Fixing a Bottleneck in My Racing Sim PC!

**Upgrading to a Newer Graphics Card: A Case Study**

When it comes to upgrading your gaming system, one of the most important considerations is whether the new component will actually improve your performance. In this article, we'll take a closer look at how our system was upgraded with a newer graphics card and what impact that had on our gaming experience.

**Testing the New Graphics Card**

We started by testing the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 in our system. We were already running the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 2060, which was a great performing card for its time, but we wanted to see if there would be any significant improvements with the newer model. To do this, we set up our system to monitor CPU and GPU usage while playing our favorite racing game.

We noticed that when using the 3080, the GPU utilization was significantly higher than when using the 2060. In fact, the 3080 was working at about 80% of its total capacity, whereas the 2060 was only working at around 40%. This meant that the new card was able to handle more frames per second (FPS) than ever before.

**Frame Rate and Monitor Refresh Rate**

One of the most noticeable effects of upgrading to a newer graphics card was the improvement in frame rate. We were seeing a significant increase in FPS, from around 111 FPS with the 2060 to over 220 FPS with the 3080. This is a huge difference, especially considering that our monitor has a refresh rate of 165Hz.

We also noticed that we were able to take full advantage of this higher frame rate by using the monitor's maximum refresh rate. When playing at lower settings, such as Ultra or High preset in 1440p resolution, we would often be limited by the GPU's ability to keep up with the demand. However, with the 3080, we were able to consistently hit every frame of the 165Hz refresh rate.

**Temperature and Noise**

Another benefit of upgrading to a newer graphics card was the reduction in noise levels. Our old GTX 2060 was known for its loud cooling system, which would sometimes be heard even when not in use. However, the RTX 3080 was significantly quieter, with much less fan noise under load.

We also noticed that the 3080 was running at a lower temperature than our old card, despite doing more work overall. This is due to the improved cooling system and design of the new card, which allows it to operate at higher temperatures while still producing less heat.

**The Impact on CPU Utilization**

One of the most interesting effects of upgrading to a newer graphics card was the impact on CPU utilization. When using the 3080, our CPU usage dropped significantly, from around 80% to under 24%. This is because the new card is able to handle more work per frame than ever before, reducing the load on the CPU and allowing it to run at lower utilization levels.

**A New Balance**

Overall, upgrading to a newer graphics card like the RTX 3080 has given us a much better balance between system performance and cost. We're no longer limited by our old GTX 2060, which was starting to show its age. The new card provides significant improvements in frame rate and monitor refresh rate, making it perfect for those who want the best possible gaming experience.

**A Word of Caution**

While upgrading to a newer graphics card can be a great way to improve your gaming performance, it's not always necessary. If you're running an older system with a relatively modern CPU, there may not be much benefit to upgrading to a new GPU, especially if the bottleneck is elsewhere in the system.

However, for those who are looking to upgrade their system and want the best possible performance, a newer graphics card like the RTX 3080 is definitely worth considering. With its improved cooling system, lower noise levels, and significant increases in frame rate, it's an excellent choice for anyone looking to take their gaming experience to the next level.

**A Note on CPU Upgrades**

While our focus has been on upgrading to a newer graphics card, we also experimented with upgrading our CPU to see if there would be any benefit. We looked at using a Ryzen 5 5900X or an Intel Core i9-9900K, both of which are high-end CPUs that offer significant performance improvements over our old Zen+ and Kaby Lake Core i7.

However, when running the same game with these new CPUs, we didn't see any significant improvement in performance. This was likely due to the fact that the bottleneck in our system was still the GPU, even with the more powerful CPU. In other words, while a newer CPU can certainly provide better performance in certain situations, it may not always be the limiting factor.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, upgrading to a newer graphics card like the RTX 3080 has given us a significant boost in frame rate and monitor refresh rate, making it perfect for those who want the best possible gaming experience. While there are some caveats to consider, such as CPU upgrades not always providing benefits, this upgrade is definitely worth considering for anyone looking to take their gaming system to the next level.

By combining our new GPU with a powerful CPU like a Ryzen 5 5900X or an Intel Core i9-9900K, we were able to create a highly optimized gaming system that delivered exceptional performance and low latency. Whether you're a serious gamer or just looking for a more enjoyable experience, this upgrade is definitely worth considering.

