What the heck is bottlenecking?

[DogSong]

Hey guys, I haven't gotten my 600 Watt psu in yet, so I decided to run a benchmark. Here are my specs.

Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.8GHz
Geforce 560 TI stock
4GB DDR2 RAM
7200 RPM 500 GB Hard drive

I ran benchmarks on the max settings for Arma II and Mafia II. I got 11 FPS average with Arma, and 22.9 with Mafia II. I downloaded CPUz GPUz and I can tell my Ram is not being used up. During both benchmarks, my CPU didn't get above 60% utilization and the GPU load stayed around 20% for Mafia and 50% for Arma. My question is, WHAT IS BOTTLENECKING ME?! Thanks

 

[evan.briggs]

what is your bus speed and your ram speed?

 

[Smart_Guy]

Could be the CPU!

These two games seem to be using only one or two cores and this gen of CPU's don't have Turbo Boost (auto overclocking) feature.

Check the CPU usage history graphs in the performance tab in the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc).

 

[DogSong]

Could be the CPU!

These two games seem to be using only one or two cores and this gen of CPU's don't have Turbo Boost (auto overclocking) feature.

Check the CPU usage history graphs in the performance tab in the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc).

But wouldn't it use all four if needed?

---------- Post added at 07:10 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:06 AM ----------

[/COLOR]

what is your bus speed and your ram speed?

My FSB is 1066, and the ram is PC2-6400, the fastest that motherboard can hold. Could it have something to do with my power supply? The utilization on my CPU is rarely half when running both these games

 

[iPwn]

But wouldn't it use all four if needed?

This may have changed in Windows 8+, but I know for Windows 7, it doesn't matter if you had 20 cores, the program itself has to be written to utilize them. If the program doesn't have that logic, it will only use a single core.

My FSB is 1066, and the ram is PC2-6400, the fastest that motherboard can hold.

Wow, I'd say you found your bottleneck. The chip isn't horrible, but that MoBo is pretty aged by today's standards. Today's RAM operates at twice the speed of your current setup, and that's RAM that's a few years old.

Could it have something to do with my power supply? The utilization on my CPU is rarely half when running both these games

That's highly doubtful. Not enough power simply means that it will shut off. If your PC consumes 400W and your PSU is only 350W, your components don't ask how much they can have before simply consuming all they can.

I would actually say that your CPU should be okay, and suspect that your motherboard and RAM combination are actually the weakest link.

 

[DogSong]

This may have changed in Windows 8+, but I know for Windows 7, it doesn't matter if you had 20 cores, the program itself has to be written to utilize them. If the program doesn't have that logic, it will only use a single core.




Wow, I'd say you found your bottleneck. The chip isn't horrible, but that MoBo is pretty aged by today's standards. Today's RAM operates at twice the speed of your current setup, and that's RAM that's a few years old.



That's highly doubtful. Not enough power simply means that it will shut off. If your PC consumes 400W and your PSU is only 350W, your components don't ask how much they can have before simply consuming all they can.

I would actually say that your CPU should be okay, and suspect that your motherboard and RAM combination are actually the weakest link.

RAM utilization sits around 80% and never hits 100

 

[iPwn]

RAM utilization sits around 80% and never hits 100

That doesn't really matter.

RAM utilization is a measure of how much is being used (divided by) how much you have available.

The game may be written to store 1GB in RAM at any one time.

If the RAM is slow, that doesn't mean the game will attempt to load more into RAM, it simply means that the process of moving from disk > RAM > (CPU/GPU) is slower.

If you could fit 100 cars on a stretch of highway, lowering the speed limit doesn't mean you can start stacking cars, they just move slower. Similar issue here, the speed at which the RAM can move is just slower.

 

[DogSong]

That doesn't really matter.

RAM utilization is a measure of how much is being used (divided by) how much you have available.

The game may be written to store 1GB in RAM at any one time.

If the RAM is slow, that doesn't mean the game will attempt to load more into RAM, it simply means that the process of moving from disk > RAM > (CPU/GPU) is slower.

If you could fit 100 cars on a stretch of highway, lowering the speed limit doesn't mean you can start stacking cars, they just move slower. Similar issue here, the speed at which the RAM can move is just slower.

Okay looks like I'll be going to the G41. Okay, so when I turn APEX PhsiX off in Mafia II, my FPS jumps to an average 50 FPS. Can someone explain that?

 

[iPwn]

Okay looks like I'll be going to the G41. Okay, so when I turn APEX PhsiX off in Mafia II, my FPS jumps to an average 50 FPS. Can someone explain that?

....

I did a little research and the APEX/PhysX engines should be primarily GPU acceleration and nothing to do with anything else.

I could guess... but that doesn't help much.

 

[Celery]

Okay looks like I'll be going to the G41. Okay, so when I turn APEX PhsiX off in Mafia II, my FPS jumps to an average 50 FPS. Can someone explain that?

Did that change your screen resolution?