My I5 is bottlenecking my RX 480?

[Ununhexium116]

Back in september i got my hands on an MSI RX 480 Gaming X 8G. It was a huge upgrade from my previous r9 270 (not x). I expected myself to be able to run all the games i play maxed out on my 1080p monitor. When i was playing Overwatch however i noticed some frame lag. I was dropping from 60fps (vsync) down into the 30's. When i checked task manager, i saw my CPU at 99% usage. This happened in other games as well. For example, Unturned would run my CPU at 80-99% while at 60fps and would drop down into the 40's when i was in cities. Everything I've read online says an I5 wont bottleneck a GTX 1080, so why would my RX 480 be bottlenecked by one?

 

CPU Usage in Afterburner:

 

At the same time, here is GPU Usage with vsync:

 

There were noticeable frame drops in game as well. Its a little hard to see, but especially when the CPU was running full tilt you can see the GPU was not running at maximum power. I was using vsync which is why the GPU usage was so sporatic at the beginning of the graph, but yet again the GPU was limited on the latter half my the CPU.

 

GPU usage without vsync:

 

Am i mis-diagnosing my issue? Seems like its my CPU bottlenecking, but yet again, if a 1080 shouldn't bottleneck an I5, why would my much less powerful RX 480 bottleneck?

 

Specs:

I5 4570

MSI RX 480 Gaming X 8G (running at 16xPCIe Gen 3.0)

MSI Gaming r9 270 2G (for secondary display, running at 4xPCIe Gen 2.0)

16gb TEAM! Vulcan 2133mhz RAM

Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H Motherboard

Corsair CX750M Power supply

Crucial MX200 256gb SSD

2x 320gb WD Blue (super old)

NZXT h440

2x Dell P2215h 21" 1080p Monitors

[Apollo Refugio]

no no no, if an i5 won't bottleneck a 1070, then no way in hell it will bottleneck an rx 480

[Ununhexium116]

5 minutes ago, Apollo Refugio said:

no no no, if an i5 won't bottleneck a 1070, then no way in hell it will bottleneck an rx 480

That's why i'm so confused. It shouldn't, but it's sure looking like it is.

[Apollo Refugio]

1 minute ago, Ununhexium116 said:

That's why i'm so confused. It shouldn't, but its sure looking like it is.

maybe its just the game, just hardware wise, you'd be fine honestly.

[Brooksie359]

On 1/14/2017 at 8:36 PM, Ununhexium116 said:

That's why i'm so confused. It shouldn't, but its sure looking like it is.

yeah that doesn't make sense  i play overwatch at 60 fps consistent with my fx8350

have you tried truing vsync off?

[Ununhexium116]

1 minute ago, Brooksie359 said:

have you tried truing vsync off?

Yes, that's what the 2nd GPU usage graph is. I get really choppy frame rates, but i run anywhere from 120-50fps. Its super inconsistent.

[Brooksie359]

1 minute ago, Ununhexium116 said:

Yes, that's what the 2nd GPU usage graph is. I get really choppy frame rates, but i run anywhere from 120-50fps. Its super inconsistent.

do you know what your cpu was running at? maybe it was underclocking itself due to thermal throttling? 

[Ununhexium116]

1 minute ago, Brooksie359 said:

do you know what your cpu was running at? maybe it was underclocking itself due to thermal throttling? 

Not sure of exact clock speed, but it never gets above 75c. 

[zMeul]

you should check the active processes and identify what's going on, something is eating your CPU time

[Brooksie359]

1 minute ago, Ununhexium116 said:

Not sure of exact clock speed, but it never gets above 75c. 

try just capping the fps at 60 fps

[Ununhexium116]

1 minute ago, zMeul said:

you should check the active processes and identify what's going on, something is eating your CPU time

Afterburner was the 2nd biggest use of CPU while i was playing at around 5-10%. Everything else seemed below 3%

[zMeul]

3 minutes ago, Ununhexium116 said:

Afterburner was the 2nd biggest use of CPU while i was playing at around 5-10%. Everything else seemed below 3%

one other thing I noticed, you have two video cards in the system, take the 2nd one out and test again

[Ununhexium116]

CPU Temps and usage while on vsync

Even though its not 100% usage in that screenshot, the CPU was running >3.3GHz the entire time i was playing.

 

[Ununhexium116]

On 1/14/2017 at 9:51 PM, zMeul said:

one other thing I noticed, you have two video cards in the system, take the 2nd one out and test again

I took out the 270. Still getting bottlenecking. I updated my drivers to the latest recommended. Also, my friend running a 760 was getting 100+ fps in Unturned with everything maxed out. I run everything maxed out and i get nearing 100% CPU usage, 100% (usually) GPU usage, and ~70 fps. Is Unturned just incredibly in favor of Nvidia cards or am i doing something wrong?