CPU 70% usage, GPU 99% during gaming

[AKLT]

Its my understanding that for the PC to run optimally its good if both the CPU and GPU is close to 99% utilized during gaming.

these are my specs:
Intel i5 4690 (CM 212x)
Palit GTX 970 4GB
16GB Corsair vengeance pro 4x4GB


Is there a bottleneck somewhere thats preventing my CPU to be fully utilized?

 

[neon neophyte]

having both running at 100 percent is a rare occurance. typically, x amount of cpu is required to run y amount of gpu. so ideally, you have more cpu horsepower than required for the gpu to run at 100 percent. if your gpu is running at 100 percent, you are in an ideal situation. which you are.

 

[xdomokunn]

It is very uncommon for a CPU, or even GPU for that matter to be at 100% usage, as only few games do fully utilize a system, especially a system of your specs.

 

[neon neophyte]

i wouldnt say either is uncommon. if you are running a game at max fps, it will cap out the gpu assuming the cpu is strong enough. inversely, if your cpu isnt strong enough to run your gpu and the game is able to take advantage of all your cpu cores, the cpu will run at 100 percent.

 

[CAaronD]

I have a VERY similar PC to yours. I5 4590 and Zotac GTX 970. And even when playing Far Cry 4, Crysis 3, etc, at max, I never hit more than 65C on my GPU and 60C on my CPU. Also loads are around 60% on GPU when playing C3. That is a bit odd. What are your temps? What game are you playing?

Edit: Also, you don't have any bottleneck with any of your parts. My CPU runs somewhere between 40% to 70% when playing C3.

 

[AKLT]

having both running at 100 percent is a rare occurance. typically, x amount of cpu is required to run y amount of gpu. so ideally, you have more cpu horsepower than required for the gpu to run at 100 percent. if your gpu is running at 100 percent, you are in an ideal situation. which you are.

Ah! thank you for that insight. that clears things up so much.
Its good to know theres too much processing power to go around.

 

[neon neophyte]

it isnt odd, he just isnt running a frame limiter like vsync.

 

[AKLT]

I have a VERY similar PC to yours. I5 4590 and Zotac GTX 970. And even when playing Far Cry 4, Crysis 3, etc, at max, I never hit more than 65C on my GPU and 60C on my CPU. Also loads are around 60% on GPU when playing C3. That is a bit odd. What are your temps? What game are you playing?

Ive never tried running C3 on this card but so far FC3 and DA:i has 99% ultilzation for my GPU

Im running FC3, have yet to try DA:I

my CPU has yet to reach 60c ever since i swapped in my CM hyper 212X
GPU gets to about low 60s

 

[neon neophyte]

i have deselected your accidental best answer ;p

 

[CAaronD]

@neon neophyte Sorry 😛 I did not think of that 😀

 

[Vitric9]

I do agree for having both CPU and GPU pinned at 99-100% is rare. Also It is more desirable to just have the GPU at 100% usage. More often than not a CPU being 100% utilized during gameplay can hamper the performance. In a Typical scenario the CPU will read 1 Core/thread at 100% and the rest spread over the remaining threads. Even if it is a CPU bound game that scales well, say for example Battlefield 4, your looking at 70% average over 4 cores in game. That is if you looked in Taskmanager it should be about 60-80% for CPU usage. If all 4 threads are 99/100% than another program could be the cause or maybe malware or a virus.

 

[AKLT]

it isnt odd, he just isnt running a frame limiter like vsync.

I try to lock my fps to 60 whenever possible, though, not sure if it affects anything, usually with it off tears appear so i tend to leave it on nowadays.

 

[neon neophyte]

me too. more fps than refresh rate can cause tearing.

not to mention, limiting the fps will save your gpu some work.

 

[AKLT]

Thanks for all the insight guys, i feel safer and smarter!

 

[Igor_25]

My CPU i7 7700K was being used sometimes near the 98-100 percentile however that was due to the graphics, 2560x1440p at 144hz with gsync has caused the CPU to overcompensate is my understanding so I turned it down to 60hz and instantly it reduced the usage to less than 50% I have no idea as to why this is so as I'm running gtx 1080, is a more powerful gpu going to give me room to move back up to 144hz,