Windows 10: Do I need a better CPU or GPU?

Hello. I have been playing alot of VR the last few days, and Im experiencing abit stuttering when Im playing some games. So my question is: It it caused by my GPU or my CPU? I took a picture below, showing CPU and GPU usage. Im not an expert in this, so any kind of help would have been greatly appreciated *Smile

Basic specs:
AMD FX 8350 CPU (4000 MHz) Not overclocked
AMD 290x Gigabyte Windforce OC
8 GB DDR 3 RAM

:)

 

I am considering of buying new CPU. Do I need a clean instalation of my windows 10 after installing new CPU?

* Original Title: Windows installation

Hello dear community.

Well i am considering of buying new CPU in my case AMD FX 8370 E 8 core processor .

My question is do I need a clean instalation of my windows 10 after installing new CPU .Will old and new drivers of AMD cpu interfere will it make a confusion one with other .

Thanks in advance

 

I am considering of buying new CPU. Do I need a clean instalation of my windows 10 after installing new CPU?

Changing the cpu/ processor might invalidate the current activation and you'll have to buy win-10

It might also invalidate the original win-8 or 7 activation key

So be prepared to dish out an extra 140-199.99 for another edition of win-10.

 

What resolution are you playing at? And what about quality settings (Antialias, anisotropic filtering, shadow quality, etc)?

 

My virtual reality headset (HTC VIVE) is running at 2160x1200 and should run in 90Hz for the best experience. There is not so many graphical settings in VR games. The only thing I can really adjust is supersampling which is at 1.0 (standard).

 

There's one definitive way to find out if your CPU is overloaded: Use the Performance Monitor tool, which you can start from Control Panel\Administrative Tools.

The Performance Monitor tool provides a vast amount of information on your running computer, more than you get from Task Manager or its Resource Monitor. When you first launch it, it tracks your CPU percentage utilization as the default counter. But you can have it track other counters.

First, throw a typical load on the CPU that you're worried might be overloading it.

Then, in Windows 10's Performance Monitor, click on the green "plus" icon to add a new counter to track. Then in the list of counters, select System\Processor Queue Length and click Add>> and then OK. The Processor Queue Length is the number of threads waiting to be serviced by your CPU.

A rule of thumb is that the Processor Queue Length should not constantly exceed 10 times the number of cores of your CPU. For example, for a 6-core CPU, the Processor Queue Length should not exceed 60 on a sustained basis. If it does, your CPU may be overloaded.

 

Did I do it right? The stuttering was very intense at this point.

 

Looks like you did it right, and also looks like the load fails to violate Eksy61's formula (sustained 10X core count). When you run the performance tab in Task Manager, do you see anything maxing out there when the system stutters? It could still be CPU bound, but it might be memory or I/O bound as well.
HTH,
--Ed--

 

No, nothing seems to reach max. Everything is pretty far from max. Maybe its just the game that is bad optimized? I dont know. My friend has a PC almost identical like mine, but only with a Rx 480 instead of a 290x (almost same performance) and 32 gb ram instead of 8gb, and he can feel stuttering too.

 

This is also a possibility, especially given that your friend's rig has a newer graphics card and 4X RAM when compared to yours. Have you tried other VR games to see if you get the same symptoms from them, too? That might be a good next troubleshooting step: no point trying to fix something that ain't broke!
HTH,
--Ed--

 

Thats true *Smile I have tried more games, even a game called Onward that i had to refund because of this problem. But in that game, it was MUCH worse. I dont know if I could blame the GPU or CPU. Hmmm.. *Think

 

Do you have an SSD for the system hard drive? Could be disk access halting the system causing the stuttering. Are the games very memory intensive? You also could be running out of RAM causing the system to page to the C drive slowing and stuttering. Look at the memory tab in Task Manager.

 

I have an SSD for the system hard drive. So I dont think thats the problem. And Im pretty sure its not the ram. As I said, my friend had 32 gb ram and had the same stuttering as me when playing VR.

 

Im only using like 50-60% when in game, which is not much

 

Do the game makers specify minimum or recommended PC configurations? If so, how does your rig compare? It might just be lagging because it's not up to the task. No sense trying to fix something that's incapable anyway, so please check that out if you haven't already. VR is pretty demanding so it might just not be workable for your 3-4 year old rig.
Please let us know what you find out.
Best of luck!
--Ed--