Low GPU usage Low FPS

[SubSt8]

+ Motherboard: MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel
+ Power Supply: OCZ ZX Series 1000W
+ Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 932
+ CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X
+ CPU cooler: Intel BXRTS2011LC Liquid-cooled
+ Memory: 8 x CORSAIR XMS3 4GB
+ GPU: 2x G1 Gaming GeForce GTX 980
+ OS: Windows 8.1 64
+ Hardrives: Corsair Performance Pro Series CSSD-P256GB (Games drive) Corsair Force Series GT CSSD-F120GB (Windows drive)
+ Monitor: Acer XB270HU Gsync
+ Sound: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD (Sound Card) Fiio E9 Desktop Headphone Amplifier ULTRASONE HFI-2400 (Headphones)
+ Microphone: Samson Meteor Mic USB
+ Keyboard: Logitech G19
+ Mouse: Razer Naga

While playing games I get low GPU and CPU usage with low FPS and I can not track down this issue.

In BF4 on the lowest or ultra settings I get 80-100 fps in multiplayer and in Far Cry on lowest or ultra I get 50-80 fps. All at 1080p. Temps are all fine, 40-60. I've done benchmarks and I get scores I ought to be getting, during the benchmarks I get 90-95% GPU usage, also when I launch BF4 test range I get proper usage. But in multiplayer BF4 I get 30-40% usage and in Far Cry 4, the same usage.

Reformtted drives, reinstalled Windows, reinstalled drivers using DDU. I have unparked my CPU, I have the latest drivers. I have tried using EVGA Precision to force my GPU to run at max clock speed via the Kboost option that someone suggested trying. I have installed the DirectX libraries. I have tried with and without hyperthreading. Also found my motherboard didn't have PCIe gen 3 enabled, so I enabled that, yet GPU-Z shows that the cards are still PCIe 2. I reinstalled my GPU drivers without Geforce experience that some have said to fix this issue for them and still no luck.

All my power plans (CPU and GPU) are set to high performance.

Had this issue with my previous Titan GPU and my previous non-gsync monitor, I've installed windows on different hard drives and recently added 16 gigs of ram.


HALP!

 

[ingtar33]

^already mentioned and suggested and rementioned and now mentioning it again.

@OP, at this point the only thing i can think of is to try overclocking your CPU and seeing if the performance is still around that area, even though your cpu is not bottlenecking. I'm assuming you're comparing to other benchmarks found online, and if i'm not mistaken, those are usually overclocked CPUs.

It's not a solution clearly, but it's at least something to try and see if it has any effects, just do a small overclock of maybe say 100-200Mhz. It probably won't give you noticeable differences. If you've already tried it. Then I don't know.

I had a feeling it'd be your PSU at first, but then I looked at the make and model of it, and it's clearly a quality one. Your system itself doesn't come close to 1000W anyways.

Hell, even something as simple as a virus scan might be something to try at this point. At least to help figure something out.

it does sound like a cpu bottleneck. while OP said usage on the cpu doesn't break 50% i'd like to know the core breakdown. 50% on a 6 core core cpu is technically 3 cores fully maxed in some situations. now hyperthreading messes with that math a bit, but if he's hitting 50% utilization i'd be willing to bet he has a few cores at 100% utilization and as a result is bottlenecking.

Interestingly enough, just tested this and one core shows 90-100% usage while in games, the others 20-40. So what should I do to try to fix this?

Overclock the cpu. only way around this issue, it's either overclock or get a newer cpu.

 

[Calnin]

Overclocking isn't that much of a hard process to learn. It's pretty safe now, as long as you don't do ridiculous jumps. It is more time consuming than it should be.

I'd look at maybe the average overclock for your CPU, then work around that maybe.

Use the multiplier rather than the core clock. Base clock for intel is like 100Mhz if i'm not mistaken, then change the multiplier to overclock the CPU (which should be 39 if the base clock is 100Mhz). Overclocking the core clock will cause the system to be less stable overall unless you can do all the micro tweaks, but it's not really worth the time. The multiplier makes it so much easier and managable.

