CPU is bottlenecking my GPUs

So I have an AMD FX 8120 CPU, TWO EVGA 550 TIs running in SLI, ASUS sabertooth 990fx mobo. Now, I ran the benchmark on battlefield 3, and it showed the GPU line above the CPU line, which I'm informed means I have a bottleneck. Can anybody advise me on what to do?

EDIT: when I turn around, on a map, or "load" more of the map, the game freezes for a split second, and the benchmark graph goes all the way to the top of the screen

EDIT 2: I've included a screenshot to show you what I mean http://s17.postimage.org/l1frw601n/Screenshot_Win32_0001.jpg [postimage.org]

there is just a bug with punkbuster right now that is causing massive cpu spikes resulting in crazy fps drops. so what you described is actually happenning to everyone right now. you just chose the wrong time to do a benchmark. if you try it on a non punkbuster server I don't imagine this will still happen. also I think its highly unlikely that your cpu would be causing a bottleneck unless you are playing on a very low resolution and low graphical settings. an easy way to find out is to just open task manager while playing and see if your cpu usage is hitting 100%, unless it is then its not the bottleneck and you are getting the most out of your cards. if it is however (on non punkbuster servers, till this get fixed) all you can really do is overclock your cpu which should help a bit. If its not the bottleneck though you will get absolutely no performance increase in the game from overclocking it so don't bother.

Thanks for the reply! So I checked on the forums and some people were saying it was fixed? I'm not sure if it has been yet. I had assumed it would be fixed after the 30 minute shutdown? Also if it *was* my processor, I don't understand how an 8 core CPU could hold back my GPUs?

Its really the speed of your processor that matters, well for this game anyways. battlefield 3 isn't even properly optimized for quad core cpus. I've seen benchmarks of both a quad and a dual core cpu at the exact same speeds and the performance increase with the quad core was extremely minimal. I'm also pretty sure this game doesn't even use more then 4 cores does it? I know it doesn't support hyperthreading so 4 cores and 4 vitual cores making 8 total like on i7 intel chipsets. not totally sure about amd's actual 8 core cpus but even if it does use them all it certainly doesn't even come close to using them to your full potential. I'm sorry to break it to you but if you bought that cpu simply for gaming it was a big waste of money. all you really need is an i5 2500k. they overclock like mad, only 4 cores which is all you need and no hyperthreading which yields no benefits in games either. really anything more then that is just a waste of money as your paying for stuff that games don't even support or make use of. Its possible they could in the future though or if developers ever started properly optimizing for pc again.

also about the current issue, I haven't played since yesterday as I was waiting for it to get fixed and it was pretty much unplayable then. I didn't even realize it was the 28th already. did the 30 minute downtime already happen? I never noticed battlelog was down and the banner saying that its going down is still up at the top...

I don't think it happened yet. And you're saying I most likely don't have a bottleneck? Also I built the computer with my dad, so we figured "go big or go home" for the CPU. It's also very strange, because I manage to pull 60 FPS with V sync on in BFBC 2 with absolutely no stuttering. In fact I can run all the latest games at ultra settings at 1080p (saints row the third, Deuse ex, Just Cause 2, etc). I may just see what happens in the morning, or after the maintenance.

oh alright I thought you were saying it had been down and was fixed. but yeah I think that's why its going down or so I hope it is and it fixes it. I'll definitely know right away anyways.but yeah I don't think you have any bottlenecking going on so I wouldn't worry about it. the problem should go away once its fixed for everyone. another way to tell if it is bottlenecking though would be just to check to make sure you are getting the right amount of scaling in your sli setup. I have no idea what percent of scaling you should be getting in this game with those cards but I'm sure you could find what other people with the same setup are getting online or on some benchmarks on a hardware review site. (scaling is the performance increase you get when having 2 cards in sli as opposed to just the 1, so ideally it is 100% and you are getting exactly double the performance). all though in most games like this one which also aren't optimized that well for multiple gpus I don't think that's the case. either way you should be able to find what it should be for this game. none of those other games you listed though really come close to the system requirements for this game on ultra, the only other games which are comparable would be crysis, crysis 2 with dx11 and high res textures pack and metro 2033.

