Limited performance on RTX 4080 and 5600G
Limited performance on RTX 4080 and 5600G
You're seeing your GPU stay under 60% even when the CPU is busy. That usually points to the GPU itself being the limiting factor. Check if the GPU is getting enough power and cooling, and see if other components are throttling it. Your setup with two M.2 SSDs should help, but ensure they're properly connected and not causing thermal issues.
You purchased a 4080 with a 5600G, which is a poor pairing. A 1200$ GPU paired with a $130$ CPU doesn’t provide a balanced setup because their performance differences are significant. You should always ensure each component matches the others in performance. The 4080 typically needs a much higher-end CPU—around 13,700k/5800x3D/7700x Type CPUs—to avoid bottlenecks. I’d suggest going with a 3070 or 3080 instead of a 4080, as it would likely struggle at full capacity.
Your RAM speed is important for the Ryzen setup. This situation highlights how PCIe bandwidth plays a role. The 5600G supports only 8X PCIe 3.0, whereas the 5600 offers full 16X PCIe 4.0. The 4080 demands significant bandwidth, which might be impacting performance. One M.2 slot will take dedicated paths from the CPU and another from the motherboard's chipset, so it shouldn't be interfering.
They are RTS titles. The specific ones aren't mentioned here.
Just so you don't get the wrong idea, there's no problem having a CPU at lower usage while the GPU makes full use of its power. The absolutely majority of games won't run your CPU to the max, not even close, so CPU % usage is not an indicative of bottleneck (a lower GPU usage is). Anyway, that CPU needs to be upgraded if you want to make a better use of the 4080. The same happened to me not long ago, when I upgraded to a 4090. I thought I wouldn't be bottlenecked at 4k with a 9900k, but I was dead wrong and ended up upgrading everything.
Its also not necessarily a terrible thing if your GPU isn't fully utilised, so long as the games perform to your satisfaction. The 4080 and 4090 are far more power efficient when not maxed out, so while you paid more for the GPU you can make that back on power savings compared to if you had an older card. Its just a matter of setting your expectations. I honestly wouldn't worry about performance unless the games are performing worse than you'd like. There will be newer CPUs and it will be cheaper to upgrade over time, rather than rush out right now if the difference is merely in statistics rather than you actually being unhappy with how the games are performing. There's a lot of focus on frames win games amongst PC gaming enthusiasts, but unless you're actually a competitive FPS gamer then aiming for sky high frame rates has negligible impact.
You're correct, I'll likely hold off on upgrading. The current performance remains quite satisfactory.
It's easy to assume you're paying for performance when you're getting it, but people still do this every day with broadband and mobile plans. I prefer thinking about it as an extra cost if needed. Not every game will be CPU-heavy, so it might help some systems more than others, while slowing others down. There are also improvements like DLSS 3 and newer video codecs. One reason I chose a 4090 was summer heat—it gets too hot even with air conditioning to run on my PC. Thanks to its efficiency, I can lower its power usage and still outperform my 3080 while generating much less heat.