The slower way is probably to bump the multiplier up in increments, probably like +1.5x to +2.0x to the multiplier at a time. Maybe +3.0x. Do this until you hit an unstable point. Then decide whether to bump the voltages or to downclock. Safe thing to do would probably to downclock until you hit a stable point. Increasing voltages will raise temperatures, and that can get annoying.

The faster way is to go the other way, use the unstable points to find a stable point. Start with that average clock, and then work your way down to a stable point. Same idea, but in smaller slightly smaller increments going downward. I still recommend not touching the voltages for now, but with an overclock that's basically already known, you could just start with the voltages too, I guess...

mmm... if i'm missing anything i'll probably edit this or something, but this should be the general idea.

 

[Reaper_7799]

This is what I would do in your position. Do a quick, easy overclock that will work so you don't waste a ton of time fine tuning everything unless you know that it fixes your problem, which it probably will if one of your cores is hitting close to 100%.

Go into your bios and adjust cpu ratio to 42 or 4.2 Ghz, make sure to sync all cores if you have that option....this speed should be pretty easily reachable with lower voltages. Now change only one other thing, vcore or in your motherboard it says cpu core voltage. Change that to either 1.25V or 1.3V. You can do either one but for sake of quickness take one of those two, you can go back later and lower the voltage, this will ensure you don't waste two hours fine tuning voltage and find out it doesn't help.

Save your settings and reboot and run this OCCT test for about 10-15 minutes, it will quickly let you know if you have any errors with voltage being too low. Use the large data set and watch your max temps and it will freeze or you will get an error within the first couple min if there are problems. If it passes, maybe run one more test with either intel extreme utility or intel burn test or prime 95 or whatever you choose. If your temps are in line under that test and maybe one more, more than likely you're good to test it out with battlefield 4, instead of wasting hours with prime 95 or something like that.

Just monitor your temps.

http://www.ocbase.com/index.php/download

You can leave c states and speedstep alone and turbo and all of that, I have c step, speedstep and turbos enabled and my overclock runs fine.

The best way to overclock is using offsets because it lowers your voltage while you aren't doing anything or in lesser programs but you need to find your max overclock anyways and a steady voltage that is required before you can do that...plus you just want to see if this helps your situation.

 

[SubSt8]

This is what I would do in your position. Do a quick, easy overclock that will work so you don't waste a ton of time fine tuning everything unless you know that it fixes your problem, which it probably will if one of your cores is hitting close to 100%.

Go into your bios and adjust cpu ratio to 42 or 4.2 Ghz, make sure to sync all cores if you have that option....this speed should be pretty easily reachable with lower voltages. Now change only one other thing, vcore or in your motherboard it says cpu core voltage. Change that to either 1.25V or 1.3V. You can do either one but for sake of quickness take one of those two, you can go back later and lower the voltage, this will ensure you don't waste two hours fine tuning voltage and find out it doesn't help.

Save your settings and reboot and run this OCCT test for about 10-15 minutes, it will quickly let you know if you have any errors with voltage being too low. Use the large data set and watch your max temps and it will freeze or you will get an error within the first couple min if there are problems. If it passes, maybe run one more test with either intel extreme utility or intel burn test or prime 95 or whatever you choose. If your temps are in line under that test and maybe one more, more than likely you're good to test it out with battlefield 4, instead of wasting hours with prime 95 or something like that.

Just monitor your temps.

http://www.ocbase.com/index.php/download

You can leave c states and speedstep alone and turbo and all of that, I have c step, speedstep and turbos enabled and my overclock runs fine.

The best way to overclock is using offsets because it lowers your voltage while you aren't doing anything or in lesser programs but you need to find your max overclock anyways and a steady voltage that is required before you can do that...plus you just want to see if this helps your situation.

Alright so I followed your advice, went to 4.2 MHz and 1.3v temps get to a max of 80 but usually sit around 71-73 which is fine. So then I loaded up FC4 and BF4 and didn't notice any improvement. I did notice that CPU3 still maxes out but only with FC4 not BF4.

I also tried something, I disabled CPU3 for FC4 just to see if it would help, being that it was the core maxing out, no help.

