Question 100% GPU usage, but not drawing full power ?

[TheWonderfulPie]

I have a 3070, which has a power limit of 220W, but in most games it will not go higher than 200W, even though HWiNFO says that the power limit is 220W. I'm pretty sure that my CPU isn't bottlenecking, because it's a 13600K, and going in Task Manager, I don't see any core being maxed out. I noticed that when I use DLSS, the power draw is even lower, and the further the preset's performance is, the less it'll draw, all while the GPU is reporting being used at 100%. Is this normal? And how do I fix this?
Edit: My PSU is enough (750W, and my GPU is not thermal limited). Same happens with my Intel Arc A770 btw, with its power limit of 228W, it rarely reaches it

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Edit: My PSU is enough (750W, and my GPU is not thermal limited). Same happens with my Intel Arc A770 btw, with its power limit of 228W, it rarely reaches it
When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time?

You've mentioned two discrete GPU's already, did you use DDU to remove all GPU drivers, before you swapped GPU's?

 

[Avro Arrow]

You can have a card running at 100% without drawing full power because some applications will use the full GPU but not run it that hard.

For example, you can run a game like Hogwarts: Legacy at 100% GPU utilisation but it won't use as much power as it would if you were running the Unigine Superposition benchmark.

 

[TheWonderfulPie]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Edit: My PSU is enough (750W, and my GPU is not thermal limited). Same happens with my Intel Arc A770 btw, with its power limit of 228W, it rarely reaches it
When posting a thread of troubleshooting nature, it's customary to include your full system's specs. Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time?

You've mentioned two discrete GPU's already, did you use DDU to remove all GPU drivers, before you swapped GPU's?

Oh yes sure, my bad
CPU: Intel Core i5-13600K
CPU cooler: Deepcool AG400
Motherboard: ASUS Prime Z790-P Wi-Fi D4
Ram: 2x16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4 3600MHz
SSD/HDD: Samsung 980 as my Windows drive
GPU: Intel Arc A770 16 GB Limited Edition/RTX 3070 Founders Edition
PSU: ThermalTake Smart BM2 750W
Chassis:Corsair 4000D airflow
OS: Windows 11 Pro
Monitor: Samsung G3 144Hz
The PSU is like brand new, bought it new like 5 months ago. My BIOS is American Megatrends Inc. 1220, 28/07/2023

Yes, every time I swap GPU, I do a full DDU and reinstall drivers

 

[Unolocogringo]

Different parts of the chip get used for different things.
When just gaming some parts of the chip are not used or used to there max.
Are you running RT if not then that area of the chip is not drawing full power.
Are you encoding / decoding while gaming?
Streaming with shadowplay?
More parts of the chip that are not being used.
220w is max power draw of the board, not necessarily in every game.

Create a custom fan curve in Afterburner.
40C= 40%fan speed to 80c=80%fan speed.
Above 80 100% fan speed.
This is more aggressive cooling than stock fan curve. But works on most video cards I have tried without a lot of noise.
This makes the card run cooler and will boost to higher clocks.
So go ahead and increase core boost clock 100-200mhz in afterburner.
It will now boost till you hit power limit, temp limit or VREL( highest boost clock at current voltage level) limit.
My 1060,1070s,and 3060 TI all hit around 2000mhz with these settings. A little more/ little less and run in the 65-75c range.
My 4070 is hitting 2940 +/- with the same settings. 63-70c range.