Low CPU Usage 5800x

jecho · May 13, 2023

I recently added a 7900 xtx to my system and was playing BF5 at 1440p Ultra and was getting <10% CPU usage on the AMD Adrenaline overlay. Is this normal? I also played some Halo and it was in the 30s

filpo · May 13, 2023

Just now, jecho said:

I recently added a 7900 xtx to my system and was playing BF5 at 1440p Ultra and was getting <10% CPU usage on the AMD Adrenaline overlay. Is this normal? I also played some Halo and it was in the 30s

yes thats totally normal, nothing to be worried about

Eigenvektor · May 13, 2023

Depends on how CPU intensive a game is. The CPU is responsible for running the game's logic and to keep the GPU fed with data to work on.

You normally want your GPU to be the limiting factor. So if your GPU is running close to 100% load, then the CPU simply doesn't have to work any harder to keep it running at full speed.

If your CPU is close to 100% load while your GPU is far below 90%, then you either want to try a higher resolution/higher details to give the GPU more work, or you want to upgrade your CPU to allow the GPU to run faster.

Also keep in mind that overall CPU usage can be misleading. If you have, for example, 8 cores and one core is running at 100% load, that will be shown as (1/8) = 12.5% overall load. If the game's engine can't use more than one core, you're still CPU limited at that point.