CPU not using its full potential- Getting bad FPS lag in games

[Kirby1337]

In games like Planetside 2 and Dayz my fps is constantly dropping to 20-40

I have been using MSI Afterburner and HWiNFO64 to moniter my GPU and CPU usage.
My GPU works fine and goes up to around 90% when in intense fights.
How ever, my CPU average of my cores never goes above 60% Usually sticks around 50-55% Even when im getting 15 fps in my game.

Specs:

z77-D3H Mobo
1 Radeon HD 6870 1gb
16 GB ram corsair
i5 3450 ivy bridge 3.1 ghz (Apparently will turbo boost to 3.5ghz when "needed")

Is something wrong with my processor/getting bottlenecked? Should i change anything?

Anyhelp is appreciated

(Mabye the fps lag isnt even because of my processor not using all its power?)

 

[cuecuemore]

What settings and resolution are you playing at?

 

[Kirby1337]

Forgot about that, im on 1920x1080, but all the ingame settings on both games are set to low.Vsync and AA and the such are disabled too

 

[mailpranshu]

Hey can you install this?
http://download.cnet.com/SpeedFan/3000-2094_4-10067444.html

Monitor your temperatures and let us know.

And do the usual ( defrag, update drivers etc)

 

[Kirby1337]

When not doing anything:
GPU: 42C
Core 0: 29C
Core 1: 38C
Core 2:32C
Core 3: 35C

Running Dayz

GPU:60C
Core 0:45C
Core 1: 49C
Core 2:49C
Core 3: 49C

 

[JamesSneed]

Having 60% utilization is fairly typical for quad core CPU playing most games. I dont have experience with this game but im assuming two threads are maxing out two cores and the other two cores are low utilization doing system related overhead tasks.

I did a quick Google search and tons of people are having FPS issues with Planetside 2. Probably want to turn some graphics settings, Google "Planetside 2 FPS" or "Dayz FPS" and you will see various youtube / blogs on how to tweak these games for max FPS.

 

[Kirby1337]

Is there a way to make my CPU run at around 90%?

 

[koreanzombie]

No, the processor will only output whats needed out of it....Meaning those games are probably more GPU reliant than CPU dependent. For example, you said your GPU loads @ 90% while CPU only @ 60%...This means both games are more reliant on your gpu than it is on your cpu.

Also this entirely depends on your settings as well. However the 6870gb is not extremely powerful card...I think if you gain more performance if you upgraded the card (or down tweaked your current card settings) than ocing your processor.

 

[JamesSneed]

Is there a way to make my CPU run at around 90%?

No. You have a quad core CPU and each core represents 25% of the CPU. The games you mentioned look like they use two threads(as do a majority of games but some like BF3 will use more threads) so they are actually running two threads at 100% utilization on the two cores. Two out of the four cores maxed out will show in windows task manager as 50% CPU utilization. This is very normal when running a multiple core/CPU system. If you want to see CPU at 100% then encode some video at the same time because these games will not use more than 2 cores.

If you want higher FPS then tweak the in game settings to lower values or upgrade your GPU.