Is my CPU bottle Necking my GPU?

[zazo06]

Hey guys, just joined and have a question!

 

I don't know how I could tell if my GPU is being bottleneck-ed by my CPU or not. I have to mention that I am running on a 49" Samsung 144 monitor. I started thinking about the bottleneck issue when I noticed that I can't run many games at full 144 on the highest graphics like, Call of duty MWF, Red Dead II, and even Apex sometimes drops FPS, I normally get between 90-120 FPS on these games.

 

Here are my Specs:

OS: Windows 10

CPU: I7-8700k 3.70 GHz

GPU: RTX 2080 Ti (Water cooled)

Ram: 16 Gb 3200

Motherboard: Asus Z370-A

Storage: Samsung M.2 and an ssd and a hard drive

Thanks for the Help!

[DailyProcrastinator]

3 minutes ago, zazo06 said:

Hey guys, just joined and have a question!

Welcome to the forum!

 

In short, no. What would give you a sizable performance boost? Nothing. So you have nothing to be concerned about. the 8700k is still solid, just OC the snot out of it if you want the extra performance. 

[GDRRiley]

5 minutes ago, JM21 said:

In short, no. What would give you a sizable performance boost? Nothing. So you have nothing to be concerned about. the 8700k is still solid, just OC the snot out of it if you want the extra performance. 

the issues more comes down to trying to max out these games your GPU not CPU bound.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Spotty

[RadiatingLight]

Just check CPU usage. Open up task manager and fire up a game. Play for a bit and then ALT+TAB away from the game and look at task manager. if the CPU is at 100% (or near) and the GPU is nowhere close to 100%, then yes it's a bottleneck. Otherwise no.

 

In general, 8700K is still a great CPU and shouldn't bottleneck.

[nekogod]

It's incredibly rare to be CPU bottlenecked these days. Unless you're pairing a 2080 with a budget i3 or something you're almost always gonna be GPU limited

[jones177]

19 hours ago, zazo06 said:

Hey guys, just joined and have a question!

 

I don't know how I could tell if my GPU is being bottleneck-ed by my CPU or not. I have to mention that I am running on a 49" Samsung 144 monitor. I started thinking about the bottleneck issue when I noticed that I can't run many games at full 144 on the highest graphics like, Call of duty MWF, Red Dead II, and even Apex sometimes drops FPS, I normally get between 90-120 FPS on these games.

 

Here are my Specs:

OS: Windows 10

CPU: I7-8700k 3.70 GHz

GPU: RTX 2080 Ti (Water cooled)

Ram: 16 Gb 3200

Motherboard: Asus Z370-A

Storage: Samsung M.2 and an ssd and a hard drive

Thanks for the Help!

Yes.

My stock i7 8700k did it but my i7 8086k at 5ghz doesn't except when I overclock the 2080 ti FTW3 Ulta and that bottleneck is at 1080p.

 

So my EVGA XC does not bottleneck but my FTW3 Ultra does. They both use the same CPU, motherboard and ram.  

The difference in the cards is that the FTW3 Ultra runs between 2040mhz and 2070mhz with a 24/7 overclock and the XC runs between 1890mhz and 1985mhz.  

 

To test your rig use GPU-Z. 

Under advanced select Nvidia Bios. Under "Power Limit" you will see the maximum watts used. For my XC it is 338 watts and for my FTW3 Ultra it is 373 watts. Yours will be more or less depending on the model. The max limit is if you have the power limit turned all the way up on your card. If not use the "Default" number. 

Now click on sensors. Double click on "Power Consumption W" or use the down arrow to set it to "Show Highest Reading" then play your games and if you are not close to the power limit set on the card you are probably bottlenecking.  

 

Another way is to use MSI Afterburner and look at the "Power %" graph after a gaming session. If you set your cards power limit to 100% and you are only using 77% you are bottlenecked.  Basically your GPU will use less power if it is waiting for the CPU.

 

Some games don't use all the GPU but that is rare nowadays. 

