Unable to achieve consistent 144fps (for 144hz monitor) in most games?

[johnbl96]

Specs:
GTX 1080
i7 4790k
16GB RAM

Games I've tried include Borderlands 2, DOOM, Destiny 2, Saints Row the Third, Monster Hunter: World, Guild Wars 2, Rimworld, Resident Evil 7, Killing Floor 2, and many more.

Most of the time I can achieve around 80-100fps in most games.

I notice that changing graphics settings (including resolution) have practically zero impact on FPS gain.
Vsync in all games are disabled.

Do I have a bottleneck? I would imagine a GTX 1080 is absolutely capable of producing 144fps in most games.

Edit: My native resolution is 1080p.

 

[Atomicdonut17]

What's the normal resolution you have? 1440, 2k? And do you have a frame lock set in GeForce Experience?

 

[johnbl96]

1080p, I edited the post to include that info just now. Also no, I am able to hit 144fps in some areas of some games but it's not consistent as it just drops back down in other areas.

 

[cryoburner]

You're likely running into the CPU's performance limits. One or more of the game's threads is probably maxing out a CPU core, and the graphics card needs to wait for the CPU to finish its calculations (for things like physics, AI, etc) each frame before the next can be rendered. Overclocking, or upgrading to a faster CPU could help, but since you already have a relatively fast CPU, that can ultimately only help so much.

When developers design games, they usually try to make sure that they can maintain 60fps or more on a mid-range CPU, but the high-end CPUs are only so much faster, and ultimately some games won't be able to average frame rates much higher than 100fps even on the fastest processors available today. Overclocking might potentially get you 10 or 15% more performance, but I wouldn't expect to hit 144fps in all games.

Some games that are less demanding on the CPU should be able to get there though. I would expect you to average close to 144fps in some like Doom and Resident Evil, for example. Have you checked your CPU temperatures while playing these games? Maybe your CPU is overheating and throttling performance to keep the temperature within safe limits.

 

[jankerson]

Yeah, the CPU is holding it back at 1080P, it takes a lot of CPU power to keep up with a GTX 1080 at 1080P.

Especially in CPU intensive games, it really puts a lot more on the CPU to drive those high frame rates.