Squeezing all the performance out of this setup

[YourMom]

Hey all

I have a build that I'm pretty happy with despite its age, and because I'm a casual gamer I'm not too interested in heavy investments, watercooling or overclocking and such.
However, out of interest, I'd like to see what the limits are, and if I can get to them. The build:

HP Z640 Workstation
Dual Xeon E5-2660 V3 Cpu's
128GB Ram (8x16GB DDR4 2133 divvy'd up between both sockets)
Asus RTX 2070 (the regular edition, no super or TI or anything)
Soundblaster Audigy FX PCI-E
Crucial 1TB SSD
Dell U3419W Ultrawide Display (60hz, 3440*1440 native)
Windows 10 Pro

General settings:

Windows visuals on 'performance' (except smooth fonts)
Game mode 'on'
Newest Graphics drivers with Geforce Experience
All system drivers up to date, including BIOS (March release this year)
A minimum of background tasks/software present during gaming
Nvidia Global 3D settings on 'recommended' (factory default)
'High performance' Windows power scheme

I like to have all my games run at acceptable framerates (~60) with a maximum of graphical fidelity, with the exception of CSGO where I sacrifice everything for my framerate.
Currently this is the only game for which I have custom Nvidia settings (everything set for max performance and lowest fidelity) yet I do play at native res because the FPS bump for FHD was only 10%.
FOV is at the max (68) if that matters and I currently do not play FaceIt (only official competitive).

CSGO (measured with Ulletical FPS Workshop) is doing ~250FPS average, lows (smoke) at 50 and peaks at 600+. CPU Load <10%, GPU <50%.
Doom 2016 does 90~120FPS during mild to intense action with the game maxed, native res and CPU load comparable to CSGO
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition is running between 45 and 55FPS (more of the former than the latter) with the game maxed, native res, CPU load 40~60%, GPU 80~99%

I have more games planned or installed but I reckon this is a good sumup for now. I'm not a performance expert and I'm pretty happy with these numbers, but I'm wondering if there is more to gain, specifically for CSGO as it seems that i'm not utilizing nearly what the system has to offer. I might be wrong on that, hence this topic.

What advice can you give me with regards to tuning here?

 

[EarthDog]

More fps, overclock that graphics card.

I dont think you can overclock the cpus on that workstation. Increasing memory speeds can help, but again, I think you'reimited by the board. So... back to the first sentence.

A faster graphics card would help, but don't go crazy as you'd still have a glass ceiling with the cpu/ram even with the higher resolution.

 

[YourMom]

So you don't think the CPU is currently being a bottleneck? The GPU could stand to pull more? You are right on the overclocking bit - the board is completely locked in that sense, as are the CPU's and honestly I don't have much interest going down that route. What would be a safe and responsible way of getting more out of the current GPU?

 

[EarthDog]

An easy was is to DL Asus GPU Tweakcand let the OC scanner automically look for clocks and change the curve(s) then overclock the memory.Or you can try manually overclocking both with the same application.

Those cpus are still likely a glass ceiling, but since you play at a higher resolution, it shouldn't be too big of an issue.

 

[YourMom]

Well that's interesting, so I have more leeway on higher resolutions, I guess because the focal point is then on the GPU performance?

 

[EarthDog]

Spot on, sir! There's always exceptions of course, but at a high level yes... the higher the resolution the less a cpu is needed. But it varies. Cpus hold back high end cards a bit even at 4k.

 

[YourMom]

Well thanks fellow sir! I'm running the Asus OC scanner right now, but the scan portion is taking an ungodly amount of time. 10 minutes in and it's only a third of the way done.

 

[HoraceC]

Improving the CPU cooling may give you a little boost when under load - a fan and heatsink clean, and potentially reseating the heatsink with better compound might help a little.

 

[trents]

Games that are CPU dependent thrive on high clock speeds. Beyond 6-8 processing cores, there is no advantage to having lots of cores but there is advantage to having faster cores. I'm speaking in general terms here, not necessarily concerning CSGO. So, in some games your low CPU frequency will be a bottleneck.

 

[YourMom]

Yeah but these are installed as big units, especially the second CPU which is on a seperate daughter board complete with seperate cooling, shrouds, memory banks... I'd rather not mess with that for the possible increase of a few frames.

 

[trents]

Yeah but these are installed as big units, especially the second CPU which is on a seperate daughter board complete with seperate cooling, shrouds, memory banks... I'd rather not mess with that for the possible increase of a few frames.

Yes, I get that. I'm just saying that will give you a glass ceiling in some games, even with a better video card.