Hello,
I am getting exactly the same thing; spikes from 0 to 100% in gpu usage, while experiencing fps drops in game also. I am monitoring this with the MSI afterburner. I do not have my R9 290 overclocked and neither my CPU/ram. I am only playing world of warcraft atm.
My system specs are:
biostar h55a+
intel i7 870
8 gb ddr 1333 ( I can look at the brand if needed)
Also worth mentioning:
- until today I used a Seasonic M12 with 620 Watt (80 bronze) and I got the same spikes with it; this psu should be enough but just in case I bought a new one (I had to upgrade an older pc anyway).
- today I installed a Seasonic M12 with 750 Watt (80 bronze evo edition) and I still get the same spikes, no improvement; therefore we can safely conclude that it's not the power supply.
I also performed a clean uninstall of the graphic drivers (using ccleaner and driverswiper) and still no improvement. Also updated the mb bios yesterday (before re-installing the drivers for the graphic card).
Maybe my mb/cpu is limiting the graphic card (my mb has only pci x16 2.0) or maybe this is how it should work. I would like to make sure that my card is not faulty though; seeing many comments like this online kind of reassures me that this is how it should work; I'm no expert so I might be extremely wrong.
Anyway for WoW it is known that because of the old graphic engine of the game, upgrading the graphics card does not improve things a lot and low fps with high-end systems are not a surprise.
I hope my comments were helpful. I for one am out of options.
Edit: before I upgraded to R9 290, I used to have a HD 5750 and I did not get these spikes in the gpu usage. There is a considerable improve in performance though with the new card, despite the "cosmetic" spikes.
Regards,
Cristian