Is my CPU a bottleneck?

akabacon

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On my 1080p gaming rig, I recently picked up a 1080ti to upgrade my pc from a 1050ti. I am recently seeing my cpu usage go up to 100% on games I play (such as: Hunt showdown, Ranbow Six Seige, GTA 5). Is my cpu being a bottleneck for my gtx 1080ti and in order to fix the issue, do II have to upgrade? If so what should I upgrade to? My specs are: i5 4690 @ 3.5 Ghz, 16GB of DDR3 ram, asusB85M-G, seagate 3tb HDD 7200rpm, and an 256 gb intel ssd.
 
Lol good lord it was stupid to buy a 1080 ti for 1080p in the first place and even more so with an outdated 4 core/ 4 thread cpu. Even a 1070 would not go fully utilized at that low res with that old cpu. Not to mention for some games you are looking at stuttery experience as there is no way of maintaining a smooth framerate. Hell some games eat all 8 threads of my oced 4770k and cant even hold 60 fps.

I would get a 4790k or at least a 4790 and sell that 4690 to get some better usage out of that 1080 ti otherwise whats the point if it performs like a card costing half as much due to your cpu. I would also use DSR as its idiotic to be running 1080p on 1080ti even if you had a proper cpu.
 
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I bought the gtx1080ti because somebody was selling it used fr $300 with 2 years of warranty left and I thought it was a great deal, so I picked it up from him....
Wow that is very cheap for a 1080 ti. I sure as heck would not sell mine for any less than 450 to 500 bucks at this point. Just sell your 4690 and get the fastest i7 that your mobo will support and that will make a huge difference. And again use DSR to run a higher res as you are not getting any better performance at 1080p anyway.
 
You can upgrade to a I-7 4790K if you want but your best off buying a whole new motherboard and slap in a I-7 9700K
the I-9 9900K isn't worth the price compared to last years I-7 8700K
 
I'd buy the cheapest 4770K/4790K I could find and OC the hell out of it....

4 cores alone just isn't enough anymore.

4 cores / 8 threads IMO is now the minimum for mid-range gaming.
 
As long as your mobo supports them, There are Xeon equivlants to the 4770/90 usually for a lot cheaper.

So much this.

My X3470 was like $23. (but mines a FIRST gen i-series and that deal was a crazy fluke)
 
Waterblocked, you should be able to squeeze 4.6 to 4.8Ghz out of a 4790K. Delidded, 5Ghz is possible.

A heavily OC'ed 4790 will still hold its own paired with a good GPU. Has kept me from jumping on the last few year's worth of upgrade cycle bandwaqons in that the gains, while good, weren't all that spectacular. I'm still happy with the VR/gaming performance my rig is delivering. Will hold me till Summer/Fall next year.
 
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I am recently seeing my cpu usage go up to 100% on games I play (

yes you have used u all your avaiable ressoruces and want more fps but can't "pay" for it in cpu ressoruces

Just FYI
however the reverse is not true.
juat becauese you only have 50% cpu usage na game does not mean you do not have a cpu bottleneck. you havent ruled out a Core speed cpu bottleneck in this case.

and also you will always have a bottleneck somewhere. relieving you cpu bottleneck is just going to give you a GPU bottleneck instead most likely
 
At 1080p U are cpu bottlenecked. If U you upgrade your monitor to 1440p. You will be less cpu bound.

But, I would try to find a 4790k and overclock it.
 
Yup!

I run tons of stuff at 1440p.... (I just set in-game DSR to 135% cuz I like even numbers)

135 is not an even number

As to the topic at hand, yes you certainly have a CPU bottleneck. I'm at 1440p and i'm more often limited by my 3770k than I am my 1080Ti
 
135 is not an even number

As to the topic at hand, yes you certainly have a CPU bottleneck. I'm at 1440p and i'm more often limited by my 3770k than I am my 1080Ti

Poor phrasing but you got what I was implying ;)
 
4790k,6700k or 8700k.. new board either way. 6700-8700k you'll need ddr4 ram.
 
Pretty much looking at full upgrade as Ecypse is hinting at... CPU, Mobo, Ram... Looking at afew specs and doing some math this is what I'd Say... A 300 series Intel Board, an i7 8700 (k series if you Overclock), and 16GB of DDR4 (2666 is Fine)... You could use faster DDR4 but you'd only notice a diff in benchmarks... I run an i7 8700k with an Nvidia RTX 2080ti and 16GB DDR4 2600 on my Gaming / VR Setup...
 