19 hours ago, RadiatingLight said:

Just check CPU usage. Open up task manager and fire up a game. Play for a bit and then ALT+TAB away from the game and look at task manager. if the CPU is at 100% (or near) and the GPU is nowhere close to 100%, then yes it's a bottleneck. Otherwise no.

 

In general, 8700K is still a great CPU and shouldn't bottleneck.

The problem with task manager is that if you set the power limit on your card to 100% and run a bench the task manager will say 100%. Then if you change the card to run at 130% task manager will still say 100% and if you bring the card back to 100% on the power limit it will still say 100%

Bottlenecks on 2080 tis are usually when the card has a maxed out power limit and you are only getting about 109% out of 130% so it won't show up at all in task manager.    

  

I just ran some tests and in some scenarios it went the way I said but in others it did not.  

If I change settings while task manager is open it won't reflect them but if you switch it off and change a setting and then switch it back on again it will show an accurate reading. 

It confirmed that I will not be using task manager for GPU usage but if you are not in an overclocking session it can give an accurate reading.

Edited March 11, 2020 by jones177
Ran some tests.

[RadiatingLight]

4 hours ago, jones177 said:

Yes.

My stock i7 8700k did it but my i7 8086k at 5ghz doesn't except when I overclock the 2080 ti FTW3 Ulta and that bottleneck is at 1080p.

 

So my EVGA XC does not bottleneck but my FTW3 Ultra does. They both use the same CPU, motherboard and ram.  

The difference in the cards is that the FTW3 Ultra runs between 2040mhz and 2070mhz with a 24/7 overclock and the XC runs between 1890mhz and 1985mhz.  

 

To test your rig use GPU-Z. 

Under advanced select Nvidia Bios. Under "Power Limit" you will see the maximum watts used. For my XC it is 338 watts and for my FTW3 Ultra it is 373 watts. Yours will be more or less depending on the model. The max limit is if you have the power limit turned all the way up on your card. If not use the "Default" number. 

Now click on sensors. Double click on "Power Consumption W" or use the down arrow to set it to "Show Highest Reading" then play your games and if you are not close to the power limit set on the card you are probably bottlenecking.  

 

Another way is to use MSI Afterburner and look at the "Power %" graph after a gaming session. If you set your cards power limit to 100% and you are only using 77% you are bottlenecked.  Basically your GPU will use less power if it is waiting for the CPU.

 

Some games don't use all the GPU but that is rare nowadays. 

The problem with task manager is that if you set the power limit on your card to 100% and run a bench the task manager will say 100%. Then if you change the card to run at 130% task manager will still say 100% and if you bring the card back to 100% on the power limit it will still say 100%

Bottlenecks on 2080 tis are usually when the card has a maxed out power limit and you are only getting about 109% out of 130% so it won't show up at all in task manager.    

  

I just ran some tests and in some scenarios it went the way I said but in others it did not.  

If I change settings while task manager is open it won't reflect them but if you switch it off and change a setting and then switch it back on again it will show an accurate reading. 

It confirmed that I will not be using task manager for GPU usage but if you are not in an overclocking session it can give an accurate reading.

True.

If you are overclocking, use your overclocking software for monitoring. (I prefer MSI Afterburner, but to each their own)

[Spoiled_Kitten]

23 hours ago, zazo06 said:

Hey guys, just joined and have a question!

 

I don't know how I could tell if my GPU is being bottleneck-ed by my CPU or not. I have to mention that I am running on a 49" Samsung 144 monitor. I started thinking about the bottleneck issue when I noticed that I can't run many games at full 144 on the highest graphics like, Call of duty MWF, Red Dead II, and even Apex sometimes drops FPS, I normally get between 90-120 FPS on these games.

 

Here are my Specs:

OS: Windows 10

CPU: I7-8700k 3.70 GHz

GPU: RTX 2080 Ti (Water cooled)

Ram: 16 Gb 3200

Motherboard: Asus Z370-A

Storage: Samsung M.2 and an ssd and a hard drive

Thanks for the Help!

Easy way to test, run task manager in the background and it will show the utilization of everything so you can see if it is (will be around 100% utilization for the device)