Why is my performance not as expected with a brand new rig?

I have this CPU (stock speed) i7 8700k 3.7 base clock speed up to 4.7 turbo boost paired with a GTX 1060 3Gb , I run with WAY lower settings than expected to be showed, mostly medium-high settings with some settings at low , 1080p resolution and I get way worse performance than expected. A guy with a 970 and i7 4790k all at stock gets 20% better fps than me at the same location pointing to the same direction WITH HIGHER graphical settings than me , For example , With everything bumped to max with him except FXAA , Native , He is getting a certain location 60+ fps , and Im getting about 40-45 with stutters too. So I just wanted to see if its my issue or the gtx 1060 card issue or the Processor issue or what's wrong exactly because the 970 should be less powerful than the 1060 3gb and the i7 8700k should be more powerful than his processor.. so it doesn't make sense , if you could help me with that issue please let me know , or offer any advice. Please keep in mind that the card is working fine with other games and running them at high frame rates.

I've even followed all this guide with each and every step.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/8gctrf/full_guide_maximizing_your_fps_and_game/

My fps drops from 60+ to 50's sometimes 40's with NOT so crowded locations unlike him

Also here's the video of this guy's Rig. Let me know if its ok and normal if mine runs slower and his Is faster providing 20% more framerates than me.

Having the same kind of problem for the last year or year and a half now. Runs perfectly fine at 60 FPS except that - predictable like clockwork - I constantly drop like 10-15 FPS every 20-30 seconds.

Doesn’t matter if I’m in crowded LA or out in an empty open world area.

Very, very annoying and is seriously cutting down my desire to log in and play.

I won't say this is the only reason however that video was made before any of the dlc's were released. While you might not be in a dlc area the game engine and such has probably had work done to it during these 3+ years that have an effect in all areas of the game.

@Oglaf.1074 what do you mean by the predictable like clockwork ? also do you have the same specs?

3gb on a graphics card could be bottle necking if you're playing open world-esque games. While GW2 likes single core performance it still needs to store a fair bit of texture information on the graphics card memory. I could be wrong on what GW2 wants! This is more from learning about Skyrim's need for higher memory on graphics.

Do you have enough system memory? Do you have stuff running in the background. Is your card loose? I have an i5 8600 gtx 1080 4x4gb ddr4 and i run 2k at a steady 60fps

@GDchiaScrub.3241 when I open the task manager and check the memory bandwidth of the card , its only 1GB / 3Gb used when running gw2 , also the CPU is @ 40% usage only , GPU at 50-60% , it looks like to me GW2 is not utilizing my system enough , Idk how to push it to do so , if you know what I mean.

Also @"LaGranse.8652" , This guy on youtube was kind enough to make this video for me for benchmarking

He ran the same CPU paired with a GTX 970 with the graphical settings as shown in the video , Before the boss spawns he's averaging 80-100 fps with such a crowded area meanwhile My RIG with WAY lower settings set cant even average a solid 60 at the same spot with barely same number of players.

Once I turn up 'Charcter Model Limit' from Lowest to low , it takes a toll on the FPS by like 5-6 , from Low to Medium takes more 5 fps and so on.Idk if the problem is with my CPU because Im pretty sure the Card should be fine if the GTX 970 could do it , the 1060 3gb can do it.the thing is , my CPU doesn't go over 4.3Ghz in the task manager. His CPU is at 4.8 and above.

I tried changing in bios options the CPU Ratio to make it run @ 4.7 , it never goes over 4.3ghz Idk whats the issue and how to fix that. but let me know what you guys think because I'm very very frustrated , it costed me about 1.1k USD to build the rig and to find such a performance disheartens me.

@Magnus Godrik.5841 16gb of ddr4 ram , I think that's enough system memory isn't it

Ensure your processor isn't thermal throttling. Prebuilts using i7-8700K's are often shipped without proper thermal solutions.

