Wierd GPU usage in games, AFTER SLI Installation.

chase66

Honorable
Jun 2, 2012
33
0
10,530
First I'll hand out my specs.

FX-8150 @ ~4.2
8gb 1866mhz ram
2x Zotac Reference GTX 670 cards OC'd @ ~1.25 ghz
Asus Sabertooth R1 Mobo
1000 Watt PSU


So, my problem is with my gpus (or their software). I don't have a clue as to why some games work, and some games don't work. The problem I'm getting from the cards is, that in some games like Metro LL, Thief, and a few others I don't remember at the moment, the cards literally just do nothing, unless I'm in the pause menu, then they work as they should. Then games like Skyrim (Heavy graphical mods), Crysis 2, DotA 2, The Witcher 2 and many other games, I get clean gpu usage, and even cleaner fps. Benchmarks also work completely fine, and they can literally run for hours and get the same results. But my beef is with Metro, and Thief. Look at this picture of my gpu usage. The parts where the gpu is actually being used is when I'm in the pause menu, the part with the plateaus is where I'm actually in game. It's is also weird because randomly I'll get 80+ fps for about 20 seconds and then they will disappear. I'm extremely confused! Help!
 


Your CPU simply bottlenecks your SLI setup, changing your 8150 to 8320/8350 would change your FPS by a margin :)

Edit: You can also try to update or make clean install of the latest drivers, I had problem with my single GPU setup, when I changed my 1024p monitor to 1080p I had low FPS in games and reinstalling drivers helped me a lot.
 

chase66

Honorable
Jun 2, 2012
33
0
10,530
It's not bottlenecking... the cards just go from 0% usage to ~20% usage and back down. I just don't see how my CPU is bottlenecking, especially when I'm only at ~50% usage on CPU in the game. I had the problem before and after updated drivers, they didn't help. And, if it WAS bottlenecking, why isn't there a problem on more CPU intensive games?
 


Did you check CPU usage while gaming?