GTX 690 Low Gpu Usage

Caliaton

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Feb 27, 2013
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Hey guys, ever since I bought my gtx 690, there has been one thing about it that I have wondered if its normal or not. I'm assuming that this probably pertains to SLI configurations also, because that is essentially what the 690 is. Anyway, I was running mi afterburner to check my fps, temps, and what not, and I realized while looking in game that on most of the games I play, both of my gpu's never actually run at 100% utilization. For example, I was playing left for dead 2 maxed out (I play at 1920x1080 for the time being), and I was obviously getting a high enough framerate to get the job done (this isn't really an ideal game to test this on, i know), but I noticed that the usage of each gpu was only at 50%. I wondered i this would still happen if I disabled one of the GPUs, so I did. After doing that, I still had the same framerate, but the one gpu that was being used was near full utilization as it should be. So basically, i'm wondering why SLI is proving to not be very beneficial on most games for me, and why the 690 wants to utilize the same amount of graphics processing power either way. There's not really going to be a performance difference if the utilization is 1x100% or 2x50%. Of course it's not really that big of a deal on THIS game, but what concerns me is that the low utilization happens in other games also, and some more graphically intense games could definately benefit from both of the cards working at their full potential. It just seems weird that they wouldn't want to work at full force on some of my games, because sometimes in those games, less than half of each gpu being used is definately not enough to keep me above 60 fps all the time, sometimes it will drop below that, which sounds really sad and dissapointing to me for how powerful this card is supposed to be, and it's become very frustrating in some games, especially Planetside 2 and Borderlands 2 to name a couple. And it actually seems like the more graphically intense a situation on either one of those games get, the LESS of each gpu will be used, and i'm pretty sure it should be the other way around. Could there be something wrong with my 690 and the way it tries to utilize itself? I've heard so much talk about how powerful it is and how good of framerates people are getting but for me it's basically acting no better than a single 680 probably would :( Can someone please help? I'm lost...

Sorry for the huge wall of text, i'm just trying to be descriptive about my problem, and by the way, my processor is a stock i5 3570k, so I don't think bottlenecking should be a problem.
 
I expect you got vsync on.

Turning on vsync will cap the FPS and reduce the GPU usage, as the GPU won't have to provide more FPS than your screen can show. a GTX 690 is overkill for 1080p resolution, so it is expected with vsync on. Even my overclocked GTX 670 is only getting usage of about 60% in Metro Last Light due to having adaptive vsync turned on.

There shouldn't be any kind of bottleneck from your system, if you were expecting that. :)
 

euphoria4949

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Aug 26, 2012
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I completely agree. I own and run a 690 on my gaming rig and with Vsync disabled on mine, both GPU's will hit 100% or at least 99% in all games. Even old very undemanding games they will still hit 100%, they'll just produce extremely high fps.
 

Caliaton

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Feb 27, 2013
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I checked the nvidia control panel and under vertical sync it says "use the 3d application setting" should I just turn it off in the control panel?

EDIT: And by the way, it's not ALWAYS at 60 fps, but on borderlands 2 it will frequently drop to around there, give or take 10 fps when I am in a gunfight. Is that normal? I've heard that physx can cause this...
 

Caliaton

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I tried turning off vsync in the control panel, and I never had it turned on in the game in the first place either. No difference though. Did you do anything in the control panel to get your 690 to use all of the resources from each gpu? Once again, evrything mine does is counterproductve, everytime the graphics get tense it wants to use LESS resources. Ugh, so frustrating. This dosen't happen in battlefield 3 single player or sniper elite though, so maybe it's the games? If you have borderlands 2, left 4 dead 2, or planetside 2 can you please check your gpu usage and let me know what your getting? Thanks.
 

johnl5r3w9

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Aug 25, 2013
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hey, I also have similar problem as you stated with a few games I've tried, more specifically, crysis 2, metro LL, metro 2033, BF3 multiplayer all seem to suffer from low/inconsistent GPU utilization, for example, on crysis 2, near the beginning, when you open a door and go on this balcony looking out, both of my GPU only sits at 55% usage.

However, Bioshock infinite and BF3 single player seems to produce pretty consistent GPU usage, (over 90% most of the time) some benchmark softwares work well also (NVIDIA a new dawn, 3dmark11)

All on one 1080p monitor

Is your problem resolved with more than one monitor?

I know what Vsync does and I have it disabled

EUPHORIA 4949 do you have a screen cap of your GPUs at 99-100% usage? And in what games/applications?

GTX690
MSI Z87-GD65
i5-4670k
Corsair TX750
 

johnl5r3w9

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do you have a screen cap of this? is your GPU on stock or OC'd?
 

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