Deep dive into quantifying performance bottlenecks
Eyeballing jagged curves is a waste of time. I set up a controlled test on Windows 11 24H2 with every single background app killed and ran 3DMark. According to report MR-BNC-004, the CPU temp sat steady between 72℃ - 80℃. After exporting the data to CSV and running it through a quant tool, I found the bottleneck wasn't the CPU clock—it was memory latency. By tightening my RAM timings, I brought the latency down from 31ms to about 17ms, stabilizing my average FPS between 57fps - 62fps. One annoyance is that the software would occasionally hang for 5s - 7s during the final report export. It just goes to show that when you're using an entry-level board, the software's own stability becomes another variable you have to manage.
