Low CPU and GPU usage while gaming

[Throbb]

When I play games such as Battlefield V or GTA V I notice that my GPU only sits at around 80% utilization and my CPU doesn't ever exceed 60% usage. These low percentages result in me having an fps of about 30fps when it should be higher. I have monitored each of my i7 8700 cores and no cores ever exceed 60% usage too. The temperatures of both my GPU and CPU also don't ever rise above 65 degrees celcius. I am playing on an ultrawide resolution of 3440x1440p and don't have any form of v-sync on (I do have g-sync on though). I was wondering what could be causing this poor performance or whether it's just that my i7-8700 isn't powerful enough for my RTX 2080ti due to it not being overclocked. I have turboboost on and on my msi overlay it says the cpu is at 4200mhz. My specs are as follows:

 

intel i7-8700 (non K)

MSI RTX 2080ti gaming x trio

16gb of DDR4 2400mhz ram

Asus maximus x hero motherboard

EVGA 750w 80+ gold PSU

NZXT kraken x62

 

[Shimejii]

CPU usage wont ever be totally used in most games, its just uncommon for them to ever do that. Most games will push a GPU to 60-95% utilization. Makes sure you arent frame capped, let it run unlimited and see if that fixes it, or remove settings. 

[xg32]

13 minutes ago, Throbb said:

 

intel i7-8700 (non K)

MSI RTX 2080ti gaming x trio

16gb of DDR4 2400mhz ram

Asus maximus x hero motherboard

EVGA 750w 80+ gold PSU

NZXT kraken x62

 

the ram could be the problem here, got any 3200 mhz u can slap it, your entire build looks decent except for the ram.

[Throbb]

I haven't got a frame rate cap. In battlefield and GTA V the gpu only works at 80-90% but on nearly every other game, it will reach 99% usage

 

[Throbb]

Just now, xg32 said:

the ram could be the problem here, got any 3200 mhz u can slap it, your entire build looks decent except for the ram.

I haven't got any better ram handy but i didn't realise ram speed could limit a system so much and lower fps

 

 

[Bresch]

From my experience, on a single threaded game the newer cpu's swap around the load a lot so that it doesn't stay on one thread so having multiple on 60% might just be one thread going 100% effectively. Try limiting the game to one or a few threads (right click and set affinity in task manager in processes on the process) then you can see if you get about the same performance but a more true utilization.

[xg32]

4 minutes ago, Throbb said:

I haven't got any better ram handy but i didn't realise ram speed could limit a system so much and lower fps

 

 

easy test, u can lower it to 2133 to see if it gets even worse , under 3000 u can start to slow ur cpu down imho, couple that with other conservative imc/bus settings on some motherboards and yikes.

 

You can also try to overclock it to 2666 to see if it helps, at least a bit.

 

2133 will make any pc seem like a piledriver.

[Throbb]

6 minutes ago, Bresch said:

From my experience, on a single threaded game the newer cpu's swap around the load a lot so that it doesn't stay on one thread so having multiple on 60% might just be one thread going 100% effectively. Try limiting the game to one or a few threads (right click and set affinity in task manager in processes on the process) then you can see if you get about the same performance but a more true utilization.

If i limit it to 4 threads then 3 are around 70-80% and 1 is at 95-100% and my performance is the same as having all 6 threads.

[Throbb]

27 minutes ago, xg32 said:

easy test, u can lower it to 2133 to see if it gets even worse , under 3000 u can start to slow ur cpu down imho, couple that with other conservative imc/bus settings on some motherboards and yikes.

 

You can also try to overclock it to 2666 to see if it helps, at least a bit.

 

2133 will make any pc seem like a piledriver.

setting ram to 2133 made maybe 2 fps lower if anything. I have seen in many other forums and side to side comparisons that claim that the difference between ram speed from 2400 to 3200 is negligible 

[narrdarr]

Is your gpu OC? 

Reset it to default. Restart and test.

 

[xg32]

1 hour ago, Throbb said:

setting ram to 2133 made maybe 2 fps lower if anything. I have seen in many other forums and side to side comparisons that claim that the difference between ram speed from 2400 to 3200 is negligible 

2400 to 3200 is about a 5-10% difference in performance depending on the application, in gaming it affects 1% lows and average fps, i'm not saying it'll fix everything but upgrading to 3200, it's normal for a 6 core 12 cpu to not be at 100% while gaming, but it isn't normal for the gpu to be at 80% at 30fps. Something else is likely wrong here.

 

Ram speed is usually not an issue above a certain speed and is only really for min maxing (i get 5% more fps in some games going from 3200 to 4000), but 2400 is on the low side. Especially with your other components, it's not worth it cheaping out on the ram.

 

Edit: better video with an 8700k/1080 ti, look at how the lows take a 20% hit

 

 

[Bresch]

50 minutes ago, Throbb said:

If i limit it to 4 threads then 3 are around 70-80% and 1 is at 95-100% and my performance is the same as having all 6 threads.

If you have it limited to 4 threads and get one at around 95-100% I think you can be safe to assume that the game bottlenecks on that single thread and not anything else.

You can check around google if there is some tricks to lower the cpu usage of those games but they are of a few that are heavy on the cpu and as most games always bottleneck at one thread having the work the hardest even if they are well multi threaded. 

 

tl:dr, yes your cpu is bottlenecking, only in these games though. 

[Throbb]

22 minutes ago, narrdarr said:

Is your gpu OC? 

Reset it to default. Restart and test.

 

I have tried this to no avail.

 

[Throbb]

1 minute ago, Bresch said:

If you have it limited to 4 threads and get one at around 95-100% I think you can be safe to assume that the game bottlenecks on that single thread and not anything else.

You can check around google if there is some tricks to lower the cpu usage of those games but they are of a few that are heavy on the cpu and as most games always bottleneck at one thread having the work the hardest even if they are well multi threaded. 

 

tl:dr, yes your cpu is bottlenecking, only in these games though. 

Thanks for the answer. I might then look into upgrading ram and maybe getting either an 8700k or a 9700k and overclock it.