Need some help from the more knowledgeable

[durimotara]

Thanks in advance for any advice guys, so anyways ive been having some issues with my rig with what seems to be a bottleneck but im not sure.

My rig:
FX8350 BE
Gigabyte windforce R9 290X
Asrock 990fx extreme 3
8gb ddr3 1333mhz
WD 1tb main drive

So im not having a bad time gaming but i notice that in most gaming scenarios my gpu is almost never at 90-100% and when it does it then tanks to 60ish %. Now in a typical bottleneck the cpu would be at a 100% usage at this time indicating that its the bottleneck but my cpu is always at around 60% usage or so as well.

This is whats tripping me up,id like to also add that my ram sticks are not from the same kit but i have checked that timings and voltage etc is the same. As i said im not having a bad experience but i do get annoyed when frames dip to the mid 40 to high 40s and i look up to see im only getting 60% gpu utilisation. Is it just time for my fx8350 setup to go and maybe go for skylake?

Thanks again for any help guys

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[durimotara]

Id like to add that overclocking my cpu to 4.6ghz while temps were in check didnt seem to solve this issue

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[Vip3r011]

what games do u play?

 

[3pud]

Hi [MENTION=29597]durimotara[/MENTION]

There is one thing I can think about causing this problem you're experiencing.

DX9 - DX11 are single threaded graphics API's.
The game developers or graphics card vendors (AMD or Nvidia) have to write better software in order to make better use of the
multi-core processors we have in ours system today, and reduce the CPU bottleneck caused by the game typically only using a single CPU core.

Example of game developers writing a better game (BF4):
I personally use a 12 core processor and BF4 uses all of them, please note that only after setting up my user.cfg file which optimized the game for my computer.
By default the game will be happy to fully utilize 4 cores in a system which is awesome.

Running other DX11 titles (especially with AMD graphics) you'll notice that only a single CPU core is being used when playing the game.
An example I can think of is The Talos Principle, the game runs meh only my system due to the CPU bottleneck caused in the software department.

Example of graphics card vendors writing better drivers (Nvidia):
Nvidia has a very good multi-threaded DX11 driver. This driver parallalizes the DX11 draw calls and stuff in order to make use of the additional cores available in a system.
This is why you'd typically see Nvidia outperform AMD in DX11 titles on the market today.

If you would like to know more, then please go to the following YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHXbDmbswY3xNOmzr5O3zgA

Overclocking:
You also said that you have overclocked your AMD CPU. I would expect to see this make a massive difference regarding the single threaded performance of your processor.
If the overclocking really didn't make a difference, then either the overclocking is not stable (overclocking can also degrade performance) or the CPU is not the bottleneck in your system.

Good luck sir, may you find what is wrong in your system. I know seeing a system under perform is depressing as hell.

Kind Regards
3pud

 

[durimotara]

what games do u play?

Bf4, cod ,gta v , been enjoying the new nfs lately. I notice its mainly in open world games


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[durimotara]

Hi [MENTION=29597]durimotara[/MENTION]

There is one thing I can think about causing this problem you're experiencing.

DX9 - DX11 are single threaded graphics API's.
The game developers or graphics card vendors (AMD or Nvidia) have to write better software in order to make better use of the
multi-core processors we have in ours system today, and reduce the CPU bottleneck caused by the game typically only using a single CPU core.

Example of game developers writing a better game (BF4):
I personally use a 12 core processor and BF4 uses all of them, please note that only after setting up my user.cfg file which optimized the game for my computer.
By default the game will be happy to fully utilize 4 cores in a system which is awesome.

Running other DX11 titles (especially with AMD graphics) you'll notice that only a single CPU core is being used when playing the game.
An example I can think of is The Talos Principle, the game runs meh only my system due to the CPU bottleneck caused in the software department.

Example of graphics card vendors writing better drivers (Nvidia):
Nvidia has a very good multi-threaded DX11 driver. This driver parallalizes the DX11 draw calls and stuff in order to make use of the additional cores available in a system.
This is why you'd typically see Nvidia outperform AMD in DX11 titles on the market today.

If you would like to know more, then please go to the following YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHXbDmbswY3xNOmzr5O3zgA

Overclocking:
You also said that you have overclocked your AMD CPU. I would expect to see this make a massive difference regarding the single threaded performance of your processor.
If the overclocking really didn't make a difference, then either the overclocking is not stable (overclocking can also degrade performance) or the CPU is not the bottleneck in your system.

Good luck sir, may you find what is wrong in your system. I know seeing a system under perform is depressing as hell.

Kind Regards
3pud

Thanks that was really informative 3pud, a very good read. Overclocking did help give me some extra fps but it didnt bring my gpu usage up to the usual 90 to 100% usage i see on other peoples systems. What do you suggest as a way forward as i am thinking of upgrading right now

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[3pud]

Thanks that was really informative 3pud, a very good read. Overclocking did help give me some extra fps but it didnt bring my gpu usage up to the usual 90 to 100% usage i see on other peoples systems. What do you suggest as a way forward as i am thinking of upgrading right now

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I think you should perform some testing before upgrading.

