Is my CPU a bottleneck

Dentifrice

Reputable
Aug 29, 2014
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Hi !
my rig :

GPU : GTX 770
CPU : Intel core i3-530 (clarkdale, yes I know, it's old).
8 gb of ram

So, to be honnest, most of my games runs well with my old screen (1680x1050). Even "recent games" like Tomb raider (2013). Most of the time I can run graphics at max (but no AA in some cases). FPS is almost always at 60.

So, it's been running well with my old cpu.

Now I have a 1080p screen. So my resolution is now 1920x1080. Now it seems that the diffence has a big impact on my games. My games aren't as much smooth as before. Choppy at times. Fps going up and down.

So I though of this :

1- My cpu is enough good at this res. So I checked my cpu graph but it seems that it never gets to 100 % (exept one game that is very cpu bound which is X rebirth). But if the cpu is always between 40 et 70 %, can the cpu be the problem ? I know most of games are more GPU than CPU bound.

2- Instead, could it be that because my cpu is old, my GPU cannot deliver it's maximum power ? This card is a PCI express 3.0 and my board is a PCI 2.0. But I don't think we can see a real difference on this.

3- Or finally, could it be that a gtx 770 may have difficulties to run games at 1080p and it's not powerful enough ?

Thanks for your help
sorry for my english !
 
Solution
The problem is almost certainly the CPU. The GTX 770 is still a very good card and there's no discernable difference between PCIe 2.0 and 3.0. I assume your RAM is DDR3?

If your motherboard can support it, then a first-generation i7 would make for a good and inexpensive upgrade.
The problem is almost certainly the CPU. The GTX 770 is still a very good card and there's no discernable difference between PCIe 2.0 and 3.0. I assume your RAM is DDR3?

If your motherboard can support it, then a first-generation i7 would make for a good and inexpensive upgrade.
 
Solution
anyone ?

I would really like to know how CPU can slowdown GPU. I knew this as a fact but I would like to have the technical reason behind this. Because in my case, the CPU isn't at 100 % of load when I'm playing. So, how in this case, when CPU not overloaded, can it slow down the GPU ?

thanks