New CPU or GPU to improve FPS?

[JayTac]

I don't know whether this game is more CPU or GPU intensive. Which upgrade will yield bigger gains in Helldivers?

I currently have:
i9 9900k at 5.0GHz
16GB DDR4 2133 MHz
RTX 3070

Thinking about buying:
i7 14700k along with new mobo and ram.
or
RTX 4080

What's my bottleneck?

[XOLiD]

Yeah there's people running 256GB of RAM these days, 32 is nothing crazy.

[shadowed]

Use the Nvidia overlay, HWiNFO, or MSI Afterburner to monitor your GPU usage. If it is below 90% you are CPU limited.

If GPU limited, go to video and try a lower render quality.

[Aryend]

Originally posted by botmatrixx:

Originally posted by Deep Rock Galactic:

People stop suggesting 32GB its literally useless. Neither windows nor the game will ever need more than 16

you are simultaniously correct and FULL OF ♥♥♥♥.

Windows will not need more than 16. (idles in 11gb)
The Game will not need more than 16. (idles around 7gb in the SuperCarrier at Launch)
But TOGETHER, they need more than 16.

Buy new RAM, or a matched STick of RAM if you already have a single RAM stick in your Motherboard.

RAM will /may slow down to it's slowest speed if you have different 'types' or mismatched sticks.

I mean, I agree that 16gb is not always enough nowadays and a 32 kit goes pretty cheap... But what are you doing to have windows take 11gb when idle? I'm idling at around 6 gigs and in mission in Helldivers 2 the load is around 14-15 gb and I haven't seen it max out my 16gb yet.

[Helldivers™ 2]

Originally posted by botmatrixx:

Originally posted by Deep Rock Galactic:

People stop suggesting 32GB its literally useless. Neither windows nor the game will ever need more than 16

you are simultaniously correct and FULL OF ♥♥♥♥.

Windows will not need more than 16. (idles in 11gb)
The Game will not need more than 16. (idles around 7gb in the SuperCarrier at Launch)
But TOGETHER, they need more than 16.

Buy new RAM, or a matched STick of RAM if you already have a single RAM stick in your Motherboard.

RAM will /may slow down to it's slowest speed if you have different 'types' or mismatched sticks.

How about you spend 5 minutes to google before posting.

Windows will use as much available ram as it can. Thats because empty ram is wasted. That doesn't mean it NEEDS as much ram, it's just "why not". It will use 11-12 GB if its free.

As soon as you use any app like a game that needs more ram, windows starts to deallocate, because it doesnt need it anymore since you are not gaming AND interacting with the OS a lot at the same time.

16gb is more than enough in any game i have ever tested

[JayTac]

Originally posted by botmatrixx:

Originally posted by Tac:

I just realized it's rated at 3200, I don't know why it's running at 2133 but I'll try to fix it. I remember I had a lot of ram related issues with this mobo when I first got it, so that might be why.

No, it's not the issue.
RAM Speed is FAR less important than RAM AMOUNT.

You said earlier, that your RAM is at 97%
That is 100% the problem. All GPU's run at 95% all the time unless you've intentionally capped them, that's pretty normal behaviour.

Your RAM is FULL> where does the extra 'stuff' you computer needs to process go to, do you think? Your computer's RAM fills up, so it puts any 'overflow' in the ONLY buffer it has - your HDD/SSD/ - either of which are thousands of times slower than RAM. So part of the game is running thousands of times slower than it should be.

This, and only this, and entirely this, is your singular and primary issue.
Once you've sorted this out, Then start thinking about other things; BUT YOU WON'T NEED TO BECAUSE THIS WILL SOLVE THE PROBLEM.... because thsi is the problem.

Windows 10 uses 11GB of RAM. Check it. Restart your computer, and go have a look at how much RAM it ustilises 'at idle'. That leaves 5gb for your game? I don't think so, buddy.

It was full, but mainly due to having other apps open while playing. I now realize that I can't multitask with only 16GB of memory. Previously, I was entering the game with 47% of my memory already allocated. However, most of that was due to having Google Chrome open (with a bunch of tabs). With Chrome closed, my memory usage is 31% (~5GB).