Edit: Also I noticed something while changing stuff in the BIOS, my BIOS was already overclocked, I never changed those setting, set them to default and the default settings are overclocking.

So at this point are my only options to start replacing pieces of hardware? For the longest time I've assumed that there must be something wrong with my motherboard but I didn't want to spend more money without at least exhausting all my options.

 

[wessamex]

update your bios maybe ?

 

[SubSt8]

update your bios maybe ?

It's the newest version, also I had the issue before updating the bios.

 

[Reaper_7799]

If you had problems similar to this with different cards, titan? Maybe it has something to do with your motherboard? The one core with that high usage though makes it really seem like a cpu bottlenecking issue but this guy here in this review of 3way GTX 980 is using your same chip at stock speeds with 3 980's and has no bottleneck.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GTX-980-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-Performance

EDIT: What happens when you run one 980?

 

[SubSt8]

If you had problems similar to this with different cards, titan? Maybe it has something to do with your motherboard? The one core with that high usage though makes it really seem like a cpu bottlenecking issue but this guy here in this review of 3way GTX 980 is using your same chip at stock speeds with 3 980's and has no bottleneck.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GTX-980-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-Performance

This is what I've feared for a long time, is there some way I can test for a faulty motherboard? Besides replacing the motherboard lol.

 

[Reaper_7799]

If you had problems similar to this with different cards, titan? Maybe it has something to do with your motherboard? The one core with that high usage though makes it really seem like a cpu bottlenecking issue but this guy here in this review of 3way GTX 980 is using your same chip at stock speeds with 3 980's and has no bottleneck.

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-GTX-980-3-Way-and-4-Way-SLI-Performance

This is what I've feared for a long time, is there some way I can test for a faulty motherboard? Besides replacing the motherboard lol.

Hmmm...try putting one card in the 4 slot...I'm 90% sure it is 16x also and see if it does anything different.

 

[ingtar33]

This is what I would do in your position. Do a quick, easy overclock that will work so you don't waste a ton of time fine tuning everything unless you know that it fixes your problem, which it probably will if one of your cores is hitting close to 100%.

Go into your bios and adjust cpu ratio to 42 or 4.2 Ghz, make sure to sync all cores if you have that option....this speed should be pretty easily reachable with lower voltages. Now change only one other thing, vcore or in your motherboard it says cpu core voltage. Change that to either 1.25V or 1.3V. You can do either one but for sake of quickness take one of those two, you can go back later and lower the voltage, this will ensure you don't waste two hours fine tuning voltage and find out it doesn't help.

Save your settings and reboot and run this OCCT test for about 10-15 minutes, it will quickly let you know if you have any errors with voltage being too low. Use the large data set and watch your max temps and it will freeze or you will get an error within the first couple min if there are problems. If it passes, maybe run one more test with either intel extreme utility or intel burn test or prime 95 or whatever you choose. If your temps are in line under that test and maybe one more, more than likely you're good to test it out with battlefield 4, instead of wasting hours with prime 95 or something like that.

Just monitor your temps.

http://www.ocbase.com/index.php/download

You can leave c states and speedstep alone and turbo and all of that, I have c step, speedstep and turbos enabled and my overclock runs fine.

The best way to overclock is using offsets because it lowers your voltage while you aren't doing anything or in lesser programs but you need to find your max overclock anyways and a steady voltage that is required before you can do that...plus you just want to see if this helps your situation.

Alright so I followed your advice, went to 4.2 MHz and 1.3v temps get to a max of 80 but usually sit around 71-73 which is fine. So then I loaded up FC4 and BF4 and didn't notice any improvement. I did notice that CPU3 still maxes out but only with FC4 not BF4.

I also tried something, I disabled CPU3 for FC4 just to see if it would help, being that it was the core maxing out, no help.

Edit: Also I noticed something while changing stuff in the BIOS, my BIOS was already overclocked, I never changed those setting, set them to default and the default settings are overclocking.

So at this point are my only options to start replacing pieces of hardware? For the longest time I've assumed that there must be something wrong with my motherboard but I didn't want to spend more money without at least exhausting all my options.

