980Ti Two-way SLI Low GPU Usage?

[AstroBenny]

Hi,

 

I have two 980Tis with a 4690K/16GB RAM. When playing GTA V for example, CPU utilization is around 90%, rarely hitting 100% pinned, yet both the GPUs are at around 30-50% utilization. When using Nvidia DSR to render the game at 4K GPU utilization improves to around 70-90% usage with similar CPU utilization to before. The same is also occurring in some other games like Black Ops 2 and PUBG. In PUBG, it's normally around 50% GPU utilization while sometimes jumping to 90% indoors.

 

I've tried re-installing latest drivers/uninstalling with DDU. CPU Temps are under 65 Degrees and neither GPU is above 75 Degrees. Windows is set to Performance mode and in the Nvidia Control Panel it's been set to "prefer maximum performance"

 

It should be noted that when running Valley Benchmark, both cards reach 99% utilization just fine.

[The Sloth]

3 minutes ago, AstroBenny said:

In PUBG, it's normally around 50% GPU utilization while sometimes jumping to 90% indoors.

 

not an optimized game 

3 minutes ago, AstroBenny said:

4690K/16GB RAM

settings and resolution playing gta 5? 

[emosun]

6 minutes ago, AstroBenny said:

When playing GTA V for example, CPU utilization is around 90%

Why is your cpu at 90% when playing gta 5?

[AstroBenny]

Just now, nerdslayer1 said:

not an optimized game 

settings and resolution? 

In GTA 5 1080P with everything on Very High I get around 40% GPU Utilization. In 4K DSR on Very High I get around 70-80% utilization. The CPU is not pinned at 100% however but is frequently in the low 90s.

[Mira Yurizaki]

7 minutes ago, AstroBenny said:

I have two 980Tis with a 4690K/16GB RAM. When playing GTA V for example, CPU utilization is around 90%, rarely hitting 100% pinned, yet both the GPUs are at around 30-50% utilization. When using Nvidia DSR to render the game at 4K GPU utilization improves to around 70-90% usage with similar CPU utilization to before.

This is an indication of a bottleneck. It doesn't have to be 100%, but close enough is a sign you're approaching the CPU's limits for that game.

 

If you want to verify, remove one of the processor affinities for GTA V and see if the performance drops by 25%.

[emosun]

3 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

is a sign you're approaching the CPU's limits for that game.

you can run gta 5 on a q6600 , idk why his cpu is at 90% usage but it's definitely not supposed to be.

[The Sloth]

6 minutes ago, AstroBenny said:

In GTA 5 1080P with everything on Very High I get around 40% GPU Utilization. In 4K DSR on Very High I get around 70-80% utilization. The CPU is not pinned at 100% however but is frequently in the low 90s.

something is wrong, reinstall tee game and DDU. 

[AstroBenny]

1 hour ago, emosun said:

you can run gta 5 on a q6600 , idk why his cpu is at 90% usage but it's definitely not supposed to be.

 

1 hour ago, M.Yurizaki said:

This is an indication of a bottleneck. It doesn't have to be 100%, but close enough is a sign you're approaching the CPU's limits for that game.

 

If you want to verify, remove one of the processor affinities for GTA V and see if the performance drops by 25%.

 

1 hour ago, nerdslayer1 said:

something is wrong, reinstall tee game and DDU. 

Ok, an update.

 

I have overclocked the 4690K to 4.6Ghz which should be pretty similar to a 4790K stock and got the same results with CPU utilization around 75-90% and temps under 80 degrees. I tried running the GTA 5 Benchmark with and without SLI and the results for Non-SLI were better than with SLI ! - As can be seen in the attached txts.

I should also note that even on the single card benchmark, GPU utilization only reached about 85%..

 

I have a fairly fresh install of Win10 (2 months) with latest updates and almost nothing running in the background..

 

Non-SLI.txt

SLI.txt

[Masada02]

1 hour ago, emosun said:

you can run gta 5 on a q6600 , idk why his cpu is at 90% usage but it's definitely not supposed to be.

 

1 hour ago, nerdslayer1 said:

something is wrong, reinstall tee game and DDU. 

GTA loves more cores, and OP only has 4 cores. He is clearly in a CPU limited situation in GTA. PUBG is just badly optimized and you shouldn't expect dual GPUs to work well (or in really any early access game for that matter).

 

If your overall performance is acceptable, don't worry about it. If you want more FPS is GTA, move up to a 4790K.

[AstroBenny]

1 minute ago, Masada02 said:

 

GTA loves more cores, and OP only has 4 cores. He is clearly in a CPU limited situation in GTA. PUBG is just badly optimized and you shouldn't expect dual GPUs to work well (or in really any early access game for that matter).

 

If your overall performance is acceptable, don't worry about it. If you want more FPS is GTA, move up to a 4790K.

See my most recent reply. SLI performance was worse than with a single card, and a 4.6Ghz OC should be more than up to the task.

[emosun]

1 minute ago, Masada02 said:

GTA loves more cores, and OP only has 4 cores

how many cores do you think a q6600 has? lol

Regardless that cpu shouldn't be hitting 90% usage only running gta 5. Something isn't working right. Something else has to be causing that cpu to be overworked.

