RTX 2060 - Bad 4K Game Performance

Games, Gaming & Hardware
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Just upgraded to an RTX2060 from a GTX 780 and I’d like to give a word of warning to those wanting to upgrade to newer graphcs cards (don’t fall into the trap I did):

For my system, I’ve lost about 20-25% performance upgrading to an RTX 2060. My system has an older gen motherboard, so the PCIe x16 slot may also be a culprit in terms of limiting bandwidth. I’m also using Windows 7 64-bit which only supports DirectX 11. These are also likely factors.

My specs:

Gigabyte X58A UD7 Motherboard
Core 980X 6-core/12-thread 3.48GHz CPU
24GB Kingston HyperX RAM (1740MHz)
Nvidia RTX 2060 Founders Edition 6GB ((old card ASUS GTX 780 OC 3GB))
Kingston SSD for main system and game drive
Windows 7 64-bit (DirectX 11)
Samsung UE40HU6900 TV (3840x2160 @ 60 Hz RGB)

So, if you’re planning on 4K gaming in the near future, and want to upgrade to one of the later generation graphics cards, make sure your system isn’t going to be a bottleneck. Save yourself some money and wait.

Hope this info helps those wishing to upgrade to RTX cards.

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UPDATE

Since testing graphics performance in other games, I’m happy to report a massive increase in performance. I’m unsure why WoW has had a decrease in performance since upgrading, while other games are running smooth as hell.

I’ll leave the info up in case anyone does actually play WoW in 4K and is upgrading their graphics card. Something to watch out for, specifically with WoW performance.

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i try running wow in 4k on a GTX 1080 but it is a drama to get 60fps…
I’m pretty sure i’m being bottlenecked by my cpu though (i5-6600k@4.2GHz)
At least nvidia did just release their version of freesync so i’ll try to get that to work.

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With the RTX 2060 (and I’d guess the others in the range), I’ve found that it’s very optimised for special effects such as spells, lighting, shadows, anti-aliasing, etc. Changing these types of settings all the way from Low to Ultra in any game doesn’t seem to affect framerate much.

In WoW, “View distance” and “Environment detail” seem to make the biggest difference in framerate. Changing “Resolution Scale” to the lowest (1280x720) doesn’t give any frame rate benefit whatsoever. Even changing it up to 7680x4320, “8K”) I only lose 3-4 fps.

I think the bottleneck in WoW may be in how many textures are being processed simultaneously. Zandalar brings my framerate down to 28 fps in some places, whereas in other zones it’s a solid 60 fps (locked with V-Sync).

Most other games I’ve tried, including the resource-heavy Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, run at a solid 60fps nearly everywhere in game at 4K. However, there are usually no large open areas with many textures and details visible.

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To be fair you couldve expected it cause its XX60 which hasnt always overperformed the previous gen XX80 and the 1080 isnt exactly wild either on 4k

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I have the same GPU and have consistent 60 in raids, the trick for me was quicker (4266mhz) memory

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Short answer is that it’s not the GPU that’s bottle-necking your 4K output in WoW… it’s your CPU - based on the chipset, you’re working with rather ancient (metaphorically) hardware in that dept.

I’d recommend an upgrade to Z9x or newer, but that’ll mean a new CPU, too.

Remember - WoW is heavily reliant on your CPU for the visuals; yes the GPU helps, but a GTX20XX will be pretty much snoring through most of the work that it’s asked to do for WoW.

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I have a 4930k @4.5GHz (6c and 12t) with the RAM at 2400 or 1200MHz Quad channel and 32GB RAM total DDR3. My RTX 2060 is at 1905MHz. At 4K and graphics set to 7, performance appears decent. 500GB Samsung SSD with WoW on it. CPU and graphics are maxed out in destiny 2 at 4k which runs smooth as silk.

The RTX 2060 is not a 4k card (1080p to 1440p likely), vRAM is just not big enough and if you run out of vRAM then performance will die. With the settings I use vRAM usage is 5GB+ and the cards max is 6GB.

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Thanks for your responses. I’d say the CPU isn’t the bottleneck with my system. Even though it’s an ancient architecture, it’s still able to handle the throughput of multiple background apps running simultaneously without affecting performance. I’ve even tried with CPU-intensive tasks, such as running a music project at the same time as WoW.

With respect to the RTX 2060 not being a 4K card, more a 1080p or 1440p, I’d have to agree. Far Cry 5 runs slightly lower than 60 fps at 2160p and uses almost the full 6GB of VRAM. 1440p runs rock solid at 60 fps with no issues. Other newer titles I’ve tested are also giving very good performance. They all have dedicated fullscreen mode, though.

I’ve actually created a new thread with an issue I’ve identified with how Resolution Scale works in WoW compared to other games. The new “Fullscreen(Windowed)” mode is likely the main culprit, so selecting 1280x720 doesn’t increase performance by even 1 fps compared to running at 3840x2160. I believe this is the limiting factor, as all other games run smooth as silk.

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