**A Final Note**

Upgrading your graphics card can be a complex process, and it's always a good idea to do some research before making the leap. However, with our system, we were able to see significant improvements in performance, noise levels, and overall gaming experience.

We hope that this case study has been informative and helpful for anyone looking to upgrade their graphics card. Remember to consider your specific needs and hardware configuration when choosing a new GPU, and don't be afraid to experiment with different options until you find the perfect fit for your system.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enone of the games i find myself playing a lot lately is f1 2020 and that's due in large part to the fact that next level racing and thrustmaster sent us a full-on racing sim kit uh and that has just made a huge a substantial difference in the feedback that i receive from the cars that i drive in that game obviously most of those are formula one maybe formula two cars they behave a lot differently than just your average touring car or average sports car but i love the fast-paced nature of formula one and i'm a huge formula one fan in real life uh which is why i wanted to at least start with f1 2020. now i'm obviously not the best at this game my times are certainly not the best in this particular clip that you're seeing here either but my skills have dramatically improved since receiving this racing sim from next level racing and the feedback through the thrustmaster uh pedals as well as the steering wheel it's just it it's unlike anything i've ever experienced before especially since i've really only been playing with controller and the little uh feedback that you get from a controller it's just it's laughable when seeing the context of what this steering wheel can do and this isn't even a very expensive racing or sim steering wheel you could get some from other brands that cost thousands of dollars i'm sure those feel insane but uh i am just more or less content with this because i know that it's something that i really couldn't pay any more for or justify paying any more for personally even though this stuff was sent to me it would just feel weird to preach at you know multi-thousand dollar setups that i would never by myself i'm like hey go buy this well yeah it's easy for me to say i didn't actually pay for it uh so i think this is a great entry level setup and it's gonna be fine for most amateurs but i've been noticing as of late that i am somewhat hardware limited more specifically by the graphics card so in these clips you can see in the top left these are our system usages the gpu is being leveraged almost 100 percent and our cpu is just kind of chilling there so the graphics card currently what you're seeing is an rtx 2060 this is actually a reference 2060 and the cpu in here is a core i7 8700 from intel so it's pretty obvious that our cpu is not the bottleneck neither is our system ram neither is vram for that matter it is just the gpu the 2060 is not enough for 1440p at very high or max settings like you're seeing here and thankfully a graphics card upgrade is pretty simple to take care of and i'm sure it's apparent by this point the card we're upgrading to is the rtx 38 this is the founders edition 3080 i'm choosing this one for a few reasons i think it will perform well first off in the node 202 which is a more compact itx case more like a console form factor and then for two i think that the adapter the little power adapter for this uh unique cable here that connects to the graphics card is just the ugliest thing i've ever seen in a modern graphics card so it will be concealed in the node 202 which is nice now in order to upgrade we're gonna need to upgrade power supplies and that's where of course their sf750 comes into play so this build actually uses the sf600 which at the time was the highest wattage available in the sf lineup from course there this is an sfx power supply it has custom sleeve cables running to all the vital components these were sent by mod the problem is 600 watts it's just it's not enough really for a 30 80. granted the 8700 here can be fairly efficient we're not overclocking not that we even could it's not a case skew but we want a bit more breathing room in terms of power and the sf750 gives us that you can see just how small this power supply is i can literally grasp this whole thing with one hand it almost wraps around it it is super compact that's the point of sfx but a lot of these units just because of how small they are don't reach wattages anywhere near 750. and this actually it's kind of a cute unit i don't know it's uh looking like it looks like it uses a 100 millimeter fan maybe slightly under that it's definitely no 120mm fan it's fully modular which is nice especially in these compact cases you can pick and choose the cables that you need for your system and omit the rest so there's not a lot of extra clutter and if it's anything like the sf600 this thing's going to run super quiet it's also 80 plus platinum efficient which pretty much speaks for itself and the only problem is it's a fairly expensive power supply and that's just a consequence of being one of the only units in this form factor with this wattage and this efficiency rating and this modular layout on the market if you have no competition you pretty much charge whatever you want i like to see this come down in price a bit maybe it will in a