[SOLVED] Do I have GPU Bottleneck?

[AsteriskRin]

Hi. I have i3-10105F and RTX 3060. When I use my computer, especially for gaming. The utilization of CPU and GPU never goes to 100%. In some games, my GPU utilization gets 98% and my CPU utilization gets < 60%. Does it mean my CPU is not strong enough for my GPU? I am not sure that I have GPU bottleneck because my CPU utilization never reach 100%. But people says that i3-10105F is too weak for RTX 3060.

It is my computer spec:
CPU: i3-10105F
GPU: RTX 3060
PSU: Deepcool DN500
Motherboard: MSI H410M-Pro VH
RAM: 2x8 Kingston Fury 2666Hz DDR4

 

[hotaru.hino]

A few of things:

• Utilization depends entirely on the games you play and the settings you play at.
• 100% CPU utilization means you're hitting a performance cap. That will bottleneck GPU performance
  • However, <100% does not mean you don't have a performance cap. A lot of games don't make use of more than 6 threads. In this case, the performance is limited by the single core performance.
• GPU performance close to, but not at 100% is not indicative of a bottleneck.

But most importantly: Are you getting the performance you want? If yes, we can end the discussion. Bottlenecks are not a problem until you're not getting the performance you want.

 

[Lutfij]

You lack adequate power to you GPU since you're advised to have at least 550W of power from a reliably built PSU when trying to power a build with an RTX3060 in it. BIOS version for your motherboard? OS used at this time of writing? If Windows 10, include the version(not edition) of the OS.

 

[AsteriskRin]

You lack adequate power to you GPU since you're advised to have at least 550W of power from a reliably built PSU when trying to power a build with an RTX3060 in it. BIOS version for your motherboard? OS used at this time of writing? If Windows 10, include the version(not edition) of the OS.

Thanks for the advice. The BIOS version is 1.80 and the OS is Windows 10 Enterprise 64-bit (10.0, Build 19044).

 

[sizzling]

The difference between 100-98% is insignificant and doesn’t tell you anything. Also total cpu is fairly meaningless, a game that cannot use all cpu cores/threads can still be limited by the cpu with at least 1 core/thread getting close to 100% while some others are much lower usage/idle. Software monitoring is not 100% accurate either, it could be your gpu is running at 100% but being reported as 98%.

 

[geofelt]

As above. it depends on the games you play.
A game will be limited by SOMETHING.

Some will be graphics limited, and some will be cpu limited.
Here is an easy test:
Run YOUR games, but lower your resolution and eye candy.
This makes the graphics card loaf a bit.
If your FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.

Be careful how you interpret task manager cpu utilizations.
Windows will spread the activity of a single thread over all available threads.
So, if you had a game that was single threaded and cpu bound, it would show up on a quad core processor as 25%
utilization across all 4 threads.
leading you to think your bottleneck was elsewhere.
It turns our that few games can USEFULLY use more than 4-6 threads.
How can you tell how well threaded your games or apps are?
One way is to disable one thread and see how you do.

You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, it tells you that you will not benefit from more cores.
Likely, a better clock rate will be more important.

My guess is that you have a nicely balanced combination of cpu/gpu.

 

[AsteriskRin]

Thank you! I think I am going to get a new 550W+ PSU with 80+ Gold PLUS

 

[geofelt]

Thank you! I think I am going to get a new 550W+ PSU with 80+ Gold PLUS

I think you might want to go stronger than 550w. 650-750w.
a) you might want to upgrade that 3060.
Here is a handy chart:
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm

b) Some 3000 cards draw peak power in excess of norms.

A simpleminded way to gauge quality is to look at the warranty. Look for a unit with a 7 to 10 year warranty.

 

[Karadjgne]

You don't want 100% utilization from either cpu or gpu. Utilization isn't how much of it is being used, it's how much it's using.

The cpu and gpu always work at 100%. You'll get exactly as much fps out of the cpu as it's possible for it to give. Utilization is what resources it draws upon, what the cpu needs to use to get those fps.

Think of it as putting a nail in the wall with a hammer. You will use every single muscle in your hand to hold the hammer, every single muscle in your arm to swing the hammer. 100% muscle usage. But Not 100% of the muscle you are capable of. You won't use every bit of strength you command, grip the hammer as hard as possible, swing it as hard as you can, just to drive a little nail.

So while using All the muscles, you don't use all OF the muscle, leaving you extra strength just in case you hit a knot and do need to swing harder.

100% utilization means if the frame gets even the slightest bit more complex, if there's added instructions, anything harder, fps goes down because the cpu has nothing left to give, nothing to compute with, no time to do any more.

No, you don't have a gpu bottleneck. What you do have is a gpu that's set to about the maximum possible graphical settings for your resolution in a game that's very gpu bound. Play a different game, such as CSGO that's not gpu heavy, and that 98% will disappear.