Question Low gpu usage (rx 6700 xt)

noca haki

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Dec 15, 2016
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Hello everyone. Today I finally got a new GPU and I went with the rx 6700. When I got the new GPU and tested it with a few games, I noticed that with some games the gpu usage is quite low (60-70%). The first thing I thought about is CPU bottleneck. Although, the CPU usage was 40-50% which is very strange. It can't be CPU bottleneck with that CPU usage. For example, in AC:O the gpu usage is 60-50% and the CPU usage is the same as the gpu... The result is very low fps (below 60). I also experience it on AC origin and far cry new dawn. For some reason, it is not the case with other games like GTA v and bf 1.

My PC-
Gpu: Rx 6700
Cpu: i7 8700
Ram: 16 gb
Psu: seasonic gold 650w

If someone know how to fix it, I will be grateful.
 
Hey there,

What power plan are you running? Try on High Performance and see if that helps.

You can initiate the High Performance power plan if it's not in the list, by typing the following command into the Windows Powershell: powercfg -duplicatescheme 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c

Then select it and let us know how that goes.
 
The % CPU usage is not an accurate way to determine a CPU bottleneck because some games can get bottlenecked on a single thread, something that only a CPU with faster per core performance would improve. Though the i7 8700 is quite capable of running the games your talking about at 60 FPS or more.

Couple of things to check:
  1. What frequency is your CPU running at while your running Assassins Creed Origins?
  2. Is your graphics card running in x16 mode? You can check this with GPU-Z. I had slow performance on my 3080 recently, it turned out it was running in x2 instead of x16, probably not your issue but it's a simple thing to check just in case.

Dumb question if I may, but I assume you installed the latest drivers?
 

noca haki

Honorable
Dec 15, 2016
30
1
10,535
Hey there,

What power plan are you running? Try on High Performance and see if that helps.

You can initiate the High Performance power plan if it's not in the list, by typing the following command into the Windows Powershell: powercfg -duplicatescheme 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c

Then select it and let us know how that goes.
right now the power plan is on High Performance and there is not much of a change.
 

noca haki

Honorable
Dec 15, 2016
30
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10,535
The % CPU usage is not an accurate way to determine a CPU bottleneck because some games can get bottlenecked on a single thread, something that only a CPU with faster per core performance would improve. Though the i7 8700 is quite capable of running the games your talking about at 60 FPS or more.

Couple of things to check:
  1. What frequency is your CPU running at while your running Assassins Creed Origins?
  2. Is your graphics card running in x16 mode? You can check this with GPU-Z. I had slow performance on my 3080 recently, it turned out it was running in x2 instead of x16, probably not your issue but it's a simple thing to check just in case.
Dumb question if I may, but I assume you installed the latest drivers?
  1. the cpu is on 60-50 usage and the most busy core/thread I located was on 80% usage... when I in open field, the gpu on 100% usage but it is on 60% in the city with a lot of npc and the fps is 50.
  2. I checked with cpu-z and what exactly I am looking for ? it is "graphical interface" ? if it is, it is 16x
 
  1. the cpu is on 60-50 usage and the most busy core/thread I located was on 80% usage... when I in open field, the gpu on 100% usage but it is on 60% in the city with a lot of npc and the fps is 50.
  2. I checked with cpu-z and what exactly I am looking for ? it is "graphical interface" ? if it is, it is 16x
What I meant was, what is the clock speed of the CPU when gaming, I think the 8700 runs at 4.3Ghz when all cores are loaded.

Yes that's it, just to be sure, hold your mouse over it and it will tell you what it's currently running at not just what it supports:
View: https://imgur.com/bhQac9c
 

noca haki

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Dec 15, 2016
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10,535
What I meant was, what is the clock speed of the CPU when gaming, I think the 8700 runs at 4.3Ghz when all cores are loaded.

Yes that's it, just to be sure, hold your mouse over it and it will tell you what it's currently running at not just what it supports:
View: https://imgur.com/bhQac9c
Yeah, the CPU run at 4.2ghz when playing. And yes, it is telling me that the gpu runs at PCIe x16 3.0
 
I had a look at the AC benchmark and you should definitely be getting higher than what your getting even at 1440p. The only thing I can think of is maybe left over Nvidia stuff causing you a problem, a lot of people use DDU to completely get rid of their GPU drivers when swapping to a new card, though how necessary it really is I don't know, I've never needed to do it.

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
 

noca haki

Honorable
Dec 15, 2016
30
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10,535
I had a look at the AC benchmark and you should definitely be getting higher than what your getting even at 1440p. The only thing I can think of is maybe left over Nvidia stuff causing you a problem, a lot of people use DDU to completely get rid of their GPU drivers when swapping to a new card, though how necessary it really is I don't know, I've never needed to do it.

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/display-driver-uninstaller-download.html
I used ddu to uninstall all nvidia drivers. I don't think there are any leftovers.
 

noca haki

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Dec 15, 2016
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You should really look at getting an SSD for Windows and you favourite games. I've played Assasin's Creed on my PC with it on a hard drive before, it ran like crap. Doesn't explain why it would be slower than when you had the 1070 though.
Update: Today I installed AC Valhalla and it run very well. 99% GPU usage and above 60 fps on 1440p ultra. I think it is just the game fault or something.
 
Update: Today I installed AC Valhalla and it run very well. 99% GPU usage and above 60 fps on 1440p ultra. I think it is just the game fault or something.
Hi, that's interesting. I did read on reddit some peeps complaining about poor performance on Assassin's Creed Origins on AMD gpus, however it's always difficult to gauge if there is a genuine problem or not because if you ask Google you can find problems with every game. Couldn't tell if there was an issue with Far Cry though.

As for the whether or not using a hard drive could bottleneck the GPU, it kind of depends. I've played Assassin's Creed Odyssey off a hard drive and I found it not to be a good experience. It could cause it to stutter at times and if I was riding on a horse for example the ground would keep disappearing as it couldn't load the environment fast enough. Ghost Recon Wildlands wasn't great on a hard drive for me either, it would cause it to stutter. I haven't benchmarked it but it would not surprise me if min frame rates in big open world games were notably lower on hard drives. I do run a number of older games off my hdd though without issue.

It's quite a nice system you have, I'd still highly recommend you add at least one SSD if you can afford to do so. They are fairly cheap at the moment and it would completely transform your PC. As you have an 8th gen i7 I would be surprised if you didn't have a free M2 slot on the motherboard for an NVME drive. The Samsung 980 1TB's are very cheap where I live right now. You can clone what's on your current harddrive to the SSD with Macrium Reflect or Samsung Data Migration software so no need to reinstall Windows or anything silly like that.