year or two but uh it's the price you pay for itx form factors so enough rambling it's time to upgrade shouldn't take us too long stay with me if you're looking for a sleek and efficient aio for your next pc check out be quiet's pure loop aio lineup choose between four popular sizes that all support purewings 2 fans and enjoy qualities like dedicated fill ports and decoupled pumps for minimal vibration and maximum aesthetic at the block learn more about be quiet pure loop aios below so what i've done here i've taken two separate clips from the two different systems which are basically the same system just with the graphics card swap and the power supply swap and i've kind of juxtaposed them together here in premiere pro so that's what you're looking at and you can start and stop you can see how the system usages change uh not only over time per clip but also between clips with the different cards so i'll just pause it here for one second we're pretty much in the same spot in the lap i was running the same lap in the same circuit and there's a little bit of variance here but for the most part it's the exact same environment the exact same settings the uh 3080 pulling in over 200 fps pretty much the entire lap which is awesome and the temperatures are about 80 degrees celsius throughout now you notice the gpu utilization here is still at 95 percent but cp utilization is at 41 percent here and this would be mid-40s depending on when you stop it and that is virtually double what we were experiencing here on the left so the cpu is only working about 24 of total capacity and we're getting about 111 fps this is literally a result here of the cpu having to keep up with the frame rate that the graphics card is basically pushing out so the cps to do more work right for those frames and that's why you're seeing this utilization bump so the cpu is actually doing a bit more now because we have a stronger graphics card in our system that is awesome that means that our graphics card is inherently less of a bottleneck overall for this particular game which was the entire point of this update and on top of that the monitor i use for my racing sim is a 165 hertz panel it's a 1440p panel so you'd see on the left i wasn't getting the full 165 hertz i wasn't seeing the full 165 frames i could have seen on that panel because the graphics car wasn't capable of keeping up in the ultra or high preset in 1440p in this game so just switching to a better graphics card all around allows me to actually fully utilize the monitor refresh rate i had in my disposal which is another reason why i wanted to upgrade another interesting note the 3080 despite running at about the same temperature under load as the 2016 these are both fe cards by the way straight uh founders edition models from nvidia uh the 3080 stayed much quieter at this temperature under load which is another plus especially if i'm not gaming with a headset typically i do in the racing sim but if i'm not i just haven't you know i'll maybe turn up the volume a bit and have them rest around my neck just because my ears get a little a little worn out after wearing a headset for too long i don't hear the system anywhere near as much as i did with the 2060 in it and we're getting literally double if not more than double the frame rate so there you have it folks i think these results pretty much speak for themselves i mean the 3080 is what a 700 card don't pay scalper prices be patient you don't need a 3080 right now and if you do need a newer graphics card it doesn't have to be a 3080 at this moment but the 3080 is double the price of the 2060 at launch the 2060 was around what 350 msrp and we're seeing double the performance which makes sense but not only that in this case we're seeing the cpu being leveraged a lot more which is awesome that's due in large part to the higher frame rate we are not vram soaked at all system ram stuff eight gigs to spare there for this game i would say that with 3080 in it much better balance system and that was the whole point of this video the whole point of the update you don't need to rebuild your entire system especially if your cpu is not the limiting factor uh if at the end of the day you're still on kaby lake even or i would say as far back as zen or zen plus maybe you have a ryzen 5 1600 analyze the the usages in game use msi afterburner use riva statistics tune that's what we're doing to set this up we have a video talking about how to set these up so that you can analyze bottlenecks yourself but uh pick a game or two that you play a ton and then set this up the way we have and look at the usages and see how the usages scale across different in-game settings different presets different resolutions you'll be able to identify what specifically is the bottleneck in your system and that will help you narrow down what you need to upgrade it just results in spending less money don't spend what you don't need to spend now obviously it's your money you can spend however you want i'm just trying to uh minimize the exposure so to speak look i could have looked at the 8700 and said you know what that's a core i7 8700 two generations old i need to upgrade my cpu but you're seeing it here i don't need to now if i if i switch to a 5900 x or 1500x zen 3 chip i might see a small performance bump there but from what i'm seeing in these usages the cpu is not the limiting factor so it doesn't make sense to upgrade my entire platform when