Long story short, I briefly had crysis 2 installed, and was able to run it at ultra at 1080 before I even did SLI, but thanks for the advice on the scaling, I will look in to it! And I *have* seen about a 50% performance increase in everything else I own after using SLI, so I'll just have to wait and see. Thanks for all the help, I appreciate it!

yeah no problem. I'm assuming you had crysis 2 installed before the dx11 and high res textures patch because afterwards you definitely wouldn't be able to run it at even a halfway decent framerate with just the single card. but yeah if you are only getting 50% percent scaling then it might be bottlenecking the cards after all as that is pretty low. allthough I really don't know what kind of scaling that setup is supposed to get. newer amd cards can get 100% in some stuff but I really have no idea for those and I'm pretty sure this game has pretty bad scaling as well from what I have heard.

If the GPU's are running at 100% and your CPU is running below 80/90% e.g. 50% then your GPU's are the bottleneck because they have reached maximum performance. This is because the CPU sends the data to the GPU and now the speed of the data being received from the CPU is to great so the CPU has to hold back.

I had a similar issue with my i5 750 and GTX 560 Ti. My Issue was that my CPU was the bottleneck because it was running @ 100% while the graphics card was running at 50/60%. I fixed my issue by overclocking my CPU to a value above 3.8GHz (stock Value is: 2.66GHz) and now the CPU runs at : 80/90% and GPU at 100%.

In your case I would recommend getting a new graphics card. But first check your CPU usage in task manager and get GPU-Z and monitor your GPU Load. Report back the values we can give you some more advice. Need CPU and GPU usage values.

Alright, so it looks like I'm getting around 80-82% GPU usage, and 50-60% CPU usage. I'm still not sure if they've fixed the lag or not yet either, but it seems better today for some reason. I'd also like to note that I've had AA turned completely off because I run it at 1080, so for the most part the jaggies are gone anyways.

The only time you're ever gonna see your GPU usage averaging above 70% is if you don't play with Vsync on, The reason being its rendering frames past 60 that you don't even need causing a bigger work load, If you turn Vsync on your GPU usage will drop into the 30's 50's peaking at maybe 70 once in awhile. But i can almost guarantee you that you will never see it hit the 90's. It also cuts down on the heat they produce.

My i5 2500k is overclocked to 5GHz right now on a Asus Sabertooth Z77 and im running SLI GTX 670's. my cpu usage on lets say.... a 64 man metro server doesn't go over 60% very often and my GPU usage is generally around 45-60% on both cards (Vsync is on)

I don't understand why anyone plays with Vsync off on a 60hz monitor. The game usually looks like garbage because of screen tearing

BTW BF3 can easily use more than 4 cores of your cpu, there are reviews out there that show 3,3ghz phenom II x6 easily beating 3,7ghz phenom II x4 in a full 64p multiplayer-game. So therefore your 8core cpu isnt bottlenecking your 550ti:s, atleast it shouldnt.

I've had Vsync on the whole time, and from the chart that I was looking at, it spiked briefly to 82% and then it leveled out right at 50%

@youpekkad, so you're saying I probably don't have a bottleneck?

TehGhettoBlaster said:
I've had Vsync on the whole time, and from the chart that I was looking at, it spiked briefly to 82% and then it leveled out right at 50%

@youpekkad, so you're saying I probably don't have a bottleneck?

what map?

I just looked at your screenshot, and i cant say that i have ever seen my graph go that high (not talking about the spike you had either), just talking about the general position of where your CPU and GPU graph is

That particular shot was at gulf of oman, but I get it on the vanilla and cq maps as well

i just tried oman myself, That's very odd certain areas my gpu graph did go above my CPU, but my CPU was a rock solid line. I think the map is poorly optimized honestly

TehGhettoBlaster said:
So I have an AMD FX 8120 CPU, TWO EVGA 550 TIs running in SLI, ASUS sabertooth 990fx mobo. Now, I ran the benchmark on battlefield 3, and it showed the GPU line above the CPU line, which I'm informed means I have a bottleneck. Can anybody advise me on what to do?

EDIT: when I turn around, on a map, or "load" more of the map, the game freezes for a split second, and the benchmark graph goes all the way to the top of the screen

EDIT 2: I've included a screenshot to show you what I mean http://s17.postimage.org/l1frw601n/Screenshot_Win32_0001.jpg [postimage.org]

The 8120 will not bottleneck the 550ti and thats a fact. Its slower than a 6850 and my 1055t + 6850cfx @ 3.2ghz will get 100% usage no matter what.

