CPU seems underutilized by system (I finally realized.)

[TimothyTone]

XFX Nforce 750i sli
Intel q9400 2.66ghz
EVGA GTX 460s
5gb DDR2 800
Corsair SSD 80gb
WD HDD 1.5tb
Antec 500w PSU


Hello Tom's Hardware,
I am new here but, not new to seeking info on fixing problems from this community! I am sadly going to admit defeat now from this on going issue I could not figure out.

Problem: I believe the CPU is being under-utilized or maybe under-powered (doubts on that.)

Have I diagnosed?: Yes a million times YES. I tried everything, a new PSU, different GPU, changed RAM and added more of it, added a solid state drive, stopped watching porn on my pc and just used my android and yadadadada.

How do I know it's being underutilized? : I simply CANNOT get a steady FPS on Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3. It's like I have a shitty laptop that cant play a low end game! I am averaging about 40fps when I know I should be averaging around 90!

Well? I turn down the graphics all the way and it averages about 60fps.
I turn on the Task Manager to observe performances and I see that it uses all cores but, only about 50% of it. I set priority to high and turn the affinity to 0+1 core and nothing. I set affinity to 0 (only 1 core) and the game only uses 30-40% of the core!

What is this bullshit that is going on with my PC guys? I even flashed my Bios today... I don't understand what's going on. I put in a 600w PSU to see if my pc is under powered but, that isnt the case.

someone help please.

 

[TimothyTone]

so by seeing that the PC only uses 30% of the single core to play a game, that would mean something is TERRIBLY wrong with the utilization of the processor.

 

[mohit9206]

its not really the cpu. its the game thats shitty. mw3 doesnt need a lot of cpu power to run. its a very light game thats why your cpu is not being utilize to fullest because it doesnt need to. try a more demanding game like skyrim ot bf3 and will you then see your cpu being utilized to the fullest because they are cpu intensive gamea while mw3 is not

 

[TimothyTone]

CPU is used 30% and getting below 50 fps most of the time when looking at distant objects or any cpu.
that's the bullshit I'm talking about. like you said, this is a light game and my cpu will burn through it like nothing but, that's not results im getting.

could it be possible my mobo is failing?

 

[gamerk316]

Might just be latency. Remember the C2Q's are still reliant on the FSB to send data to/from memory, so C2Q's are going to struggle a bit in that area. Its really hard to tell where C2Q's compete these days, since no major review site bothers to see how they hold up...(*cough*)

I also note a single 460 hasn't exactly aged well...

 

[BuddiLuva]

its not really the cpu. its the game thats shitty. mw3 doesnt need a lot of cpu power to run. its a very light game thats why your cpu is not being utilize to fullest because it doesnt need to. try a more demanding game like skyrim ot bf3 and will you then see your cpu being utilized to the fullest because they are cpu intensive gamea while mw3 is not

Agreed, its a disaster of a game on PC.

CPU is used 30% and getting below 50 fps most of the time when looking at distant objects or any cpu.
that's the bullshit I'm talking about. like you said, this is a light game and my cpu will burn through it like nothing but, that's not results im getting.

could it be possible my mobo is failing?

It obviously does not require much of the CPU power thats why its not using it.

Try other games and then get back to us.

 

[ittimjones]

MW3 is not optimized for PC game play. It was developed for console play, and was ported badly.

To check to make sure ur CPU is fully being used, get CPUtemp and Prime95 and run them both. If CPU utilization still does reach ~100% on all cores, something is wrong with the CPU itself.