Upgraded GPU does my CPU bottleneck?

M

Maddnotez

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 28, 2014
Messages
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Just got a used 1080 TI.

I7-4790k
16 GB Corsair Vengeance LP 1600
1TB WD black
256gb Evo PRO
750w Evga G2

I saw this bottleneck.com website that says I do in fact have a bottleneck and I need to upgrade my CPU. I am not sure how reliable that is and if so, how bad is having this bottleneck?

The problem is that I really don't want to upgrade everything right now. I want to wait until 2121 until the next gen of support comes around. I will compare AMD and Intel at the time but right now I am leaning towards AMD simply based on the fact that the old MOBO will support future CPU for 5 years or so. Unfortunately we are at the end of that cycle so I want to wait until next gen. I don't like having to upgrade everything at once so it would be nice to get in on a new gen and then perhaps upgrade only the CPU during the end of cycle.

So anyway I am curious to know how good is my CPU still compared to the rest of my build? I only play a few games. I get high 90's% GPU usage in PUB G which is great. A couple of other games not as much and Insurgency:Sandstorm in particular has stuttering issues which I did not notice until I upgraded my GPU (from a 970)

You can see the stutter if you want in this video it might happen slightly and periodically but you can definitely see it at 6:20 when I come out of the tunnel.

Edit: I am at 1080p 144hz and I do plan to upgrade to 1440p. I hear that will demand more from the GPU creating more usage.
 
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Even if it is a bottleneck it shouldn't result in stutter that your 970 didn't have, you just wouldn't be taking full advantage of the extra GPU power. (Worst case scenario if it was a significant bottleneck you would have performance identical to your 970)

The easiest way to test for bottleneck is to overclock \ underclock your CPU. If you see a dramatic change in frames from relatively minor cpu clock speed changes then you have a bottleneck.
 
I have a similar setup and dont think you would see a crazy bottleneck. If you can oc your cpu to 4.4-9 ghz, you would probably get a bit of a boost. Sad thing is that Haswell to coffee lake is still barely a 20% increase in IPC clock for clock on single core. So that would be a huge $$$ investment for relatively minimal gain. This probably does depend on the engine of the game though, as some like high clocked cpus and many threads 8+.
 
pendragon1 said:
2121 is a ways away. you sure you want to wait that long? ;)
i'd oc the cpu to 4.5+ see if that helps.
Click to expand...
I'm sure. I want to wait until the next gen of mobo/cpu support comes around. That way at the end of the cycle I can buy the latest CPU without having to do an entire new build.

Also my CPU is stable at 4.6. That's as high as I can go.

TBH it's just this one game that has issues so I think it is just poorly coded/highly demanding on the CPU.
 
Maddnotez said:
I'm sure. I want to wait until the next gen of mobo/cpu support comes around. That way at the end of the cycle I can buy the latest CPU without having to do an entire new build.

Also my CPU is stable at 4.6. That's as high as I can go.

TBH it's just this one game that has issues so I think it is just poorly coded/highly demanding on the CPU.
Click to expand...
so youre gonna wait until 2121 until you buy a new system? should have quantum computers everywhere by then.... ;)

oc is good, anything more wouldnt change much.
that stutter could be server side. i get that occasionally in apex.
 
Every game is different, the only way to know if you have a bottleneck is to look at your CPU and GPU usage while you're playing a game. If your CPU is 100% and your GPU is 50% your CPU is bottlnecking you.
When you're checking CPU usage make sure you look at individual core usage because a game may not use all the cores and show an overall lower CPU usage even though it's bottlenecking.

You can just check GPU usage if you aren't using any frame rate limiters. And if it's above 90% it's probably not limited by the CPU.


I have a 4770k and a 1080ti and it's fine for the games I play at 2560x1440 144hz. My CPU is overclocked to 4.5 GHZ though.
 
Maddnotez said:
Just got a used 1080 TI.

I7-4790k
16 GB Corsair Vengeance LP 1600
1TB WD black
256gb Evo PRO
750w Evga G2

I saw this bottleneck.com website that says I do in fact have a bottleneck and I need to upgrade my CPU. I am not sure how reliable that is and if so, how bad is having this bottleneck?

