GPU Utilization randomly drops in game causing FPS drops.

[Raydano]

So I've been trying to play Overwatch and GTA5 with my PC.
This used to work fine 2 months ago but now i keep having random FPS drops that go from 100+ to around 30.
I spent some time looking at what the issue could be and whenever my FPS drops i see my GPU Utilization go down to around 0% and with that so does the CPU usage for about 20%.
Also the GPU never really uses a constant 100% it constantly changes, could it be a bottleneck?
 

Anybody knows what the reason for this might be?
Thanks in advance.

specs:
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 R390
CPU: AMD FX 8350
RAM: 8GB

I'm absolutely out of ideas, i've already replaced my RAM and got watercooling for my CPU.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
 

[Jack Kaye Pc Gamer]

What are your gpu temps when gaming?

[Raydano]

Just now, Jack Kaye Pc Gamer said:

What are your gpu temps when gaming?

My Highest GPU temp was 68 (without using MSI Afterburner at all)

[Jack Kaye Pc Gamer]

Well that seems a good temp so it won't be thermal throttling

[Dabombinable]

9 minutes ago, Raydano said:

So I've been trying to play Overwatch and GTA5 with my PC.
This used to work fine 2 months ago but now i keep having random FPS drops that go from 100+ to around 30.
I spent some time looking at what the issue could be and whenever my FPS drops i see my GPU Utilization go down to around 0% and with that so does the CPU usage for about 20%.
Also the GPU never really uses a constant 100% it constantly changes, could it be a bottleneck?
 

Anybody knows what the reason for this might be?
Thanks in advance.

specs:
GPU: AMD Radeon R9 R390
CPU: AMD FX 8350
RAM: 8GB

I'm absolutely out of ideas, i've already replaced my RAM and got watercooling for my CPU.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
 

With the GPU usage not being 100%-that is a bottleneck as the FX 8350 is only suited for mid range cards such as the 280X or 380X. As for the FPS drops, that's normal for Piledriver based CPU and is actually compounded by AMD's driver overhead.

[Raydano]

4 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

With the GPU usage not being 100%-that is a bottleneck as the FX 8350 is only suited for mid range cards such as the 280X or 380X. As for the FPS drops, that's normal for Piledriver based CPU and is actually compounded by AMD's driver overhead.

Now how can i fix this preferably without spending too much money.

Would overclocking the CPU help at all? I have no idea.

 

Also how come this only started happening since 2 months ago? before that my CPU and GPU worked fine together

Edited June 30, 2016 by Raydano
added information

[Dabombinable]

1 minute ago, Raydano said:

Now how can i fix this preferably without spending too much money.

Would overclocking the CPU help at all? I have no idea.

Overclocking might help-but with the way Piledriver is, the larger the overclock the lower the performance increase. If your motherboard is one of the top tier ones and you have excellent cooling you could try to get your 8350 up to around 5-5.2GHz and remove the bottleneck. If you don't have the motherboard or good cooling then I'd recommend getting an i5-4440 at the very least with any LGA1150 motherboard/i5 6500 and any LGA1151 motherboard if you want to upgrade now, or if you can wait AMD might be getting off their asses and giving us something decent with Zen that should provide better value (though in that case-AMD really hasn't shown that what they say can be trusted at all.).

[Raydano]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Overclocking might help-but with the way Piledriver is, the larger the overclock the lower the performance increase. If your motherboard is one of the top tier ones and you have excellent cooling you could try to get your 8350 up to around 5-5.2GHz and remove the bottleneck. If you don't have the motherboard or good cooling then I'd recommend getting an i5-4440 at the very least with any LGA1150 motherboard/i5 6500 and any LGA1151 motherboard if you want to upgrade now, or if you can wait AMD might be getting off their asses and giving us something decent with Zen that should provide better value (though in that case-AMD really hasn't shown that what they say can be trusted at all.).

8 minutes ago, Raydano said:

Now how can i fix this preferably without spending too much money.

Would overclocking the CPU help at all? I have no idea.

