Help me with my bottleneck please!

[Mitch Craun]

Hello everyone.

I just upgraded my GPU to the ridiculous zotac 980 ti amp extreme. I was expecting to have BF4 play with max settings at 120 FPS on my 1080p monitor. However, I am hovering around 80-90 fps normally. I did not expect this. I wanted to see if I could find a bottleneck in my system so I followed the guide here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGEN7JriJ2M

Doing so I saw that all 8 threads of my CPU were hovering around 80-90% usage while my GPU was hovering around 60%-70% usage, and my ram was around 25%. However, I think that the method in the video only looks at the size of ram used, and can't tell me if my ram speed is being maxed out. When I bought my RAM I didn't know how to tell the difference between RAM speeds, so my ram is DDR3 1600. So maybe that's part of the problem. Anyway, it looks like my CPU is what's limiting my system. I am very surprised by that. I didn't expect my i7 3770k (4 core 8 thread base 3.5 Ghz, turbo 3.9 Ghz) to be a problem. However these results make it seem like it is.

Do I really need to upgrade my CPU?!?! I am using the stock cooler right now, do you think I can solve this problem by water cooling it and then overclocking it, or do I have to suck it up and get a new CPU? If so, what aspect of my CPU (clock speed, core count, etc.) was holding me back?

Here is everything in my PC....

GPU: (Over kill I know)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500379&cm_re=zotac_amp_extreme-_-14-500-379-_-Product

CPU: i7 3770k
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16819116501

Mother board:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16813157293

Memory: 4x8 Gb = 32 Gb of DDR3 1600
(Two orders of this.)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820233299

Power Supply: (If this even matters.) 750 watts
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16817182133

I am running windows 7 profesional.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

-Mitch

 

[Frag Maniac]

Have you checked in the BIOS to see if your RAM is running at 1600 speed? Also, filling up all 4 RAM slots can induce a bit of latency. Try using just two sticks (make sure they're in the dual channel slots).

Also, slap a CPU cooler on that 3770 and try OCing it to 4GHz. You can also try unparking the cores.

I assume as well you have checked to see if any background programs are causing problems, and that you have no malware issues?