Question CPU jumps to 100% while gaming

Apr 12, 2019
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My CPU never drops under 100% while gaming. I've browsed multiple forum posts with similar issues on multiple sites and I can't find a fix. All of my drivers are up to date. I've monitored my temps and they're all too low to cause any throttling. When i tab out of games I immediately drop down to about 50% usage

My specs are:
i5 7500 @ 3.6GHz
GTX 1660 ti
16GB DDR4 @ 2400MHz

thank you
 
Apr 12, 2019
2
0
10
Running your CPU at 100% is not a bad thing. You have just maxed out all of your threads. Most games are starting to take advantage of 4 or more threads, so seeing 100% usage on a 4 core/ 4 thread chip will be common.
another problem that comes along with it is my voice in discord lagging. it's not being caused by my internet, ive tested it under multiple different connections. and it happens only when im in games and at 100% cpu usage
 
another problem that comes along with it is my voice in discord lagging. it's not being caused by my internet, ive tested it under multiple different connections. and it happens only when im in games and at 100% cpu usage

Sounds like your games are using all of the CPU resources (hence the 100%). Running discord in the background requires CPU resources. So the CPU has to give and take to keep everything running. Make sure only the necessary background processes on going on to free up as much of your CPU as you can.

Run a bench at userbenchmark.com and it will show you how your hardware is performing. It will also show your CPU background usage.
 

M.AGamer

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Feb 19, 2019
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My CPU never drops under 100% while gaming. I've browsed multiple forum posts with similar issues on multiple sites and I can't find a fix. All of my drivers are up to date. I've monitored my temps and they're all too low to cause any throttling. When i tab out of games I immediately drop down to about 50% usage

My specs are:
i5 7500 @ 3.6GHz
GTX 1660 ti
16GB DDR4 @ 2400MHz

thank you
What games you play ? i think thats normal for 4c 4t cpu i have ryzen 2400g 4c 8t i get 70% cpu usage in bf1
 
Oct 24, 2015
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You must have needless defensive programs monitoring your pc.

Advanced system health Care, iobit malicious fighter and other defensive programs, also are needlessly heavy.

Here is what you must do :
Open task manager, when not gaming, and uninstall programs that use that idle 50% thing.
Your cpu usage should be 1-2% when idle.

If you have authentic Windows 10, you don't even need a first antivirus, cos they already include one.
 
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You too should uninstall system healthcare and whatever else you find in task manager wasting your cpu power

Nothing's using it but the game.

BFV, Forza series, Tomb Radier games, and lots of recent games can scale up to 4C/4T and eat up power pretty well.

Also, Windows Defender and the Anti-Malware tool they include in Windows 10 are common CPU consumers, so I wouldn't go with the stock antivirus tools either.
 

Achaios

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Pretty typical for a 4 core CPU w/o hyperthreading.

Our i5-3570k @ 4.3 is constantly near 100% in newer games. My i7-3770k struggles a bit sometimes too.

Don't think so, man.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhudkF3GWgQ


@REDGAMINGTECH made a 15 min video in which he benchmarks several games to see if a 4770k bottlenecks a 2080 TI.

Result: it doesn't. His OC'd 4770k ran nowhere near 100% in any resolution and he was always bottlenecked by his GPU.

I dunno, I think this whole affair with the 4/8 CPU's being the bottleneck is just BS found in this forum.
 
Oct 24, 2015
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Nothing's using it but the game.

BFV, Forza series, Tomb Radier games, and lots of recent games can scale up to 4C/4T and eat up power pretty well.

Also, Windows Defender and the Anti-Malware tool they include in Windows 10 are common CPU consumers, so I wouldn't go with the stock antivirus tools either.
You said the computer runs at 50%when not gaming, but without running anything?
 
by comparison, my CPU usage when not gaming is...<drum roll> ....1%....

As wisely suggested above, you need to uninstall the junk.

Also as suggested above, most quad cores are quite busy (i.e., at/near 100% usage) during gaming even on a good day. (Simultaneous Discord, chat, surfing, movie-watching, music listening, etc., will not help your case)
 
You said the computer runs at 50%when not gaming, but without running anything?
Never said it was at 50%. Idle is @ 1-5% in W10.

It's pretty typical to see CPU usage shoot up high when you start gaming & CPU is still loading textures, etc. Tomb Raider, Forza, Battlefield V all do this to mine. Like I said, I see 80-100% CPU usage (100% is very rare) on the i7 in some games, but I'm still maintaining > 60 FPS throughput anyway. Games are threaded to take advantage of more CPU power than they used to be, relying on a single core to manage everything.

I'm running a GTX 1070 & don't feel bottlenecked by the i7-3770k, though. It COULD use more power for multitasking, but it's still a fine gaming platform. The i5, without the 4 additional threads, however, does struggle MUCH more, to the point of some stuttering in BFV (paired with GTX 1060).
 
I dunno, I think this whole affair with the 4/8 CPU's being the bottleneck is just BS found in this forum.

I agree, 4 core/8 thread CPUs are enough. But the OP's CPU is not a 4/8. It is a 4 core CPU without hyper threading. Additionally, in the 4770k/2080ti demo was a test bed. Only OS operations were occurring in the background whereas in real world examples users may have other programs running (such as discord) while gaming. Those do consume CPU resources.
 
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RobCrezz

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Don't think so, man.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhudkF3GWgQ


@REDGAMINGTECH made a 15 min video in which he benchmarks several games to see if a 4770k bottlenecks a 2080 TI.

Result: it doesn't. His OC'd 4770k ran nowhere near 100% in any resolution and he was always bottlenecked by his GPU.

I dunno, I think this whole affair with the 4/8 CPU's being the bottleneck is just BS found in this forum.

Do you realise that you quoted him talking about a 4/4 cpu, then posted video about a 4/8 cpu?

not really the same is it.
 

Achaios

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Try reading it again?

He said the 3770k struggles a bit. then you post about a 4770k not bottlenecking a 2080 ti. No one said it did.

You're just posting irrelevant information to the thread.

Nope, my point was that the 4/8 CPU's do not struggle, not even a bit, therefore he was wrong to use the verb struggle to describe 4/8 CPU performance.