[SOLVED] is my higher end gpu bottlenecking lower end cpu

[iTSNoTLuCK]

Recently I've been playing a bit of GTA V online on high settings except water, grass and particles and realised that my GPU (supposedly way better than my CPU) is hitting 80-100% usage while my CPU is hitting only 30-50% on all cores with one core boosting up to about 70%, also when I play story mode my FPS is way higher, like 90-120.
My specs:
GTX 1660 super +150Mhz Core and +750Mhz Mem OC
FX-8320 @4.5Ghz
Sabertooth 990fx r2.0
DDR3 1866mhz RAM
Also I am only hitting about 60-70 FPS which I feel like is a bit low for these specs, can anyone figure out what the problem is, or if there even is one?

 

[geofelt]

There is no such thing as "bottlenecking"
If, by that, you mean that upgrading a cpu or graphics card can
somehow lower your performance or FPS.
A better term might be limiting factor.
That is where adding more cpu or gpu becomes increasingly
less effective.

I think your problem is the slow single thread performance of your FX processor.
I think GTAV is heavy on cpu and largely single threaded.

Be careful how you interpret task manager cpu utilisations.
Windows will spread the activity of a single thread over all available threads.
So, if you had a game that was single threaded and cpu bound, it would show up on a quad core processor as 25%
utilization across all 4 threads.
leading you to think your bottleneck was elsewhere.
It turns our that few games can USEFULLY use more than 2-3 threads.
How can you tell how well threaded your games or apps are?
One way is to disable one thread and see how you do.

You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, it tells you that you will not benefit from more cores.
Likely, a better clock rate will be more important.

Not much you can do without changing out your cpu, motherboard and ram.
A modern i3-10100 processor, lga1200 motherboard and 16gb of ddr4 ram would be twice as capable and cost <$300.

 

[Ferimer]

Recently I've been playing a bit of GTA V online on high settings except water, grass and particles and realised that my GPU (supposedly way better than my CPU) is hitting 80-100% usage while my CPU is hitting only 30-50% on all cores with one core boosting up to about 70%, also when I play story mode my FPS is way higher, like 90-120.
My specs:
GTX 1660 super +150Mhz Core and +750Mhz Mem OC
FX-8320 @4.5Ghz
Sabertooth 990fx r2.0
DDR3 1866mhz RAM
Also I am only hitting about 60-70 FPS which I feel like is a bit low for these specs, can anyone figure out what the problem is, or if there even is one?

What is your monitor? Are you playing on 1080P? If so just Cap your frames to 60. The 1660 Super will not need to run any higher than it needs to. The 1660 Super is more than capable at running games on higher settings all the while keeping its utilization under 100%. I use a 1660 Super and found that capping it was way better than not. From what I have read from a lot of people the FX series CPU's are just garbage. You also probably don't need to overclock the GPu that much. the 60-70FPs is not low for those specs especially in a game like GTA V online. Story mode you are right on par. YOu can look at many videos and see for yourself. that GPU excels at 60FPS, you could try 1440p if your monitor supports it and the frames you get should be above 70 AVG. Just pump everything up to MAx settings cap it at 60 FPs and enjoy and see if your frames dip or not.

 

[iTSNoTLuCK]

There is no such thing as "bottlenecking"
If, by that, you mean that upgrading a cpu or graphics card can
somehow lower your performance or FPS.
A better term might be limiting factor.
That is where adding more cpu or gpu becomes increasingly
less effective.

I think your problem is the slow single thread performance of your FX processor.
I think GTAV is heavy on cpu and largely single threaded.

Be careful how you interpret task manager cpu utilisations.
Windows will spread the activity of a single thread over all available threads.
So, if you had a game that was single threaded and cpu bound, it would show up on a quad core processor as 25%
utilization across all 4 threads.
leading you to think your bottleneck was elsewhere.
It turns our that few games can USEFULLY use more than 2-3 threads.
How can you tell how well threaded your games or apps are?
One way is to disable one thread and see how you do.

You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option.
You will need to reboot for the change to take effect. Set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many threads.
If you see little difference, it tells you that you will not benefit from more cores.
Likely, a better clock rate will be more important.

Not much you can do without changing out your cpu, motherboard and ram.
A modern i3-10100 processor, lga1200 motherboard and 16gb of ddr4 ram would be twice as capable and cost <$300.

