Is my CPU bottlenecking my GPU?

[samprinsen]

Hi,

I've got 2x MSI GTX 760 TF OC 2GB in SLI, and I'm wondering if it bottlenecks my cpu, which is the i5 3570 no K, overclocked to 4.0 GHz. In some games, like BF4, my system gets some serious frame drops when Vsync is either turned on or off, especially when turned off(60 to 35-40 frames with vsync, 120-90 frames without vsync) And its become really annoying, and almost unplayable…
My PSU is the 750w Powerzone Be quiet! bronze.
Also, I'm currently considering buying the GTX 970, would that be a good choice, and more importantly, would it stop the frame drops?

Thanks!

 

[ZeusGamer]

No man. It would take a lot more than GTX 760 SLI to bottleneck 3570 CPU. Plus, having two 760's would be better than a single 970. Have you tried to clean install your drivers?

 

[RCFProd]

In games like Battlefield 4, yes. You could have bottlenecks in that game.

Can you monitor your CPU-Usage in Battlefield 4?

 

[samprinsen]

No man. It would take a lot more than GTX 760 SLI to bottleneck 3570 CPU.

Oh okay. Then do you know what could cause it? Because I turned on the graph that shows your gpu and cpu performance in battlefield, and it showed that the cpu sometimes went from normal to peak for only a second, but it really ruins the gameplay. I'm not getting the performance I want with these cards and its really annoying...

 

[Entomber]

GTX 760 SLI has greater performance than a single GTX 970.

 

[RCFProd]

Monitor your CPU Usage using task manager.

I think your CPU could easily be the case.

 

[samprinsen]

GTX 760 SLI has greater performance than a single GTX 970.

I know it does, but I haven't really experienced much greatness from SLI, because when the frames are high but still drop like 20, 30 frames every 5-10 seconds, games become really irritating… So I really want to know what the problem is.

 

[samprinsen]

No man. It would take a lot more than GTX 760 SLI to bottleneck 3570 CPU. Plus, having two 760's would be better than a single 970. Have you tried to clean install your drivers?

Already did that multiple times. Also, when in BF4, each GPU only uses about 50 percent, which is really odd… Do you know what the cause of that could be?

 

[ZeusGamer]

No man. It would take a lot more than GTX 760 SLI to bottleneck 3570 CPU. Plus, having two 760's would be better than a single 970. Have you tried to clean install your drivers?

Already did that multiple times. Also, when in BF4, each GPU only uses about 50 percent, which is really odd… Do you know what the cause of that could be?

Like RCFProd said, I would monitor your CPU usage and see how your system is utilizing them cores when you're gaming. My GTX 980 SLI are in 50-60 percent to when playing Battlefield 4. My CPU usage from cores 1, 2, 3 and 4 are like 40-50 percent lol. So, check your CPU usage when gaming. If your CPU is on 100% load and your GPU is just sitting in 50%? Then it might be a bottleneck. But I highly doubt this.

 

[samprinsen]

No man. It would take a lot more than GTX 760 SLI to bottleneck 3570 CPU. Plus, having two 760's would be better than a single 970. Have you tried to clean install your drivers?

Already did that multiple times. Also, when in BF4, each GPU only uses about 50 percent, which is really odd… Do you know what the cause of that could be?

Like RCFProd said, I would monitor your CPU usage and see how your system is utilizing them cores when you're gaming. My GTX 980 SLI are in 50-60 percent to when playing Battlefield 4. My CPU usage from cores 1, 2, 3 and 4 are like 40-50 percent lol. So, check your CPU usage when gaming. If your CPU is on 100% load and your GPU is just sitting in 50%? Then it might be a bottleneck. But I highly doubt this.

I've got the MSI afterburner monitors always on for GPU and CPU, and the CPU is running at all cores around 50 percent as well… But when I turn on the monitor in bf4 using ''perfoverlay.drawgraph 1'' or something like that, it shows the cpu and GPU graph, but the CPU graph sometimes peaks so high that it goes out off the graph. It's really weird

 

[RCFProd]

Quite likely believe it or not.

An i5-4690k that's overclocked can still get bottlenecked by GTX 970 SLI in that game.

Wouldn't be suprised if 100% CPU Usage is the issue here.

 

[RCFProd]

@Samprinsen, like I said, can you please monitor your CPU Usage through TASK MANAGER and no other program whilst in-game?

 

[samprinsen]

I'll power up my pc and try BF4 while monitoring my CPU, and then I'll post the results!

 

[ZeusGamer]

No man. It would take a lot more than GTX 760 SLI to bottleneck 3570 CPU. Plus, having two 760's would be better than a single 970. Have you tried to clean install your drivers?

Already did that multiple times. Also, when in BF4, each GPU only uses about 50 percent, which is really odd… Do you know what the cause of that could be?

Like RCFProd said, I would monitor your CPU usage and see how your system is utilizing them cores when you're gaming. My GTX 980 SLI are in 50-60 percent to when playing Battlefield 4. My CPU usage from cores 1, 2, 3 and 4 are like 40-50 percent lol. So, check your CPU usage when gaming. If your CPU is on 100% load and your GPU is just sitting in 50%? Then it might be a bottleneck. But I highly doubt this.

I've got the MSI afterburner monitors always on for GPU and CPU, and the CPU is running at all cores around 50 percent as well… But when I turn on the monitor in bf4 using ''perfoverlay.drawgraph 1'' or something like that, it shows the cpu and GPU graph, but the CPU graph sometimes peaks so high that it goes out off the graph. It's really weird

If you've got the MSI Afterburner, you can turn on the OSD and watch the percentage itself rather than watching the graph. It'd be a lot easier. Also, try downloading Nvidia Inspector and use it. It helps with a lot of SLI profiles in games. Here's a tutorial on how to use Nvidia Inspector.

 

[samprinsen]

When I try to monitor my game with task manager, it doesn't work... It's just a black screen, and when I close task manager the game does work. But I did see that usage went to about 95 percent for a couple of seconds and then dropped to about 70-80 percent when BF4 was on so I guess thats bad news...