Civ V CPU use

AlecEiffel

Hi all.

Anyone playing Civ V? Do you find the CPU use a bit odd? In my 3rd gen i5 it seems to only utilise 30-40% of the CPU but turbo it 100% of the time (ie max frequency is 2.5 ghz but civ v pushes it over 3 ghz 100% of the time yet only uses 30-odd% of the capacity..

atrixblue.-MFR-.

AlecEiffel wrote: »

Hi all.

Anyone playing Civ V? Do you find the CPU use a bit odd? In my 3rd gen i5 it seems to only utilise 30-40% of the CPU but turbo it 100% of the time (ie max frequency is 2.5 ghz but civ v pushes it over 3 ghz 100% of the time yet only uses 30-odd% of the capacity..

are you using a graphics card? if not youll find that your using the i5's integrated HD graphics hence why turbo is at 100%.

Cycrow

AlecEiffel wrote: »

Hi all.

Anyone playing Civ V? Do you find the CPU use a bit odd? In my 3rd gen i5 it seems to only utilise 30-40% of the CPU but turbo it 100% of the time (ie max frequency is 2.5 ghz but civ v pushes it over 3 ghz 100% of the time yet only uses 30-odd% of the capacity..

This is down to the number of cores the CPU has.
Turbo is basically enabled when you have cores idle, so it increases the speed of the cores that are in use.

Single threaded applications (and games) will only run on a single core, so in a quad system, this will be about 25% usage. (100% usage on 1 of the 4 cores).

so 30-40% usage could indicate that its mainly running on a single core with certain tasks being run on an additional one

AlecEiffel

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

are you using a graphics card? if not youll find that your using the i5's integrated HD graphics hence why turbo is at 100%.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I'm using the hd4000 (why I still play civ iv mainly!!) but my understanding is the hd4000, although integrated to the cpu, runs completely separately to the cpu. So graphics use shouldn't ramp up the cpu use.

AlecEiffel

Thanks cycrow. So it's probably just the way the game is coded to use the cores then I guess.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

AlecEiffel wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I'm using the hd4000 (why I still play civ iv mainly!!) but my understanding is the hd4000, although integrated to the cpu, runs completely separately to the cpu. So graphics use shouldn't ramp up the cpu use.

integrated graphics use the same CPU die's, it also takes the CPU to access and covert your DDR RAM into video rendering memory, I don't think its completely separate as you think.

Cycrow

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

integrated graphics use the same CPU die's, it also takes the CPU to access and covert your DDR RAM into video rendering memory, I don't think its completely separate as you think.

It did used to be separate, integrated gpus were basically on the motherboard. But with the modern cpu, these have now been moved to the cpu.
it does depend what integrate gpu you have, in the case of the HD4000 (or any intel HD series) its on the cpu.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Cycrow wrote: »

It did used to be separate, integrated gpus were basically on the motherboard. But with the modern cpu, these have now been moved to the cpu.
it does depend what integrate gpu you have, in the case of the HD4000 (or any intel HD series) its on the cpu.

I know, and like I said it maybe integrated, but its not operated as independent GPU within the CPU as people like to think.