Radeon HD 7770 GPU usage is low

[Evan10800]

I recently bought a new Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHz OC edition, but i'm having some trouble. I'm playing farcry 3 on a 1440x900 resolution and on low getting between 20-30 fps. I looked at MSI afterburner and it tells me that i'm only using between 40-50% GPU usage? How can i fix this? It's kinda dissapointing seeing as though i just bought this graphics card.

 

[kitsunestarwind]

What are the rest of your system specs?

 

[Evan10800]

Intel pentium R dual core @ 3.2GHz
4gb ddr3 ram
Radeon hd 7770

 

[dheeraj9933]

use taskmanager to see the cpu usage
might be a bottleneck

 

[Evan10800]

So during the middle of a game ctrl+alt+delete?

 

[Evan10800]

use taskmanager to see the cpu usage
might be a bottleneck

How will i be able to tell?

 

[simmons33]

Well If your CPU is maxed out but your GPU is only at 50%, Its a bottleneck.

Have Game Running, Open Task Manager and Post your CPU usage =D

 

[nukemaster]

I would say open the task manager first since many games will idle(drop usage) when you alt tab. Sounds like a cpu bottleneck for sure.

 

[dheeraj9933]

OMG :lol:
1.open task manager
2.go under performance tab(now your cpu usage is being graphed)
3. open the game and play it where it lags
4. close the game or just alt+tab and see the graph, if it is very high, it is a bottleneck
tell us results

 

[Evan10800]

I'll have to check later. Right now i'm away from the house on phone.

 

[BootyNice]

I'm 90% sure that it's a bottleneck...

 

[Evan10800]

Just played a game and the graph was pretty close to the top. When i'm alt+tabbed out its at 85%. Any suggestions on what to do?

 

[nukemaster]

If you are hitting a cpu limit, overclocking or a faster cpu should help.

 

[Evan10800]

Can i overclock my cpu? My PC is a lenovo k300. Someone told me that you can't because they lock the bios. Is this true? My processor is the pentium e5800

 

[Evan10800]

I alt tabbed out as fast as i could and it looks like cpu usage stops at around 85-90%. What does this mean?
Actually, was able to play while looking at task manager, and while running around, drving and what not, cpu usage never really reached 90% highest i saw it get was 88. Is this a good sign?

 

[nukemaster]

It means the cpu is working as hard as it can, so the video card is waiting on something to do.

Someone was right. Prebuilt systems almost always lack overclocking options.

Best bet now may be to turn down some in game settings(if they are not down already) to try to get more performance out of it.

Shadows
AA
ambient occlusion

those down may help overall performance, but I think the cpu will be a limit for some games, while some others may be able to max the gpu leaving the cpu as a bottleneck.

Gaming systems are all about balance. It is not always easy.

On the other end of things, you can turn UP settings to try to give the gpu some work to do, but it will NOT help performance at all.

I remember when the first farcray could run on a geforce 4mx and be playable with lowered settings. Damn them and the high requirements even for "low"

 

[Evan10800]

Is there any possible way to overclock my cpu?

 

[nukemaster]

No, they lock out all those options to prevent a user from damaging a system. Some systems sold as gaming systems have been known to have the options, but not that system.

 

[Evan10800]

So what do you suggest? A new cpu? If so which one? I have a very very low budget.

 

[Evan10800]

Would it be better to just save up and buy a new motherboard/cpu with a newer socket type?

 

[nukemaster]

One of the problems with pre built systems is that you never quite know what cpu's you can add to it.

Hp lists cpu support for upgrades, but I do not see this info from Lenovo. Maybe they can let you know from tech support. The other issue is that ALL LGA 775(the cpu type you have) are discontinued now.

I am not 100% sure if that game would be better with a quad core or very fast dual core. To be honest, it seems to just chew into any system.

It seems more recent hardware(cpus) fair much better.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/far-cry-3-performance-benchmark,3379-7.html

 

[Evan10800]

The funny thing is, on BF3, i can play fairly smooth in ultra presets. But farcry just destroys it. And on WoW i get pretty bad frame rates, close to my old gt 430. Whats up with that??

 

[nukemaster]

Some games use more of one thing or the other. many MMO games hit the cpu harder. This may explain WOW.

A part of this balance is that the cpu feeds the video card so if the cpu runs out of power(because it is working very hard) it can not feed the video card fast enough.

As I said above it works both ways.

You can have a FAST cpu sending work for the video card faster then it can get that work done.

Example would be placing a 4350 in my media center(Something I have done , If i do not want to game it works ok, but actually is SLOW on the media center interface). I did have that for the lower power/quiet, but it can not play any games with decent settings. The cpu can send as fast as it wants, but the video card holds it back. The same system ran a fair amount of games rather well with a 5770 in it.

With a GTX 650ti in that system, I can get both cpu and cpu to work fairly hard and it is more balanced(A bit more video would not hurt, but come on, its a small system and this card is quiet.).

 

[Evan10800]

So, if you were in my position (with a low budget) what would you do?
Was looking at the i3-2100 as the best choice being that its only 120, but its only a dual core.

 

[nukemaster]

While its only dual core it is not bad(it actually holds and beats many AMD quad core chips), but it NEEDS a new motherboard for sure. it is LGA 1155 your current board is LGA 775

Look in that link I posted