CPU upgrader or GPU?

John.Persson

I'm sitting with an i5 2500k and ATI 6950 2gb.

I'm fooling around with sensors and just noticed that when I'm in Arma 3, and playing with low graphic settings I get around 40 percent GPU USAGE. But if I hit Autodetect settings ingame for graphics, it brings me up to ULTRA settings and all that jazz, and ingame I'm getting around 10-15 fps and when checking the load, Im at 100 percent.

This is madness, why Don't I get 80-100 percent when I'm on low graphic settings? My CPU load is around 60 percent. So is that bottlenecking allready there?

Anyway, I'm thinking of getting a new GPU when new Nvidia series launches soon. But I'm worried about the load situation and if my CPU will be bottlenecked.

Why is
low settings = low gpu load

I want it to be
low settings = high GPU load (more FPS)



Just made a quick test with ULTRA and LOW settings in Arma 3, and capture that info from HWiNFO64, great application btw!

Is this my CPU Bottling out? If I would have an upgrade on my CPU I would get higher GPU LOAD on low settings and getting more fps or what?

Ultra settings!
UnvOTwf.jpg






Low settings!
xDSUdjh.jpg
 
Does Arma3 have a framerate cap? What fps do you get on low settings?

Edit: sorry , didn't see the fps line on your screenies.
 
recently I bought a Zalman cooler and overclocked my 2500k from 3.4 to 4.4 GHZ and it has made a big difference in rF2. Try squeezing a bit more life from that 2500k
 
Yup. I just bought an CM evo 212. Going to see if I can get a quieter pc and try to be around 4.4 ghz also.

Also, I'm going to hunt down an 3770k or something similar if I can find a decent price on a used on.
 
John.Persson said:
Yup. I just bought an CM evo 212. Going to see if I can get a quieter pc and try to be around 4.4 ghz also.

Also, I'm going to hunt down an 3770k or something similar if I can find a decent price on a used on.
Click to expand...

Those Evo coolers are great, for not a lot of money.
I have one...actually mine is a Hyper212+ converted to the Evo with the retention bracket.
It's been cooling my I7-3820@3.9GHz for about two years with zero cooling issues.
I ran it as high as 4.4GHz for a while but settled on 3.9 because RF2 already ran 'fluid' at that speed with excellent framerates.
 
Just tried Arma 3 again with autodetecht settings and it gives me ultra bla bla... high quality stuff anyway.

Is this good values? Im looking at the CPU volt and so on. Is this healty? I've only done AI tweaker in bios, 100x45 to give me 4.5 ghz while gaming.

Should I do the OC on a more manual way or what?

l5sXC6T.jpg
 
What do you want to do with the overclock? rF2 benefits more from increasing CPU than GPU power generally. So testing against ARMA may not be representative of the increases in perf you'll get in rF2.

As for voltage- if it's stable, don't worry about that. I'm running 1.368V right now. Your temps look fine. To test stability I ran the Metro 2033 benchmark 99 times looping, the Novabench tests, the Everest stress test and whatever else I could find to stress the CPU. Run it 100% overnight and see what happens.
 
Well, It's faster for me to launch arma3 and play some heavy things in a huge city with max graphics and getting a good load on the CPU instead of launching RF2.

Now, I'm going to try to learn how to OC manually and lower that VCORE. And try to be around 4.5 ghz just for the fun of it.
 
There are many posts on the web of people having trouble with GPU utilisation in Arma3.
 
Well, I got the understanding that gpu load is low on pretty much all games as soon you start lowering the graphics. Why have the gpu working hard :)


Anyway, just did a manual OC and updated my bios.



I choosed an ofset with 0.030, going to change that to 0.025.

This is a run with prime95 for 8 minutes, blend test. Looks pretty good in my eyes but i can get that VCORE down more :)

W61LXmX.jpg
 
Well, it looks like I cant on this chip get down that volt..

Well, this is 4.5 ghz OC with 16 gb ram set at 1600 with XMP and an Ofset + 0.030

25 minutes running in prime95, looks pretty stable to me.

Next is going to be a game test.

PmgT55y.jpg






And here is the arma3 test for an hour. Pretty good values overall. Im happy.

Next time I fire up RF2, I'll post over that to also.

But safe to say, nowhere near will it put any huge load on my cpu.

9QAj88u.jpg
 
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With your CPU overclocked playing at least in FullHD i'm pretty sure that you can even get a 780Ti that you won't be bootnecked by CPU.

Unfortunately your 6950 is completely outdated for today demands
 
Yup. Im actually waiting for nvidias new series. To see if there will be an pricedrop in the current extreme cards. Thinking of spending 300-400 usd.

Or buy something from the new line. But the 780Ti would surely fit me nice.
 
With a 2500k this is not even a contest. GPU easily, easily, easily, easily. Oops, didn't see you already knew that :)
 
;)

Yup. But the main question remains for me though. Why must I go HEAVY graphic settings like ULTRA in all options in all my games, to get a high GPU LOAD like 90+

Why don't I get high load on the GPU when I choose low graphics (cause I want more FPS DAMIT!)

Anyway. I'm getting a nvidia soon, going to be nice to finally run rf2 with decent graphics.
 
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