Question RTX 3070FE ~30% usage while i7-7700K is at ~50% ?

[IndirectX8]

I've been struggling to figure out why my RTX 3070 card has been performing terribly in VR.
Pavlov VR runs at 50-70FPS on high settings and Half Life: Alyx barely runs at 30-40 FPS on low.
I've tried every fix I could other than downgrading drivers, overclocking or a full re-install of Windows 10. Just today I used HWinfo to check the utilization and in game my GPU is only being utilized at 30-40%, spiking to 100% sometimes and immediately dropping to 30-40 again. Meanwhile my CPU is at 50-60% usage, spiking with the GPU at some intervals, but performance is not improving. I have 16 GB of RAM and physical usage is in the high 70% range dipping into the low 80s. I was not able to get a clean screenshot of the HWinfo usage graphs, I can provide more information as requested. I can safely rule out hardware problem as my GPU smashes the furmark benchmark with over 10000 points with ease. Minecraft with RTX runs smoothly as well. VR on the other hand suffers immensely and I cannot understand how or why. My CPU doesn't appear to be that much of a bottleneck to cause problems...

I've seen many threads of people with 2070s and even 1080s running HL:A and Pavlov with beautiful performance whilst my 3070 and 7700K doesn't come anywhere near where they're capable of.
I'm sort of at my wits end here trying to figure out what to do next. If the situation really calls for it I'll replace my motherboard and get an i-9 processor.
Has anyone been able to resolve a problem like this?

 

[tennis2]

So the problem with monitoring CPU usage % is that it's a function of # of threads available vs # of threads used. If a game is only capable of using 4 threads, it's going to report as 50% usage on your 4c/8t CPU. What that DOESN'T tell you is whether or not your CPU is limiting the performance pipeline. Downclock your 7700K to 2GHz and it will still show 50% usage, despite drastically worse FPS.

That's why it's always easiest to look at GPU usage % to figure out where the limitation is. If the CPU can't supply draw calls fast enough to the GPU to tell it what to render in each frame, GPU usage will be <100% (generally want >85% GPU usage since usage can vary).

Another tell-tale sign of CPU limitation is that you should be able to increase in-game quality from (currently) low, and see little/no difference in FPS. What you should see during that exercise is GPU usage % increasing.

Some things to ensure you're getting the best performance possible from your CPU:

• Check CPU affinity. Are any cores disabled, or is HyperThreading disabled?
• Check background processes that may be eating CPU cycles
• Ensure RAM is operating in dual channel mode
• Check CPU temp and frequency is as expected
• Check for GPU driver updates
• Check for game updates
• Overclock your CPU

 

[IndirectX8]

Thank you for your reply, just today there was a GPU driver update that I downloaded to try out and hopefully report back with results. But following your list:

• I'm not sure if I have utilized Dual Channel RAM as I only have 16 GB total (2x8 GB) , and it is Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2400 MHz RAM.
• No cores are disabled and Hyperthreading is enabled.
• CPU consuming programs are closed when I run VR.
• CPU temps are normal, no thermal throttling
• I reinstalled Half Life Alyx
• GPU was updated to the newest driver version

I'll run VR again and see if the results are any different.

 

[tennis2]

• I'm not sure if I have utilized Dual Channel RAM as I only have 16 GB total (2x8 GB) , and it is Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 2400 MHz RAM

2 sticks of ram is required for dual channel operation. Consult your motherboard manual to make sure the sticks are in the correct slots (if your board has >2 RAM slots).

 

[IndirectX8]

I inserted the ram into the proper arranged slot for dual memory. Did more windows updates and am gonna try VR again and see if the dual channel fixed it.

 

[IndirectX8]

Tried the dual channel configuration and it did not improve performance. What did improve performance was disabling a weapon mod in HL:A, but even then the game still has 'waves' where FPS will drop from 80 to 40 for a short time before jumping back to 80, and sometimes it drops further from 40 to lower FPS for some effects. I'm still stumped why this is happening on my hardware.
Attached below is GPU and CPU usage in game, as well as RAM usage. I appreciate all the help you're giving, but I'm really wondering if this is my software at fault or something or just plain unoptimized GPU drivers.
https://imageshack.com/i/poVsAnwQp