Solved! RTX 3070 running very below average performance

[joaogavioli]

I ran some benchmarks (UserBenchmark and PassMark) and they both tell me that my pc is running below its capacity, compared to other similar PCs.
More specifically, the problem seems to be with the graphics card.

I have a Ryzen 5 5500 with a RTX 3070 (I know there is bottleneck in this configuration), but when I watch videos on YouTube of games running in this configuration, they all run much higher than I can get.

Also, I recently installed the new Horizon Forbidden West, and I got an average of 40 FPS running everything on low at 1080p.

Something is wrong, but I don't know what else I can check. Any tips, suspicions?

I bought this card at the beginning of last year, but it was used. It is a version of Gainward (Phoenix) that has LHR. Could it be that if it was used for mining, the graphics chip may be "tired" causing low performance?
Is there anything I can validate on my own?

Well, I did everything I could do with basic recommendations I received on Reddit.

GPU Driver: most up-to-date possible (551.86).
BIOS: most up-to-date possible F19 (AORUS B550M v1.3).
All drivers updated.
RAM XMP active.
All AMD video drivers deleted (deleted with DDU).
Resizable Bar enabled.

I didn't notice any FPS improvement.

As I said initially, I have no errors or problems, only extremely low performance for the GPU, given the comparisons with the same GPU + CPU combo that I researched online.

Would anyone have any more tips or have gone through something similar that they managed to solve?

To consolidate, below are all the links to prints and benchmarks that I have done so far:

Passmark: https://www.passmark.com/baselines/V11/display.php?id=206562112913GPU-Z: https://gpuz.techpowerup.com/24/03/30/hru.png
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/636/vkhjNm.png(Horizon FW in game prtscrn)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/3243/RMF53e.png(3D Mark Demo - Print 1)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/6237/WNtBQd.png(3D Mark Demo - Print 2)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/7117/OxvFPP.png(3D Mark Demo - Print 3)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/9027/GiM0d4.png(CPUZ)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/3707/O63x0Y.png(CPUZ)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/3862/wkGdzi.png(CPUZ)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/1589/ydOwRg.png(CPUZ)

https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/8166/28I7qR.png(CPUZ)

 

[In2Photos]

What are your temps like during the benchmarks? What frequency are you getting? Use something like HWInfo64 or MSI afterburner to check.

Edit: I see the info in the screenshots. Temps look good.

What PCI slot is your card installed in? GPUz shows it as X1 3.0???

 

[joaogavioli]

What are your temps like during the benchmarks? What frequency are you getting? Use something like HWInfo64 or MSI afterburner to check.

Edit: I see the info in the screenshots. Temps look good.

What PCI slot is your card installed in? GPUz shows it as X1 3.0???

Yes, it stays at X1 until I start a game or a rendering test. Then, it switches to x16. Either way, it's correctly installed in the X16 slot.

Here is the link to the photo of how the card is installed. I believe it is correctly installed.

Photo link: https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/156/K2Bxrj.jpg
Link to the full photo of the motherboard, on the gigabyte website: https://static.gigabyte.com/StaticFile/Image/Global/883819369cb3d1be25acc0ba9d5e72ab/Product/32692

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Have you tried Resizable BAR off? While most games run better with it on, The Last of Us Part 1 ran like absolute trash on my i5-12400F + RX 6700 XT system with Resizable BAR on. Like if I was running my old Haswell Xeon E3-1231v3 and my old GTX 1660 Super. Turning Resizable BAR off allowed my system to easily run the game 1440p60 at high settings. Just taking a shot in the dark that it might be an issue for you too since you're talking about crap performance on another Playstation game.

Also has this 3070 always acted up? Is it possible you might have accidentally turned on a frame limiter in a program like MSI Afterburner or RivaTuner Stats Server? I was wondering why I was getting crap results on Userbenchmark (which is a pretty bad PC gaming bench) in like the bottom 0.5% of all GTX 970s and then realized I had turned on a 60 fps frame limiter and the 3D test runs hundreds of fps in Userbenchmark. If you run say Unigine Heaven are you getting full gpu usage or not?

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Did you buy the 3070 used and maybe you got screwed over with an older weaker gpu hacked to read as an RTX 3070 in Gpu-Z and such? I can't imagine a card as strong as the 3070 only getting 45 fps at 1080p low with 98% gpu usage in Forbidden West, which isn't an especially hard game to run well.

 

[joaogavioli]

Did you buy the 3070 used and maybe you got screwed over with an older weaker gpu hacked to read as an RTX 3070 in Gpu-Z and such? I can't imagine a card as strong as the 3070 only getting 45 fps at 1080p low with 98% gpu usage in Forbidden West, which isn't an especially hard game to run well.

I finally figured out what it was! As simple as it may seem, the problem was in the PCI Express X16 contact. I used an electronic contact cleaner and it was solved! If you look at the GPUZ, it was fixed at PCI Express X16 4.0 @ X1 3.0. After cleaning, it was at PCI Express X16 4.0 @ X16 3.0 and my FPS went back to what it was. To give you an idea, Horizon Forbidden West, which ran at 30~40 FPS at Very Low (1080p), is now running at Very High (1080p) at over 70fps STABLE!

Thank you for the tips and for spending time trying to help me with this madness!