Hey folks! I've recently encountered a frustrating issue after moving my components into a new case. I've got an RTX 4080 paired with a Ryzen 9 7900X, but it feels like I'm hitting a CPU bottleneck while gaming. I'm playing titles like Overwatch, Ark: Survival Ascended, and Baldur's Gate 3, and I'm only seeing about 50% GPU utilization, along with around 6GB of VRAM being used. This is surprising since I've built over 30 PCs in the last couple of years and usually, I understand underutilization at lower to medium resolutions like 1440p. No one is ever too experienced to run into new problems though! If anyone has tips or advice on how to fix this, I'd really appreciate it. I've already played around with some BIOS settings, adjusting them from auto to Gen4, but the performance boost was minimal — just about 10 extra FPS in most games. Any insights would be awesome!
4 Answers
It sounds like you're running CPU-heavy games which can definitely cause this type of behavior. In situations like this, cranking up the graphic settings to max can help increase GPU usage. If you're after extra FPS, you might want to try lowering the graphics settings, enabling DLSS, or using frame generation features if they’re available.
Have you considered doing a fresh OS install? I’ve noticed that often clears up software or driver-related issues. Sometimes, just refreshing your system can make a huge difference.
Yep, I did a fresh Windows install just two days ago, Windows 10 Pro.
Try turning off automatic driver updates in Windows. Uninstall any old drivers using DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller) and roll back to driver version 566.36; I’ve heard it does wonders in some cases.
Will do, thanks for the tip!
Make sure PBO (Precision Boost Overdrive) is enabled. Check your temperatures and ensure your system is on a balanced power plan. It might also help to test other GPU-intensive games to see if the issue persists, and don't forget to update your chipset drivers and BIOS.
I'll give that a shot and let you know how it goes.
Yeah, but even with Ark, I've maxed all settings and I'm struggling to get above 30 FPS, even with some tweaks!