The other half is are you ok with your FPS? Is it stuttering or bothering you? If it seems smooth you could just be pissing away money.

What bobby said... jack the DSR (enabled in the control panel then you set higher resolutions in game, I like smoothing set to 15%). DSR is a good way to burn excess fps.
 
Im calling BS on these fools. Unless your wanting to go VR step back man.

You dont need a full upgrade. I still run an I5-4670k and I game with absolutely no issues at 1080p.

Before you go and start pissing away money start small. basic settings or a fresh OS install with a new video card can make a difference. Look into other solutions before spending money. What size is your power supply? How old is it? I have seen older PSU's that will cause issues with new cards as they age.
 
Im calling BS on these fools. Unless your wanting to go VR step back man.

You dont need a full upgrade. I still run an I5-4670k and I game with absolutely no issues at 1080p.

Before you go and start pissing away money start small. basic settings or a fresh OS install with a new video card can make a difference. Look into other solutions before spending money. What size is your power supply? How old is it? I have seen older PSU's that will cause issues with new cards as they age.
Are you only reading what you want to read? Many people are saying to get an i7 that can go in his current mobo and also just crank the res. You are laughably ignorant if you think a 3.5 ghz 4690 is not a massive limitation for a 1080 ti. I have a 1080 ti right in front of me and even my oced 4770k holds it back by quite a bit at 1440p in most newer games never mind at 1080p. And you are also so clueless that you dont realize a 4690 cant even maintain 60 fps in many newer games. Again I know because even my oced 4770k cant hold 60 fps in any of the newer Ubisoft games due to cpu limitations. Turning off HT on my 4770k turns games like that into a stuttery mess at times as the cpu is basically pegged the entire time.
 
Im calling BS on these fools. Unless your wanting to go VR step back man.

You dont need a full upgrade. I still run an I5-4670k and I game with absolutely no issues at 1080p.

Before you go and start pissing away money start small. basic settings or a fresh OS install with a new video card can make a difference. Look into other solutions before spending money. What size is your power supply? How old is it? I have seen older PSU's that will cause issues with new cards as they age.

You reinstall your OS when you get a new video card? Do the world a favor and stop giving advise. Do yourself a favor and stop following your own.
 
basic settings or a fresh OS install

5173498.jpg


See the rig in sig? I haven't formatted this thing since summer 2013.
 
Not sure if anyone has noticed or mentioned (I've only skimmed posts), but his board is not OC friendly. Best bet is a 4790 non-k or equiv Xeon as a drop in replacement after a bios update to ensure compatibility. (as the cheapest option). i7 4790k would give you best performance as it still has the highest boost on that platform at stock, you just won't be able to OC it any further on the current board. I'd be weighing up cost vs performance here. If the K model is twice the price used, don't bother. If it's maybe $10-20 extra sure.

I tend to agree with a fresh install of windows, it may not grant you outright performance, however will help refresh the amount of crap you may have running in the background that you've installed over time. It may still assist in freeing up some CPU usage in games.

Even if it doesn't help games, I did a reinstall when troubleshooting windows recently on my computer before I gave up and bought a new CPU/Board XD, and the fresh install definitely made windows ever so slightly more responsive/quicker and less 'clunky' as it were. Though my particular install was originally a 8.1 > 10 upgrade so YMMV. New install was a fresh W10 ISO.
 
look up "https://thebottlenecker.com/calculator" this can "help" at least understand how "much" of a potential bottleneck happens (in a rough percentage fashion)

not trying to drive traffic away from the site or anything along that line, but we need to help everyone where possible, right?

to each their own.

everyone stay safe over the holidays, and may it be the best Christmas and New Years yet for 2018 into 2019

Cheers. o7
 
that is a pretty cool calculator. Thanks for sharing

It doesn't tell you much but it is fairly accurate. (gimme some numbers/graphs, something explaining how they got the result)

I got a 30% bottleneck which is totally correct. (my 980 Ti performs like a 980)
 
It doesn't tell you much but it is fairly accurate. (gimme some numbers/graphs, something explaining how they got the result)

I got a 30% bottleneck which is totally correct. (my 980 Ti performs like a 980)

That's like 80%-90% faster with 2Gb of extra VRAM than what you had before, correct? Look at it this way, when you finally do your platform upgrade, it will feel like you got a new video card with it for free. ;)
 
That's like 80%-90% faster with 2Gb of extra VRAM than what you had before, correct? Look at it this way, when you finally do your platform upgrade, it will feel like you got a new video card with it for free. ;)

Yeah, it's basically 2 video card upgrades for the price of one lol
 
Update: For the Holidays and from what I have in my budget, I bought a ryzen 2700 with a ROG STRIX B450-F mobo and 16gb of Ripjaws V ddr4 RAM @3200mhz. The bottleneck is gone and I'm back into playing my games at the highest settings. Thanks for everyone who gave me tips! :D
 
I play a ton of R6 Siege, and all 4c i5's are horribly inadequate for 144hz on that game. Glad you got a 2700. My friend's stock 1700X + 3200 MHz CL14 RAM beats my 4c8t i7 in Siege.
 