Is there no explaination for why it worked before though?

I had no issues running GTA/Overwatch 2 months ago.

Bottlenecking doesn't just randomly appear right?

 

[Soumyangel]

i usd to have the same card....had the same problem....had to rma it and got the 960....cudnt find a solution

[Morgan MLGman]

30 minutes ago, Raydano said:

Now how can i fix this preferably without spending too much money.

Would overclocking the CPU help at all? I have no idea.

 

Also how come this only started happening since 2 months ago? before that my CPU and GPU worked fine together

So maybe I'll give you some input, as I used an extremely similar combo and have an actual first-hand experience here.

 

I had an FX-8350 @4,5gHz paired with an R9 290X. What you describe is not normal, I never experienced what you described.

FX-8350 is easily powerful-enough to run an R9 390 in triple-A titles like GTA V or The Witcher 3. The cause of what you experience is not due to a CPU being the bottleneck on the contrary to what @Dabombinable stated, I'd look somewhere else.

 

And no, an i5-4440 is not better than the 8350. I switched from the FX to an i7-3770 clocked at 3,9gHz with Turbo Boost to 4,3gHz which literally SHITS on an i5-4440 and is over 50% faster across all threads, same for the OC'd 8350, and there's little to no difference in performance, whether it's normal usage or gaming (The only game that the i7 helped with was Blade & Soul. Among 15 other games that I play, some of which are heavily single-threaded like World Of Tanks or H1Z1. Little to no difference.)

 

If your thermals on the CPU and the GPU are fine, then I've got two things you can try:

1. What is your motherboard? Maybe the insufficient VRMs are causing your 8350 to throttle, despite it being within good temperatures margin?

2. Try the GPU in another system and check if the issue persists. If yes, RMA the card.

 

P.S. What is the exact model of your power supply?

[Raydano]

34 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

So maybe I'll give you some input, as I used an extremely similar combo and have an actual first-hand experience here.

 

I had an FX-8350 @4,5gHz paired with an R9 290X. What you describe is not normal, I never experienced what you described.

FX-8350 is easily powerful-enough to run an R9 390 in triple-A titles like GTA V or The Witcher 3. The cause of what you experience is not due to a CPU being the bottleneck on the contrary to what @Dabombinable stated, I'd look somewhere else.

 

And no, an i5-4440 is not better than the 8350. I switched from the FX to an i7-3770 clocked at 3,9gHz with Turbo Boost to 4,3gHz which literally SHITS on an i5-4440 and is over 50% faster across all threads, same for the OC'd 8350, and there's little to no difference in performance, whether it's normal usage or gaming (The only game that the i7 helped with was Blade & Soul. Among 15 other games that I play, some of which are heavily single-threaded like World Of Tanks or H1Z1. Little to no difference.)

 

If your thermals on the CPU and the GPU are fine, then I've got two things you can try:

1. What is your motherboard? Maybe the insufficient VRMs are causing your 8350 to throttle, despite it being within good temperatures margin?

2. Try the GPU in another system and check if the issue persists. If yes, RMA the card.

 

P.S. What is the exact model of your power supply?

My Motherboard is the "ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3

Unfortunately I do not have another system to try the GPU in.

Power supply: MS-TECH M5-N850-VAL.

 

Thanks for your response and making my wallet feel better about my GPU+CPU

[Morgan MLGman]

4 minutes ago, Raydano said:

My Motherboard is the "ASUS M5A78L-M/USB3

Unfortunately I do not have another system to try the GPU in.

Power supply: MS-TECH M5-N850-VAL.

 

Thanks for your response and making my wallet feel better about my GPU+CPU

Alright, so I'm almost certain now that it's the motherboard. Change it ASAP or you'll fry it, and possibly more things alongside that.

VRMs are not cooled at all, and it's a mobo with 4+1 Power Phase power delivery, it's not even close to being good enough. What you want is twice as big power delivery (8+2 instead of 4+1) and to have radiators over them.

