[SOLVED] 20fps with a GTX 1070 on cpu intensive games. (bottleneck)

[RileyM]

So I'm running a 1070 and I get like 40-50fps in 4k ultra in battlefield 4.

It's running with an i7 3630qm external gpu so it's extremely bottlenecked in certain games.

Was wondering if theres anything I can do to speed it up a bit? In cpu intensive games I get the same framerate at 4k ultra settings as I do at 800x600 lowest settings.

I know buy a new cpu but I can't afford it right now. Anything I can do to speed it up even a little bit? Anything?

Can anyone help me please?

 

[RileyM]

You getting 102c on your CPU with 20% usage ?

Yes I'm just as baffled as you are. Like I said sometimes one core may go to 80 highest but 90% of the time it's very low

I just tested it again now for 10 minutes on 1440p ultra and the cpu temps didnt go above 86, so I guess thats not as bad. Dont know what happened because last time I tested it, it was 100

 

[nikoskostantopoulow]

Well to begin with your FPS for 4k are very good.
From the other hand your CPU temps are very bad.
You should probably watercool it or something.
CPU usage and temps usually go with the FPS not with the graphic settings.
More FPS hotter CPU.

 

[RileyM]

Well to begin with your FPS for 4k are very good.
From the other hand your CPU temps are very bad.
You should probably watercool it or something.
CPU usage and temps usually go with the FPS not with the graphic settings.
More FPS hotter CPU.

you're right about high fps high temps, but i'm locked to 60 and in 4k I go a bit below that in most games.

Well what I tried to do was install this which has an option called extreme cooling that makes fans run at max capacity, but when I install it there is no option. So maybe my computer doesn't support it? How can I increase fan speed? I can do it with my 1070 with afterburner but I dont see normal fan speed setting/

 

[nikoskostantopoulow]

No afterburner tweaks only the GPU fan speed.
CPU fan speeds can be configured either from BIOS or from your MB utility.
You should use a program to monitor them as well.There are plenty out there.

 

[RileyM]

I will attempt to provide as much information as I can.

I'm running external gpu on a lenovo y500 laptop with a gtx 1070.

Here are the specs of the laptop (minus GPU since I'm using 1070)

-16gb of ram
- i7 3630qm @2.4GHz up to 3.2 (yes I know bad)
-500gb SSD
- 450 watt BASIQ Antec power supply. Model number VP 450
-Nvidia Driver 417.71

The 1070 is throttled down by much lower bandwidth by the external graphics card mount. In theory this should be good since the graphics card won't be spitting out more than the CPU can handle. Higher resolutions means lower frame-rate and less CPU strain, I think?

THE PROBLEM:

My CPU usage in games varies, but it isn't what I expected. As a result frame rate is too slow in certain games. I of coarse expected my weak CPU to severely bottleneck the GPU but usages are very low around 20-50%. GPU usage is always very high, usually in the 90s.

Frame rates are generally good and bad at the same time. For instance Battlefield 3 will run every single setting absolutely maxed out at 1440p with msaa at well above 60fps. While GTA V struggles to maintain constant 60fps at any setting or resolution, It will do 60fps even at 4k normal settings but it will dip well below it 95% of the time. Lowering settings dont help. All benchmarks of gta v show average framerate below 60fps.

NOTE: for the following demonstration I turned vsync off so we can see the frame rate potential, it is usually enabled as I have a 60hz display.

Games that run well are: (click for screenshot)

- Battlefield 3
-Crysis 2
-Skyrim Legendary Edition
-Minecraft (with shaders and high textures)
-Megaton Rainfall

These games ^^ will never dip below 60fps on my setup.

