Bottleneck? Or am I missing something?

[TheFriendlyHacker]

I currently have an FX-8350 OC'd to 4.7ghz paired with a GTX 1070 at standard clock. 

 

I have noticed that sometimes in some games, the frame rates aren't what you'd expect for a 1070 @ 1080p. Even at "normal" graphics quality, it sometimes struggles to maintain 60FPS, sometimes dipping as low as 35-40FPS. 

Must be the CPU bottlenecking the GPU, right? Well...I'm not so sure. Because when this happens, I notice that neither my CPU or GPU are being maxed out when this happens. In extreme cases, I will only see ~40-60% CPU usage paired with ~50-60% GPU usage (although, more often, both report higher usage than that). Also noteworthy that none of the individual cores on my 8350 are being maxed out either. And again, this isn't a constant occurrence, but it happens more than I would expect. 

Thermals don't appear to be a problem either. The 8350 is liquid cooled (never breaks 45C) and the GPU, while air cooled, almost never exceeds 78C. 

 

Does anybody have any idea what might be going on? Could it have to do with how certain games interact with the hardware? Could there be some sort of bottleneck that I'm not aware of?

[PopsicleHustler]

You're heavily bottlenecked by your CPU.

[TheFriendlyHacker]

1 minute ago, PopsicleHustler said:

You're heavily bottlenecked by your CPU.

But how? The CPU is not being maxed out, nor are any individual cores...

[PopsicleHustler]

1 minute ago, TheFriendlyHacker said:

But how? The CPU is not being maxed out, nor are any individual cores...

It doesn't need to be. I owned FX8350 in the past, it was overclocked to 5Ghz stable and still was bottlenecking my RX480 which is much slower than GTX1070. And I was getting same usage as you, CPU and GPU stay around 70% with horrible FPS drops.

[narrdarr]

16 minutes ago, TheFriendlyHacker said:

I currently have an FX-8350 OC'd to 4.7ghz paired with a GTX 1070 at standard clock. 

 

I have noticed that sometimes in some games, the frame rates aren't what you'd expect for a 1070 @ 1080p. Even at "normal" graphics quality, it sometimes struggles to maintain 60FPS, sometimes dipping as low as 35-40FPS.  

Must be the CPU bottlenecking the GPU, right? Well...I'm not so sure. Because when this happens, I notice that neither my CPU or GPU are being maxed out when this happens. In extreme cases, I will only see ~40-60% CPU usage paired with ~50-60% GPU usage. Also noteworthy that none of the individual cores on my 8350 are being maxed out either. And again, this isn't a constant occurrence, but it happens more than I would expect. 

Thermals don't appear to be a problem either. The 8350 is liquid cooled (never breaks 45C) and the GPU, while air cooled, almost never exceeds 78C. 

 

Does anybody have any idea what might be going on? Could it have to do with how certain games interact with the hardware? Could there be some sort of bottleneck that I'm not aware of?

what is your voltage set at for your OC?

[TheFriendlyHacker]

23 minutes ago, narrdarr said:

what is your voltage set at for your OC?

1.41v. Also, I lied about the clock speed - it's running at 4.6ghz, not 4.7. Which probably doesn't make a significant difference haha. 

Running a Sabertooth 990FX mobo as well.

[narrdarr]

 

 

you can try 1.425v and/or disabling a few cores. like only run 0.1.2 and 3.

also up the graphics setting that hit the gpu more and lower the setting that hit the cpu

[TheFriendlyHacker]

1 hour ago, narrdarr said:

 

 

you can try 1.425v and/or disabling a few cores. like only run 0.1.2 and 3.

also up the graphics setting that hit the gpu more and lower the setting that hit the cpu

I have tried that with several games, and it does not appear to make a big difference Well, it does make a small difference with a few games. But for the most part, nothing major.

The game I've had the most issues with is Far Cry: New Dawn. And in the case of this game, if I increase the graphics settings, it does indeed lower the FPS. Which I suppose means that, at least in the case of New Dawn, it's not a CPU bottleneck. Even on Low settings, I very often get serious FPS drops, even on Low settings.Considering how new that game is, maybe that specific case is just a matter of it not being fully optimized. 

 

I do have the same issue with other games though, just to a lesser extent. Where the FPS will suffer, but neither the CPU nor GPU seem to be pushing themselves as hard as they can to keep up with the game. 

[narrdarr]

1 minute ago, TheFriendlyHacker said:

I have tried that with several games, and it does not appear to make a big difference (well, it does with a few games. But for the most part, no). 

The game I've had the most issues with is Far Cry: New Dawn. And in the case of this game, if I increase the graphics settings, it does indeed lower the FPS. Which I suppose means that, at least in the case of New Dawn, it's not a CPU bottleneck. Even on Low settings, I very often get serious FPS drops, even on Low settings.Considering how new that game is, maybe that specific case is just a matter of it not being fully optimized. 

 

I do have the same issue with other games though, just to a lesser extent. Where the FPS will suffer, but neither the CPU nor GPU seem to be pushing themselves as hard as they can to keep up with the game. 

it not about max fps its about minimizing the the fps dips

[TheFriendlyHacker]

11 minutes ago, narrdarr said:

it not about max fps its about minimizing the the fps dips

True. I would prefer a stable 60. Like, I don't even mind turning on v-sync and capping it at 60 (which I am currently doing). But when it frequently drops from 60 to 50, then back to 60, then down to 45, etc, it's not so nice haha

[TheFriendlyHacker]

On 2/23/2019 at 4:45 PM, Strike105X said:

As someone that also had an overclocked FX (mine was an FX8300, which i kept at 4.7Ghz for most of the time i had it, but eventually i managed a 5Ghz oc) i understand your confusion, i dunno the technicality behind it but most games just aren't able to properly utilize FX cpu's, the only game i found to use it properly is Battlefield 1, although The Witcher 3 does a pretty nice job as well, Mass Effect Andromeda as well if i remember right, which is a shame, a 5Ghz properly overclocked FX 8 core can give performances close to my i7 6700 both in software and games (based on my BF1 results, i lost the gaming benchmarks but i still have the cinebench results)  if used to its full potential (basically all cores/modules):

 

 

 

 

Save yourself the frustration, there is no fix for this, as it is how games are coded, if you want to use that GTX 1070 to its full potential you will have to either stick to games that can properly use all its 8 threads, or change to a new platform.

Damn, that's unfortunate to hear. I've seen other people say similar things, but not to the same depth as what you said. 

I guess my only options are to either find a way to increase the clock speeds of the 8350 (and hope that it makes a difference in these games) or just deal with it until I eventually upgrade to Ryzen. 

 

Thank you for the useful information!

[Princess Luna]

On 2/23/2019 at 5:55 PM, TheFriendlyHacker said:

But how? The CPU is not being maxed out, nor are any individual cores...

Maxing out is not the only way to spot a bottleneck, the FX8350 is no longer viable for today's games.