i5 7400 bottlenecking GTX 1060??? *Reward offered*

[Envy9948]

Hello kind people and sirs.

 

TL;DR: Playing League of Legends, GPU stays at ~ 10%, cpu ~70% and i get ~160 fps. I open OBS to record the game, Cpu at 100%, gpu maybe a bit higher ~15% and i get 60 FPS.

 

Pretty long story, i'll try to make it short.

 

Had this gig (Initial spec):

GTX 760 2gb

AMD FX X8 8350, 4000MHz

RAM 16GB, DDR3

Motherboard ASUS M5A99X-EVO R2.0

SSD 128GB

HDD 7200 1GB

Samsung 144 hz curved monitor 24"

PSU 700W

Windows 10 64bit

MSI Afterburner photo below, some CPU cores were at 100% and GPU almost never over 30%.

 

The problem i had with this spec was that i had pretty low fps in League of Legends (droping to 60-70 fps) and it was even worse when recording with OBS. This happened all of the sudden though, probably when they released a new patch.

Now i know it's not the game to blame because there is an internet caffee in my area which runs the same type of configuration i just bought (the new spec) and it runs smoothly at 200+ fps with OBS turned on.

 

 

So I first bought a GPU upgrade, GTX 1060. When i tried it with my amd fx 8350, i had the same problem, gpu was at ~ 10-15% and cpu at ~90%.

I posted on some tech forums and got mostly the same answer, CPU bottlenecking GPU. Ok, after a week of destroying my brain trying everything i could to make the 1060 work properly with my system, i gave up.

 

So i decided it's time for a CPU upgrade as well. Since i had to buy a new motherboard to upgrade my cpu, i got this:

 

Second and current spec:

i5-7400, 3.00Ghz, Kaby Lake, 6MB

GTX 1060 3GB

RAM 8GB DDR4

Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3P

I Kept the same SDD, HDD, Monitor, PSU and OS.

 

I am now astonished witnessing the same problems i had with my old CPU after i spent like 700$ for an apparently useless upgrade.

My League of Legends FPS is ~200 without OBS, which is nice, i wouldn't complain, but when i open OBS, my cpu goes to 100% aaaand i get a FPS drop to 60 FPS. GPU stays at ~10% like a baws 

 

Msi afterburner with old, initial spec (fx8 and gtx760):

 

 

 

And with new spec (i5, gtx1060):

 

 

To whoever solves my mistery i offer a 30$ reward paypal because i really can't take this anymore, i've been strugling with this for over 1 month and i feel like i am losing my mind (^_^).

 

Thank you for taking the time to read this. 

[Space Reptile]

obs locks it at 60fps for recording 

 

see here for a fix

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/obs-is-locking-my-game-fps.33557/

[Princess Luna]

Truth be told the i5 7400 is just an i3 8100 nowadays the bare minimum in a sense of way however it should not bottleneck the GTX 1060.

 

I'd DDU in safe mode and reinstall the GPU drivers fresh new and attempt to record game play using Shadow Play instead of OBS as first route for troubleshooting...

 

Did you update to the latest available BIOS before putting the Kaby Lake on Skylake motherboard?

 

What Power Supply are you using exactly?

[Jurrunio]

Doesnt really help, but how much did you spend on that cpu and mobo?

[Hiya!]

Its normal if your cpu goes up to 100% when recording OBS because when recording the CPU will need to work on saving your frames into a video file or whatever OBS wants it to do and OBS locked it to 60fps to record.

If thats the case Upgrading to a Cpu that has more cores and threads might help so your cpu wont hit 100% when recording.

 

And i5 7400 wont massively bottleneck the 1060.

Try clean install and upgrade your gpu driver and check you BIOS version u might want to update it because if you dont sometimes the system wont be able to detect and use all the cores and threads in your new cpu unless u upgrade the BIOS (happened to me in an old LGA775 system so not sure if its can happen in newer system like skylake)

 

 

[Envy9948]

4 hours ago, Princess Cadence said:

Truth be told the i5 7400 is just an i3 8100 nowadays the bare minimum in a sense of way however it should not bottleneck the GTX 1060.

 

I'd DDU in safe mode and reinstall the GPU drivers fresh new and attempt to record game play using Shadow Play instead of OBS as first route for troubleshooting...

 

Did you update to the latest available BIOS before putting the Kaby Lake on Skylake motherboard?

 

What Power Supply are you using exactly?

I used DDU and i updated bios  now, installed like 10 other drivers from the Geforce motherboard software (damn i'm stupid, forgot about that) and now i got ~100 with obs on and it runs smoother. I use a Thermaltek PSU. 