just a major graphics card upgrade will do with all that said if you guys like this video be sure to give it a thumbs up i'd appreciate that consider clicking the subscribe button leaving a comment that feedback is appreciated and i'll catch you the next one my name is greg thanks for beefing up my racing sim with meone of the games i find myself playing a lot lately is f1 2020 and that's due in large part to the fact that next level racing and thrustmaster sent us a full-on racing sim kit uh and that has just made a huge a substantial difference in the feedback that i receive from the cars that i drive in that game obviously most of those are formula one maybe formula two cars they behave a lot differently than just your average touring car or average sports car but i love the fast-paced nature of formula one and i'm a huge formula one fan in real life uh which is why i wanted to at least start with f1 2020. now i'm obviously not the best at this game my times are certainly not the best in this particular clip that you're seeing here either but my skills have dramatically improved since receiving this racing sim from next level racing and the feedback through the thrustmaster uh pedals as well as the steering wheel it's just it it's unlike anything i've ever experienced before especially since i've really only been playing with controller and the little uh feedback that you get from a controller it's just it's laughable when seeing the context of what this steering wheel can do and this isn't even a very expensive racing or sim steering wheel you could get some from other brands that cost thousands of dollars i'm sure those feel insane but uh i am just more or less content with this because i know that it's something that i really couldn't pay any more for or justify paying any more for personally even though this stuff was sent to me it would just feel weird to preach at you know multi-thousand dollar setups that i would never by myself i'm like hey go buy this well yeah it's easy for me to say i didn't actually pay for it uh so i think this is a great entry level setup and it's gonna be fine for most amateurs but i've been noticing as of late that i am somewhat hardware limited more specifically by the graphics card so in these clips you can see in the top left these are our system usages the gpu is being leveraged almost 100 percent and our cpu is just kind of chilling there so the graphics card currently what you're seeing is an rtx 2060 this is actually a reference 2060 and the cpu in here is a core i7 8700 from intel so it's pretty obvious that our cpu is not the bottleneck neither is our system ram neither is vram for that matter it is just the gpu the 2060 is not enough for 1440p at very high or max settings like you're seeing here and thankfully a graphics card upgrade is pretty simple to take care of and i'm sure it's apparent by this point the card we're upgrading to is the rtx 38 this is the founders edition 3080 i'm choosing this one for a few reasons i think it will perform well first off in the node 202 which is a more compact itx case more like a console form factor and then for two i think that the adapter the little power adapter for this uh unique cable here that connects to the graphics card is just the ugliest thing i've ever seen in a modern graphics card so it will be concealed in the node 202 which is nice now in order to upgrade we're gonna need to upgrade power supplies and that's where of course their sf750 comes into play so this build actually uses the sf600 which at the time was the highest wattage available in the sf lineup from course there this is an sfx power supply it has custom sleeve cables running to all the vital components these were sent by mod the problem is 600 watts it's just it's not enough really for a 30 80. granted the 8700 here can be fairly efficient we're not overclocking not that we even could it's not a case skew but we want a bit more breathing room in terms of power and the sf750 gives us that you can see just how small this power supply is i can literally grasp this whole thing with one hand it almost wraps around it it is super compact that's the point of sfx but a lot of these units just because of how small they are don't reach wattages anywhere near 750. and this actually it's kind of a cute unit i don't know it's uh looking like it looks like it uses a 100 millimeter fan maybe slightly under that it's definitely no 120mm fan it's fully modular which is nice especially in these compact cases you can pick and choose the cables that you need for your system and omit the rest so there's not a lot of extra clutter and if it's anything like the sf600 this thing's going to run super quiet it's also 80 plus platinum efficient which pretty much speaks for itself and the only problem is it's a fairly expensive power supply and that's just a consequence of being one of the only units in this form factor with this wattage and this efficiency rating and this modular layout on the market if you have no competition you pretty much charge whatever you want i like to see this come down in price a bit maybe it will in a year or two but uh it's the price you pay for itx form factors so enough rambling it's time to upgrade shouldn't take us too long stay with me if you're looking for a sleek and efficient aio for your next pc check out be quiet's pure loop aio lineup choose between four popular sizes that all support purewings 2 fans and