Low GPU/CPU usage, what's my bottleneck?

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1

I sit around 30 fps in boralus, maybe 55 in stormwind. This is a problem because my GPU/CPU usage is only ~30% in these areas. My GPU is so under-used it actually downclocks from 2050 MHz to ~1550 MHz in these areas. It kicks back up when I leave the cities to 2050 MHz around 100% usage.

It looks like something is holding back my GPU in the major cities. Is the likely cause software or hardware? Is there something I can do here?

Thank you

RTX 2080 @ 111% power, +80/650
4790k @ 4.7 GHz
Corsair RM 850 W
Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (2x8) DDR3 @ 1866 MHz

edit –
the GPU/CPU are water cooled in an open loop. They top out around 55/75 degrees C, respectively.

2

Your bottleneck is your CPU. Wow, until supposedly one of the next two patches, only uses 1 core out of your physical 4. That 1 core needs to feed all of the information to your graphics card which is overkill for the rest of your setup.

I’m using essentially the same CPU and get better frame rates but I turn the draw distances and whatnot down to ease the load on the CPU to allow my framerates to increase.

From the preview that I saw, you can expect another 20-30%, maybe more once the patch that fixes it hits. Until then, if you really need more FPS, my suggestion would be an 8th or 9th gen intel CPU as they run at higher clock speeds and are better designed (I was hoping that the new zen chips would be upgrades but I’m told that they’re about equal to the 4790 in most gaming situations).

Hope this helps a bit!

3

I checked the highest per core usage of my CPU, and it’s 2 threads at ~75% usage. Is this still likely the bottleneck? At 4.7 GHz my single core performance is competitive with or better than the latest generations that launch with 6 or 8 cores, I have checked the relevant benchmarks.

Thanks

4

2 threads = 1 core, so your ~75% seems to be a few % low but I rarely see higher than around 85-90% on average, but I just doublechecked and my cpu is yours’ little brother, the 4770k. The benchmarks that I see show about a 18-25% difference stock vs. stock, which isn’t huge but still significant and I’m not sure how much of the ram speed difference is accounted for in that.

Another issue could be your hard drive, not sure what you’re running but BFA seems to be more dependent on the hard drive than previous expacs (especially in load times when you’re hearthing/porting/etc.).

5

Yes, 18-25% difference stock vs stock sounds about right. But at 4.7 GHz I’m about 18% above stock speeds. I said 2 threads because MSI afterburner/riva tuner doesn’t distinguish between cores/threads as far as I can tell. It may have been 2 cores, 1 core 1 hyper thread, or 2 hyper threads. I do not know which it was.

cpu-monkey is a site that lists single core cinebench scores of various CPUs. For reference, I clock in at 189, placing me at #12 on the list. This is very competitive with the 1 year old $1k intel CPUs on that list (a few @ 188). So if WoW is truly dependent on just a few cores, shouldn’t this CPU be better than 30 FPS in Boralus at just 30% total usage?

Otherwise, I suppose DDR3 is not really fast anymore. Is wow strongly dependent upon ram speed? If so, then this could be the problem I suppose. I was fishing to see if there was a software issue or problem, but maybe it could be that simple.

I’m running with a samsung 850 pro, with around 100 GB of free space left.

6

I’m not sure on ram dependency but I know that, depending on draw distance, there can be a ton of information being processed, which is why Boralas lags so much (many toons doing many different things that have to be processed and sent to your GPU). You might also try reducing your draw distance and see what happens.

I mean it sounds like your computer is pretty awesome despite still rocking a 4th gen but I’m just wondering about optimization for current chips and, also extrapolating, the amount of data that is being received from the server. Regardless of one’s connection speed/latency, there is also a cap on what is coming out of Blizzard.

You are on Proudmoore, so with a “Full Population” server, you’re going to be getting the most data out of any of them and with over 85% of the realm pop being alliance, Boralas is going to suck. You may try a class trial on a low pop (or maybe you have an alt somewhere) and see if this still happens there.

7

Go into Nvidia control panel and change power management mode for your RTX 2080 to prefer maximum performance. You can either do it globally or just for wow.

  1. open NVidia control panel
  2. click on manage 3d settings
    3)scroll down until you get to power management mode
  3. change it to prefer maximum performance
  4. click ok or apply
8

This actually helps, but still leaves me a bit confused. I’m now sitting between 50-60 FPS (v-sync @ 144), but my CPU usage dropped from 30% to 20% (still 75% single core), and my GPU usage remains unchanged at 30%/1515 MHz. I’ll take it, but I still don’t understand why I’m not either at the v-sync refresh rate or capped at 100% usage somewhere. :man_shrugging:

9

Yes, its your CPU and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I have a 8700k@5ghz with a 2080ti and 16gigs of 3400ddr4, I get 50-80fps in cites and raids on my ROG 1440p 144hz. My CPU sits around 70-90% on one core. I also have a Threadripper 2950x(amazing cpu) with a Vega 64 and 32gigs of 3200ddr4 and I get even lower around 35-70FPS in cites and raids with like 5% on my CPU usage(All cores). You wouldn’t want it to hit 100% anyways, stuttering\hitching might occur.

The next patch is supposed to help but i’m not holding my breath, the engine their using is old and they really just need to do a WoW 2 here soon or do a complete revamp of the game to better support current and future hardware. We’re moving away form speed>cores to cores>speed.

That’s because its not taxing the GPU, so it will down-clock it does the same thing to my 2080 ti and Vega 64. Go out into a zone with no NPC’s around or towns and your usage will shoot up, as will your FPS.