Is my CPU bottlenecking my GPU?

[IcyLetters]

So I have an i5-4440 cpu which runs at 3.1Ghz and I have a r9 390. I was wondering if my CPU was bottlenecking my card since my cpu is a little older and honestly I should buy a new cpu.

[SLAYR]

No

[Squish4058]

Well it depends on the game, some games use the CPU a lot more and others only use the CPU, Get a program like MSI afterburner installed, in the settings you can tell it to only show settings for CPU and GPU usage, and you could then post those

[Herbz]

nope shouldn't do, I had a AMD FX6300 and now upgraded to a i7 6800k and my gpu performance has changed by minimal differences. 

[IcyLetters]

Well I do have afterburner installed and my gpu has usually more usage than my cpu huh lets see about Cities:Skylines: so CPU is using about 70-80% and GPU is like 80-100% usage

[TheGamingBarrel]

1 hour ago, IcyLetters said:

Well I do have afterburner installed and my gpu has usually more usage than my cpu huh lets see about Cities:Skylines: so CPU is using about 70-80% and GPU is like 80-100% usage

 

So its not bottlenecking.

[PRTI]

5 minutes ago, IcyLetters said:

Well I do have afterburner installed and my gpu has usually more usage than my cpu huh lets see about Cities:Skylines: so CPU is using about 70-80% and GPU is like 80-100% usage

Its not

[laushik]

Your fine.

[typographie]

28 minutes ago, IcyLetters said:

Well I do have afterburner installed and my gpu has usually more usage than my cpu huh lets see about Cities:Skylines: so CPU is using about 70-80% and GPU is like 80-100% usage

If your framerate is poor and your CPU is at 99–100% while your video card seems "stuck" somewhere much lower, that's a CPU bottleneck. High usage numbers with good performance is actually what you want to see. Additionally if you're using vsync or some other framerate cap, your GPU will show less than 100% usage if it hits your cap at a lower percentage.

 

And, by the way, you will be CPU bottlenecked in Cities Skylines—everyone is eventually. Not in the early game, but it gets more and more CPU limited the larger and denser and busier your city gets. But don't panic if you notice it, I don't think a CPU is sold that can keep that game GPU-bound at 60 FPS or above at all times.

 

I have a city of about 200,000, and at max details/1080p with a Core i5-6600K @ 4.5 GHz and a GTX 1070, I still drop as low as 15 FPS sometimes if I zoom in to certain extremely dense areas.

[Unhelpful]

It will be a bottleneck in some games.

[Matias_Chambers]

It might bottleneck depending on the game. Check your GPU usage ingame. It should be locked at 99-100%. If it is under like 90 then it is most likely bottlenecking. 

[masterkickass7]

1 hour ago, IcyLetters said:

So I have an i5-4440 cpu which runs at 3.1Ghz and I have a r9 390. I was wondering if my CPU was bottlenecking my card since my cpu is a little older and honestly I should buy a new cpu.

no

[IcyLetters]

Okay yeah I get pretty good performance in most games the only game that for some reason runs like crap is GW2 which is very weird otherwise everything runs fine at max settings.

[Vortez]

Yes it will bottleneck in some CPU demanding games like Crysis 3, GTA V and Witcher 3 in some areas.

 

CPU bottleneck test with a similar system.

 

[typographie]

6 minutes ago, IcyLetters said:

Okay yeah I get pretty good performance in most games the only game that for some reason runs like crap is GW2 which is very weird otherwise everything runs fine at max settings.

Guild Wars 2 is another that tends to be inexcusably CPU-bound on all hardware. Especially when you're in a huge group of other players, which is a large part of the PvE gameplay. Again, I don't think you can fix that by more than a few FPS with a more expensive CPU.

[dfg666]

36 minutes ago, Vortez said:

Yes it will bottleneck in some CPU demanding games like Crysis 3, GTA V and Witcher 3 in some areas.

 

CPU bottleneck test with a similar system.

 

Ignore videos like this OP. They're inaccurate as any form of software recording has an impact on both CPU and GPU which skews results.

 

Your i5 and 970 is not a bottleneck considering the fact that an i5 3470 can handle a 980, 980 Ti and Titan X fine.