Do I have a CPU bottleneck in BF3?

[Peddeh]

System
i7-3770K @ 4.6GHz
8GB DDR3 2400MHz (Stock - XMP Profile)
Radeon 7970GHz Edition (Stock)
MSI MPower Z77 Motherboard

See CPU-Z Validation for more info: http://valid.canardpc.com/2827586

I'm concerned I have a CPU bottleneck, particularly in BF3. I run the game on Ultra, on a Radeon 7970. Having monitoring, the in-game performance overlay, things don't seem right to me. CPU max value is always higher than GPU, and it doesn't seem to matter what map I'm playing, whether there are players in the servers or not. To my understanding, the GPU should always be higher than the yellow line (CPU), especially when running the game in Ultra.

I have had my CPU clocked at 4.6GHz ever since I've had it (about 3 months), and it's been stable since, nothing that concerns me until now.

Do I have a bottleneck or is this normal?

I've attached a link with some screenshots below


http://imgur.com/a/4Xw4P (3 images in the album)

Thanks

 

[chromic]

Download MSI afterburner and set it to monitor & show the GPU & usage, then after a while go to task manager, and check the performance tab and look how much the cores are utilized.

There is no way that an OC'd 3770k will bottleneck an 7970, ill say it wont even bottleneck 3x SLI titans.

 

[Peddeh]

I'll do that and get back to you, I'll even post a screenshot

 

[Peddeh]

Download MSI afterburner and set it to monitor & show the GPU & usage, then after a while go to task manager, and check the performance tab and look how much the cores are utilized.

There is no way that an OC'd 3770k will bottleneck an 7970, ill say it wont even bottleneck 3x SLI titans.

Ok, I ran Afterburner. GPU usage was at a consistent 99%, don't see any other problems with that.

I quickly minimized to take a screenshot of task manager (performance tab), so here it is:
http://i.imgur.com/Zkw1PEd.jpg

Is there anything wrong?

 

[chromic]

99% gpu load means your gpu is running at full speed with no cpu bottleneck. Your cpu usage only being 42% gaming means you are not even using half your cpu power to run the 7970 gpu which is a good thing. You could crossfire it and the cpu wouldn't bottleneck the gpu. You have a lot of headroom.

+1, excactly.

 

[Peddeh]

Gotcha, thanks!