Help with some FPS drops

[Spev]

So I'm just recently getting into PC gaming, so I'm not the best judge. Monitoring some specs in afterburner, if my GPU is at 99% usuage is it pushing too much? I'm playing far cry 4 on the "optimized" settings from Nvidia, I'm also playing on 120hz monitor, GTX 970 FTW from EVGA. Graphics look great however I notice some frame rate drops when I run really fast or jump or do something like that. 

 

The rest of my system is pretty old, using 12gb corisar ram, i7 980, and a 4 year old HDD, 120hz monitor. I'm trying to determine what is the culprit for the performance drops. Seeing as this is the "optimized" settings from NVIDIA I can't imagine it's too demanding for the card? Could my HDD or CPU be causing some of this? Yes, I could just turn down the settings probably, but I want to isolate the problem first. Any input is appreciated as I am kinda new to PC gaming, thanks.

[MegaDave91]

99% is what you want

 

EDIT: Frame dips are a wide spread problem in Far Cry 4.

[Octavialicious]

If it's not at 99% something isn't right :3

[Spev]

For reason reason I can't quote you guys...well anyways so far the answers are complete opposites lol.

 

Edit: Oh I'll try this:

 

@

 

@MegaDave91

[Kevinkt]

what they said. and it's well known that far cry four will use your third core and pin it at 100%. to get passed this. buy a dualcore pentium.

[Octavialicious]

@Spev ya quoting is currently broken, but it seems like doing @ someone is working

[Spev]

@ so you say something isn't right, what do you mean? Like is this game just too much for my GPU at the "optimal settings"? Or could this be related to other hardware, thanks. Also GPU temp is 72C if that matters.

[EzioSan]

its ubisoft game, so if its just framedrops your experiencing with a 1 month old gpu then you can be happy.

a majoriy in their forum including me, cant play another game of them (acuniy) online since release.works only in offline mode. and the things they patched so far was just about microtransactions, because the option to pay for ingame stuff is way more important then to make a co-op game able to being played online.

sorry i´m just mad, last time i gave them money.

[Spev]

@EzioSan hmm...I guess I'll try some other games to see if I have drops or not, guess it could be ubisoft? I mean there company has always had little annoyances for years but you would think their game would work right lol.