gx660 is my i5 480 a bottleneck? Upgrade cpu?

Hello everyone I recently purchased my GX660x a week ago and it plays most of my games at maximum settings very well(1366x768 native).


The only problem is that everytime I overclock my 5870m there is no increase in performance(FPS) but there is a resulting decrease is GPU usage. Does this indicate that my CPU is choking?


I am well aware that because it decreases GPU usage it gives me more headroom to increase graphical quality. but on some games like shogun 2 it doesnt seem to matter. Problems are still there like extremely choppy 4v4(ai) and frequent drastic framerate drops.


If I upgrade to a quad core i7 720qm or 920xm is gaming performance(FPS) going to increase, decrease or stay the same gaming(not just shogun 2) at low resolutions (1366x768)?

any tips or help would be appreciated.

 

It really depends on the game. Games like shogun and generally RTSs tend to utilize a lot of CPU power so you would have increased performance.

decreasing GPU usage by overclocking can be attributed to 1) your CPU being a bottleneck or 2) you are using things like vsync which capframerate and with increased graphical power, the GPU works less to achieve the same.

If you plan to upgrade CPU, aim for the 920xm.

 

thanks for the input ryzeki. I guess ill play around with it for a while maybe i can squeeze more juice out of the cpu by overclocking that. if the problem is still there then ill upgrade to a 920xm.

 

Agreed with Ryzeki. Remember that you will need new PSU with 920XM. At least 150W, better 180W

 

I saw a good writeup about all the new Intel cores effects of graphics and it made very little to no difference even between the i3 and i7 quad cores with the same graphics card. So the quads dont really help at all.

 

You need to find the article because it has been proven time and time over that newer games and RTS benefit greatly from Quad cores. notable game is Battlefield Badcompany 2. There was even a performance analysis with StarCraft 2 which showed the benefit of multiple cores.

In this day and age, a dual core is just a very cheap solution, and quad cores just bring greater benefits in and outside of gaming. Specially mobile CPUs which are way weaker than desktop counterparts, and thus, still play a role in gaming performnace.

 

ryzeki has right, i upgraded from 430m to 920xm and i saw huge performance gain in starcraft 2, BFBC, windows multitasking and other benefits that comes normally with 4 cores

 

ive also read somewhere that the core i series are fast enough not to bottleneck a 5870. but i cant find the tests anymore.

I had a bottleneck before on my desktop (8800gt, athlon II 6000) when I first bought crysis. It ran very low framerates at lower settings, but the framerates increased as I increased settings and resolution. This feels like the case of my gx660 where the gpu is untapped thus causing low usage/perofrmance especially at 1366x768.

I read on another forum(overclockers) which totally contradicts what ryzeki said about the increased performance along with the 940xm. he(toxicredcat) said that with the 940xm he was still getting a cpu bottleneck.

not sure if im allowed to link other forums...anyways heres the thread
*****MSI Gaming Laptops - Stock Secured, get your XMAS Orders in NOW!***** - Page 17 - Overclockers UK Forums


has anyone else experienced this issue when the gpu is constantly underperforming?

 

Well, for one he mentioned Battlefield Bad Company 2, but that Just cause 2 Still underperformed. I don't know how CPU dependent is Just Cause 2, but I know that just by changing a dual core to quad core will increase performance in Battlefield Bad company 2.

He also said he used Vsync, which will always drop usage %. Have you tried enabling max graphic settings with huge AA/AF disabling vsync to see if your GPU gets to 100%?

and as I previously mentioned, mostly RTSs and some newer games already benefit a lot from a quad core. The rest will run fine on whatever you have.

Lemme know which games you want to test, i'll check if I have em and make some tests to see usages %.

and the reason I recommended the 920xm is to use it with throttlestop and bump all your cores to over 3ghz. That will ensure no CPU bottleneck in a long while.


EDIT: I just remembered! OpenGL games might have that underperforming issue (but a bit more severe), but I think this is ATi related more than anything else. Games like Spiral knights basically use 0% of the GPU for some reason and run like crap.

 

i have tried bumping up the settings but it just has negative effects on the FPS. GPU usage does increase but the framerate decreases though. From 60-70% usage to 70-90% but not like other games which constantly hovers at 99%(bad company 2 all maxed 2aa no hbao).

i still dont understand about needing to upgrade the PSU(power brick right?) along with the processor. will the upgrade cause the laptop to be plugged in at all times? or will just the battery drain while being plugged in?

 

Just Cause 2 is very CPU dependent especially in cities. I remember OC'ing my CPU and probably getting 15-20 more FPS.

 

then it is most probably CPU bottlenecked, as you are increasing your GPU usage but not enough due to the CPU.

The reason for getting new PSU with your CPU is because the 920xm requires a bit more power than the 480m. If you thinking around with your CPU and use things like throttlestop to really bring the full power of the CPU (3.2ghz across all 4 cores ftw) then you will most likely kill your stock PSU.

And my kill I mean it will overload and shut down, you would need to unplug and replug but if you keep loading the CPU intensively, the PSU will keep dying and thus not providing you with enough power to keep your machine at 100% performance.

For example, I use my HD5870m heavily overclocked and overvolted from stock. If I used my laptop to play any game with my current clocks/volts, my stock PSU shutsdown and I end up eating my battery. Thats why I have a 150w PSU and now I can plya no problems fully overclocked.

If I plan to also change my CPU and OC it, most probably I will need a 180W PSU. Just to be safe.

 

I see, then an OC or new CPU will definitely help huh?

I will aim for a december crazy upgrade, chaning my CPU, GPU, HDDs, more RAM etc. Basically maxing out my little machine.

 

any1 know how to make the mem work at 1333mhz? btw in the windows performance information tool my 940xm only get 7.3

 

Im getting very low gpu usage accross most of my games

League of legends 30-60% 45fps

Company of heroes 20-30% 20-45fps

Dead Space 2 30% 45-70fps

New Vegas 0-30% 55fps but stutters

L4D2 40-60% 70-80 fps

The only games which maximize gpu power is bfbc2, crysis 2 and and witcher 2. which all run great at high settings

I wonder if I screwed up on a power setting. I am currently using high performance. i dont use eco since it cant be customized.

maybe crappy drivers 11.6?

this is pretty frustrating. I dont want to spend money on upgrades to play older games hahaha

 

11.6 is not the problem.

I would suggest downloading HWInfo32 and use that with a beta version of MSI Afterburner's rivatTuner statistics server. With that you can monitor CPU usage in-game and see which games are CPU dependent.

 

i am currently using the latest beta of afterburner and hwinfo64 (not sure if 32 or 64 makes a difference)

i managed to fix dead space 2 (now running at 70-110fps 80%usage) by messing with the powerplay settings on each battery profile. Still company of heroes/dow2 are getting low gpu usage around 30%.

Its not that they are running badly, COH/DOW are always above 30fps but my old g50vtx5 ran the game better at 45-60fps at 99% usage.

are you guys playing game with high fps and high gpu usage?

 

How do i get the rivatuners statistics server to the msi afterburner program?

do i need to download them separately and replace afterburners statistics server with rivatuners?

edit: NVM got it to work...great stuff....now ill need more time testing the games hahaha