[Masada02]

Just now, AstroBenny said:

See my most recent reply. SLI performance was worse than with a single card, and a 4.6Ghz OC should be more than up to the task.

GTAV loooooooves more cores, you will see higher performance with more cores. 4 is quite simply not enough to push high frame rates here.

 

As for your performance going down when turning off SLI, my guess is that SLI is increasing the CPU overhead and since you are already maxing out the CPU you are seeing the decrease in performance with dual cards.

[Masada02]

3 minutes ago, emosun said:

how many cores do you think a q6600 has? lol

Regardless that cpu shouldn't be hitting 90% usage only running gta 5. Something isn't working right. Something else has to be causing that cpu to be overworked.

And how many fps can a q6600 push in GTAV? lol

 

You say it shouldn't be maxed out, yet the OPs evidence proves otherwise. 

 

 

From personal experience, with my 5960X (same base architecture as your 4690K) at 4.6ghz and dual 980 TIs at 1080p I can at the very max get 180fps, and average around 150fps in the city.

[AstroBenny]

1 minute ago, Masada02 said:

And how many fps can a q6600 push in GTAV? lol

 

You say it shouldn't be maxed out, yet the OPs evidence proves otherwise. 

 

 

From personal experience, with my 5960X (same base architecture as your 4690K) at 4.6ghz and dual 980 TIs at 1080p I can at the very max get 180fps, and average around 150fps in the city.

I'm still convinced it's not the CPU. See here: 

 

The single 1080 was hitting 97% load on a non-oc 4690K.

[Masada02]

8 minutes ago, AstroBenny said:

I'm still convinced it's not the CPU. See here: 

 

The single 1080 was hitting 97% load on a non-oc 4690K.

He's pushing MSAA at x8 and only getting 60fps, you are running lower settings and pushing 90+ fps. There's more headroom in his CPU in that testing scenario.

 

Go crank MSAA to x8 on your system and watch what happens.

 

 

Side note: your 980TIs are waaaaay more powerful than a single 1080 so you're a lot more likely to run into a CPU limit with them.

[Evolution90]

Get a 4790K, go Ryzen or Go krabby lake.

[AstroBenny]

7 minutes ago, Masada02 said:

He's pushing MSAA at x8 and only getting 60fps, you are running lower settings and pushing 90+ fps. There's more headroom in his CPU in that testing scenario.

 

Go crank MSAA to x8 on your system and watch what happens.

Welp. You're right.

[Masada02]

Just now, AstroBenny said:

Welp. You're right.

If I was you I'd try to grab a cheap 4790K on ebay or something. That's going to be the easiest way to get more out of your system. 

 

But hey, 90-100fps is still smooth (assuming you have a high refresh monitor) and isn't bad to play on at all.

[emosun]

36 minutes ago, Masada02 said:

And how many fps can a q6600 push in GTAV? lol

 

You say it shouldn't be maxed out, yet the OPs evidence proves otherwise. 

it's not a cpu intensive game so I'm not sure what you're getting at.

 

ops "evidence" shows the cpu is being overworked for no reason. name something that the cpu is doing on his machine that isn't being done on every other pc playing gta 5 in the world.

perhaps he has a mod that enables there to be about 10 times more AI in use at any given point. lol

[DXMember]

 

Overclock your CPU to like 4.5 minimum

[Masada02]

14 minutes ago, emosun said:

it's not a cpu intensive game so I'm not sure what you're getting at.

 

ops "evidence" shows the cpu is being overworked for no reason. name something that the cpu is doing on his machine that isn't being done on every other pc playing gta 5 in the world.

perhaps he has a mod that enables there to be about 10 times more AI in use at any given point. lol

See @DXMembers post, looks pretty CPU intensive to me.

2 minutes ago, DXMember said:

 

I was looking for that, haha

[DXMember]

2 minutes ago, Masada02 said:

See @DXMembers post, looks pretty CPU intensive to me.

I was looking for that, haha

game is pretty CPU intensive, I pegg both GPUs to 100% only during loading screen

running 1440p with pretty much everything maxed besides tesselation it's usually jumping 80/100 on both GPUs

[emosun]

I think you two are confusing cpu and gpu.

I'm asking why is your cpu hitting 90% usage. it shouldn't be , there nothing in the game that would cause your cpu to be 90% busy at any point.

[AstroBenny]

12 minutes ago, DXMember said:

 

Overclock your CPU to like 4.5 minimum

It's at 4.6Ghz. If the extra threads makes such a big difference I'm still confused as to why this data shows only a 9fps improvement from the 4670k to the 4770k. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[emosun]

3 minutes ago, AstroBenny said:

I'm still confused as to why this data shows only a 9fps improvement from the 4670k to the 4770k

gee .... could it be because the game isn't cpu intensive?

nah , no way

Ignore that even an i3 2100 is getting an average of 39fps. Your 90% cpu usage is totally normal....... (for someone whos running 10 instances of the game)