cpu-gpu usage question?

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Konstantinos Koutse

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guys im really confused i have i5 4690 non k with r7 260x when i play ac unity and i play on max settings my gpu usage is at 100% but my cpu is at 55-67% when i put the settings onto the lowest even the resolution the gpu is at 65% and the cpu is at 97-100% whats wrong is my cpu bottlenecking the gpu?
 
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No, you still won't bottleneck your CPU. If you start running dual 980 ti's, you might bottleneck your CPU at that point. The biggest bottleneck of all PC's is almost always your Harddrive speed.
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geofelt

geofelt

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Oct 9, 2006
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Your behavior is perfectly normal, and what is expected.
Is your game performance satisfactory to you?

What FPS are you getting in each case?

At full settings, the gpu is the limiting factor and is working very hard to output all the details.
The lower fps means that the cpu does not need to work very hard to keep presenting images to the graphics card.

When you lower settings, the graphics card loafs, and the cpu needs to work harder to keep up with the increased frame rate.

How this works will depend on the game.

Your gpu is relatively a low level card compared to the cpu.
That is fine for cpu limited games. Typically mmo, sims, and strategy games.

If you want to play fast action shooters, then likely a better graphics card would be in order.
 
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geofelt

geofelt

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I dislike the term "bottleneck"
It implies that one factor slows down the other.
That is not the case.
A better term might be "limiting factor"
If you have one component like cpu that is running full out, upgrading the other like graphics will make no or minimal improvement.

Another misleading number is cpu busy%.

You could have a dual core cpu that shows 50% busy on each core. You might assume that you have no cpu limiting factor. You might assume that your game can use more than one core since you see activity on both.

In actuality, you likely have a game that is cpu limited and is single threaded.
What you see is windows alternating cpu usage if one thread between two available cores.
 
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Konstantinos Koutse

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great thanks also when i play on max settings (shadows low) i get 30 fps and at low with the lowest possible resolution i get 55-85 also one last question and very important question i want to change my CPU cooler cause i have the stock one and it gets up to 75 degrees at 100% load so i want to change my cooler to a coolermaster tx3 hyper evo cooler its my first time setting up a cooler first of all i will clean the paste from the cpu with rubbing alcohol and a piece of cloth then ill put my MX-4 a pea sized paste in the middle and let the cooler cover it then ill screw the cooler and all okay right? but if lets say worst case senario the cpu cooler doesnt completely touch the cpu or something will my cpu burn? do i have to sccrew it too tight?
 
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Alec Mowat

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If means the GPU is 100% and can't push any further, ie your FPS won't get any higher.

But the CPU is only going about 65%, which means if the videocard could push further, the CPU has some room (35%) to increase performance.
 
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Alec Mowat

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75 isn't that hot, but you're fine to get a new heatsink, won't hurt anything

Yes, adjusting the settings will increase/decrease performance but you won't get much better performance without replacing the GPU.

Bottleneck doesn't really apply either in this, I agree with that. The CPU doesn't do as much as the GPU when gaming. The GPU is always on, rendering the graphics. The CPU tends to be used more during loading scenes.
 
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Alec Mowat

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No, you still won't bottleneck your CPU. If you start running dual 980 ti's, you might bottleneck your CPU at that point. The biggest bottleneck of all PC's is almost always your Harddrive speed.
 
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