Is my CPU hindering my games experience???

Hi I am a new member to posting in the forum but have followed many members' sound advice especially chastity's with updating and tweaking my g73jh. (NB. I have done most of the tweaking associated withinn the main threads concerning latest VBIOS, Catalyst Drivers,etc).

Anyway without trawling through all sub-threads...... Is my processor playing up?

I regularly play taxing games such as Crysis 1 & 2, GTA IV, Dead Space 2, The Witcher,etc and have never seen my GPU temp go over 80c.

But i regularly quit to desktop and see that my Windows CPU gadget is maxed out 100% until the game has quit which makes me wonder about my i7-740qm?

Is this causing games to lag,etc and FPS to be slightly lower than other members claim to get even when i use the settings they are using.

Or is the gadget i see telling me porky pies, ie. in CPU-Z with twin turbo OFF (this is the setting i normally use when in-game) it shows the core speed as a constant 2900mhz or with it ON 3100+ most times. It just seems in my view the CPU is working far too hard but only when im in a game. A few of them games above i've mentioned are a bit old so are probably not optimized well for windows 7 but i am anxious enough to think of installing a new processor just because of this...is the CPU working its a$$ off normal when gaming, for that midrange model?

Hope this makes sense and thanks for any reply.

 

Your CPU is fine and is not the bottleneck.

 

Those games you say you play are all very hard on the cpu and with the i7's having lower clock speeds but 8 cores. If the game is like Star Craft 2 the the cpu would be the bootleneck because to only uses 2 of the 8 cores.

 

I feel like the CPU is a bottleneck sometimes in crysis warhead. I plan on doing a 920/940xm swap this summer.

 

It depends what the game can handle because not all can deal with multi threading at the moment and remember that the 2.8ghz turbo mode can only work on 1 core if two get in the mix then it drops to 2.4ghz which is slower than some Duel Cores but the fact each core has 2 threads is why it runs so much faster than the 2/2 duel cores not counting the crazy fast Xtreme models.

I wouldnt say those games listed apart from Crysis 1 are that taxing I didnt seem to have any issues with them and as people say it is the GPU that is the bottleneck only some games Starcraft 2/GTA 4 etc are bottlenecked by the CPU on some systems.

I have considered several times to move up from my 720QM to the 920XM as there is a good deal going but the evidence I have seen in other threads says otherwise. Mostly that it effects the lower FPS in some games but does not really benefit the higher frames.

Here is the thread I was considering before others helped me see the CPU was not the problem. HERE Mr Fire has quoted the results on page 2.

 

Yeah thanks for the posts.
For instance though in Dead Space 2 the game looks and run excellently but in the Witcher i notice the CPU is maxed out and the game jerks around just enough to be off putting (maybe 3 or 4 times in any said area). Is this because it is not optimized well enough and is an old title?

my mind has been eased somewhat though...Thank you again

 

If its the Witcher Enchanced edition that is just the game it does not like some cards or some SLI setups so dont rely on that as a decision over your CPU its just the way its made because I got better FPS and smoothness with my 8700's GT SLI than my 5870M Stick with the I7 its a bloody brilliant piece of kit.

 

Thanks dallers much more confident now....wish i had the balls to o/c it lol

 

Im the same however its not my balls that are the problem its just that im more interested in Hardware than Software or in other words more intelligent with Hardware than Software haha.

As the GPU is the bottleneck its best to overclock that than the CPU the 5870M should handle 800/1100 with ease as long as the temps are ok. You can use SETFSB for CPU overclocking although I believe you have to pay $5 to the developer to get the settings for it but it takes a lot of testing and crashes to find the right clocks and the temps are affected.

Its not worth it really as for gaming the 720QM is more than sufficient.

 

You shouldn't use the gadget to check CPU usage, using a monitoring tool like HWInfo32 should tell you what is bottlenecking. Keep in mind, you should use logging features and read it afterwards, as alt-tabbing from fullscreen games usually doesn't reflect the real usage. Oh, make sure PhysX is off, as it will use the CPU heavily unless you have an Nvidia GPU.

 

How do you make sure PhysX is off? I don't see any way to control it one way or the other. Some game titles make me install it so I need to have it on my hard drive but how does one turn the application on or off? Thank you.

 

Well, some games like Mafia 2, have a PhysX option (I believe it was like Low, high, off or something). To the ones that don't have them usually don't rely on PhysX or it is absolutely mandatory.

 

Just go into the Nvidia control panel and change the settings from GPU to CPU if you dont want the GPU doing the processing. I have never noticed the difference between software and hardware Physx processing to be honest.

 

Here is my response to this, it belongs in your thread. You got me interested in the 920, even if I do think it is mostly useless.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/565573-920xm-purchase-3.html#post7346725

 

Dont mate honestly please dont mention that amazingly wonderful processor Im doing an IC7 and thermal pad repaste on wednesday and I can pick one up for £200 in the UK im straining to resists its temptations! Noooooooo! hehe

 

I don't think PhysX comes with the Nvidia control panel, even if it did, it wouldn't ask you if you want to use the CPU or GPU for PhysX, since it'll only be able to do it on the CPU with the JH.

 

It does give you the option in the Nvidia control panel you can choose which GPU to run it on if you have SLI or you can choose the single GPU or the CPU to do the processing as shown below.

ATI cards do not have hardware Physx so there is no option it runs physx as software through the CPU.