Does my i5 4460 bottleneck GTX 970 (video of usage).

BennBen · May 2, 2016

Hello, i am really tired of this now. So i've been thinking about buying a new cpu but im afraid i wont see a difference, so i've recorded (with shadowplay) usage monitoring of Witcher 3, BF4 and GTA V. Video is not long so it wont take much of your time.

Anyways, is my CPU bottlenecking, and if i was to upgrade to a i5 4690K (and overclock it) would i see any difference fps wise? All your answers are much appreciated, but please dont just write "4460 doesnt bottleneck 970" please explain to me why my gpu only uses 70% of its power in some scenarios. Also, my computer specs are in the video description.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH_iDQaOzj8&feature=youtu.be

Thanks alot.

coolcole01 · May 2, 2016

The way games are coded has a lot more to do than you think. So do me a favor and turn off vsync and max bout every setting and then run around I will set my rig to the same settings and run it and we will see whay both of our readings are doing.

BennBen · May 2, 2016

coolcole01 :

Vsync is not enabled, and bf4 is maxed out, resolution scale on 100%. I cant re record atm but if youd like to try bf4 on siege of shanghai thatd be great.

Edit: your rig is completely different from mine so how would that answer if my cpu is bottlenecking or not?

coolcole01 · May 2, 2016

because if mine(which is considerably stronger) is fluctuating in a similar manner it will show you that your cpu is not bottlenecking your pc and its just the way its programmed

rush21hit · May 2, 2016

Something will always bottleneck something else. That's just the nature of PC.

Like, over 90% of games are bottlenecked mainly by GPU. Even more so if you crank up the details or play at much higher resolution than your GPU can cope. As long as the CPU are strong quad cores performer, it would be long to be any bottleneck for gaming. Slight difference on FPS results for different CPU as it may be, the ballpark are not too far apart. Most of the time its mere 10-20% gap from the weakest quad to the most expensive ones. Almost never saw discrepancies over 30% performance gap given the same GPU for any CPU.
Unless the game actually CPU-bound, which is very rare now.

And then, there's driver...

coolcole01 · May 2, 2016

im downloading bf4 now to give it a try its been a while since i have played it

BennBen · May 2, 2016

coolcole01 :

Alright, if you have the possibility to record on siege of shanghai with monitoring that'd be much appreciated

BennBen · May 2, 2016

Rush21hit, from what i've heard Bf4 anf Gta v are supposed to be very Cpu dependant.

William Henrickson · May 2, 2016

It is indeed CPU bound, I see your concern.

Are you in a power saving profile, bad apps running/windows issues, etc? RAM usage?

Recording software can do this, Shadowplay is mostly CPU free with the cards encoder used.

BennBen · May 2, 2016

And if you look at this guy, his performs a lot better than mine, but he has the cpu i want to purchase.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kIlBLIVv5yg

BennBen · May 2, 2016

Thanks for answer william, and no, ive disabled all possible power saving features.

Edit: as i dont feel any stutter i doubt that its the ram causing it? And i dont have any random apps open.

coolcole01 · May 2, 2016

well i dont even have to post my videos because my gpu never falls off of 99% when vsync is disabled. So something is up. But i dont think your cpu is bottlenecking you only because i never saw your cpu hit 99 percent i have built about 30 pcs with that cpu/gpu and we did not run into this. Feeling like it is driver related or something else could you go into your nvidia control panel and tell us what your settings are in your manage 3d settings.

coolcole01 · May 2, 2016

also when you get a chance could you run valley 1.0 and record the run

BennBen · May 2, 2016

As of now im in bed, and on my phone. I do know that i have the manage power setting on "prefer maximum performance" and not "adaptive". And the windows power saver settings are also disabled. Sometime tomorrow (most likeley quite late) i can post pictures of my 3d settings.

BennBen · May 2, 2016

Also, on basically all gpu benchmarking programs it runs like its supposed to (for example, heaven benchmark i get avarage 60 fps maxed out). And if it helps, if i turn up the resolution scale to like 120% i get kinda the same fps but the gpu then runs at 99%. But by the fact that it runs well on all gpu benchmarkers just makes me think more that the cpu is bottlenecking.. Thanks for your trying to help anyways, much appreciated.

Edit: im talking about bf4 (regarding the resolution scale) if you didnt catch that : )

BennBen · May 3, 2016

coolcole01 :

I've recorded valley now, i sped the video up as it was quite long and would take alot of time to render.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GPBqMJ7kj4&feature=youtu.be
As you can see the gpu almost never dips below 98%.

Here are my Nvidia control panel settings, Global:
https://gyazo.com/9ff36fd7d9cba70434855cabd39171e7
https://gyazo.com/531ac1834195fe4441905b05ab43792b

And BF4 settings (nvidia):
https://gyazo.com/9ea0b76b6a99cc4cb30192b0525d5bd2
https://gyazo.com/f79e575d6090a2fa6e42b0d0d4279e5e
https://gyazo.com/635324cab9367798d71fa9f7d54a74be

Edit: i also recorded 3DMark: https://youtu.be/-mYxeeXbcUg (also keep in mind that i am recording during these tests)

Edit 2: I recorded a bit of Far Cry 4 gameplay and the cpu usage is quite interesting.. Especially the 3'rd core is very often at 95-100%
(i still get decent fps, but its still interesting.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS8cYJgsaf8

coolcole01 · May 4, 2016

watching these videos i cant help but notice that the higher the ram usage you seem to get lower gpu usage could you turn off all anti aliasing and see if that changes anything. When your running 3d mark the ram usage never goes over 3500 and stays pegged. and i know vally does not use much as well.

BennBen · May 4, 2016

coolcole01 :

Well, i recorded some bf4 on high preset, with all AA off. My gpu usage was at like 48% at the worst times, and this is all with AA off and all settings on high, not ultra. The beginning part of the video was probably the worst part of that whole game i played. https://youtu.be/tCBqfyEv6f0

Edit: though, the ram usage doesnt seem to change that much from the previous bf4 benchmark with 4x AA. Your point is very good though, far cry only uses like 3.5gb ram and there my gpu runs atleast at 80%>. My ram is 1333mhz, could that be the problem?

Edit 2: i actually saw a guy on youtube who had the exact same problem as me, and he said that it fixed itself when he added another ram stick

Edit 3.... I borrowed 2 sticks of 4gb ram from my dads computer to test. They run at the same frequency but they are from different brands, so im not completely sure that they are working properly together. https://youtu.be/KNF7axqT99I

When i look at youtube videos and stuff it looks like people who have a same tier cpu as me get same fps as me, and when i look at ppl who have oc'd cpus they get alot better fps.. I really do want to upgrade to a i5 4690k but im scared that my gpu usage still will be inconsistent and not work properly..

EDIT NUMBER 4! (these edits are getting out of hand man :d) Well, did some monitoring in the BF4 campaign, and suprise suprise the gpu usage never dipped below 98%, and the cpu was operating at like max 70%. And when i switched to low settings i actually got like 200fps and not the same fps but 30% usage. At this point i dont really see any other cause than the cpu bottlenecking, or maybe i shouldnt say bottlenecking, but "decreasing my potential performance" i could've got with a cpu running at higher ghz.

Fixed for him aswell with new cpu https://gyazo.com/ea724a8c601783007b59f6f5e4dd8f86

Quadm8 · Dec 12, 2016

The cpu in some situations will bottle neck

Does my i5 4460 bottleneck GTX 970 (video of usage).

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