Minor GPU bottleneck by CPU...

[Gerr]

I have a i7-6700K OC'ed to 4.5Ghz and a GTX 1080 Ti with just the factory OC.  I play at 1080p@144Hz, and before anyone asks...no, a 1080 Ti can't even get AAA games to 144Hz@1080p when using Ultra-High.  Anyways, when I watch my CPU & GPU utilization, both bounce around the 80's & 90's.  When looking at Afterburner's history, the GPU spends most of its time in tuie 90's, but with frequent drops into the 80's and even 70's.  So ya, I know I have a minor bottleneck going on.  I came up with two possible ways to solve it.

 

1.  My cooler is only a 140mm AIO, so if I get a 240mm AIO, I know my CPU can hit 4.7Ghz@1.41v, but not sure if a 200Mhz will make that much of a difference.

 

2.  My main PC has an i7-7700K with an OC of 5.0Ghz.  Since that system games at 1440p, it doesn't need as powerful of a CPU, so thinking about swapping CPU's.  Thus the 6700K will go into my main rig and the higher clocked 7700K will go into the bottlenecked system to provide more CPU headroom.  Is that enough to get rid of the bottleneck, or do I need to jump to a higher level CPU?

[Princess Luna]

I mean, it does makes sense to swap the CPUs on that line of thought but the thing is the 6700K and 7700K are pretty much the same processor when compared clock for clock, so you'll have only marginal improvements.

 

Why 2 gaming computers by the way?

[Ankerson]

28 minutes ago, Gerr said:

I have a i7-6700K OC'ed to 4.5Ghz and a GTX 1080 Ti with just the factory OC.  I play at 1080p@144Hz, and before anyone asks...no, a 1080 Ti can't even get AAA games to 144Hz@1080p when using Ultra-High.  Anyways, when I watch my CPU & GPU utilization, both bounce around the 80's & 90's.  When looking at Afterburner's history, the GPU spends most of its time in tuie 90's, but with frequent drops into the 80's and even 70's.  So ya, I know I have a minor bottleneck going on.  I came up with two possible ways to solve it.

 

1.  My cooler is only a 140mm AIO, so if I get a 240mm AIO, I know my CPU can hit 4.7Ghz@1.41v, but not sure if a 200Mhz will make that much of a difference.

 

2.  My main PC has an i7-7700K with an OC of 5.0Ghz.  Since that system games at 1440p, it doesn't need as powerful of a CPU, so thinking about swapping CPU's.  Thus the 6700K will go into my main rig and the higher clocked 7700K will go into the bottlenecked system to provide more CPU headroom.  Is that enough to get rid of the bottleneck, or do I need to jump to a higher level CPU?

 

 

Even a 2080Ti and 9900K won't do 144 FPS in all AAA games at 1080P at Ultra/High. Some of the those games are no joke when the settings are cranked up.

 

So I am not sure what the problem is.

 

The system is balanced very well as it is.

 

As a side note, I have both a 2080Ti and 1080Ti in two separate machines, 9900K and 8700K and 1440P and 1080P.

[Gerr]

While my main PC(32"-1440p@165Hz) is in the family room and it has the better hardware, I keep a 2nd gaming rig(27"-1080p@144Hz) in the bedroom for when I want to hide from the wife/kids.  Problem is that I live in Phoenix, AZ and my bedroom gets very hot during the summer and I don't want a gaming PC kicking out extra heat.  Thus I game a lot on the main PC during the summer and a lot on my bedroom PC during the winter.

[Berfs1]

If the GPU is settling around the 90% usage mark, most likely the GPU is varying the boost clock speed. If you run the GPU under P0 power state, it is supposed to run at a solid clock speed, with maximum power. This is what the KBoost function does on EVGA's PrecisionX 16 utility (I am saying use X16 instead of XOC for a reason). It will also remove power limits, and while your system will use more power, it can be useful to test it out and see if it helps your maximum FPS. If not, it could be your CPU, more specifically the fact that you have a quad core chip and not a six/eight core chip like Coffee Lake. If you are going to swap parts, I highly recommend you to swap your 6700K system for a 8700K or 9900K (not 9700K) and that will give you more cores, which in 2019, should help all if not most modern day titles. Also, I don't know where you got the idea that 1440p doesn't require high CPU performance if you are literally going for high FPS. For SIXTY FRAMES PER SECOND, the GPU is the bigger bottleneck on 1440p. For 1080p, they are equally important (generally speaking). However, if you want ONE HUNDRED FORTY FOUR FRAMES PER SECOND on 1440p, you absolutely need a decent CPU.

[Gerr]

Higher resolutions tend to be more GPU limited, thus reducing my CPU power by a small amount on the 1440p maching won't cause any issues, but the faster CPU on the 1080p gaming system would benefit it.

 

Planning on upgrading my main rig to a Ryzen 3000 CPU/x570 mobo later this year, probably a couple months after they come out to let things settle down.

 

Just deciding if I want to keep my 1080p system as-is or swap some parts now.

[Mick Naughty]

Only using an 1080 with my 8700k. Still hits 80/90% on all cores. Sitting around 150 fps maxed at 1080p. Couldn't really see myself using a lesser cpu  for those games I play.

But I do use the same card with a much weaker cpu on 1440, same thing you are trying to do. Does ok for some games with slight adjustments to ini files or changing normal settings. All worth it at the end of the day if it makes games playable.

[Mister Woof]

Don't play on ultra, usually no perceptible difference and costs you 30% performance hit or so.

 

Also reduce some cpu-bound settings like LOD, foliage, shadows , and some physics.

 

[Gerr]

I generally set my settings to high, then bump a couple of my preferred settings to ultra.  But reducing a few CPU heavy settings is a good idea.

[Jay Deah]

I doubt you’ll experience any better gaming experience with an upgraded CPU. You already have a well balanced powerful system that should give you great experiences.

 

save your money and take the wife and kids on a weekend away instead

[Mick Naughty]

Lol, maybe with locked frames. Isn’t balanced at all. 

[Mister Woof]

1 hour ago, Mick Naughty said:

Lol, maybe with locked frames. Isn’t balanced at all. 

Let's be real here, when the 1080 ti launched, the 7700k was the fastest mainstream CPU you could get for gaming and it wasn't considered imbalanced then, and I don't find it imbalanced now.

 

And the 6700k isn't much slower than the 7700k.

[Gerr]

Playing around with my different systems, going to disassemble my encoding system and use it's cpu/mobo/ram in the bedroom system.  That will upgrade it to a i7-8700(non-K), an EVGA Z270 mobo, and 32GB of DDR4-3000 RAM.  I'll just sell the i7-6700K cpu/mobo/ram combo.  Should provide me with just enough headroom to let the 1080 Ti flex its legs.  Plus wasn't using the encoding system much and was only built new this past Black Friday.

[Mick Naughty]

1 hour ago, Plutosaurus said:

Let's be real here, when the 1080 ti launched, the 7700k was the fastest mainstream CPU you could get for gaming and it wasn't considered imbalanced then, and I don't find it imbalanced now.

 

And the 6700k isn't much slower than the 7700k.

Sure thing. And I do find it imbalanced.