CPU works perfectly in everything other than games

[sickomode]

Hey

I have a HP laptop 15 cc1tx with an i5 8250U CPU. The CPU has a base clock of 1.8 Ghz and turbo upto 3.4 Ghz. While doing normal work in my laptop it always clocks upto 3.4 Ghz which is not a problem, but, while playing even merely demanding games like CSGO or Valorant, the CPU locks itself at 2 Ghz. In the game menu i will get 140 fps at 1920x1080 but in game, drops down to 20-30 fps while an enemy is in front. I always play with my charger connected. I have tried uninstalling multpile apps and freeing up my memory usage still it doesn't resolve the problem. I will be grateful if someone can help me regarding this.

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, sickomode said:

base clock of 1.8 Ghz and turbo upto 3.4 Ghz

turbo is for short burst workloads and only on one or few cores

games are extended workloads, so the cpu will operate nearer to the base clock

[Kilrah]

Plus laptop cooling and power delivery is often not capable of handling both the CPU and GPU being fully loaded at the same time, so one has to slow itself down to allow the other to work compared to when it's working alone, especially in thin/lights.

[homeap5]

This is really strange if you think about it - cpu boost for a while when it's not really needed (who cares small boost in few seconds operation) and is lower when you really needs power. It's like buying a car that can speed up to 200 km/h in 10 seconds, but can only drive that speed for next 10 seconds and then slows down to 80.

[Moonzy]

38 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

This is really strange if you think about it - cpu boost for a while when it's not really needed (who cares small boost in few seconds operation) and is lower when you really needs power. It's like buying a car that can speed up to 200 km/h in 10 seconds, but can only drive that speed for next 10 seconds and then slows down to 80.

if your car doesnt have a big enough fuel tank or cooling to sustain that speed, it'll burn and melt

 

same goes for intel cpu, they turbo to speed up small tasks, like loading a browser page, and doesnt have to run as fast when user is just reading the page (higher freq=lower latency)

 

there are power constraints too, 4 cores at lower speed can run more operations than a single core at higher speed, given the same power budget (frequency doesnt scale linear with power draw, it's an exponential curve), so if your load can utilise multi-cores, it's better to run it with lower frequency multi-cores

 

that said, intel does implement a timer for their turbo boost if i remembered correctly, even with unlimited power and thermal headroom, their turbo dont run sustained, so idk what's with that

[Kilrah]

8 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

that said, intel does implement a timer for their turbo boost if i remembered correctly, even with unlimited power and thermal headroom, their turbo dont run sustained, so idk what's with that

No, the time limit can also be disabled on systems that allow it.

[sickomode]

3 hours ago, Moonzy said:

turbo is for short burst workloads and only on one or few cores

games are extended workloads, so the cpu will operate nearer to the base clock

But my friend has the exact same laptop and he gets 100 fps in-game at 1920x1080 resolution.

 

[sickomode]

3 hours ago, Kilrah said:

Plus laptop cooling and power delivery is often not capable of handling both the CPU and GPU being fully loaded at the same time, so one has to slow itself down to allow the other to work compared to when it's working alone, especially in thin/lights.

I'll say the same thing again. My friend doesn't get these kinds of bottlenecks with the same laptop.

 

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, sickomode said:

But my friend has the exact same laptop and he gets 100 fps in-game at 1920x1080 resolution.

what are his settings? how many background tasks do you have running?

[sickomode]

1 minute ago, Moonzy said:

what are his settings? how many background tasks do you have running?

His settings are same as mine. In valorant, everything set to low, multithreaded rendering on/off doesn't make a difference. I dont run anything in background. I close my browser, spotify, even firewall or windows updates.

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, sickomode said:

His settings are same as mine. In valorant, everything set to low, multithreaded rendering on/off doesn't make a difference. I dont run anything in background. I close my browser, spotify, even firewall or windows updates.

do you have any software to monitor your computer usage? monitor cpu usage and gpu usage, see which one is high when game is running

[sickomode]

2 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

do you have any software to monitor your computer usage? monitor cpu usage and gpu usage, see which one is high when game is running

GPU cranks upto 100% usage and power usage goes upto very high. That's what i know from Windows Task Manager and HW monitor.

[Moonzy]

2 minutes ago, sickomode said:

GPU cranks upto 100% usage and power usage goes upto very high. That's what i know from Windows Task Manager and HW monitor.

how about cpu usage?

can i get a link to the website with full spec of your laptop? i couldnt find any with the exact model

 

 

[homeap5]

I saw once laptop that stuck in lower frequency in CPU. Disabling fast startup helps then. But that is not probably solution here. Try to set some power options.

[sickomode]

6 minutes ago, Moonzy said:

how about cpu usage?

can i get a link to the website with full spec of your laptop? i couldnt find any with the exact model

 

 

Cpu usage is around 40-50%

Here you go with the laptop specs - https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c05881903

 

These are the stats for Valorant

[Moonzy]

1 minute ago, sickomode said:

Cpu usage is around 40-50%

Here you go with the laptop specs - https://support.hp.com/in-en/document/c05881903

from the photo, you're more gpu limited than cpu

try turning the game graphics down more, or turn the resolution down

and make sure your laptop isnt overheating

[sickomode]

13 hours ago, Moonzy said:

from the photo, you're more gpu limited than cpu

try turning the game graphics down more, or turn the resolution down

and make sure your laptop isnt overheating

I actually tried overclocking the gpu by 50 Mhz but it went wrong a while ago. Maybe that can be the problem if you say that i am GPU limited.

Thank you very much for the help!