FC4 is horribly broken, and has been since release. it is a stuttery mess for everyone. I'd just deal with FC4.

 

[SubSt8]

This is what I would do in your position. Do a quick, easy overclock that will work so you don't waste a ton of time fine tuning everything unless you know that it fixes your problem, which it probably will if one of your cores is hitting close to 100%.

Go into your bios and adjust cpu ratio to 42 or 4.2 Ghz, make sure to sync all cores if you have that option....this speed should be pretty easily reachable with lower voltages. Now change only one other thing, vcore or in your motherboard it says cpu core voltage. Change that to either 1.25V or 1.3V. You can do either one but for sake of quickness take one of those two, you can go back later and lower the voltage, this will ensure you don't waste two hours fine tuning voltage and find out it doesn't help.

Save your settings and reboot and run this OCCT test for about 10-15 minutes, it will quickly let you know if you have any errors with voltage being too low. Use the large data set and watch your max temps and it will freeze or you will get an error within the first couple min if there are problems. If it passes, maybe run one more test with either intel extreme utility or intel burn test or prime 95 or whatever you choose. If your temps are in line under that test and maybe one more, more than likely you're good to test it out with battlefield 4, instead of wasting hours with prime 95 or something like that.

Just monitor your temps.

http://www.ocbase.com/index.php/download

You can leave c states and speedstep alone and turbo and all of that, I have c step, speedstep and turbos enabled and my overclock runs fine.

The best way to overclock is using offsets because it lowers your voltage while you aren't doing anything or in lesser programs but you need to find your max overclock anyways and a steady voltage that is required before you can do that...plus you just want to see if this helps your situation.

Alright so I followed your advice, went to 4.2 MHz and 1.3v temps get to a max of 80 but usually sit around 71-73 which is fine. So then I loaded up FC4 and BF4 and didn't notice any improvement. I did notice that CPU3 still maxes out but only with FC4 not BF4.

I also tried something, I disabled CPU3 for FC4 just to see if it would help, being that it was the core maxing out, no help.

Edit: Also I noticed something while changing stuff in the BIOS, my BIOS was already overclocked, I never changed those setting, set them to default and the default settings are overclocking.

So at this point are my only options to start replacing pieces of hardware? For the longest time I've assumed that there must be something wrong with my motherboard but I didn't want to spend more money without at least exhausting all my options.

FC4 is horribly broken, and has been since release. it is a stuttery mess for everyone. I'd just deal with FC4.

Hmmm, I guess I could install Crysis 3 and use it as a testing platform, I was just using FC4 cause I was playing it lately.

 

[ingtar33]

This is what I would do in your position. Do a quick, easy overclock that will work so you don't waste a ton of time fine tuning everything unless you know that it fixes your problem, which it probably will if one of your cores is hitting close to 100%.

Go into your bios and adjust cpu ratio to 42 or 4.2 Ghz, make sure to sync all cores if you have that option....this speed should be pretty easily reachable with lower voltages. Now change only one other thing, vcore or in your motherboard it says cpu core voltage. Change that to either 1.25V or 1.3V. You can do either one but for sake of quickness take one of those two, you can go back later and lower the voltage, this will ensure you don't waste two hours fine tuning voltage and find out it doesn't help.

Save your settings and reboot and run this OCCT test for about 10-15 minutes, it will quickly let you know if you have any errors with voltage being too low. Use the large data set and watch your max temps and it will freeze or you will get an error within the first couple min if there are problems. If it passes, maybe run one more test with either intel extreme utility or intel burn test or prime 95 or whatever you choose. If your temps are in line under that test and maybe one more, more than likely you're good to test it out with battlefield 4, instead of wasting hours with prime 95 or something like that.

Just monitor your temps.

http://www.ocbase.com/index.php/download

You can leave c states and speedstep alone and turbo and all of that, I have c step, speedstep and turbos enabled and my overclock runs fine.

The best way to overclock is using offsets because it lowers your voltage while you aren't doing anything or in lesser programs but you need to find your max overclock anyways and a steady voltage that is required before you can do that...plus you just want to see if this helps your situation.

