I'm getting very poor performance in several games, but my GTX 1650 usually stays around 20–30% utilization. This happens in Helldivers 2, MechWarrior Online, Armored Core 6, Palworld, ARC Raiders, and others at 1920×1080 resolution. My CPU is a ninth-generation Intel Core i5, and overall CPU usage appears to be around 30–40%. What could be limiting performance, and what should I check to fix it?
1 Answer
Low overall CPU usage doesn’t necessarily rule out a CPU bottleneck, since one or two CPU cores may be maxed while the total percentage looks low. First check per-core CPU usage, temperatures, clock speeds, FPS limits, V-Sync, and whether the games are actually using the GTX 1650 rather than integrated graphics. Also set the system and GPU power plans to high performance and update or clean-install the graphics driver. If the GPU usage rises when you increase graphics settings or resolution, the system was probably CPU-limited; if it stays low, look for an FPS cap, power, thermal, or driver issue.
Check GPU-Z or the performance tab while a game is running to confirm the GTX 1650 is active. Also monitor each CPU core instead of relying only on the overall CPU percentage—one busy core can hold back the GPU while total usage remains around 30–40%.