High CPU usage, low GPU usage and low FPS while gaming

Skort · November 2, 2018

I need your help guys. I am running 2 GTX 970 on SLI, an i7 4790k and 16gb of DDR3 RAM. My graphics cards never reach 100% power usage on any game whatsoever, but for some reason, my processor does in some cases get to 100% power usage when playing BF1 for example. This leads to "atrocious" performance in game to the point that I'm getting higher FPS using only one of my GPUs. I don't get it : my processor isn't the best on the market, but it's not a potatoe either. It shouldn' bottleneck 2 gtx 970 right? So I ran Cinebench to see if my processor was working normally and I got simmilar performance as other i7 4790k users. I also ran 3d Mark's Time Spy and I got just below 7000, which is around people with the same configuration as me. I have switched my power consumption mode to best performance in the Nvidia Control Panel, tried Nvidia Inspector, fresh install my drivers and reinstalled my games but nothing changed. So why is my computer performing so badly in game? To give you an idea, in CS:GO, at 1440p on Dust 2, I get 120 to 170 FPS running in mid. I get the same result when changing the settings in the option to medium or high and switching to 1080p. It's way worse than 200FPS, which is what my friend gets while running a i7 4790 not k and the equivalent of a GTX 970 for Radeon. I'm running out of ideas to find the source of the problem. Does anyone have an answer?

Also I get between 35 and 55% CPU usage and 35 to 50% GPU usage on CS GO (averaging at around 120fps), while on BF1 I get around 100% CPU usage and 60 to 80% GPU usage (averaging at around 60fps). On Overwatch, I get around 70% CPU usage and 50 to 80% GPU usage (averaging at around 150fps).

Brooksie359 · November 2, 2018

Sli is garbage and can often show this type of performance degradation. Just use one gpu in games that scale well with sli. If You want to know if it is the game or something else play sniper elite 4 as it has basically 100% scaling and should offer good improvement. If you don't see improvement then it isn't the game but something else.

suchamoneypit · November 2, 2018

What do you see when just running with SLI off? Could just be a CPU bottleneck here. My heavily overclocked 4690k bottlenecked a 1070ti for me. You're dealing with a lot more power than that if SLI is on. I upgraded to a Ryzen 1700X to solve the problem.