How to stop bottlenecking

[RobertSmith]

My specs are:

AMD FX4130 3.8GHz
MSI Radeon HD7770
8GB RAM
CoolerMaster 500W Elite PSU
BIOSTAR A960D+ motherboard

My friend has the AMD FX4170 4.2GHz, which is infinitesimally better than my processor, with the same graphics card and he doesn't have the issue that I have:

When playing games, I get a drop in GPU usage and FPS. At the same time, CPU usage increases.

Can anyone help me with this without suggesting overclocking; I tried and for some reason my game runs faster (speed wise) and my computer loses the ability to use windows aero features.

Thank you.

 

[ewok93]

That isn't a bottleneck, that is your CPU being under load while your GPU is not. That is just a limit by your components.

 

[RobertSmith]

What do you mean? Is there anything I can do to stop this?

 

[RobertSmith]

This is my CPU vs GPU usage when playing Skyrim.

As you can see, the CPU appears to be bottlenecking the GPU.

 

[ewok93]

Nah, that isn't a bottleneck. It's fine. What's happening is you're getting a CPU intensive part of the game while the game isn't utilizing the GPU. Think of it this way. Think of Skyrim as being two processes, one that taxes the CPU and one that taxes the GPU. The CPU process can utilize 100% of the CPU while the GPU process doesn't need to do anything. The reverse can happen too. Just because one is at 100% and the other isn't doesn't mean there is a bottleneck. There are things you can run (MSI Kombustor) that will set your GPU usage to 100% and your CPU can be at 10%, and things that can utilize 100% of the CPU (prime95) but 0% of the GPU. That does not mean you have a bottleneck, that means the other thing isn't being used. The easy way to fix it is getting a new video card and processor. The hard way is well... it's not hard. Replacing those is the only way.

 

[RobertSmith]

Nah, that isn't a bottleneck. It's fine. What's happening is you're getting a CPU intensive part of the game while the game isn't utilizing the GPU. Think of it this way. Think of Skyrim as being two processes, one that taxes the CPU and one that taxes the GPU. The CPU process can utilize 100% of the CPU while the GPU process doesn't need to do anything. The reverse can happen too. Just because one is at 100% and the other isn't doesn't mean there is a bottleneck. There are things you can run (MSI Kombustor) that will set your GPU usage to 100% and your CPU can be at 10%, and things that can utilize 100% of the CPU (prime95) but 0% of the GPU. That does not mean you have a bottleneck, that means the other thing isn't being used. The easy way to fix it is getting a new video card and processor. The hard way is well... it's not hard. Replacing those is the only way.

No but what is hard to see from the graph, and what I can only see in real time is that as the GPU usage decreases, the CPU usage increases. What's that all about?

 

[ewok93]

They are not related.