i5 6400 100% usage in games

[UniformGreen]

I saved the whole year for the black friday to upgrade from my FX 6300 to the i5 6400 to be able to fully utilize my GTX 970 but to my surprise the CPU is used at 100% in all games I throw at the CPU. 100% in Minecraft, CSGO, Google Chrome when watching Youtube or having more than 2 tabs open, League of Legends, Battlefield 1 (even though it's known to be CPU intensive but the other games are not an excuse), Star Wars Battlefront, GTA 5, every AC etc.

What can I do? It is not a virus because after I upgraded I reinstalled the Windows and the problem was not present with the FX 6300. The CPU temp nevers goes above 55*C and the mobo maximum temp was 42*C so it's not hot at all.

 

[Multipack]

It's unlikely to get much hotter than 55c at 100c load. In games it can be expected, but two internet tabs means there is something v amiss. Your GPU wont even be at 5% load on You Tube.

The i5 6400 will not bottleneck a GTX 970 so you hve a problem. Did you install yourself?

 

[UniformGreen]

It's unlikely to get much hotter than 55c at 100c load. In games it can be expected, but two internet tabs means there is something v amiss. Your GPU wont even be at 5% load on You Tube.

The i5 6400 will not bottleneck a GTX 970 so you hve a problem. Did you install yourself?

Yes. I am quite experienced with building pcs. This is my 4th time building a PC and it was no issue... I will reinstall Windows again with a clean install this time meaning formatinc all the hard drives I have.

 

[sarwar_r87]

Not to belittle you pc skills, butDid you check the task manager to confirm which process is eating up the process.

Also a 6300 is not a big enough bottleneck for 970 for you to notice fps difference.

 

[Multipack]

It's unlikely to get much hotter than 55c at 100c load. In games it can be expected, but two internet tabs means there is something v amiss. Your GPU wont even be at 5% load on You Tube.

The i5 6400 will not bottleneck a GTX 970 so you hve a problem. Did you install yourself?

Yes. I am quite experienced with building pcs. This is my 4th time building a PC and it was no issue... I will reinstall Windows again with a clean install this time meaning formatinc all the hard drives I have.

Check for other processes using your CPU first as sarwar_r87 said.. but yeah a clean install will ensure you have no viruses or a bad system config if you cant find anything. If it still happens then you'll have to check your hardware.

 

[UniformGreen]

Not to belittle you pc skills, butDid you check the task manager to confirm which process is eating up the process.

Also a 6300 is not a big enough bottleneck for 970 for you to notice fps difference.

I reinstalled Windows and no difference...
The FX 6300 is a big bottleneck for the GTX 970. After I upgraded the CPU in games that utilize the CPU and the GPU like GTA 5, The Witcher 3 I got a very big increase in fps. Before I couldn't get more than 40 on GTA 5 on almost maxed out and with the same settings I get 80-90. The same with Witcher. But the problem is that the CPU is always at 100% and in CPU Intensive Games like BF4, BF1, CSGO, Lol I get lower fps than I would get with the FX 6300.
Can the ram be a problem? With the FX 6300 I used 8GB DDR3 1333MHz in Dual Channel and after the upgrade I'm using only one stick of 8GB DDR4 2133MHz. Can the Single Channel make a bottleneck to the GPU? Because in those games (BF4, BF1, CSGO, LOL, Minecraft etc.) the GPU usage never goes above 40%. In CSGO it stays at 5-10% and the CPU is always at 100%. With the FX 6300 I used to have 200-250 and now I can't even get 200, most of the times stays at ~150 fps. I ordered another stick of Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR4 2133MHz and it should arrive in ~2 days.

 

[Multipack]

I'd be v surprisedm if dual channel RAM made that much difference, and it is a peculiar problem I will admit. Ok there may still be a little bottleneck, but the way you describe it doesnt quite add up and you are right to question it. Are you sure you have the same settings level as you did with the old CPU? It could be that the single core speed of the FX was a lot higher than the 6400, and those games are particularly single core dependent, but I would be asking the exact same questions you are. Let us know if the extra RAM makes a difference!

 

[UniformGreen]

I'd be v surprisedm if dual channel RAM made that much difference, and it is a peculiar problem I will admit. Ok there may still be a little bottleneck, but the way you describe it doesnt quite add up and you are right to question it. Are you sure you have the same settings level as you did with the old CPU? It could be that the single core speed of the FX was a lot higher than the 6400, and those games are particularly single core dependent, but I would be asking the exact same questions you are. Let us know if the extra RAM makes a difference!

I will once it arrives. And about the speed of a core is not the correct representation of how powerfull a CPU is. The IPC matters and that category, a 5 years old AMD CPU isn't on par with a current generation Skylake i5... And yes, I am sure I am using the same settings. At least in CSGO I lost a lot of frames and I know it because I used to play with everything on low and Multi Core Rendering turned on.

 

[Multipack]

No I realsie that, and the FX is still far below an i5 6400, but IPC is also conditional based on software interdependence and is only one factor in determining a computer CPU efficiency. Clock speed is still relevant. Multi core rendering wont make that much difference if the game engine is not equipped to take advantage of that. I am just trying to speculate why you have such inconsistent results.

