Massively fluctuating GPU usage with stable FPS.

[Wonka_Vision]

Hi everyone - I have an XFX 390, and I've noticed that my GPU utilization as reported by MSI Afterburner fluctuates dramatically, but I don't notice any change in FPS while this is happening. For example, here's the utilization when playing GTA V. http://i.imgur.com/UDHQU83.png [1]
Everything is set to ultra and I get around 80-100 FPS depending on what's going on. I've noticed the same thing in BF4 and even in Furmark. In Furmark, however utilization never drops below 90-ish percent, and again a constant FPS is maintained despite this fluctuation in usage.
Anyway, is this normal? I seem to recall my 7970M would always be around 100% utilization in almost everything.

My other specs are:
-i5-4690k
-GA-Z97X-UD3H motherboard
-8 gb DDR3 1333MhZ memory
-EVGA B2 850 PSU

CPU temp never exceeds 72 C and GPU never goes over 85 C. I don't seem to have any viruses and all drivers are up to date (chipset, GPU, etc).
Thanks!

[Azza ☠]

Think of CPU and GPU utilization more as a heart beat monitor.

At a regular rate - it still peaks/drops over and over. As it gets faster - the spiking gets closer, but still peaks/drops (up and down). It will depend on what it's processing, but pretty normal activity.

100% utilization is bottleneck. Your old graphics card was reaching it's max limitation and couldn't keep up to the requirements.

Really bad spiking could also be a sign of bottleneck, elsewhere in the system.

Temperature could be a bit cooler, but not overheating or any issue.

Your system memory, perhaps bottlenecking a little, should probably be 1600MHz? Take a look under BIOS (normally F2 upon booting) > Advance memory settings > XMP profiles. If available, pick the best/optimal XMP profile (these are created and tested by the memory creators to give the best performance settings).

[_I_]

cpu/gpu usage depends on whats being done and what your looking at
look at the floor or a wall and gpu usage will drop
look at tons of action and cpu/gpu usage will peak