Still i don't really understand why my gpu is at 30% usage when it could be a lot more to give me better fps. any ideeas?

 

 

4 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Doesnt really help, but how much did you spend on that cpu and mobo?

Around 700$ on all. Cpu was ~ 180$ and mobo was ~100$

 

4 hours ago, Space Reptile said:

obs locks it at 60fps for recording 

 

see here for a fix

https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/obs-is-locking-my-game-fps.33557/

Thanks man, but for me i don't know why but when i choose display capture, it records a black screen while ingame. The only way i managed to record was with game capture so far :/. I used display capture before, but one day updated OBS and it stoped working.

 

4 hours ago, Hiya! said:

Its normal if your cpu goes up to 100% when recording OBS because when recording the CPU will need to work on saving your frames into a video file or whatever OBS wants it to do and OBS locked it to 60fps to record.

If thats the case Upgrading to a Cpu that has more cores and threads might help so your cpu wont hit 100% when recording.

 

And i5 7400 wont massively bottleneck the 1060.

Try clean install and upgrade your gpu driver and check you BIOS version u might want to update it because if you dont sometimes the system wont be able to detect and use all the cores and threads in your new cpu unless u upgrade the BIOS (happened to me in an old LGA775 system so not sure if its can happen in newer system like skylake)

 

 

Thanks man, i updated bios and the motherboard drivers and now everyting seems a bit smoother.

 

But still... why is my gpu at 30% max while my CPU runs at 100%?

 

[Envy9948]

Thank you all for answering btw (^_^)

[Princess Luna]

38 minutes ago, Envy9948 said:

Thank you all for answering btw (^_^)

What video card is it again? As in specifically? Might be a bad malfunctioning model and you might have to rma it

[Envy9948]

7 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

What video card is it again? As in specifically? Might be a bad malfunctioning model and you might have to rma it

Geforce GTX 1060 3gb. I was thinking the same thing, had some screen tearing before when i tried it on the old system (might have been a bad driver though)

 

What is rma?

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, Envy9948 said:

Geforce GTX 1060 3gb. I was thinking the same thing, had some screen tearing before when i tried it on the old system (might have been a bad driver though)

 

What is rma?

Gtx 1060 3gb is the chip I meant the card, if it's msi evga Asus and so on... And what specific model, rma is simply use it's warranty

[Envy9948]

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

Gtx 1060 3gb is the chip I meant the card, if it's msi evga Asus and so on... And what specific model, rma is simply use it's warranty

Oh sorry i wrote geforce, wanted to say gigabyte ^^

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB DDR5 192-bit

[Princess Luna]

Just now, Envy9948 said:

Oh sorry i wrote geforce, wanted to say gigabyte ^^

GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 Windforce OC 3GB DDR5 192-bit

Did you reinstall Windows when you upgraded you CPU? 

 

That video card is not the best one in the market there could be the case you got a bad one from start too.

[Envy9948]

1 minute ago, Princess Cadence said:

Did you reinstall Windows when you upgraded you CPU? 

 

That video card is not the best one in the market there could be the case you got a bad one from start too.

I got it on black friday for like 220$ from a trusted seller.  I can still return it, got like 1 week available. What would you recommend in about the same price range? 200-300$?

 

I researched and found that 1060 3gb is the best value deal atm.

 

No, did not reinstall Windows.

[Princess Luna]

Just now, Envy9948 said:

not reinstall Windows

Eh... Really? Look no further here is your issue, you got a new motherboard and CPU, windows critical drivers/kernels and registry entries left overs from the previous system is interfering with your new hardware causing it to under perform, simply format and reinstall Windows and done.

 

Cheers mate!

[Envy9948]

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

Eh... Really? Look no further here is your issue, you got a new motherboard and CPU, windows critical drivers/kernels and registry entries left overs from the previous system is interfering with your new hardware causing it to under perform, simply format and reinstall Windows and done.

 

Cheers mate!

I found another topic where you posted, 

I ran 3dMark like 10 times on this card. Does that really damage the board?

 

 

[Princess Luna]

Just now, Envy9948 said:

I found another topic where you posted, 

I ran 3dMark like 10 times on this card. Does that really damage the board?

 

 

It does but mainly old Fermi and Kepler architecture ones, Pascal should in theory be alright, reinstall windows, install Heaven Benchmark instead and then run it on 1080p ultra checking the GPU usage on Afterburner if its usage go to 99% you're good to go.