enjoy qualities like dedicated fill ports and decoupled pumps for minimal vibration and maximum aesthetic at the block learn more about be quiet pure loop aios below so what i've done here i've taken two separate clips from the two different systems which are basically the same system just with the graphics card swap and the power supply swap and i've kind of juxtaposed them together here in premiere pro so that's what you're looking at and you can start and stop you can see how the system usages change uh not only over time per clip but also between clips with the different cards so i'll just pause it here for one second we're pretty much in the same spot in the lap i was running the same lap in the same circuit and there's a little bit of variance here but for the most part it's the exact same environment the exact same settings the uh 3080 pulling in over 200 fps pretty much the entire lap which is awesome and the temperatures are about 80 degrees celsius throughout now you notice the gpu utilization here is still at 95 percent but cp utilization is at 41 percent here and this would be mid-40s depending on when you stop it and that is virtually double what we were experiencing here on the left so the cpu is only working about 24 of total capacity and we're getting about 111 fps this is literally a result here of the cpu having to keep up with the frame rate that the graphics card is basically pushing out so the cps to do more work right for those frames and that's why you're seeing this utilization bump so the cpu is actually doing a bit more now because we have a stronger graphics card in our system that is awesome that means that our graphics card is inherently less of a bottleneck overall for this particular game which was the entire point of this update and on top of that the monitor i use for my racing sim is a 165 hertz panel it's a 1440p panel so you'd see on the left i wasn't getting the full 165 hertz i wasn't seeing the full 165 frames i could have seen on that panel because the graphics car wasn't capable of keeping up in the ultra or high preset in 1440p in this game so just switching to a better graphics card all around allows me to actually fully utilize the monitor refresh rate i had in my disposal which is another reason why i wanted to upgrade another interesting note the 3080 despite running at about the same temperature under load as the 2016 these are both fe cards by the way straight uh founders edition models from nvidia uh the 3080 stayed much quieter at this temperature under load which is another plus especially if i'm not gaming with a headset typically i do in the racing sim but if i'm not i just haven't you know i'll maybe turn up the volume a bit and have them rest around my neck just because my ears get a little a little worn out after wearing a headset for too long i don't hear the system anywhere near as much as i did with the 2060 in it and we're getting literally double if not more than double the frame rate so there you have it folks i think these results pretty much speak for themselves i mean the 3080 is what a 700 card don't pay scalper prices be patient you don't need a 3080 right now and if you do need a newer graphics card it doesn't have to be a 3080 at this moment but the 3080 is double the price of the 2060 at launch the 2060 was around what 350 msrp and we're seeing double the performance which makes sense but not only that in this case we're seeing the cpu being leveraged a lot more which is awesome that's due in large part to the higher frame rate we are not vram soaked at all system ram stuff eight gigs to spare there for this game i would say that with 3080 in it much better balance system and that was the whole point of this video the whole point of the update you don't need to rebuild your entire system especially if your cpu is not the limiting factor uh if at the end of the day you're still on kaby lake even or i would say as far back as zen or zen plus maybe you have a ryzen 5 1600 analyze the the usages in game use msi afterburner use riva statistics tune that's what we're doing to set this up we have a video talking about how to set these up so that you can analyze bottlenecks yourself but uh pick a game or two that you play a ton and then set this up the way we have and look at the usages and see how the usages scale across different in-game settings different presets different resolutions you'll be able to identify what specifically is the bottleneck in your system and that will help you narrow down what you need to upgrade it just results in spending less money don't spend what you don't need to spend now obviously it's your money you can spend however you want i'm just trying to uh minimize the exposure so to speak look i could have looked at the 8700 and said you know what that's a core i7 8700 two generations old i need to upgrade my cpu but you're seeing it here i don't need to now if i if i switch to a 5900 x or 1500x zen 3 chip i might see a small performance bump there but from what i'm seeing in these usages the cpu is not the limiting factor so it doesn't make sense to upgrade my entire platform when just a major graphics card upgrade will do with all that said if you guys like this video be sure to give it a thumbs up i'd appreciate that consider clicking the subscribe button leaving a comment that feedback is appreciated and i'll catch you the next one my name is greg thanks for beefing up my racing sim with me\n"