[SOLVED] GTX 1070 Gets Low GPU Usage With Really Low FPS (Also It's Locked To 59°C Somehow)

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
K

Kristof910

Honorable
Feb 25, 2012
7
0
10,510
Hello everyone! I posted a thread a really long time ago so I hope I will not break any rules here haha!

I just upgraded my Gigabyte GTX 970 to an Asus Strix GTX 1070 a few days ago and I could not figure it out why the GPU usage is so low, most of the games I get 60-70% but in some other titles I get 30% and most of the time the performance is the same or worst than with the previous card.

I want to point out a few things, first of all I need all 95%-100% usage what the GPU can provide because I'm playing on a 1080p screen with 144hz and YES I can see the difference everyday so I would be happy if the card would deliver all the power what it can provide. I don't want to upgrade to a 1440p or 4K display and I don't want to max out my settings (a lot of people suggest to choose between these options to use the card 100% but I would like to use it's power to achieve the maximum refresh rate what my monitor can apply, in this case 144FPS)

So I started to search about my current setup so if maybe I would find something what is bottlenecking my GPU but even tho it's a pretty old system everything seems fine to me, here is the full spec list:

MOBO: Asus Maximus IV GENE-Z/GEN3
CPU: i7-3770K @ 4.2GHz (Cooler: Corsair H100)
RAM: 4x4GB Corsair Vengeance 2133MHz
GPU: Asus Strix GTX 1070 (not OC yet)
SSD: Kingston HyperX Fury 120GB (for OS)
HDD: 2TB Seagate Barracuda (for data and games)
PSU: Corsair TX650 v2

OS: Windows 10 Pro
Monitor: Asus VG278HV

The CPU should be fine, how I know all i7 from 2600k to the current ones should not bottleneck any GPUs. The only thing what is really weak in the system is that Seagate drive, even tho it's 7200rpm it's really slow, I mean I can wait for the games to load but does it make any impact in games? I tried to install Fortnite (cuz it's not that big) to my small 120GB SSD but I got the same performance.

So now that we are talking about Fortnite, when I set the game to about medium settings I get around 70-100 frames and lower than 50% of GPU usage, and in some areas where are a lot of buildings and players it can go low as 30-40 frames and I got 20-30% GPU usage, when I max out the game, it remains kinda in the same FPS rate (sometimes higher) but I got 70-90% GPU usage.

So basically the GPU doesn't want to reach a certain FPS or somehow tries to use the least amount of power what it needs to run the game.

In HITMAN 2016 it's the same thing, I got around 60% usage with medium settings with 70-80 frames and with everything on ultra mostly same frames but with 99% load.

Also really important, I forget to mention, this card was removed from a mining rig what used it non-stop for a year or so. I know this can damage the card in a lot of ways but I ran benchmarks beforehand and everything looked fine, in benchmarks like FurMark I get 99% all the time.

The only clue what I recently discovered is that the GPU temperature doesn't want to go more than a fixed rate, depens on the game like in one game 59°C was the max, it always stayed there, in others 55 was the max limit like it either stayed fixed on that temp or go below, in MSI Afterburner the Temp Limit is set to 83°C by default. Any other ways that this can be restricted?

I could not find any other ways to fix this problem, I uninstalled all of the NVIDIA drivers and reinstalled them, not helped.

Thankyou so much for reading this long post haha!




 
Solution
D
Yeah, honestly it completely depends on the game, but I'm surprised you're not seeing 144 fps on anything. I don't play those games though, so they could just be poorly designed or don't work great with your system. Do you have Overwatch or anything else?

"Well I don't have my old GPU here at the moment but I remember the framerate what it produced on medium settings in most of the games had better framerates than with this one, but with this one I can max out games with the same framerate, it's so wierd that this is a thing with this GPU, it's such a console thingy, like I want to use my hardware how I want, something either in the GPU's board, or in the motherboard, or in Windows tells the GPU to stop producing extra FPS even tho...
Sort by date Sort by votes
D

dstln

Distinguished
Jun 8, 2007
293
21
18,815
I have a similar setup, same CPU, went from 970 to 1070 too, there should be a difference but it's not mind-blowing. I do have a 1440p 144hz display, so it's kinda different and things may be more platform-bound at 1080p.

What games have you been trying besides Fortnite and Hitman? It seems like Fortnite only uses two CPU cores: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fortnite-best-performance-benchmarks,5541-6.html The 3700k is still capable and still runs games well, but it doesn't have the same super high instructions per clock that a new i7 or Ryzen has.

