[SOLVED] CPU 100% usage, low GPU usage

[antoniotabacu]

Hello! The issue I have: while gaming my CPU is overused by games that shouldn't get it to such high percentages, it usually goes somewhere between 90-100%, and when it's hitting 100% i get the frame drops. Also. I have learned from all the forums and posts I've read trying to solve this issue that the GPU should always be used nearly 100% while gaming. Mine is always lower than 50% (not even that much of the time).
The games I've tried: GTA V, Detroit Become Human, Witcher 3, Outlast 2
Other weird things I've noticed:

1. Changing the video settings of the games does not help, I can play on both LOW/ULTRA and the performance pretty much stays the same.
2. In benchmarks (Heaven Benchmark 4.0 is the one I've tried) my GPU is used correctly (it goes somewhere nearly 100%) BUT only if I use a specific version of DirectX (I can't remember which one was it but other versions did not result in normal usage of the GPU).
3. I've reinstalled Windows, for a long time I thought that it might be a malware caused problem and once I will reinstall Windows I'll get back to smooth gaming - didn't happen.
4. I've replaced the thermal paste on the CPU (thought it might help cause I've never done this since I bought the PC - somewhere 4-5 years ago) - ABSOLUTETLY NOTHING CHANGED!

Please help me I'm desperate!

My specs:
Intel Core i5 6500 @ 3.20GHz
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB (Gigabyte)
MSI B150M GAMING PRO (MS-7994) (U3E1)
931GB TOSHIBA DT01ACA100 (SATA )
16.0GB RAM (Speccy won't tell me what brand it is)

 

[sizzling]

Run userbenchmark and share the public link to the results.

 

[antoniotabacu]

These are the benchmark results:

UserBenchmarks: Game 42%, Desk 79%, Work 32%
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 - 78.9%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060-3GB - 54.6%
HDD: Toshiba DT01ACA100 1TB - 82.1%
RAM: Crucial CT16G4DFD8213.C16FAD 1x16GB - 42.3%
MBD: MSI B150M GAMING PRO (MS-7994)

UserBenchmarks: Game 42%, Desk 79%, Work 32%
CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 - 78.9%
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060-3GB - 54.6%
HDD: Toshiba DT01ACA100 1TB - 82.1%
RAM: Crucial CT16G4DFD8213.C16FAD 1x16GB - 42.3%
MBD: MSI B150M GAMING PRO (MS-7994)

 

[sizzling]

I’d suspect it’s a combination of a 4 thread cpu with the slowest single channel DDR4.

 

[antoniotabacu]

I’d suspect it’s a combination of a 4 thread cpu with the slowest single channel DDR4.

So I should replace the RAM? Thats the problem?

 

[sizzling]

So I should replace the RAM? Thats the problem?

It’s difficult to say how much of a difference it will make as you are still limited by a 4 thread cpu. If you are happy with the FPS you are getting just turn up the game settings to put more load on the gpu. I would not put any more money into that platform and just save your money for when you are ready for a new cpu/motherboard/RAM combination.

 

[antoniotabacu]

I am not happy with the FPS, that's why I am complaining, any game that is a bit demanding runs badly cause the GPU isn't doing the work it should and the CPU is drowning when it should be just fine. What can I do to fix this?

 

[sizzling]

I am not happy with the FPS, that's why I am complaining, any game that is a bit demanding runs badly cause the GPU isn't doing the work it should and the CPU is drowning when it should be just fine. What can I do to fix this?

A quad core/thread cpu is below average these days and not ideal for AAA games. The solution is a cpu/motherboard/RAM upgrade to a modern platform. The CPU’s compatible with your current motherboard are not worth upgrading to and you need a RAM upgrade.

 

[jasonf2]

Looking over your specs you need to upgrade your spin drive to an SSD if your OS is running on it. Anything you are comparing yourself to is running a SSD for benchmark purposes. Any ssd you put in will reduce latency by hundreds of percent and you are bottlenecking your CPU with the rust drive which is in turn bottlenecking your GPU. I would expect to see some gain there all on its own. You will "feel" a difference in the overall system performance as well. Boot times will be reduced and system responsiveness will be improved. You are also going to see significant changes in your userbenchmark scores afterwards so rerun them.

What are you running for resolution and refresh rate on your monitor? That rig should be able to do a pretty decent job at 1080 60hz depending on the game. On the other hand if you are trying to run 4k or a high frequency gaming monitor (120 or above) at 1080 this rig is not going to play well in those ranges. Depending on the game the 1060 3gb at best case specs out here. https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Nvidia-GTX-1060-3GB/Rating/3646 . With your rust drive and CPU I would expect less than the stated numbers however. You never really said what your expectations were or what framerates you are getting other than you were not happy with them.

 

[antoniotabacu]

Looking over your specs you need to upgrade your spin drive to an SSD if your OS is running on it. Anything you are comparing yourself to is running a SSD for benchmark purposes. Any ssd you put in will reduce latency by hundreds of percent and you are bottlenecking your CPU with the rust drive. I would expect to see some gain there all on its own. You will "feel" a difference in the overall system performance as well. Boot times will be reduced and system responsiveness will be improved. You are also going to see significant changes in your userbenchmark scores afterwards so rerun them.

What are you running for resolution and refresh rate on your monitor? That rig should be able to do a pretty decent job at 1080 60hz depending on the game. On the other hand if you are trying to run 4k or a high frequency gaming monitor (120 or above) at 1080 this rig is not going to play well in those ranges. Depending on the game the 1060 3gb at best case specs out here. https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Nvidia-GTX-1060-3GB/Rating/3646 . With your rust drive and CPU I would expect less than the stated numbers however. You never really said what your expectations were or what framerates you are getting other than you were not happy with them.

I have a Full HD, 60Hz monitor. With my specs I would expect 60 FPS at least with the LOW settings on any AAA game till 2018 or so. So I should get an SSD and use that for the Windows and gaming? If that's the case, what SSD would your recommend given my specs? (for now I cannot really buy a new CPU and all that)

 

[jasonf2]

Brand wise I have had good luck with Samsung. They make their own chips and the performance in like a 860 evo 1tb is solid at a reasonable price on SATA. You can get them for around 140-170 USD at Best Buy. A SSD because it is solid state with no mechanical parts carries two major advantages. The less important, but most touted, is the increased transfer speeds. So while a very fast spin drive may give 80-100MBps a pretty much run of the mill SSD will give 500MBps today. The second major advantage, and the big game changer, is seek latency. In the old days we used to measure this in milliseconds as a random seek operation. SSDs are so much faster in this regard that even the worst SSD and the best spin drive are not comparable. If a spin drive and SSD were to be compared in milliseconds the spin drive will be in whole numbers and the SSD would be behind the decimal point. Very few file i/o operations are purely linear like copying a huge video file. Most are dealing with loading a ton of small files in a very short time and that latency is massively improved with the SSD. This improves CPU utilization because it isn't waiting on the hard drive for what it needs as much. Looking at the specs I think that your expectations are reasonable. Obviously this is free tech support and you get what you pay for but if I were in your shoes I would upgrade hard drive and see what happens. Make sure that the OS and the game you are trying to run are both on the SSD. From experience regardless of framerate improvements your computer will feel much faster with grossly improved OS load times and program loading responsiveness.