Games that run ok but struggle to maintain a constant 60fps no matter the setting or resolution are:

-GTA V (60fps in very high settings 1440p but drops to 40 and 30 fps when driving fast)
-Black Ops 1 (erratic framerate from 140-15fps avg 45fps)
-Modern Warfare 2 (same as Black Ops)
-GTA 4 (Okay but struggles to maintain constant 60fps at any setting)
-Jurassic World Evolution (Okay but struggles to maintain 60fps at any setting)
-Battlefield 4
-Transport Fever (Okay but struggles to maintain 60fps at any setting)
-Skyrim Special Edition (Okay but struggles to maintain 60fps at any setting)

Games that run very poorly have micro stuttering, freezing and very poor frame rates are:

-Crysis 3 (Runs very well on mission one[Over 100fps in 4k low and never dipping below 60,but grass areas frames to drop to 20fps at all resoltion and settings. Check my screenshots.

-Sim City 2013/Sim City 5 (60fps in 4k ultra but severe stutter exactly every 3 seconds, drops to 10fps in menus, unplayable)

-Forza Horizon 4 runs awful. 20fps on lowest setting completely unplayable.

-Crysis 1 60fps sometimes goes down to 30-35

In certain games I get micro stuttering where the game basically skips a frame, at exactly certain time intervals. Frame time charts look like heart beat monitors (see here).

Is my power supply to blame here? It already turned off on me once. CPU is not good but it's not even close to reaching full usage.

CPU temperatures range from lowest (67) to average (84) to highest 1% (102). 102 has only happened to me once and I restarted and temps were back down to 80. Are temps to blame here? If so what can I do to lower them? (I'm working on getting proper desktop so don't mention upgrading, thanks)

GPU Temps range from lowest (50) to average (54) to highest 1% (68). My GPU always stays very cool.

 

[RileyM]

I will attempt to provide as much information as I can.

I'm running external gpu on a lenovo y500 laptop with a gtx 1070.

Here are the specs of the laptop (minus GPU since I'm using 1070)

-16gb of ram
- i7 3630qm @2.4GHz up to 3.2 (yes I know bad)
-500gb SSD
- 450 watt BASIQ Antec power supply. Model number VP 450
-Nvidia Driver 417.71

The 1070 is throttled down by much lower bandwidth by the external graphics card mount. In theory this should be good since the graphics card won't be spitting out more than the CPU can handle. Higher resolutions means lower frame-rate and less CPU strain, I think?

THE PROBLEM:

My CPU usage in games varies, but it isn't what I expected. As a result frame rate is too slow in certain games. I of coarse expected my weak CPU to severely bottleneck the GPU but usages are very low around 20-50%. GPU usage is always very high, usually in the 90s.

Frame rates are generally good and bad at the same time. For instance Battlefield 3 will run every single setting absolutely maxed out at 1440p with msaa at well above 60fps. While GTA V struggles to maintain constant 60fps at any setting or resolution, It will do 60fps even at 4k normal settings but it will dip well below it 95% of the time. Lowering settings dont help. All benchmarks of gta v show average framerate below 60fps.

NOTE: for the following demonstration I turned vsync off so we can see the frame rate potential, it is usually enabled as I have a 60hz display.

Games that run well are: (click for screenshot)

- Battlefield 3
-Crysis 2
-Skyrim Legendary Edition
-Minecraft (with shaders and high textures)
-Megaton Rainfall

These games ^^ will never dip below 60fps on my setup.

Games that run ok but struggle to maintain a constant 60fps no matter the setting or resolution are:

-GTA V (60fps in very high settings 1440p but drops to 40 and 30 fps when driving fast)
-Black Ops 1 (erratic framerate from 140-15fps avg 45fps)
-Modern Warfare 2 (same as Black Ops)
-GTA 4 (Okay but struggles to maintain constant 60fps at any setting)
-Jurassic World Evolution (Okay but struggles to maintain 60fps at any setting)
-Battlefield 4
-Transport Fever (Okay but struggles to maintain 60fps at any setting)
-Skyrim Special Edition (Okay but struggles to maintain 60fps at any setting)

Games that run very poorly have micro stuttering, freezing and very poor frame rates are:

-Crysis 3 (Runs very well on mission one[Over 100fps in 4k low and never dipping below 60,but grass areas frames to drop to 20fps at all resoltion and settings. Check my screenshots.

-Sim City 2013/Sim City 5 (60fps in 4k ultra but severe stutter exactly every 3 seconds, drops to 10fps in menus, unplayable)

-Forza Horizon 4 runs awful. 20fps on lowest setting completely unplayable.