Alright so I followed your advice, went to 4.2 MHz and 1.3v temps get to a max of 80 but usually sit around 71-73 which is fine. So then I loaded up FC4 and BF4 and didn't notice any improvement. I did notice that CPU3 still maxes out but only with FC4 not BF4.

I also tried something, I disabled CPU3 for FC4 just to see if it would help, being that it was the core maxing out, no help.

Edit: Also I noticed something while changing stuff in the BIOS, my BIOS was already overclocked, I never changed those setting, set them to default and the default settings are overclocking.

So at this point are my only options to start replacing pieces of hardware? For the longest time I've assumed that there must be something wrong with my motherboard but I didn't want to spend more money without at least exhausting all my options.

FC4 is horribly broken, and has been since release. it is a stuttery mess for everyone. I'd just deal with FC4.

Hmmm, I guess I could install Crysis 3 and use it as a testing platform, I was just using FC4 cause I was playing it lately.

crysis 3 is a solid test platform for your whole system. and you'll see noticeable improvement from overclocking the cpu in that title.

 

[Reaper_7799]

You could try crysis 3, I kinda figured you had already tested more games since you were pretty thorough about things you've tested already. I totally get far cry 4 cause my fps are not good either, unless I turn aa and stuff way down...that games just not optimized at all but it doesn't explain battlefield 4.

You should be getting well above 100 fps, especially at 1080P and that should be max settings, not low settings. In 1440P multiplayer, with max settings even aa and all of that, I run 145-170 FPS depending on map and sli 980's should be a little faster than my 980 ti.

But do crysis 3 and let us know what you're getting.

 

[SubSt8]

Yeah so I think I might see a SLIGHT improvement but nothing too noteworthy really.

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

If the game isnt demanding, then you won't reach that 90% or so usage that you want. The GPU usage is based on the amount of VRAM the game needs. CPU usage isn't going to be high, you have a fast processor.

 

[SubSt8]

If the game isnt demanding, then you won't reach that 90% or so usage that you want. The GPU usage is based on the amount of VRAM the game needs. CPU usage isn't going to be high, you have a fast processor.

And? I know others with lesser machines than mine that always maintain 120 fps in BF4. There is something wrong, plain and simple.

 

[SubSt8]

I guess I'm at the point that I'm just going to replace my motherboard and cpu, so I might as well wait for skylake to come out.

 

[bill9803]

I've ran into similar issue. Low usage and low FPS.
Two mistakes I made:
1. I tweaked some settings about dynamic frequency of CPU(like EIST), to save power. It causes CPU run with dynamic speed in some low loading maps or simple scene. Low CPU spped cause low VGU loading.
2. I limited game's top FPS in 121 to save some resources to avoid some FPS drop. This setting may relate to 1.
Try to disable all power saving settings for CPU in BIOS to make sure CPU runs in full spped in game. Sure thing is watching OSD in game.

 

[SubSt8]

I've ran into similar issue. Low usage and low FPS.
Two mistakes I made:
1. I tweaked some settings about dynamic frequency of CPU(like EIST), to save power. It causes CPU run with dynamic speed in some low loading maps or simple scene. Low CPU spped cause low VGU loading.
2. I limited game's top FPS in 121 to save some resources to avoid some FPS drop. This setting may relate to 1.
Try to disable all power saving settings for CPU in BIOS to make sure CPU runs in full spped in game. Sure thing is watching OSD in game.

Hmmm yeah I've had all my eco power saving options turned off and I've never set an FPS limit.

 

[SubSt8]

Still looking to try to solve this if possible.

 

[YunoChan]

From my experience i was Limited some settings on my BIOS and i switch it to Dynamic Switch, and undervolt it. so yeah try to find and tweak your settings, try to set everything back to default, if the problem still exist try to put out 1 of your cards, then try to benchmark with only 1 card try to compare it with 2 cards performance and if i wasn't wrong you were saying that only 1 cores that work with high load? From my experience in the past it was a bottlenecking or something not compatible but from your build it seems fine, looks like bottlenecking issue for me.