[Envy9948]

1 minute ago, Princess Cadence said:

It does but mainly old Fermi and Kepler architecture ones, Pascal should in theory be alright, reinstall windows, install Heaven Benchmark instead and then run it on 1080p ultra checking the GPU usage on Afterburner if its usage go to 99% you're good to go.

Do you think i need to format the drive for that or could i just reset windows to original? Like the revert to factory windows settings thingy or w/e it's called.

 

It would be a pain to format the full drive, i'd have to save so much to external

[xg32]

a 4c/4t cpu running at 3ghz will bottleneck the 1060, it just shouldn't be every game.

 

the fact it drops to 60fps points to something with OBS, anything with editing/recording is better with hyperthreading.

 

 

[Princess Luna]

6 minutes ago, Envy9948 said:

.

As far as I am concerned that will format it just the same... Nobody likes having to format their drives for the hassle but at least it solves your issue unlike people telling you bottlencks all the time

[Envy9948]

7 minutes ago, xg32 said:

a 4c/4t cpu running at 3ghz will bottleneck the 1060, it just shouldn't be every game.

 

the fact it drops to 60fps points to something with OBS, anything with editing/recording is better with hyperthreading.

 

 

The only game i play and will ever play is league of legends ^^, it's not a high spec game at all or at least it shouldn't be i guess

[Envy9948]

1 minute ago, Princess Cadence said:

As far as I am concerned that will format it just the same... Nobody likes having to format their drives for the hassle but at least it solves your issue unlike people telling you bottlencks all the time

Thank you for taking your time with this sir, i really appreciate your help. Will be back after i've formated windows.

[dragonhart6505]

Sounds like you're using a CPU based encoder in OBS. That'll tear up your frames. You want to use an NVENC encoder. I believe there's one included with OBS installation. If not, there are third party encoders available with a simple Google search.

Try setting OBS recording tab to Advanced, scroll down and you should be able to set the 1060 as the rendering device. You may need to change the recording format to MP4 or another NVENC supported codec as well.

I have an RX 460 paired with a Phenom x4 955 and use a third party AMD plugin to use it as the rendering device and get 0 frame drops/framerates issues with no CPU impact while recording and playing at the same time. If my pitiful little card can do it, your 1060 shouldn't be having this issue either. Shouldn't have needed to format your system for this

[dragonhart6505]

Gimme a few minutes, I'll post a screenshot where you should be going in OBS

[maartendc]

2 hours ago, Envy9948 said:

Thanks man, i updated bios and the motherboard drivers and now everyting seems a bit smoother.

 

But still... why is my gpu at 30% max while my CPU runs at 100%?

 

I mean, depending on the game and application, it is possible that the CPU is maxed out, and the GPU is not. CPU is the bottleneck.

 

You should definitely try reisntalling windows and drivers. However, if the same problem exists after trying to clean install windows and updating all drivers, I'd say it is just a bottleneck issue.

 

Here is something you should test:   (to rule out a defective GPU)

- don't try recording.

-Play a recent, graphically intensive game (not LOL but something like Witcher 3, Battlefield 1, Rise of the tomb raider, Metro 2033, Hitman, etc.).

- try increasing your graphics settings (high or ultra)

- resolution to the highest it can go (1080, 1440p or 4K depending on your monitor).

- Turn down CPU intensive game settings like shadows, mesh/polygons, lighting, etc.

 

In that test case, the GPU usage should go way up (70-100%) and the CPU should go down or stay the same (don't worry about FPS in this test, this is just a theoretical test to test if the GPU can ramp up). If the GPU usage still stays at 30% or below, that means the GPU is defective.

 

However, if the GPU usage does go up to about 70-100% in that case, I'd say your CPU is just bottlenecking while streaming. Also, you mention you get higher FPS (and higher GPU usage percentage?) while NOT streaming? That is further evidence that your CPU is just bottlenecked while streaming.

 

I hate to say it, but you would have been far better off upgrading to the Ryzen 5 1600 for streaming, because it has 6 cores 12 threads, instead of the 4C/4T on the i5 7400. Much better suited for gaming + streaming. The 4 core i5's just aren't that great for multitasking. If you can, I would return the CPU and mobo and get the Ryzen 5 1600 and Am4 mobo instead.

[dragonhart6505]

obviously the AMD endcoder im using isnt NVENC, but like i said your OBS installation should already include NVENC. where it says Video Adapter youll select your 1060 (if its not already selected...should be by default) and youll be good to go

 

Desktop_2017_12_13_13_50_23_243.bmp

 

*idky its in bmp format, its just a picture of my desktop, so no worries about virus or anything*