Is my gpu usage normal

[bigad12345]

hi my pc specs are intel g620
gigabyte h61m s2p
4gb ddr 3 ram
500gb hdd
gigabyte powerock 500w
generic case
sapphire 7770 vapor x
i know its not the best pc but my gpu never reach 99 percent i usaly use 2x msaa my res is 1440x900 i get good frame rates but sometimes iget fps disses and gpu usage drop. usage when i turn off msaa gpu isage is 30 to 40 when 2 msaa from 50 to 60
my cpu usage never reaches 100 always from the mid 80s to mid 90s

 

[COLGeek]

Yes, this is normal behavior. How are your CPU and GPU temperatures at idle and under load?

 

[ubercake]

Another thing that affects GPU usage is V-Sync. If you turn it on, your card doesn't "try" to produce its maximum frames per second, so it works less and generates less heat.

 

[bigad12345]

gpu 30c and cpu 25 under load gpu 65 ad cpu 50c

 

[bigad12345]

so gpu usage shouldnt be 99% ????

 

[COLGeek]

Why wouldn't you expect the GPU to spin up to max when under load, like gaming? That is what you want it to do to get max performance, especially when using high graphics settings.

 

[bigad12345]

the problem is it never reaches reaches 99% max 86%is there somethin wrong with my pc

 

[ubercake]

When you're GPU is topping out at 86% usage, what % load is on the CPU?

 

[bigad12345]

95%

 

[ubercake]

That's close enough to pegged to consider it might be a CPU bottleneck issue. What happens if you change AA to 4x or 8x? Does the GPU go to the high 90s?

 

[bigad12345]

the gpu usage goes to 99% but i get lower fps

 

[ubercake]

You're bound to get lower fps when you increase AA, but this shows us your getting a slight bottleneck from your CPU.

If your framerates are still good, just keep the AA set a little higher to get the most from your system. The other option you have to reduce the chance of a CPU bottleneck is to get a higher resolution screen (ie 1920x1080). This is also another way to force your CPU to pass processing off to the GPU.

 

[bigad12345]

ok thnks i will upgrading to haswell when its comes out thanks

 

[iliani007]

The GPU should be 99% this is NORMAL

 

[ubercake]

No one is saying it shouldn't be at 99%. He didn't get it to 99% until he upped the AA. This forced the processing onto the GPU. This demonstrated a bottleneck with the CPU.

 

[iinRez]

No one is saying it shouldn't be at 99%. He didn't get it to 99% until he upped the AA. This forced the processing onto the GPU. This demonstrated a bottleneck with the CPU.

Im curious, wouldn't one want a little overhead or wiggle room in the GPU usage I imagine 75 - 85% GPU usage would be better performance rather than tapped out but i don't know, I would appreciate some insight if you could. For example I play DayZ SA (its an early alpha, buggy game so a terrible barometer) but still; on the main menu afterburner registers my GPU at 99% if that's the case when I boot into game and load in very large cell wouldn't my GPU be suffering?

Core I7 940 2.93 Ghz
ASUS P6T Deluxe
700w PS
HIS Radeon HD 4870 1gb
Crucial Ballistix 1666 DDR3 RAM