Low (130) FPS in basic scene

Specs: I7 4790k, 16gb RAM, R9 FuryX.

The basic premise for my question is this

UE4’s most basic scenario on terrain (Just a default grass material applied) I get 130 FPS packaged looking down. Without grass but a more advanced material instance and looking down I get a mere 90 fps.

In contrast fully built and admittedly beautifully optimized title The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Redux that number is simply dramatically better at 220-250 fps whist looking at the ground. (and no FPS lock or V-sync is at play in either example PostP is in check too)

The bottleneck appears to be in the CPU render thread as Draw is always equal to the GPU, this remains the case through most of my scenarios with and without grass at 60 FPS to 130 completely bare.

Now I understand that Rendering and Optimization is a very complicated and involved topic and I’m in the process of learning all of it, but to keep this particular question really simple I want to ask you fine folks for your input, specifically if you have any suggestions to improve the performance bottleneck and or how to deal with Draw render thread bottlenecks. Any insight and or questions are appreciated and I’ll do my best to respond/comply with recommendations.

PS: Personally I find using the fantastic debugging tools informative, I just don’t know how to interpret all that information yet so it feels a little daunting at this time. I’m trying to figure out core optimization concepts before I start building the world for my project. Any guidance will also be appreciated.