MSI afterburner indicating fluctuating GPU usage? GTX 980Ti

[monkey4sale]

When I say fluctuating I mean between approx. 60-90% , lots of peaks and lots of troughs on the graph, literally every 3 seconds. No issues with gaming at all. Buttery smooth actually. Core clock and memory clock are very stable. I have not got any overclock on.

I am using a G-Sync monitor 1080p 144Hz. ? Anything to do with it?
The GTX 980Ti is much more powerful than my previous two cards, anything to do with it?

I have always used MSI afterburner so I am very familiar with it and I do not recall either of my last two graphics cards ( one NVIDIA and the prior on AMD) been shown to fluctuate as much in terms of GPU usage.

Just being paranoid? 🙂

Thanks for your help people.

 

[renz496]

As long as performance is fine then there is nothing to worry about. Gpu usage will always vary. And it depends on how demanding the gane as well. Weaker card might see much higher gpu utilization but on faster card that utilization can go down. That is normal.

 

[monkey4sale]

As long as performance is fine then there is nothing to worry about. Gpu usage will always vary. And it depends on how demanding the gane as well. Weaker card might see much higher gpu utilization but on faster card that utilization can go down. That is normal.

Hi thanks for your reply and reassurance. I have not posted back until now as I am pretty sure I have reached the conclusion that the issue(if it is indeed an issue) is poor optimization . The game I was referring to was FarCry 4 and apparently Ubisoft games have been known to be poorly optimized for some cards. The GPU usage fluctuates wildly when playing this game (on ultra settings) ----> ( 95% to 20% literally by the second) but I have played various other games and the GPU usage is without fail consistent at a particular level. The issue in my opinion is poor game optimization. The gameplay is great and the FPS consistently high i.e no issues otherwise. So you are right, I shouldn't worry. The only reason I was worrying was because I dropped 550 pounds on a new card and was worried that the card was at fault! It clearly isn't . Thanks for your reply!

 

[17seconds]

Could be a bit of a CPU bottleneck.

 

[monkey4sale]

Could be a bit of a CPU bottleneck.

I'm running an i5- 6600k @ 4.2 GHz so I wouldn't think so.

 

[17seconds]

Is there anything strange happening with your clock speeds when the GPU usage drops? If not, as long as everything is gaming smoothly, then fluctuating GPU usage is very normal. One thing you could do is shift more load onto your GPU by increasing your DSR resolution and/or enabling higher levels of antialiasing.

I do believe it may be the game itself. As an open world game, Far Cry 4 can change its graphics demands as quickly as looking down at the ground and then looking off into the distance. Something like the simulated fur setting uses PhysX and tessellation, so it's actually very intense graphically, and gets even more so as you approach the animal or if there are several in the scene.