GTX 680M utilization question

So I'm not sure what the issue is but when I play games like Arma III, DayZ Standalone, and StarCraft II, I can't seem to get full GPU utilization. Its annoying because in most parts I'm being limited to 30fs no matter how low or optimized the settings. I assume DayZ is going to run weird because of it being an Alpha but StarCraft II never had utilization issues on my GTX 675M. Titanfall seems fine most of the time with some dips but barely. I'm going to try BF4 soon but was wondering if any other GTX 680M owners have had utilization issues?

 

I wouldn't worry too much, all of those games are fairly CPU limited meaning you won't see a huge amount of GPU utilisation regardless of what card you have.

 

If you're having FPS problems then I would recommend using Throttlestop. Amazing software to prevent your CPU from clocking up and down or not going to higher frequencies at all. The settings I use it with is 26T for Set Multiplier, untick BD PROCHOT. You should definitely see improvement. A note though, your sig states that you have the i7-3840QM so you might need a different multiplier depending on your preference. I have the i7-3630QM.

 

Can you give a bit more detail on how you OC it? I have a 3630QM

 

It's not OCing. It's keeping the CPU clock speed constant so you don't get drops in FPS during CPU intensive parts. The site to download from is: Throttlestop

Currently my settings are: Game mode (option number 2) Checked boxed on set multiplier to 26T. Unchecked box on BD PROCHOT.
If you wish to experiment by going for higher clocks, up the multiplier and run a CPU intensive application or a benchmark tool to see differences. Be wary of high temperatures, keep track of your temps. Check the Throttlestop guide for more information/questions.

 

Low GPU usage with low FPS is usually indicative of a CPU bottleneck. If you're getting a CPU bottleneck even with your setup it probably means the game is poorly optimized for multi-core CPU's. Unfortunately, those three games you listed all fit the bill as they overuse only one or two CPU cores causing a bottleneck there. You got better GPU utilization in SC2 with a 675M because you were GPU-bound whereas the 680M, being a much more powerful GPU, makes you CPU-bound.

Single-threaded performance (more clock speed as opposed to more cores) is king in single-threaded games. Since you have the i7-3840QM, you can raise the power limit by 10W and overclock it to 4GHz which will improve GPU usage and performance.

I used to get the same thing in Rising Storm. Frequent drops in GPU usage and FPS especially when looking at foliage, of which there is a lot of in the game. It was really an awful experience having to put up with the constant yo-yo between 30 and 60 FPS. Turns out there are some serious occlusion culling issues (a common cause of CPU bottleneck) with foliage in the game's default SLI profile. After a quick tweak of the game profile's SLI compatibility bits in Nvidia Inspector, I'm now getting constant 60 FPS and 99% GPU usage instead of frequent drops to 30-40 FPS and 50-60% usage.

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