CPU usage bottleneck? (Gtx 670)

[maxh22]

Okay so Im a bit confused, my Phenom x4 980 has a stock speed of 3.7Ghz

When play crysis 2 and when monitoring my cpu usage it only goes up to 70%, 80 % MAX

Yet my GPU usage isn't always at 90-100 %(its more of 85% to 100% but can go lower for short instances of time)

When overclocked to 4.4 GHZ my frame rates are more consistent and GPU usage is from 90-105 %

Once again the cpu usage also ranges from 60-70 %

How could this be?

Does the Overclock simply means it feeds information to the GPU quicker? thus giving me more stable frame rates?

 

[maxh22]

the game only uses your CPU (and GPU) as needed. it will not push your CPU to 100%. my 2500k runs below 50% on all cores for most games. my phenom II x4 will run at a higher % since it does not move as much info per clock cycle.

So how come when I overlclock it to 4.4Ghz the fps are more consistent and gpu usage is higher?

 

[maxh22]

you are sending more info to the GPU per clock cycle.

i see that's what I thought, thanks for the help

 

[maxh22]

Best answer selected by maxh22.