Low GPU/CPU usage?

[jkteddy77]

I have an R9 290 Tri-X sand an 8350 stock. I can't help but notice, that in games like Crysis 3 and BF4, my CPU NEVER goes over about 80%... never. and As my CPU usag icnrease to around 70%+, my GPU usage drops from 90-99% to about 70-80%... This cuts my FPS in half? I used DDU to wipe my drivers, reinstall the latest AMD chipset, my MOBO's chipset, and the latest 14.4 stable driver. Yes, full stable driver, brand new...

Is this normal? What could be the cause I notice my PC won't let my 8350 over 57C core temp, 54C or so for package... is it throttling at only 57C? I have the stock cooler on, but come on! My GPU is R9 290 Tri-X, and I HIGHLY doubt it is that, as it never goes over 75C, impressive for an R9 290, (95C reference) and it benchmarks accordingly... I think it's the CPU to blame but I have no clue... It seems to be a bottleneck, but I was told 8350 couldn't bottleneck a 290, even 2 290's... I think its done this the entire 2 months I've owned it, took a while to gather this data.

Any help is appreciated. Don't really want to buy and aftermarket cooler, and shouldn't have to should I?

 

[damric]

There are latencies and bandwidth issues that do not show up as % usage. The best you can do is overclock everything as far as stable.

 

[jkteddy77]

There are latencies and bandwidth issues that do not show up as % usage. The best you can do is overclock everything as far as stable.

So its the games or... cause i have very high end hardware, and it does this isn may games. I got all drivers as estable as possible, and the gpu is already stock OC'd... is this just the way its gonna run or...

In BF4, Shouldn't that combination be FAR over 60fps? I Only run 45-75 on DX11, and on cpu heavy maps, My CPU rises, and my GPU drops to 60=70% usage... Decide I want more FPS by turning down settings? Too bad, I drop to medium setts, and gpu usage is only 30-40% now, and I'm still only 50-100fps... What else is there to do? What is going on?

 

[damric]

IF you want to find out where the weaknesses are, put yourself in the situation where you are having an FPS dip, then adjust your settings one by one. You could also adjust CPU clock to see how it affects, NB clock, and RAM speed/timings. Have you tried running Mantle instead of DX11? It's supposed to clean up much of the driver overhead. Also, when you are monitoring CPU usage, be sure to monitor each core, not just combined CPU usage.