I upgraded my PC from a Core i9 11900k to a Ryzen 9 7950X in December aiming to boost game performance, especially in Fortnite. I’m running an RTX 4080 GPU. While Fortnite’s fps went up, everyday tasks like browsing with Chrome and opening Task Manager have become really sluggish. Even desktop icons lag when highlighted. Also, Minecraft fps dropped from over 300 to about 50 on optimized settings. I’ve been building PCs for years but never faced something like this before. What could be causing my system to slow down so much after upgrading? Any fixes or tweaks I might have missed?
5 Answers
Sometimes small BIOS tweaks or a reset CMOS can fix instability causing sluggishness. It’s worth resetting to default BIOS and then enabling just EXPO for your RAM. Monitor system power limits and TDP to ensure your CPU isn’t throttling due to motherboard limits, which can confuse Windows into underperforming.
If all drivers and BIOS updates are done and temps are good, a clean driver sweep can help. Use driver cleaning tools to remove any old Intel-specific drivers that might conflict with AMD hardware. Also verify your OS install is clean and not corrupted, as that can cause slowdowns in general apps and games alike.
Did you do a fresh Windows install after swapping from Intel to AMD? Sometimes leftover drivers cause all sorts of weird slowdowns. Also, check your BIOS version and reset CMOS settings to default. Make sure EXPO is enabled for your DDR5 RAM to run at rated speeds. Some motherboard BIOS updates fix compatibility issues with the Ryzen 9 7950X, so double-check that too.
Check if there’s any PCIe generation mismatch between your GPU and motherboard slots. The RTX 4080 supports PCIe Gen 4, so if your mobo is forcing Gen 3 or lower on that slot, it can cause bottlenecks and lower performance. This can often be adjusted in BIOS settings. Also, confirm XMP or EXPO profiles are active to ensure RAM runs at its fastest speed, since slow RAM would drag overall system responsiveness down.
First things first, make sure your chipset and graphics drivers are fully updated for your Ryzen platform. AMD releases specific chipset drivers that can hugely impact system performance. Also, monitor your CPU temperatures and usage while gaming to rule out thermal throttling. Your Ryzen 9 7950X running at 61-70°C with 40% usage during Fortnite seems okay, but better to confirm no overheating occurs.
Yeah, I’ve already got the latest AMD drivers installed and checked temps as I mentioned. Temps seem fine during gaming sessions.
I haven’t done a completely fresh install yet, but BIOS is updated and EXPO is enabled as well. I’ll give a Windows clean install a try next.