 

[UniformGreen]

No I realsie that, and the FX is still far below an i5 6400, but IPC is also conditional based on software interdependence and is only one factor in determining a computer CPU efficiency. Clock speed is still relevant. Multi core rendering wont make that much difference if the game engine is not equipped to take advantage of that. I am just trying to speculate why you have such inconsistent results.

Yeah, I know... What I don't understand is why the FX 6300 was not used at 100%, more like 70-80% in all games. It was normal since it was bottlenecking the GTX 970 but I don't get it why the i5 is being utilized at 100% and getting lower fps in some games.

 

[UniformGreen]

No I realsie that, and the FX is still far below an i5 6400, but IPC is also conditional based on software interdependence and is only one factor in determining a computer CPU efficiency. Clock speed is still relevant. Multi core rendering wont make that much difference if the game engine is not equipped to take advantage of that. I am just trying to speculate why you have such inconsistent results.

What about this: I did some research and I found out that a guys had the exact same problem as me but he had the i5 6600K and an Asus mobo. He contacted Asus and they recommended to remove the CMOS Battery for 10 minutes and then put it back. He also said that removing the battery does more than reseting the bios with the jumper method. I want to do it myself but I don't know the risks of doing it, is there a chance to break my motherboard by removing and puting back the cmos battery?

 

[Multipack]

No it's something you will get used to doing if you build your own PC's. It doesn't do a lot more than resetting BIOS I don't think, unlike jumping the CMOS pins which I believe resets your hardware and memory controllers. It may be that just removing the battery does do, but jumping it is just as easy, and all you do is join the two pins with a screwdriver or metal object (not as dangerous as it sounds). I am not really sure how that will help but it's worth a try I guess. Beware though that it may make your OS unbootable depending on which BIOS settings you currently have. Its unlikely though unless you have changed them previously.

And re your last pot, I agree, there isn't any logic with your CPU usage, which is why I questioned whether the clockspeed (despite the lower cycle rate ratio) was responsible, as it's a mystery. What you could do is run Intel's processor diag tool on your CPU to check it is working fully, and perhaps do a chkdsk/memtest just to make sure none of your hardware is failing or faulty. Do you monitor voltages?

 

[UniformGreen]

No it's something you will get used to doing if you build your own PC's. It doesn't do a lot more than resetting BIOS I don't think, unlike jumping the CMOS pins which I believe resets your hardware and memory controllers. It may be that just removing the battery does do, but jumping it is just as easy, and all you do is join the two pins with a screwdriver or metal object (not as dangerous as it sounds). I am not really sure how that will help but it's worth a try I guess. Beware though that it may make your OS unbootable depending on which BIOS settings you currently have. Its unlikely though unless you have changed them previously.

And re your last pot, I agree, there isn't any logic with your CPU usage, which is why I questioned whether the clockspeed (despite the lower cycle rate ratio) was responsible, as it's a mystery. What you could do is run Intel's processor diag tool on your CPU to check it is working fully, and perhaps do a chkdsk/memtest just to make sure none of your hardware is failing or faulty. Do you monitor voltages?

I did monitor my voltages last month when I bought it and I was surprised it would stay under 1 volt in full load and the max was 1.0x but it might be because of the low frequency the CPU has (2.7GHz). I used the jumper method last night because I enabled the Ultra Fast Boot option from bios and I was not able to get into bios anymore because that setting blocks USB connections and I could not press Delete. It did nothing and today I saw the Battery method and I tried it and I will test some games later and I will update you.

 

[rderubeis]

Ok so i have the i5 6500 and when i set my fps to 0 in csgo which is unlimited my cpu usage goes high as well. If you cap your fps you will notice it drops down alot.

So when my fps is unlimited my cpu usage goes to 90-100 percent.
If i cap my fps to like 150-200 my cpu usage drops to like 40 percent

 

[UniformGreen]

Ok so i have the i5 6500 and when i set my fps to 0 in csgo which is unlimited my cpu usage goes high as well. If you cap your fps you will notice it drops down alot.

So when my fps is unlimited my cpu usage goes to 90-100 percent.
If i cap my fps to like 150-200 my cpu usage drops to like 40 percent

I know CSGO is a CPU intensive game, what I don't understand is that my CPU is maxed out too soon. My CPU maxes out at around 150 fps and I can't get higher than 200 and with my old FX 6300 I could easly get over 200 fps...

 

[rderubeis]

Ok so i have the i5 6500 and when i set my fps to 0 in csgo which is unlimited my cpu usage goes high as well. If you cap your fps you will notice it drops down alot.

So when my fps is unlimited my cpu usage goes to 90-100 percent.
If i cap my fps to like 150-200 my cpu usage drops to like 40 percent

I know CSGO is a CPU intensive game, what I don't understand is that my CPU is maxed out too soon. My CPU maxes out at around 150 fps and I can't get higher than 200 and with my old FX 6300 I could easly get over 200 fps...

if you want more fps you need to type fps_max 0 in console add me on steam http://steamcommunity.com/id/creepaachu/