Why is my GTX 970 performing so well in some games but not in others?

IdentityZER0 · Dec 7, 2015

Hey guys, I recently upgraded my PC with a GTX 970 and in some games it runs great while in others not so much. For example, I am using MSI afterburner which tells my usage of CPU and GPU, in Witcher 3 my GPU is giving around 80% and my CPU only 40-50%. Then when why I play H1Z1 my cpu ranges from 40-70% but my GPU is only giving 30-40% power. Why is this? Is my processor bottle necking my graphics card? Here are my specs
AMD FX-6300 6 core 3.5 ghz
GTX 970 EVGA SSC ACX 2.0+
8GB Ram
1 TB hard drive
I find it strange that Witcher runs some smoothly at ultra while other games it gives little effort and only uses 30-40% at most.

RobCrezz · Dec 7, 2015

Yeah exactly that, your CPU is the weak link. I would suggest getting a better cpu cooler and overclocking to around 4.5Ghz to lessen the bottleneck (assuming your motherboard is capable).

photonboy · Dec 7, 2015

At stock, in some games you would be getting over 40% higher frame rates with a good Intel CPU.

For some there's minimal bottleneck (i.e. Tomb Raider) and the others it might be closer to 15-20% (or getting say 80% of the performance) but again it totally depends on the game.

Overclocking in CPU bottlenecked games can gain you ALMOST the same amount. So a 15% overclock should gain over 10% increase in frame rate.

Do note that the TURBO is 4.1GHz so overclocking to 4.5GHz is just under a 10% overclock so you don't gain as much as you might expect.

Other:
a) overclock aside, you can still have a great experience so concentrate on TWEAKING The game for the best experience.

For example, figure out how to use Adaptive VSYNC for certain games. It turns VSYNC ON and OFF automatically so I generally adjust my quality settings to the point where I occasionally drop below 60FPS (60Hz) but not very often.

Dropping below the target refresh with VSYNC ON creates judder (quick stuttering) so that's bad. VSYNC OFF causes screen tearing which isn't quite as bad IMO.

If screen tear is too often and annoying then drop a few quality settings.

b) DX12-> while going to take a while, for games using DX12 effectively it may remove most or all of the CPU bottleneck for you. (just because it has a DX12 mode doesn't mean it's well threaded, especially for some of the first games... though Fable Legends will probably be well done)

c) 30-40% in Witcher 3?
I find this unlikely even with a CPU bottleneck, so not sure how reliable those numbers are. I'm going by THIS:
http://www.techspot.com/review/1006-the-witcher-3-benchmarks/page5.html

The GTX980 is the bottleneck in the top chart when used with good Intel CPU's, but the FX-6350 is averaging 78% performance (at same settings used).

Nordein · Dec 7, 2015

IdentityZER0 :

H1Z1, along with DayZ are shit optimized. It is a sad case, but the bright side is that is nothing wrong with your build in any way. H1Z1 is a CPU bound game, so along with it being shit optimized, AMD does have weak cores when compared to their Intel counterpart. So if you really want the best performance out of H1Z1 Intel will be the better option, but even then it will not be the best that it could be.

IdentityZER0 · Dec 7, 2015

photonboy :

At stock, in some games you would be getting over 40% higher frame rates with a good Intel CPU.

For some there's minimal bottleneck (i.e. Tomb Raider) and the others it might be closer to 15-20% (or getting say 80% of the performance) but again it totally depends on the game.

Overclocking in CPU bottlenecked games can gain you ALMOST the same amount. So a 15% overclock should gain over 10% increase in frame rate.

Do note that the TURBO is 4.1GHz so overclocking to 4.5GHz is just under a 10% overclock so you don't gain as much as you might expect.

Other:
a) overclock aside, you can still have a great experience so concentrate on TWEAKING The game for the best experience.

For example, figure out how to use Adaptive VSYNC for certain games. It turns VSYNC ON and OFF automatically so I generally adjust my quality settings to the point where I occasionally drop below 60FPS (60Hz) but not very often.

Dropping below the target refresh with VSYNC ON creates judder (quick stuttering) so that's bad. VSYNC OFF causes screen tearing which isn't quite as bad IMO.

If screen tear is too often and annoying then drop a few quality settings.

b) DX12-> while going to take a while, for games using DX12 effectively it may remove most or all of the CPU bottleneck for you. (just because it has a DX12 mode doesn't mean it's well threaded, especially for some of the first games... though Fable Legends will probably be well done)

c) 30-40% in Witcher 3?
I find this unlikely even with a CPU bottleneck, so not sure how reliable those numbers are. I'm going by THIS:
http://www.techspot.com/review/1006-the-witcher-3-benchmarks/page5.html

The GTX980 is the bottleneck in the top chart when used with good Intel CPU's, but the FX-6350 is averaging 78% performance (at same settings used).

Thank you so much for this detailed response, but I said in Witcher is using 40-50% and I have the GTX 970 not 980 and my processor is the FX-6300 not 6350. I'm not sure if that changes much of you're point but I do know that the 6350 is a decent amount better than 6300 and I think my cpu giving 40-50% might make more sense.

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Why is my GTX 970 performing so well in some games but not in others?

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