@GDchiaScrub.3241 said:3gb on a graphics card could be bottle necking if you're playing open world-esque games. While GW2 likes single core performance it still needs to store a fair bit of texture information on the graphics card memory. I could be wrong on what GW2 wants! This is more from learning about Skyrim's need for higher memory on graphics.

Guild Wars 2 doesn't use that much VRAM . I used to play this game on a Radeon HD 7950 way back in the day, which has 3GB of VRAM, and did just fine. I went into the same zone he showed above (Wayfarer Foothills) and was barely breaking 1GB of VRAM used with maxed settings.

OP, this game barely cares about what graphics card you use. We could max this game back when it released in 2012 (as I could max the game with 60+ FPS on my Radeon 7950, I just didn't get that during world bosses back then due to CPU limitations of the era). I'm thinking something is up with your processor.

@Jamesst.7523 said:@"Magnus Godrik.5841" 16gb of ddr4 ram , I think that's enough system memory isn't it

It's enough - more than enough(1), in fact. However, what speed is it? Since the total memory accessed by the game exceeds the size of the on-processor cache, memory speed is an important consideration. DDR4 is faster than DDR3, but if you have slow DDR4, that will take its toll on performance (and fast DDR3 may even out-perform it, possibly).

(1) "more than enough" does NOT mean "too much", of course.

@Jamesst.7523 said:@Magnus Godrik.5841 16gb of ddr4 ram , I think that's enough system memory isn't it

Yeah it is.

What is the speed of your RAM? I myself have 16GB of RAM, but with only a speed of 803MHz, it is the bottleneck for me. I get a solid 40FPS unless I do things like the Istan farm where there is like 100 ppl on screen, then my FPS drops to 15ish, and if people use mounts, i'm lucky to get 10FPS.

2667 MHz 16gb memory @Shagaliscious.6281

@Jamesst.7523 said:@Oglaf.1074 what do you mean by the predictable like clockwork ? also do you have the same specs?

As I was saying, the FPS drops are very predictable in when they happen - like clockwork.

Sort of a related question, but is there a way that I could use a virtual machine to play GW2 from the cloud? I'd ideally like something on AWS... is this allowed and how does this work? I dont think I want to buy a new computer and am looking for options.

@Jamesst.7523 said:2667 MHz 16gb memory @Shagaliscious.6281

Does your motherboard support DDR4 RAM, do you have a normal or SSD Hard Disk?

it does support ddr4 RAM , Im using gw2 on an SSD.Im currently facing another problem is that My CPU is running at 4.3ghz no matter what I do , and I also cant find an option on my motherboard to adjust the V core (Core voltage) and its running on 1.08 volts. which is pretty low In my opinion

@OP: It can have many causes. Maybe some program in the background eating performance (virus scanner and other bloatware), faulty drivers, slow RAM, your pc overheating and clocking down or faulty BIOS version.

@Jamesst.7523 said:it does support ddr4 RAM , Im using gw2 on an SSD.Im currently facing another problem is that My CPU is running at 4.3ghz no matter what I do , and I also cant find an option on my motherboard to adjust the V core (Core voltage) and its running on 1.08 volts. which is pretty low In my opinion4.3GHz is the allcore turbo of a 8700k without AVX instructions (3.7GHz with AVX) in use. 4.7GHz turbo is only used when a single core is used.Which motherboard you have? Some do not allow overclocking

The same thing happens if you try to play Escape from Horrorland on an XP, and It won't even launch on 7

How hot is your processor getting while playing Guild Wars 2?

Could air flow be the problem here?

The processor is about 62 degrees Celsius under load and while playing gw2 is about 58-60 degree Celsius ,also @"Malediktus.9250" My motherboard is MSI H310m pro VDHPlease let me know if there's something faulty with it concerning the overclocking , even tho it has a section called "overclocking" into it. I just updated the bios an hour ago , I can't see a significant improvement.

@Malediktus.9250 can Windows Defender be an issue? its probably the only bloatware running in the background

I don't think your H310 motherboard support manual overclocking, so all the potential of your i7 8700k is wasted on this board.Get the Z370 for overclocking.