Now, my maximum memory usage in-game is 88%, so based on that, adding more RAM will not increase performance. Again, as long as I have my browsers closed when playing, which I'm fine with.

After correcting my RAM profile, I'm now getting 50-60 fps. Previously, I was dipping into the 30s and averaging 45. So, it made a pretty big difference; however, it's still below where I would like to be.

[Forge Master]

32 Gigs of RAM is the standard. That's all you really need

[Patriot03]

A simple way to see what's holding back your performance is to reduce your graphics settings to potato status and see what kind of FPS you get.

If your FPS is still kinda lame, you want to upgrade your CPU and go from there, if your FPS is amazing after you do this then you know that upgrading your GPU is what you want to do.


(Some graphical effects do affect the CPU so this method isn't 100% fool proof, but it's still a great indicator). Personally for a game like this I think people should be looking at either AMD's 5800x3D or their 7XXXx3D CPUs. There's no DLSS to save on GPU performance so a beefy GPU is also needed.

32gb of ram if you can afford it wouldn't hurt.

[Patriot03]

Originally posted by Deep Rock Galactic:

16gb is more than enough in any game i have ever tested

While I tend to agree and have told people this for years, a few games are starting to push this advice especially when mods are considered. It's also true that apps will allocate more ram if you have it, but that makes sense for performance because that means those apps are deliberately using the faster storage of RAM when it's available which isn't a bad thing with regard to performance.


32gb is pretty nice to have these days especially if you want to use your PC for any productive tasks whatsoever.

[JayTac]

Originally posted by Jonny Sparta:

FIRST if you ram is actually running at 2133 THAT IS A BIG PROBLEM.

Learn how to enable xmp in your bios and get that on first things first.

Now launch the game and enjoy a huge fps boost.

If you still want more performance.

Run the game with it's performance metrics turned on uising F5.
Read the render times for the cpu and gpu. Whichever one one is higher is your hardware's bottleneck.

But I imagine if you arn't right now after enabling xmp you will be fully utilizing your 3070.

Next drop your settings to low. Leave AA on. Textures high, shadows med, particle low or med. drop global illum and keep ambient occlusion. Leave async compute off.

Probably don't bother with with scaling. I get fps drops if i use it.

Run some missions and inch up your setting if you want.


I've got a 5800x3d and a 3070 I get like 100fps in ship and drops to 80ish in bug 9 combat. Without the frame gen program I'll mention at the end.

Userbenchmark com says my cpu is just 6% faster than yours, so we're pretty even.

WIth low/med settings and no scaling. And it always feels smooth except the odd cluster strike when there's fire out.

Watch some benchmark videos and you'll see you need a lot of gpu to get much better fps. And it's not thAt much better.

I bought a program called Lossless Scaling on steam a couple days ago and run it along side Hd2 to use frame generation on my 3070.

I'm still fiddling with my settings but currently staying above 120fps in Bug 9s.

I'd be worried that if I bought a good enough gpu to make a big difference THEN I'd end up cpu bottlenecked and wouldn't that suck.

Hope it helps.

I recommend trying frame gen for 10$ before spending 1000$+ on new hardware.

Thank you for this. I completely goofed on my ram settings and didn't realize. My BIOS GUI makes it very hard to tell which profile is selected and I just never noticed I was on the wrong one. I'm running at 3200 now and the game is much smoother at 1440p.

Now, I'm at a pretty consistent 60fps until big fights occur, then I dip to 50fps.

Would buying a faster ram kit help, or am I only seeing this big of a difference because I was on the wrong profile?

My render times:

18 ms main thread
15 ms render thread
GPU time 18 ms
Vram 4.6GB

I'm looking into Lossless Scaling now, thanks.

[Sweet C]

Lossless Scaling is kinda garbage imo. Unless you're ok with severe ghosting.

[Sleepy_Walker]

Originally posted by Tac:

After correcting my RAM profile, I'm now getting 50-60 fps. Previously, I was dipping into the 30s and averaging 45. So, it made a pretty big difference; however, it's still below where I would like to be.