 

Change your PSU as well, it's dangerous to use those no-name companies for power supplies, especially if your GPU is relatively power-hungry. If you need recommendations for MOBO + PSU, just give me your budget and I'll see what I can do.

[Raydano]

1 minute ago, Morgan MLGman said:

Alright, so I'm almost certain now that it's the motherboard. Change it ASAP or you'll fry it, and possibly more things alongside that.

VRMs are not cooled at all, and it's a mobo with 4+1 Power Phase power delivery, it's not even close to being good enough. What you want is twice as big power delivery (8+2 instead of 4+1) and to have radiators over them.

 

Change your PSU as well, it's dangerous to use those no-name companies for power supplies, especially if your GPU is relatively power-hungry. If you need recommendations for MOBO + PSU, just give me your budget and I'll see what I can do.

I don't have a lot of money to spare because i used it all on water cooling. Is there a possibility for 120 euros? I could use some recommendations because i'm not very familiar with this all of this.

[Morgan MLGman]

3 minutes ago, Raydano said:

I don't have a lot of money to spare because i used it all on water cooling. Is there a possibility for 120 euros? I could use some recommendations because i'm not very familiar with this all of this.

Where do you live?

[Raydano]

Just now, Morgan MLGman said:

Where do you live?

Netherlands.

[Morgan MLGman]

3 minutes ago, Raydano said:

Netherlands.

Damn. It's hard for me to find a store that you can buy from, can you link the store that you buy PC components in?

I think you could pass with 120Euro budget for a mobo+PSU, they just wouldn't be high-end, but they would be appropriate.

[Raydano]

 

Just now, Morgan MLGman said:

Damn. It's hard for me to find a store that you can buy from, can you link the store that you buy PC components in?

I think you could pass with 120Euro budget for a mobo+PSU, they just wouldn't be high-end, but they would be appropriate.

I always use https://www.alternate.nl/html/index.html

May be difficult to navigate if you dont speak the language though. 

[Dabombinable]

1 hour ago, Morgan MLGman said:

So maybe I'll give you some input, as I used an extremely similar combo and have an actual first-hand experience here.

 

I had an FX-8350 @4,5gHz paired with an R9 290X. What you describe is not normal, I never experienced what you described.

FX-8350 is easily powerful-enough to run an R9 390 in triple-A titles like GTA V or The Witcher 3. The cause of what you experience is not due to a CPU being the bottleneck on the contrary to what @Dabombinable stated, I'd look somewhere else.

 

And no, an i5-4440 is not better than the 8350. I switched from the FX to an i7-3770 clocked at 3,9gHz with Turbo Boost to 4,3gHz which literally SHITS on an i5-4440 and is over 50% faster across all threads, same for the OC'd 8350, and there's little to no difference in performance, whether it's normal usage or gaming (The only game that the i7 helped with was Blade & Soul. Among 15 other games that I play, some of which are heavily single-threaded like World Of Tanks or H1Z1. Little to no difference.)

 

If your thermals on the CPU and the GPU are fine, then I've got two things you can try:

1. What is your motherboard? Maybe the insufficient VRMs are causing your 8350 to throttle, despite it being within good temperatures margin?

2. Try the GPU in another system and check if the issue persists. If yes, RMA the card.

 

P.S. What is the exact model of your power supply?

Ok, check some benchmarks then get back to me. 

[Morgan MLGman]

9 minutes ago, Raydano said:

 

I always use https://www.alternate.nl/html/index.html

May be difficult to navigate if you dont speak the language though. 

The motherboard: https://www.alternate.nl/ASRock/970A-G-3-1-970-socket-AM3+-moederbord/html/product/1249418?tk=7&lk=9419

The Power Supply: https://www.alternate.nl/Seasonic/S12II-520-EVO-520-Watt-voeding/html/product/143539?tk=7&lk=9533

You can't go any cheaper, sadly. In both departments.

 

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Ok, check some benchmarks then get back to me. 

