My 3570k is bottlenecking my 1070 quite badly, should it?

[Snostorm8]

I have a 3570k, only Oc'd to 3.8 and recently bought a 1070, however in almost every game i've tested the GPU usage sits at around 60% while my CPU is at 100%. Is there something worng with my system or is my CPU just really not up to the task?
No extra processes either

 

[Snostorm8]

OK update, went into the witcher 3 to test some things, stood in the centre of novigrad, 50fps on medium, 100% CPU 60% GPU, go to ultra, 50fps, 100% CPU 60% GPU. Then i pause the game, which still shows the game in the background, GPU Usage goes to 99%, CPU to 60% and the fps goes to 90, unpause and back down again.

Any idea what this is? Why would pausing the game cause the GPu to jump up to 99% usage?

EDIT:
So decided to give my CPU an OC to 4.2 GHz for a test, absolutely no difference in performance or benchmarks. Is this really a CPU bottleneck or something else with my GPU? Surely i'd have seen at least a little better usage on my GPU with a higher OC if it was a bottleneck?

 

[13thmonkey]

so with cpu at 3.8Ghz and 3.4Ghz you get around 4050-4100 as a score?

In which case you CPU is NOT constraining you. So the question now is, what is constraining you.

 

[Snostorm8]

so with cpu at 3.8Ghz and 3.4Ghz you get around 4050-4100 as a score?

In which case you CPU is NOT constraining you. So the question now is, what is constraining you.

yeah thats right
im at a complete loss, do you have any ideas what it could be? I've done a clean install of drivers, GPU clocks seems correct, its just the usage :/

 

[Snostorm8]

ok, might have found something, on msi afterburner and in the valley benchmark, my GPU clock is stated as being around 1900MHz, however i've just gone into CPU-Z checked the graphics tab and the core clock on that is at 645MHz, and isn't changing.
Also my memory clock is stuck at a constant 4007Mhz, it never changes.

Is CPU-Z wrong? I find it weird that its saying one thing while the other programs are showing another thing.

 

[13thmonkey]

not sure i've asked before:

windows power settings = maximum? and check the individual settings that make up the plan for a max gpu speed%
nvidia control panel, power management mode = max etc.

 

[Snostorm8]

not sure i've asked before:

windows power settings = maximum? and check the individual settings that make up the plan for a max gpu speed%
nvidia control panel, power management mode = max etc.

yeah tried that aswell, think it must be my cpu now, can't think of any other reason why

 

[13thmonkey]

clean driver install?
Do you have a spare hdd lying around? could you remove all other drives, install windows on that and test it. i'm 99% the CPU is not a bottleneck

 

[Snostorm8]

clean driver install?
Do you have a spare hdd lying around? could you remove all other drives, install windows on that and test it. i'm 99% the CPU is not a bottleneck

yeah i used ddu and did a full clean install, i don't have a spare hdd unfortunately, i could do a refresh of windows 10? Basically remove all my programs but keeps my documents and files, would that help?

 

[13thmonkey]

Not sure what the refresh actually does and how effective it is.

Your CPU does idle doesn't it? i.e. show low usage when you should have low usage?

 

[Snostorm8]

Not sure what the refresh actually does and how effective it is.

Your CPU does idle doesn't it? i.e. show low usage when you should have low usage?

it basically is the same a a reset which reinstalled windows, except this keeps your documents and a few settings, other than that it removes all programs, apps, etc.

Yeah its usage is fine running at 10% atm witch chrome and a few things open

 

[13thmonkey]

We've not seen enough of it 'in action' to know if it will fix 'this kind of problem'.

I'm stumped (second one this week), I strongly believe that your CPU is not inherently a problem.

And given that you get the same GPU performance regardless of the CPU speed this backs up this belief (assuming that the limit is not just below the minimum speed tested).

Therefore the odd GPU clock speed reporting that you are seeing is most likely to be the culprit. To test this a clean install of windows would be useful to ensure that this is not a software issue, if software is shown not to be the case then it might be a hardware issue, with either the card, or the mobo.

using GPU-z, what is the bus interface that it is using? can you do a screen shot of your GPU-z screen.

 

[Snostorm8]

We've not seen enough of it 'in action' to know if it will fix 'this kind of problem'.

I'm stumped (second one this week), I strongly believe that your CPU is not inherently a problem.

And given that you get the same GPU performance regardless of the CPU speed this backs up this belief (assuming that the limit is not just below the minimum speed tested).

Therefore the odd GPU clock speed reporting that you are seeing is most likely to be the culprit. To test this a clean install of windows would be useful to ensure that this is not a software issue, if software is shown not to be the case then it might be a hardware issue, with either the card, or the mobo.

using GPU-z, what is the bus interface that it is using? can you do a screen shot of your GPU-z screen.

glad im not the only one stumped! Thank you again for all your help so far!

heres some screens of gpu-z at idle http://imgur.com/a/6vNDs, accidentally had my fan profile off at the time of this screen, temp is back at 40C now

i'll do a refresh of windows first before a reset, if that doesn't help, then i'll do a full reset of windows, i'll run this in a few hours

 

[13thmonkey]

I see nothing wrong there. Bios update for mobo (1% chance it's the issue)

 

[Snostorm8]

I see nothing wrong there. Bios update for mobo (1% chance it's the issue)

gonna be honest i have no idea how to do that, downloaded the update file from asus's website and its a .CAP file. Not sure what to do from there 😛

 

[13thmonkey]

It's a last resort issue, do the refresh/reinstall first, it's less risky. Bios updates are much much less risky than they used to be, but don't go there unless you have to.

 

[Snostorm8]

It's a last resort issue, do the refresh/reinstall first, it's less risky. Bios updates are much much less risky than they used to be, but don't go there unless you have to.

ok, i'll give that a go then later today, then i'll download some games overnight to test, i'll report back tomorrow to see if it has helped

 

[Snostorm8]

So an update, my PC came up with an error during the refresh, it won't let me refresh the PC and reinstall windows.
So I updated my BIOS, worked ok, but still terrible GPU usage.
Also whilst reseating my GPU I noticed this, is that supposed to be plugged in? I'm using the correct PCI that MSI say I need.
https://imgur.com/D54l3DC

 

[pbug56]

what resolution, what framerates? I'm surprised. Is it actually 100% or running 95%-100% Check what processes you have running.

Is it possible your software is set to NOT use hardware acceleration? Or perhaps you also have on board video that is actually doing the video for some things and not actively engaging your video card? Either, especially the former, would load up the cpu instead of the gpu.

 

[Snostorm8]

what resolution, what framerates? I'm surprised. Is it actually 100% or running 95%-100% Check what processes you have running.

Is it possible your software is set to NOT use hardware acceleration? Or perhaps you also have on board video that is actually doing the video for some things and not actively engaging your video card? Either, especially the former, would load up the cpu instead of the gpu.

no checked that hardware acceleration is on, not sure what you mean by on board video? I have nothing else running in the background when gaming

 

[CantTango]

How much ram are you running on?