I assume this was on 1440.

I found the below video with a 3070 testing on different settings (has nice statistics to see that VRAM and RAM should not be an issue). It seems you should be able to get around 75 fps on high/native settings (single player, low bug count). It does seem like something is still holding you back, but it is no longer RAM amount (twice the performance is nothing to sneeze at).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gckgHS5W7ZA&t=40s

Maybe single thread performance for CPU, where the game uses so many threads that it reduces your clock speed too much? Of course according to that test you should be able to set your graphics to high and see zero performance impact from what you have now since your GPU should be able to hit 75 fps.

[ZiggyDeath]

Originally posted by Tac:

Originally posted by Snappz:

your fine. the game has a 144 fps cap anyways

Everyone keeps saying my PC is fine, but I'm averaging 45 fps and not even on max settings. Is something wrong with my system?

FWIW my max CPU-usage in-game is 88%.
97% GPU and 97% ram.

This is how to check to see where your bottleneck lies in HD2.

Press F2 then F4. This will bringup your frametime performance as well as a graph showing these.

If all 3 lines of the graph are stacked, then your system is relatively balanced or you have a CPU bottleneck.

If the green line is not close to the yellow/red lines, then you're GPU bottlenecked.

In terms of frametime numbers, lower is better. If the GPU frametime number is bigger than your main/render frametime then you have a GPU bottleneck. If they're mostly the same then it's more likely to be a CPU bottleneck.


I suggest loading up a game and playing a round. When you see your framerate drop, look at the graph. Did the lines diverge or are they moving in lockstep.

[Jinxster]

Originally posted by Tac:

I don't know whether this game is more CPU or GPU intensive. Which upgrade will yield bigger gains in Helldivers?

I currently have:
i9 9900k at 5.0GHz
16GB DDR4 2133 MHz
RTX 3070

Thinking about buying:
i7 14700k along with new mobo and ram.
or
RTX 4080

What's my bottleneck?

Get 2 16gb of rams totalling 32 gbs.
Your cpu and gpu is fine.

[RTX 5080 FE(Mr Happy)]

Originally posted by Tac:

I don't know whether this game is more CPU or GPU intensive. Which upgrade will yield bigger gains in Helldivers?

I currently have:
i9 9900k at 5.0GHz
16GB DDR4 2133 MHz
RTX 3070

Thinking about buying:
i7 14700k along with new mobo and ram.
or
RTX 4080

What's my bottleneck?

What resolution?

1080p?

Max settings with what you have

1440p max settings maybe tweak shadows if 240hz 165 max setting would be fine,

4k? upgrade the gpu.

side note. your ram speed is slow upgrading to ddr4 3000 would give you a good 8 to 10 fps boost(trust me, it will) in many games and make things snappier.


I have the i7 13700K with RTX 4080 and 32GB ddr5.

Your CPU should be enough for another 2 to 3 years.

The GPU I suggest wait until 2025, because the RTX 50 series release Q4. So prices will drop.

[Jonny Sparta]

Originally posted by Tac:

Originally posted by Jonny Sparta:

Hope it helps.

Thank you for this. I completely goofed on my ram settings and didn't realize. My BIOS GUI makes it very hard to tell which profile is selected and I just never noticed I was on the wrong one. I'm running at 3200 now and the game is much smoother at 1440p.

Now, I'm at a pretty consistent 60fps until big fights occur, then I dip to 50fps.

Would buying a faster ram kit help, or am I only seeing this big of a difference because I was on the wrong profile?

My render times:

18 ms main thread
15 ms render thread
GPU time 18 ms
Vram 4.6GB

I'm looking into Lossless Scaling now, thanks.

Hey glad to hear you've got some good results. :)

I know ryzen chips like to be paired with 3600mhhz ram but I dont know much about ram speed and intel performance.

"Best ram speed for 9900k" into google would be my first try./


Those render times are now balanced right. Your gpu is maxed and your cpu isn't holding it up. I'd lower some settings to get my average fps up but that's a personal preference.