I play a ton of R6 Siege, and all 4c i5's are horribly inadequate for 144hz on that game. Glad you got a 2700. My friend's stock 1700X + 3200 MHz CL14 RAM beats my 4c8t i7 in Siege.
I would love to see some actual proof of that as no cpu review of that game backs that up from what I see.

https://www.gamegpu.com/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Rainbow_Six_Siege_/test/r7_proz.jpg

Even a pathetic old 2 core/ 4 thread i3 2100 is getting 141 fps with 980 ti SLI which is as much gpu power as a 1080 ti. I would say there is zero chance of a 1700x getting better performance than any remotely modern 4 core/ 8 thread i7 in that game.
 
I would love to see some actual proof of that as no cpu review of that game backs that up from what I see.

https://www.gamegpu.com/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Rainbow_Six_Siege_/test/r7_proz.jpg

Even a pathetic old 2 core/ 4 thread i3 2100 is getting 141 fps with 980 ti SLI which is more gpu power than a 1080 ti. I would say there is zero chance of a 1700x getting better performance than any remotely modern 4 core/ 8 thread i7.

Yeah, that test is crap. If you don't believe me, that's fine. I highly recommend trying out the Starter Edition which is on sale for under $15 a lot.

Siege has 2 different modes. 5v5 PvP and 5 player PvE. On 5v5 PvP, an i5 will struggle with 144hz. On Terrorist Hunt (PVE), its performance plummets to nearly half of a 4c8t due to lack of hyperthreading.
Siege uses all threads for a CPU now. 100% CPU usage is the norm for that game when playing at an unlocked frame rate.

The 1700X outperforms my i7 mainly in minimum FPS. The 8700k, 9700k, and 9900k are able to maintain 240hz on PvP, but the 7700k is left in the dust. This game LOVES threads. I game at 180hz and my i7 will struggle maintaining that where the 1700X can maintain the similar performance and be able to stream at 1080p60 without breaking a sweat.

Even a 14c28t Xeon will report 100% CPU usage in Terrorist Hunt.

Do you even know how GameGPU tested this game? Do you know when they tested it? Siege has gone through massive engine changes, with major performance hits across all CPUs. The i5 used to be much faster in Siege. A dual core i3 can't break 100 fps in Terrorist Hunt. I would know, I will hit 4000 hours of playtime this year.
 
On my 1080p gaming rig, I recently picked up a 1080ti to upgrade my pc from a 1050ti. I am recently seeing my cpu usage go up to 100% on games I play (such as: Hunt showdown, Ranbow Six Seige, GTA 5). Is my cpu being a bottleneck for my gtx 1080ti and in order to fix the issue, do II have to upgrade? If so what should I upgrade to? My specs are: i5 4690 @ 3.5 Ghz, 16GB of DDR3 ram, asusB85M-G, seagate 3tb HDD 7200rpm, and an 256 gb intel ssd.

^YES!^ This cpu is a HUGE bottleneck. It is gen 4 iNTEL core i series. It is also quad core with quad threads...Would be a boost to upgrade to any iNTEL with 6c12t (if they have those) or get a Ryzen system 8c16t. {personally, I'd go with Ryzen to get a fast system to complement your GPU.} Also you're probably stuck on gen 2 for Pci-E and upgrading the CPU/Mobo, etc, should net you huge gains as mose use gen 3 Pci-E.

-KillA_KIA
 
^YES!^ This cpu is a HUGE bottleneck. It is gen 4 iNTEL core i series. It is also quad core with quad threads...Would be a boost to upgrade to any iNTEL with 6c12t (if they have those) or get a Ryzen system 8c16t. {personally, I'd go with Ryzen to get a fast system to complement your GPU.} Also you're probably stuck on gen 2 for Pci-E and upgrading the CPU/Mobo, etc, should net you huge gains as mose use gen 3 Pci-E.

-KillA_KIA

Helps to read past the first post sometimes. OP already upgraded to a Ryzen 2700
 
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