What's the bottle neck?

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

GPU usage 96% at full res (1920x1080p)
GPU usage 50-80% at lower resolution.

Is that a GPU or CPU bottleneck? i forgot

 

[chimaxi83]

The lower the resolution, the more CPU dependent it is. That's a CPU bottleneck.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Normally, I'd make a joke about I/O always being the bottleneck, but that's pretty clearly CPU.

 

[Termie]

GPU usage 96% at full res (1920x1080p)
GPU usage 50-80% at lower resolution.

Is that a GPU or CPU bottleneck? i forgot

Can you tell us what your FPS is at both resolutions? That's a more direct way to determine what's going on. If FPS stays the same, you have a CPU bottleneck. Seeing as how your GPU apparently isn't working at capacity at lower resolution, you probably have a CPU bottleneck.

And knowing that you're playing UT3, I'd hazard a guess that your old GTX480 was probably already CPU bottlenecked.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Woah... CPU limited on a >4GHz OC'd i7 920? Where do you even go from there?

Maybe... maybe I/O is your bottleneck... heh.

 

[maddie]

Your GPU is running full blast at 1920 but slower at lower resolution implies the bottleneck is the CPU at the lower res. Higher res is impossible to say. You might be balanced depending on CPU usage (not listed).

 

[Don Karnage]

Normally, I'd make a joke about I/O always being the bottleneck, but that's pretty clearly CPU.

A 4.2Ghz 920 is not a bottleneck

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

In regards to the power-sucking space-heater people are calling my GTX 480, the upgrade was well worth it to me

Th Max FPS are almost always at the game max, at 1080. The minimums are better than with the GTX 480. But GPU is pegged at 96% & 1215MHz core.

At a lower res the GPU usage fluxuates between 34-60% usage. but the game feels much more responsive.

In both scenarios the FPS are max. And for those of you who insist on reminding me about my decision to upgdrade, refer to the words power-sucking vampire and winter space-heater

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

stupid autocorrect. on phone

the box has a Vertex2/100G btw

 

[BrightCandle]

Bottlenecks are way more complicated than usage. There are moments of sychronisation, of serial behaviour and of parallel behaviour. Which is a problem can change repeatedly throughout the rendering of a single frame let alone frame to frame. Everything is limited by something at some point.

But its not like your CPU can get a great deal faster. I suspect going to SB or IB is only going to net about 15% gain anyway, and that just isn't a noticeable amount.

A 670 could be improved upon if you went SLI, but honestly its unlikely to be worth it at 1080p. You'll just have to live with turning the graphics options down if it isn't performing quite well enough.

 

[Termie]

in regards to the power-sucking space-heater people are calling a GTX 480 the upgrade was well worth it to me

Th Max FPS are almost always at the game max, at 1080. The minimums are better than with the GTX 480. But GPU is pegged at 96% & 1215MHz core.

At a lower res the GPU usage fluxuates between 34-60% usage. but the game feels much more responsive.

In both scenarios the FPS are max. And for those of you who insist on reminding me about my decision to upgdrade, refer to the words power-sucking vampire and winter space-heater

Give us the new idle wattage in your sig then!

BTW, if the game has an FPS limiter, it's hard to say exactly what's going on here. Maybe you're not CPU-limited. I'm surprised that it feels that much smoother at low res if your FPS is maxed.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Bottlenecks are way more complicated than usage. There are moments of sychronisation, of serial behaviour and of parallel behaviour. Which is a problem can change repeatedly throughout the rendering of a single frame let alone frame to frame. Everything is limited by something at some point.

But its not like your CPU can get a great deal faster. I suspect going to SB or IB is only going to net about 15% gain anyway, and that just isn't a noticeable amount.

A 670 could be improved upon if you went SLI, but honestly its unlikely to be worth it at 1080p. You'll just have to live with turning the graphics options down if it isn't performing quite well enough.

I can live with it. I'll have too. If any upgrade it would have to be Ivy but my frivolous spending has already been used up, heh

What is funny is, when I first started using the 670, I was using my other drive (hdd) I took a look at my gpu usage at 1080 and it wasn't always pegged at 96% that could just be from a more optimized map or less players or some other non accounted factor.

Either way, the 670 is a great card!

 

[tweakboy]

The poor CPU has to wait for the files to be read so it can go on with a process.

SSD makes that bottleneck go away. Everything will be snappier and faster. Because the RAM SSD and CPU will all function much faster with each other. gl

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Maybe it's maxing out a part of the GPU? Like, something about how the game works is making the low-res use all of the Texture units, but leaving a lot of stream processors idle? That would account for the low % GPU use, without implying that you're CPU limited (damn near impossible) or I/O limited (unlikely, since you have an SSD.)

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Give us the new idle wattage in your sig then!

BTW, if the game has an FPS limiter, it's hard to say exactly what's going on here. Maybe you're not CPU-limited. I'm surprised that it feels that much smoother at low res if your FPS is maxed.

357 fps is the limit, but don't take that like it seems. Even at a240 fps cap there is a slight lag to the sensitive player.

I think the idle numbers won't change that much. I'm still got a 171w idle number @ 4ghz. Before I swapped the GPUs in the game rig I did another idle test and i got a 200w reading (gtx 480.) ... I did do alot of system/os tweaks that did change power drawl. there are too many factors to account for with this hdd vs the add but all in all the idle drawl should be about the same.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

The poor CPU has to wait for the files to be read so it can go on with a process.

SSD makes that bottleneck go away. Everything will be snappier and faster. Because the RAM SSD and CPU will all function much faster with each other. gl

there is also something called a timer resolution. check into that t.b.

gl

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Your GPU is running full blast at 1920 but slower at lower resolution implies the bottleneck is the CPU at the lower res. Higher res is impossible to say. You might be balanced depending on CPU usage (not listed).

Last I recall my CPU w/o HT on, runs around 60-70% usage

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Just remember that bottlenecks aren't static, it depends on the load that is expected from each component to generate 1 frame for the game you're running, that changes from game to game and also depends on what settings you use.

The sure fire test is to measure FPS, if you lower your graphics settings such as resolution, post processing or AA/AF, and your frame rate remains the same, then it's largely limited by the CPU.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

What I did do was turn off all features on desktop and within the game (at 1080) and this did reduce GPU usage to where it wasn't pegged at 96% the entire map. It's much smoother and more responsive now like it is at lower resolutions. So I think 1080 is still on the heavy side for the GPU.