The problem is that I really don't want to upgrade everything right now. I want to wait until 2121 until the next gen of support comes around. I will compare AMD and Intel at the time but right now I am leaning towards AMD simply based on the fact that the old MOBO will support future CPU for 5 years or so. Unfortunately we are at the end of that cycle so I want to wait until next gen. I don't like having to upgrade everything at once so it would be nice to get in on a new gen and then perhaps upgrade only the CPU during the end of cycle.

So anyway I am curious to know how good is my CPU still compared to the rest of my build? I only play a few games. I get high 90's% GPU usage in PUB G which is great. A couple of other games not as much and Insurgency:Sandstorm in particular has stuttering issues which I did not notice until I upgraded my GPU (from a 970)

You can see the stutter if you want in this video it might happen slightly and periodically but you can definitely see it at 6:20 when I come out of the tunnel.

Edit: I am at 1080p 144hz and I do plan to upgrade to 1440p. I hear that will demand more from the GPU creating more usage.
Click to expand...


For high Hz gaming, yep its an issue if you want to maintain high Hz a lot.
It may drop below 60Hz with games like Witcher 3.

A suggestion that may help put off your CPU upgrade for a while:
The PCI-e slot your gfx card uses will be using the same IRQ (interrupt) as a few other motherboard components.
You can tell the gfx card to use Message Signalled Interrupts instead which are purely software handled, not shared with anything.
It could help reduce stutters.


Download MSI_util from here, near the bottom of post 1
https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/windows-line-based-vs-message-signaled-based-interrupts.378044/

Run it as Admin
Tick your gfx card and click Apply (top right).
Reboot
Run it again to check it has changed.

I've been using it for few years and it sorted out glitches I was getting with my 1080ti @ 1080p.
AMD cards already use MSI by default.
When you install a new NVidia video driver it will revert back to IRQ so you will need to run the tool again.

Let us know if it helps any.
 
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Nenu said:
For high Hz gaming, yep its an issue if you want to maintain high Hz a lot.
It may drop below 60Hz with games like Witcher 3.

A suggestion that may help put off your CPU upgrade for a while:
The PCI-e slot your gfx card uses will be using the same IRQ (interrupt) as a few other motherboard components.
You can tell the gfx card to use Message Signalled Interrupts instead which are purely software handled, not shared with anything.
It could help reduce stutters.


Download MSI_util from here, near the bottom of post 1
https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/windows-line-based-vs-message-signaled-based-interrupts.378044/

Run it as Admin
Tick your gfx card and click Apply (top right).
Reboot
Run it again to check it has changed.

I've been using it for few years and it sorted out glitches I was getting with my 1080ti @ 1080p.
AMD cards already use MSI by default.
When you install a new NVidia video driver it will revert back to IRQ so you will need to run the tool again.

Let us know if it helps any.
Click to expand...
Not really sure what this is. It doesn't do anything and there is no option to run as admin.
 
Maddnotez said:
Not really sure what this is. It doesn't do anything and there is no option to run as admin.
Click to expand...
Right click, run as administrator.
Its a windows function.

I trust you unzipped it first?
 
Nenu said:
Right click, run as administrator.
Its a windows function.

I trust you unzipped it first?
Click to expand...
I will have to give it another look later tonight. I did not unzip, it was just a download and open file like any other download but when i opened file it was just a blank program and no options to run as admin, Will try to unzip
 
Maddnotez said:
I will have to give it another look later tonight. I did not unzip, it was just a download and open file like any other download but when i opened file it was just a blank program and no options to run as admin, Will try to unzip
Click to expand...
It might work without unzipping but it depends what you are using to handle compressed files.
Some allow to right click and run as admin, others only have operations they built into the program.
Its best to unzip it first (right click - extract to folder), then right clicking the MSI_util.exe file will give you the 'run as administrator' option.
Without admin access the program doesnt have permission to access the system objects it is designed to manipulate.
 
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I agree with Nenu on this. Something is taking priority over the game engine. It could be an IRQ or a high priority thread running in the background. Whatever it is, it is taking cpu priority for a split second and handing it back. This can be almost anything from misbehaving drivers to Antivirus software.
 
as always : it depends on your system load
NOBODY can tell you if you are going to have a cpu bottlenck solely on hardware as you are missing out the entire reason you are getting a cpu bottleneck... the system load
 
The easiest way to know if you have a CPU bottleneck is to OC the CPU. If your performance goes up, especially minimal FPS, then I would say you have a bottleneck.

But even if you do, who cares? Is the performance good enough for you?
 
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