Random benchmarks vs real-world use (For over a year), hmmmm. Just as JayzTwoCents said in his 8350 vs 3770K video, there is no noticeable difference, the only differences are in benchmarks, and my own usage has proven that to be true

[Raydano]

6 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

The motherboard: https://www.alternate.nl/ASRock/970A-G-3-1-970-socket-AM3+-moederbord/html/product/1249418?tk=7&lk=9419

The Power Supply: https://www.alternate.nl/Seasonic/S12II-520-EVO-520-Watt-voeding/html/product/143539?tk=7&lk=9533

You can't go any cheaper, sadly. In both departments.

 

Random benchmarks vs real-world use (For over a year), hmmmm. Just as JayzTwoCents said in his 8350 vs 3770K video, there is no noticeable difference, the only differences are in benchmarks, and my own usage has proven that to be true

So does this mean that my Motherboard is throttling back my CPU and GPU because it's getting too hot?

Also does that motherboard support my RAM? (Corsair 8 GB DDR3-1866)

 

Thanks for helping me man, you're the best.

[Morgan MLGman]

10 minutes ago, Raydano said:

So does this mean that my Motherboard is throttling back my CPU and GPU because it's getting too hot?

Also does that motherboard support my RAM? (Corsair 8 GB DDR3-1866)

 

Thanks for helping me man, you're the best.

That means that the CPU power-delivery system on the motherboard gets too hot, and cuts power that's being delivered to the CPU making it throttle to prevent permanent damage, until the VRMs are in the safe-temp margin again, constant use like that will damage the motherboard, and possibly other components. A throttling CPU will cause FPS drops, GPU usage drops and overall instability.

 

Yes, that motherboard supports your RAM. And you're welcome, I'm here to help.

[Dabombinable]

38 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

The motherboard: https://www.alternate.nl/ASRock/970A-G-3-1-970-socket-AM3+-moederbord/html/product/1249418?tk=7&lk=9419

The Power Supply: https://www.alternate.nl/Seasonic/S12II-520-EVO-520-Watt-voeding/html/product/143539?tk=7&lk=9533

You can't go any cheaper, sadly. In both departments.

 

Random benchmarks vs real-world use (For over a year), hmmmm. Just as JayzTwoCents said in his 8350 vs 3770K video, there is no noticeable difference, the only differences are in benchmarks, and my own usage has proven that to be true

Game benchmarks are real world use. And there is a noticeable difference. Especially when your using both ALU in each module at the same time as single threaded performance plummets when that happens (a quirk of CMT-and why I recommend that at least 1 module in an FX 8*** has an ALU disabled).

[Morgan MLGman]

29 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Game benchmarks are real world use. And there is a noticeable difference. Especially when your using both ALU in each module at the same time as single threaded performance plummets when that happens (a quirk of CMT-and why I recommend that at least 1 module in an FX 8*** has an ALU disabled).

Then why do I not notice a difference? There is literally none in normal use like web-browsing etc, and in games a noticeable difference with my 290X was like in 1 out of 15 games.

[Raydano]

58 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

That means that the CPU power-delivery system on the motherboard gets too hot, and cuts power that's being delivered to the CPU making it throttle to prevent permanent damage, until the VRMs are in the safe-temp margin again, constant use like that will damage the motherboard, and possibly other components. A throttling CPU will cause FPS drops, GPU usage drops and overall instability.

 

Yes, that motherboard supports your RAM. And you're welcome, I'm here to help.

I have ordered both, Will have to wait 8 days until they're here. Thanks in advance.

[Raydano]

9 hours ago, Morgan MLGman said:

That means that the CPU power-delivery system on the motherboard gets too hot, and cuts power that's being delivered to the CPU making it throttle to prevent permanent damage, until the VRMs are in the safe-temp margin again, constant use like that will damage the motherboard, and possibly other components. A throttling CPU will cause FPS drops, GPU usage drops and overall instability.

 

Yes, that motherboard supports your RAM. And you're welcome, I'm here to help.

I have another question, does the PSU have enough watts for my system? Or how do i find out?