-Crysis 1 60fps sometimes goes down to 30-35

In certain games I get micro stuttering where the game basically skips a frame, at exactly certain time intervals. Frame time charts look like heart beat monitors (see here).

Is my power supply to blame here? It already turned off on me once. CPU is not good but it's not even close to reaching full usage.

CPU temperatures range from lowest (67) to average (84) to highest 1% (102). 102 has only happened to me once and I restarted and temps were back down to 80. Are temps to blame here? If so what can I do to lower them? (I'm working on getting proper desktop so don't mention upgrading, thanks)

GPU Temps range from lowest (50) to average (54) to highest 1% (68). My GPU always stays very cool.

 

[demonesc]

I really think the problem here is that you have done what you can but the mobile processor was never designed to be rigged up to a powerful desktop card .
It's design is different to the desktop version .
The cooling on the laptop and CPU was never designed for this use.
You have added a device that didn't exist when the 4th gen where designed .
You are really asking to much .
I would do everything you can to cool it down and dial it down .

Also when gaming the cpu will come under sudden high loads on and off for instance when loading a game.
can you set the power to maximum performance / always on on the cpu in hardware manager.

Oh and your CPU has a maximum thermal limit of 105c

 

[winks42]

Make sure that you change priority level to high on games in task manager.

 

[RileyM]

I really think the problem here is that you have done what you can but the mobile processor was never designed to be rigged up to a powerful desktop card .
It's design is different to the desktop version .
The cooling on the laptop and CPU was never designed for this use.
You have added a device that didn't exist when the 4th gen where designed .
You are really asking to much .
I would do everything you can to cool it down and dial it down .

Also when gaming the cpu will come under sudden high loads on and off for instance when loading a game.
can you set the power to maximum performance / always on on the cpu in hardware manager.

Oh and your CPU has a maximum thermal limit of 105c

It probably is, but it was even worse when I didn't have the 1070, since my SLI GT 750m's would reach 100 degrees celsius as well, on VERY low settings. CPU temps were high as well. So now only CPU is reaching High temps and not both cpu and gpu at least. 1070 never goes above 64.


How can I cool it down? I've been trying to figure out how to increase fan speed. Should I try that?

 

[RileyM]

Make sure that you change priority level to high on games in task manager.

I did try it with GTA V and it was set to low priority in task manager. Why the f*** would it do this??? I gained like 5 fps which is okay I guess. Still drops to 40 during driving. Temps still too high though. I'll try with other games and see if it helps.

 

[demonesc]

I really think the problem here is that you have done what you can but the mobile processor was never designed to be rigged up to a powerful desktop card .
It's design is different to the desktop version .
The cooling on the laptop and CPU was never designed for this use.
You have added a device that didn't exist when the 4th gen where designed .
You are really asking to much .
I would do everything you can to cool it down and dial it down .
It might be worth stripping it down giving all the air intakes and exits a good clean and reapplying thermal paste to the cpu.

Also when gaming the cpu will come under sudden high loads on and off for instance when loading a game.
can you set the power to maximum performance / always on on the cpu in hardware manager.

Oh and your CPU has a maximum thermal limit of 105c

It probably is, but it was even worse when I didn't have the 1070, since my SLI GT 750m's would reach 100 degrees celsius as well, on VERY low settings. CPU temps were high as well. So now only CPU is reaching High temps and not both cpu and gpu at least. 1070 never goes above 64.


How can I cool it down? I've been trying to figure out how to increase fan speed. Should I try that?

laptops are not usually given adjustable fans, is this a gaming laptop do oyu have the model ?
just you said about the dual 750m.
if you can increase the fan profile it would be in the bios.
most gaming laptops now have a massive air intake underneath i know mine does.
possibly this one doesnt ?
maybe get a laptop cooling mat ?

it Will be worth stripping it down cleaning all the air inlet and outlets and reapplying thermal paste to the cpu.

 

[winks42]

Thermals are always going to be a problem with laptops, you can try and get a 3rd party cooling solution