Have you tried 3dmark or something on both cards to see the difference in scores? Those ASUS cards are pretty good, so it's very possible that it can cool that well during most games, my MSI is similar and won't get very hot unless I'm doing computer work. Its cooling system is very good and built-in fan curve keeps the temps low. And this is good because then the card can keep the GPU boost high. Which leads to another question, what GPU clock speeds are you getting while in-game?

Basically what you're saying about low GPU usage is because your GPU is rendering everything the game is asking of it, and it doesn't need any more. This is going to happen, and it's not a huge deal. But if your FPS is low, the rest of your system is the bottleneck, and if it gave more juice, the GPU would be able to do more to boost the FPS as well.

Does this all make sense?

I am just curious too, how much does an old mining card sell for these days?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
K

Kristof910

Honorable
Feb 25, 2012
7
0
10,510
Thanks for the quick reply!

Well the difference should not be mind-blowing but still significant, at least what I saw in other people's benchmarks the difference is like 60-70% more FPS what exactly I need to run games at least 120FPS+, but no matter how I turn even everything to the lowest in every game I'm still getting FPS under 100, I just tried it with GTA 5, same thing I can max out the game and get 60-70 FPS but if I'm gonna lower some things the improvement in FPS is so minor because the GPU usages starts to go down to like 50% (sometimes even 30%) what is really low in a game like GTA, when I max it out it's 99%. I still think that's a big problem, especially for me, something tells the GPU to take a rest for some unknown reason and I don't know why...

Well I also tried PUBG but that's one unoptimized mess so I would leave that out from testing... Well what you are saying about my i7 can be true but still i'm not sure if it's a CPU usage, I checked even the individual core usage and none of them reach more than 70-80%

Well I don't have my old GPU here at the moment but I remember the framerate what it produced on medium settings in most of the games had better framerates than with this one, but with this one I can max out games with the same framerate, it's so wierd that this is a thing with this GPU, it's such a console thingy, like I want to use my hardware how I want, something either in the GPU's board, or in the motherboard, or in Windows tells the GPU to stop producing extra FPS even tho V-Sync is off and framerate is set to unlimited in all games...

The GPU clock speed is 2038MHz all the time, so I get what you are saying if the game don't need more power than why should the GPU give but I actually need MORE power haha, like what is the point to get a 144hz monitor in 2018 if most of the games are made to reach 60 FPS and no more? I bought this monitor back in 2012, and in that year I kinda could accept that not all games gonna run, but now when a lot of laptops are comign with a 144hz display and also ultrawides too it's such a shame that my PC or the game or the drivers or idk just ignores to produce more FPS when I actually need it, it's like hiring workers what you are paying all day and they are not doing their jobs properly but you are still paying them full price lol

Edit: forget to answer your last question:

well I don't know how much an old mining GPU cost but I removed this from my family mining setup haha

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
D

dstln

Distinguished
Jun 8, 2007
293
21
18,815
Yeah, honestly it completely depends on the game, but I'm surprised you're not seeing 144 fps on anything. I don't play those games though, so they could just be poorly designed or don't work great with your system. Do you have Overwatch or anything else?

"Well I don't have my old GPU here at the moment but I remember the framerate what it produced on medium settings in most of the games had better framerates than with this one, but with this one I can max out games with the same framerate, it's so wierd that this is a thing with this GPU, it's such a console thingy, like I want to use my hardware how I want, something either in the GPU's board, or in the motherboard, or in Windows tells the GPU to stop producing extra FPS even tho V-Sync is off and framerate is set to unlimited in all games...

This just really sounds like there are game limitation, or limitations in your platform. Like the card is letting you stretch your legs longer in terms of graphical options, but you're still being limited by other stuff. 2038 is going to be your max boost, so the GPU is sensing that you need the power and is able to deliver the highest speeds, not being temp or power limited or anything like that, but it can only do so much with the game or the platform.

Some games also do have hard-set FPS limits. Sometimes you can override them in config settings, sometimes you can't. Maybe this is your problem as well?

In online games with tons of people and stuff around like Fortnite it's not uncommon for frames to suffer badly with lots of people & objects around, because it becomes platform or even network limited. If you have something built better and more standard like Overwatch, you should be able to tell a bigger difference like I did. Overwatch also shows you if you're platform or GPU limited in the upper-left on the FPS counter (3 dots for GPU limit, 1 for platform.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom