gameplay, but in the game I'm focused on (Deadlock), the CPU usage averages only about 30-50%, while GPU utilization is around 40-60%. How can I benchmark my system to see if my RAM is the culprit?
5 Answers
If your friend is getting twice the FPS and you have the same GPU, consider their CPU specs and RAM too. If your setups are pretty similar otherwise, then upgrading your RAM to something like DDR4 3200MHz could be a smart move. It shouldn't be too expensive, and it sounds like you’re likely due for an upgrade anyway.
Don't forget that OS performance can degrade over time too! If you haven’t clean installed your operating system in a while, that could be affecting your FPS. It's surprising how much a fresh install can give you a performance boost, especially after several years.
In games, RAM quality can impact stuttering and low frame stability. If you're consistently seeing FPS drastically lower than your friend, especially since you're already aware of how CPU performance can differ across architectures, it might be worth prioritizing a RAM upgrade to help smooth out game performance.
Your CPU is designed to handle RAM speeds up to 2666MHz, so switching to faster RAM might not give you a huge performance boost. But if you're bottlenecked, it could help a bit. It's worth considering that different setups can produce varying results, so don't take just FPS numbers at face value.
You might want to check your memory bandwidth utilization with HWinfo64. It’s a great tool for figuring out how much strain is being placed on your RAM. Low GPU usage along with decent CPU performance can suggest that your CPU might indeed be the bottleneck here.
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