Let's use BF4, as this is the title I know the best in terms of system performance. (It would be best to join a server with some people on )
There is a console command you can use to show the CPU / GPU utilization during game-play: How to Enable the CPU and GPU Benchmark Graph in BF4 | Diary of Dennis

Here is a YouTube video of someone who ran the game maxed out with the graph enabled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sRuRoSG4As
In an ideal world the yellow and green lines on the graph should be more or less equal. If the one line is higher than the other, then that means the higher line can not keep up with the lower one. :/ (difficult to explain)
CPU (yellow)
GPU (green)
If the green line is lower than the yellow line then it means that the CPU is not strong enough to keep up with the GPU.
Seems odd but the graph displays how long the CPU / GPU take to do their job. Thus the higher the point on the line, the longer it took for the job to be completed.
Good performance means that both lines are as low as possible and preferably more or less equal.

Test 1:
Run the game at native resolution on ultra preset.

Test 2:
Run the game at 1280x720 everything on low / off.

Come and tell us how your graphs looked like and the FPS count was for the 2 tests.

Examples from my system:
Good performance:
View attachment 45852

Bad performance: (Ran Prime95 in the background to cripple the CPU)
View attachment 45853

 

[Jitz04]

Have you always experienced this or has this recently started? Or is it a newly built rig?

For whats its worth, with the rig in my signature I do not receive any bottle-necking from my 8320.. Played a bit of Witcher 3 while monitoring just now to make sure

 

[durimotara]

Have you always experienced this or has this recently started? Or is it a newly built rig?

For whats its worth, with the rig in my signature I do not receive any bottle-necking from my 8320.. Played a bit of Witcher 3 while monitoring just now to make sure

Since i have my 290x its been pretty much always happening. I had a 270x before this which worked just fine always at max usage. You think its my gpu?


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[durimotara]

I think you should perform some testing before upgrading.

Let's use BF4, as this is the title I know the best in terms of system performance. (It would be best to join a server with some people on )
There is a console command you can use to show the CPU / GPU utilization during game-play: How to Enable the CPU and GPU Benchmark Graph in BF4 | Diary of Dennis

Here is a YouTube video of someone who ran the game maxed out with the graph enabled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sRuRoSG4As
In an ideal world the yellow and green lines on the graph should be more or less equal. If the one line is higher than the other, then that means the higher line can not keep up with the lower one. :/ (difficult to explain)
CPU (yellow)
GPU (green)
If the green line is lower than the yellow line then it means that the CPU is not strong enough to keep up with the GPU.
Seems odd but the graph displays how long the CPU / GPU take to do their job. Thus the higher the point on the line, the longer it took for the job to be completed.
Good performance means that both lines are as low as possible and preferably more or less equal.

Test 1:
Run the game at native resolution on ultra preset.

Test 2:
Run the game at 1280x720 everything on low / off.

Come and tell us how your graphs looked like and the FPS count was for the 2 tests.

Examples from my system:
Good performance:
View attachment 45852

Bad performance: (Ran Prime95 in the background to cripple the CPU)
View attachment 45853

Cant thank you enough for this...will get back with some results over the weekend ( pretty much the only free time i have)

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[GuardianTB]

Hmmm while I'm not the one to bash amd cpus. The 8350 shouldn't be tanking the system that much, so I think after the testing 3pud informed you about. I would then perform clean driver with DDU, and my instinct would next point to the ram, if I recall amd cpu like faster ram chips. However this is just guessing what could possibly be keeping the gpu at low usage .

(this is just guess work after what has already been informed , so I can stand to be corrected)

 

[durimotara]

After some research i see that rhe recommended board for a 8350 has a 8+2 power phase design while my asrock 990fx extreme 3 only has a 4+1 phase...do you guys think this could be the issue right now?i can only test 3puds suggestion this weekend

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[durimotara]

The cpu could be starved of the power needs

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[Gouhan]

GPU behaving as it should for the most part.
If your GPU is compute limited, then it stands correct that it is not at 100% usage as the entire GPU is t' just compute only.
So for instance if your limit is fill-rate or bandwidth, but the particular game is low on compute unit load, then you'll not get 100% load.
100% load would imply all functional units of the GPU are saturated which is rarely, if ever the case. (That's the point of DX12 to some degree, maximizing GPU resources)

 

[durimotara]

Turns out it was my mother board not being able to handle the voltage so it kept thermal throttling the vrms...as soon as i undervolted the cpu abit my fps stop tanking and have stabalized. Thanks for all the help everyone. Problem is sorted will close the thread soon. Thanks again everyone

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[3pud]

I'm glad you managed.
I have to admit that this is a bit of an underwhelming conclusion.

 

[durimotara]

Haha i know...thing is i dont get why amd sets their stock voltage so high. 1.3ish volts is alot for a stock voltage and i guess my board was too weak to support that kind of draw

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