Unknown bottleneck in some games

[BattleToads]

Although most of the time I am very pleased with the performance of my humble system (especially since I game at ultra-wide), there are a couple of titles or instances where my GPU is getting bottlenecked down to about 70% usage. 

 

Windows 7

Intel Xeon E3 1220 @3.1 - 3.4 Ghz

8 GB DDR3 @ 1333 Mhz

PNY GTX 1050 Ti 4GB

 

In most games, I get surprisingly good performance out of this rig, however in GTA 5 and Borderlands 2, the GPU usage drops to about 70%. The CPU usage is only at about 60-70% during play, so I'm not sure what could be bottlenecking my GPU. My only guess is that it's either the amount of RAM or the speed of the RAM. My system reports using about 6.5 GB during GTA 5. Any ideas? 

[iRileyx]

For GTA It's highly likely it's the RAM.

At 1080P High settings the amount of my ram used by GTA can go up to 10GB, i've even seen it reach 12GB before.

 

Does it show that you're using the page file whilst playing GTA? If so that'll be the cause.

[BattleToads]

Upon further inspection, it does indeed seem that the RAM is being devoured by GTA 5. It actually maxed out at times. That still doesn't explain Borderlands 2, though, which is a fairly old game now. It doesn't even get close to my 8 GB limit.