Omnicurse-Vi said:
i just tried oman myself, That's very odd certain areas my gpu graph did go above my CPU, but my CPU was a rock solid line. I think the map is poorly optimized honestly

Hmm, you do have a point, because I get minimal lag at Karkand. Maybe I'll double check the vanilla maps again. Also do you know if they even fixed the lag issue yet? Because I'd like to rule that out entirely as the cause of my problems

I'm not exactly sure why i was in the red on this screenshot it was only for a brief second, But this is how oman usually looks for me on the graph

http://i.imgur.com/7cgsE.jpg [i.imgur.com]

i5 2500k @ 5Ghz
SLI GTX 670's
Asus Sabertooth Z77
maxvariable.fps @ 60
forcerenderahead 1
NVCP is set to 1 as well
Anti Aliasing Post is off in game
SuperSample 8x Transparency forced in NVCP

The area that i did see my GPU hop above my CPU was around the Veteran's retreat flag, was sketchy all over that area, the lag as far as i know is gone. i still see people posting about it but mines been gone for awhile. Chances are they're using Nvidia cards with the May WHQL driver instead of the June beta driver that fixed allot of problems for cards

I didn't have any luck with the beta driver, because it was causing my computer to restart when I pressed shutdown, so I had to install the may driver. I suppose I could try it again and see what happens

EDIT: so here's a screenshot of caspian border, same issue http://postimage.org/image/5t89p3f0h/ [postimage.org]

I just looked at that screenshot again and really cant figure out why your CPU and GPU usage is that high, that's bananas. I know in general AMD's cpu usage is allot more than intel. And it's not just in BF3. There has been benchmarks proving that the CPU usage on AMD is quite higher than Intel on games. But i'm still confused as to why your GPU usage is that high.

Does it average that high? Or was that just in a massive explosion. Your CPU isn't the problem that's for sure. But your cards shouldn't even be coming close to that high on the graph, (Like i said AMD has always used more CPU on game's so that's normal).

Try using the GameTime.MaxVariableFps 60 command in game and see what happens. It should bring them into sync with each other (It actually does what Vsync should do lol) The only other thing i can think of is the software. I know there was a pretty big thread on the EVGA forums about the 500/600 series cards having issues on BF3, But with the June beta driver it fixed it for allot of people

So, that screenshot was what I average the entire game, when it DOES spike however, the lines go completely off the screen. I will report back with results from the command prompt as well.

So I tried the commandine and set it to 60 FPS, but it didn't make a difference. I also tried disabling triple buffering since some people say it has problems with SLI, but no difference either. I'll try those june drivers again and see what happens. I will also do a clean installation of them as well.

that caspian screenshot is "wow" lol, that is crazy. There's no way that 2 550's should bottleneck that cpu lol.

Well, I tried the beta drivers, no difference at all. I'm really at a loss. The only thing I could think of is perhaps downclocking my GPUs? Right now the clock is at 951 mhz which is about half way. Would downclocking help at all, and if so how extreme should it be?

you could try that, i wouldn't do huge decreases, just play with it.

Well, I tried doing that and it didn't seem to help at all. Last thing I'm doing is installing crysis 2, and I'm going to max out those settings and run at 1080. If I'm getting a bottleneck there, then I can say it's hardware. If there's no bottleneck, then I assume the issue would be software related and related to battlefield 3 alone, yes?

1 lil question is your Mainboard Bios Up to date?

anyone mentioned ram yet...

(gpu & cpu spike at the same time)

The1AndOnlyWOLF said:
1 lil question is your Mainboard Bios Up to date?

It is not, and that's one thing I have no experience in. When I try to download a BIOS update, it comes in a .ROM format.

D4ISY_CUTTER said:
anyone mentioned ram yet...

(gpu & cpu spike at the same time)

I have 16.0 gb of RAM...

EDIT: so I seem to get near perfect FPS while running crysis 2 with DX11 settings at ultra and res set at 1920X1080

Second update: running crysis 2 at 720p I get anywhere from 45 to 60 fps on multiplayer, depending on how intense the fights are. Now I know that Crysis and Battlefield use different engines, but my point is that I don't seem to be getting bad performance on any other game, and we all know that Crysis 2 has ungodly system requirements. I'm beginning to think it *must* be a problem with EA/DICE.

if its anything like my intel sabertooth, you save the .rom file to a usb flash drive like a thumb drive. and then you go into your bios on startup, and on the very last tab should be something about Asus EZ Flash Utility, you run that and select your USB drive and the file, and it flashes the bios. Its really easy