I built my PC in November 2025 and recently started noticing some behavior I'm not sure is normal. In Palia, the GPU reaches 100% usage at roughly 200 FPS. When I cap the game at 120 FPS, usage drops to around 70%. A friend's newer PC with an RTX 5070 Ti uses only about 40–50% at the same frame rate.
I also play Assassin's Creed Odyssey at maximum settings. Performance is generally good, but I sometimes get stuttering, even while just moving the camera. On top of that, YouTube videos on my second monitor lag badly whenever I'm gaming.
Should I update the BIOS, chipset, graphics drivers, or change any settings? Is 100% GPU usage expected in these games, and what should I check to fix the stuttering and second-monitor video playback?
My system has a Ryzen 7 9800X3D, Radeon RX 9070 XT, Samsung 990 PRO 2TB SSD, 32 GB of RAM, and an AORUS Elite WiFi 7 motherboard.
4 Answers
100% GPU utilization is normally a good sign. It means the graphics card is the component limiting performance and is being used to its full potential. With an uncapped frame rate, the game will keep rendering as many frames as possible, so hitting 100% at 200 FPS is expected. It isn’t harmful by itself, assuming temperatures and fan behavior are normal.
For the YouTube issue, make sure both monitors are connected directly to the graphics card rather than one being connected to the motherboard’s display output. Also test disabling browser hardware acceleration, updating the Radeon driver, and checking whether the problem changes when both monitors use the same refresh rate. Mixed refresh rates or driver/browser hardware-acceleration problems can sometimes cause video playback to stutter while a game is running.
Try limiting the frame rate to your monitor’s refresh rate, or slightly below it, instead of leaving games uncapped. An external limiter such as RTSS can sometimes provide steadier frame pacing than an in-game limiter. Also compare the exact resolution and graphics settings before judging GPU usage; 1080p, 1440p, and 4K can produce very different results.
The 70% figure at 120 FPS doesn’t directly compare between different cards. AMD cards can lower their clock speeds when they aren’t fully loaded, so 70% utilization at reduced clocks may represent considerably less actual work. Your friend could also be using different settings, resolution, upscaling, or simply have the frame rate capped at 120 while the game could render much more.
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