Ok, thanks for this reply. I was just a bit worried because I spent $400nzd on a gpu and it seemed to be bottlenecking, which isn't the case. I am planning on upgrading the rest of my rig in about a years time and the new gpu was just to get me to that point.

 

[iTSNoTLuCK]

What is your monitor? Are you playing on 1080P? If so just Cap your frames to 60. The 1660 Super will not need to run any higher than it needs to. The 1660 Super is more than capable at running games on higher settings all the while keeping its utilization under 100%. I use a 1660 Super and found that capping it was way better than not. From what I have read from a lot of people the FX series CPU's are just garbage. You also probably don't need to overclock the GPu that much. the 60-70FPs is not low for those specs especially in a game like GTA V online. Story mode you are right on par. YOu can look at many videos and see for yourself. that GPU excels at 60FPS, you could try 1440p if your monitor supports it and the frames you get should be above 70 AVG. Just pump everything up to MAx settings cap it at 60 FPs and enjoy and see if your frames dip or not.

I'm playing on an AOC 1080p 165hz Monitor because I mostly play fps games like CSGO or Valorant, and today I did what you said and cranked the settings up to the max capped my fps at 60 and all of a sudden I'm getting 40 fps with 30% gpu usage and 50-70% CPU across all cores. I'm recording this through MSI Afterburner btw. This is getting confusing to me, things don't seem to be adding up.

 

[geofelt]

I think the test you want is to reduce the graphics settings and resolution.
our FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.
I expect this to be the case with your processor.

 

[iTSNoTLuCK]

I think the test you want is to reduce the graphics settings and resolution.
our FPS increases, it indicates that your cpu is strong enough to drive a better graphics configuration.
If your FPS stays the same, you are likely more cpu limited.
I expect this to be the case with your processor.

Ok thanks I tried this, I lowered the res down to 720p and the FPS stayed the same (40-55) and I also noticed that whenever I'm outside of the city, or near the outskirts my fps is around 60-80 even when I'm looking into the city from a hill or something. I presume this means that I'm being let down by my CPU and it might be easier for it to render the hillside?

 

[EridanusSV]

Limiting factor. Just like this:

https://imgur.com/G4q4tVl

View: https://imgur.com/G4q4tVl

 

[DSzymborski]

Yup, CPU-limited scenario. AM3+ chips now fail to beat -- and even have lower 1% and 0.1% FPS in the majority of cases -- than entry-level Ryzen Athlon CPUs.

 

[Ferimer]

I'm playing on an AOC 1080p 165hz Monitor because I mostly play fps games like CSGO or Valorant, and today I did what you said and cranked the settings up to the max capped my fps at 60 and all of a sudden I'm getting 40 fps with 30% gpu usage and 50-70% CPU across all cores. I'm recording this through MSI Afterburner btw. This is getting confusing to me, things don't seem to be adding up.

Have you messed around with the settings in the Nvidia Control Panel?

 

[Ferimer]

I'm playing on an AOC 1080p 165hz Monitor because I mostly play fps games like CSGO or Valorant, and today I did what you said and cranked the settings up to the max capped my fps at 60 and all of a sudden I'm getting 40 fps with 30% gpu usage and 50-70% CPU across all cores. I'm recording this through MSI Afterburner btw. This is getting confusing to me, things don't seem to be adding up.

So i just finished playing GTa V i downloaded it to check it out and see what frames i get. Currently I do have a much better CPU than you. I use a 3600X overclocked to 4.25ghz. Using a 1660 Super that was boosted to 2050 core clock. and 7600 memory clock. Aslo I have 32GB 3200mhz ddr4 ram. I had all the settings on Very High and was getting well over 110FPS in SP and im sure online would be higher than 60fps. SO i think a few factors for you may be your CPU and your RAM.

 

[iTSNoTLuCK]

Yup, CPU-limited scenario. AM3+ chips now fail to beat -- and even have lower 1% and 0.1% FPS in the majority of cases -- than entry-level Ryzen Athlon CPUs.

Ok thanks for that I will make sure to upgrade CPU, Motherboard, RAM asap.

 

[iTSNoTLuCK]

Have you messed around with the settings in the Nvidia Control Panel?

Yeah I think I watched this video and changed everything but the image sharpening