Am I experiencing a cpu bottleneck ?

praveen77 · Apr 23, 2013

Hello there ... My specs are
core 2 duo e7500 2.93 ghz
intel dg41rq motherboard
2 gb ddr2 (800 mhz) RAM
zotac gtx 550 ti 1 gb ddr5
corsair cx600 psu

I generally use my system for gaming. I get very low frames on almost all the games even at the lowest settings.Even nfs hot pursuit 2010 lags a lot.I think my gpu is good enough to handle that game.I even tried adding 2 gb ram extra but didn't yield any better results.So what is the bottleneck ? Am I experiencing a Cpu bottleneck ? how does this bottleneck work exactly ?

bignastyid · Apr 23, 2013

Open up task manager(performance tab) and gpuz's sensor tab (free program you can download) then open up a game. if the cpu usage is @ 100% and the gpu usage is low then you have a cpu bottleneck.

ASHISH65 · Apr 23, 2013

i donot think it will bottlenck.make ssure you have latest nvidia drivers

praveen77 · Apr 23, 2013

bignastyid :

I have followed your instructions. I downloaded gpuz latest version. I played f1 2010 in windowed mode on ultra settings(1600*900) resolution. The gpu load barely crosses 20% during the gameplay and the cpu usage circles around 85-100%. Does this indicate that I have a Cpu bottleneck ???

ASHISH65 · Apr 23, 2013

there is something wrong with your pc

bignastyid · Apr 23, 2013

Yep the cpu is the bottleneck, the older games shouldnt be that bad though. get cpuz and see what frequency the cpu is running at it may be throttling and causing the bottleneck.

praveen77 · Apr 23, 2013

ASHISH65 :

Why do you say that ?

ASHISH65 · Apr 23, 2013

because of gpu usage -20%, your cpu is still good,my friend has that same cpu with hd 7770 and he runs every game just fine.every games touches 100% gpu usage with cpu around 80-90% .

please uninstall the nvidia drivers,then download latest drivers and install it

even if you had pentium 4 cpu your gpu will be above 70% ,so 20% is indicating something wrong

praveen77 · Apr 23, 2013

bignastyid :

Do u want me to check that frequency while running a game or without ?

praveen77 · Apr 23, 2013

ASHISH65 :

Yes I have done that uninstalling and installing the latest drivers .. That didnt help either.. what seems to be the issue ?

bignastyid · Apr 23, 2013

praveen77 :

Both

ASHISH65 · Apr 23, 2013

ya download cpu - z software and play games and inbetween see the frequency in cpu z

or best is go to bios settings - set optimized defaults - save it

your cpu can be underclocked also

ASHISH65 · Apr 23, 2013

hey from when are facing this issue? have you brougt this gpu now?

DukeOvilla · Apr 23, 2013

in nividia control panel, in the 3d setting, turn down the max pre-rendered frames for those games to 1.

Time to overclock your CPU, or buy a new one.

Overclocking, despite popular belief, is actually really easy and quite safe (if you're not stupid)

#1 rule - don't mess with the voltages, if you do, only a little.
#2 rule - OC in incraments
#3 rule - watch temps

praveen77 · Apr 23, 2013

bignastyid :

what exactly do u mean by frequency ?? I see DRAM frequency circling around 400.0 Mhz .. The core speed is constantly changing from 1600 Mhz to 2933 Mhz ..

ASHISH65 · Apr 23, 2013

core speed touches 2933 mhz so your fine i think.

hey from when are facing this issue? have you brougt this gpu now?

praveen77 · Apr 23, 2013

ASHISH65 :

Its been a year since I bought the Gpu .. Facing these issues since then .. I was able to play games like Mw-1,2,3 Crysis 2(with some lag) etc., but games like Arkham City,nfs hot pursuit,nfs the run,Moh Warfighter,F1 2011,F1 2012 etc., lag a lot even on the lowest settings

bignastyid · Apr 23, 2013

So the cpu is hitting its max stock frequency. In device manager how many processors does it show?

praveen77 · Apr 23, 2013

bignastyid :

two ..

ASHISH65 · Apr 23, 2013

see the gpu temps while playing games using real temp software.

first off all big bottlecneck is your ram,you need minimum 4gb of ram to play new games.

play one particular games and post the task manger pic here(very imp)

DukeOvilla · Apr 23, 2013

Buy new cooling and overclock, it's the cheapest rout. (get something nice, good coolers = more oc)

iam2thecrowe · Apr 23, 2013

praveen77 :

yes you have a cpu bottleneck. Don't measure in windowed mode though that's a bad idea, have the monitoring tools open, run game in fullscreen, exit out of game and analyze the results. but gpu load should be more than that even with that cpu. uninstall NVidia drivers with driversweeper in safe mode, reinstall latest NVidia drivers.

praveen77 · Aug 27, 2014

iam2thecrowe :

"iam2thecrowe and bignastyid"

Thank you so much both you for helping me understand this problem. I have upgraded my computer with i3 3220 and gigabyte b75-d3h with 4 gb RAM. It has really helped in the overall gaming performance. For example f1 2012 with previous setup used to give 17 fps at the lowest settings. After upgrading, it went up to 65 fps on ultra settings. The upgrade has completely eliminated the bottleneck for the GPU. Thank you so much for your suggestions. I really appreciate it.

P.S. Sorry for the late reply. This is because I've made the upgrade very recently.

Am I experiencing a cpu bottleneck ?

Distinguished

Titan

Splendid

Distinguished

Splendid

Titan

Distinguished

Splendid

Distinguished

Distinguished

Titan

Splendid

Splendid

Honorable

Distinguished

Splendid

Distinguished

Titan

Distinguished

Splendid

Honorable

Glorious

Distinguished

Share this page