[SOLVED] Brand new 9700K spiking to 100% utilization.

[Vax]

TLDR below if you wanna skip my long-winded rambling.

Hey everyone. Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy these days!

My problem stems from my recently upgraded rig.
I've got a brand new 9700K i7 and RTX 2080 Super.
I've been enjoying playing games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Half-Life: Alyx at much higher frames and graphics quality. However while running HWMonitor in the background while gaming, I came back to this when I was done:

My GPU had been at 100% utilization during Alyx, but only at 67 C temp. Not bad. However, it bothered me that my brand new CPU, which is supposed to have less than 1% bottleneck with my GPU, is sitting at 8/8 cores 100% uti.
So I tried again and this time had the temps up while playing. Whenever I moved the screen in Odyssey, the CPU would spike to ~87-100%, and shrink back down to ~32-45% after sitting there for a bit.

This was at 4K gaming, 100% resolution scale, Ultra settings across the board. ~7k VRAM utilization. I managed 55 frames average.
I realize that there's little to no stuttering/lag on my computer's part. My PC is dead silent the whole time, and there's no drop in frame rate.

TL;DR: Is it okay for a new 9700K CPU to spike to 100% utilization while gaming, with no visible lag/stuttering during the game?

 

[RodroX]

TLDR below if you wanna skip my long-winded rambling.

Hey everyone. Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy these days!

My problem stems from my recently upgraded rig.
I've got a brand new 9700K i7 and RTX 2080 Super.
I've been enjoying playing games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Half-Life: Alyx at much higher frames and graphics quality. However while running HWMonitor in the background while gaming, I came back to this when I was done:

My GPU had been at 100% utilization during Alyx, but only at 67 C temp. Not bad. However, it bothered me that my brand new CPU, which is supposed to have less than 1% bottleneck with my GPU, is sitting at 8/8 cores 100% uti.
So I tried again and this time had the temps up while playing. Whenever I moved the screen in Odyssey, the CPU would spike to ~87-100%, and shrink back down to ~32-45% after sitting there for a bit.

This was at 4K gaming, 100% resolution scale, Ultra settings across the board. ~7k VRAM utilization. I managed 55 frames average.
I realize that there's little to no stuttering/lag on my computer's part. My PC is dead silent the whole time, and there's no drop in frame rate.

TL;DR: Is it okay for a new 9700K CPU to spike to 100% utilization while gaming, with no visible lag/stuttering during the game?

If you wana know your CPU utilization while gaming run MSI Afterburner with the OSD option enable (there are lots of guides in youtube on how to setup the program).

What HWMonitor is showing is that at some point, each of the 8 cores hit 100% usage, which is not the same that they were all pegged at 100% at the same time while runing the game.

 

[Vax]

If you wana know your CPU utilization while gaming run MSI Afterburner with the OSD option enable (there are lots of guides in youtube on how to setup the program).

What HWMonitor is showing is that at some point, each of the 8 cores hit 100% usage, which is not the same that they were all pegged at 100% at the same time while runing the game.

I appreciate the answer. However, I did mention that I double-checked the utilization while gaming, and I was actively watching the utilization spike to 100% while gaming, and lowering back down to the mid 30s to mid 40s again when I stopped panning the camera around my character.

 

[RodroX]

I appreciate the answer. However, I did mention that I double-checked the utilization while gaming, and I was actively watching the utilization spike to 100% while gaming, and lowering back down to the mid 30s to mid 40s again when I stopped panning the camera around my character.

So you have a 2 monitor setup?, or You are playing the game at a smaller Windows while having HWMonitor runing at the side so you can see them both in real time?

Also I do not know where did you got that magic 1% bottleneck number, but if it was using one of those bottleneck calculators online is really a useless value, nothing more.

Can you confirm that all the cores, at the same time, were pegged at 100% when you saw them in real time (while playing the game)?

I wonder what are you using to cool down the Core i7 9700K, cause your PC may be dead silent but those +80°C are not that great you know. Perhaps you should turn up the pump and/or the fans.

 

[Vax]

So you have a 2 monitor setup?, or You are playing the game at a smaller Windows while having HWMonitor runing at the side so you can see them both in real time?

Also I do not know where did you got that magic 1% bottleneck number, but if it was using one of those bottleneck calculators online is really a useless value, nothing more.

Can you confirm that all the cores, at the same time, were pegged at 100% when you saw them in real time (while playing the game)?

I wonder what are you using to cool down the Core i7 9700K, cause your PC may be dead silent but those +80°C are not that great you know. Perhaps you should turn up the pump and/or the fans.

I'm using a cooler master heat sink with a fan attached to it. It's cooled down perfectly fine before. In fact it was skirting 90 C. I realized that something was up so I took off the heatsink and re-did the thermal paste. That fixed it.
And yes I can confirm that.
No I'm running 1 monitor atm. I'd move the screen, alt-tab out, see the spike at 100%, and slowly going down. I'd tab back in, move again, tab back, it's at 100% again, etc.

 

[mdd1963]

It's a 9700K....; given a very good GPU, it will have high CPU utilization..

GIven extraneous tasks such as monitoring oneself play and/or streaming, I'd accept 100% as normal...

"Nothing to see here.....; please disperse!" Leslie Neilsen