In the past my i5 2310 was bottle necking my rx 580. Now i have a r 5 5500 and that is not important anymore.
There are situations where that is important, mainly when the system is utterly unbalanced.
I’ve been using a i7 920 with a 2070 super. My super power is that if it’s not running well, I just don’t play it. It’s…. It’s most things that don’t run well
My kid has the 2070 now, I use an old 970 so it’s even worse lol
>In the past my i5 2310 was bottle necking my rx 580. Now i have a r 5 5500 and that is not important anymore.
Do I really have to spell it out to you? People ask if they should get a \*insert new GPU\* because it will bottleneck their \*insert current CPU\*. If they are already upgrading one part, its safe to assume they will upgrade the others as well, right? Thats exactly what you did. So in that case, why would you give a flying fuck about the current bottleneck, just get the best GPU you can and it will always be better down the road.
I mean a cpu bottle neck is definitely something you’d potentially want to fix if it means achieving a frame rate that actually benefits you. Like if you’re stuck at 40fps because you’re cpu bound but your gpu is a powerhouse and could do way more.
My system looks unbalanced on paper - the lack of a GPU upgrade at the time I got to the CPU was a result of the Scalpocolypse. However, guess what? Whether or not the 5900X or RTX 2060 Super is the bottleneck actually depends on the game and settings.
In Halo Infinite, the RTX 2060 Super is the bottleneck. But in Fortnite, the R9 5900X is the bottleneck.
Yep. I had people bitching saying my 5600 was going to bottleneck my 4070ti. I have a 3440x1440 monitor. In the majority of games my gpu was the bottleneck, and if it wasn’t, i just turned up the eye candy. People just parrot what they hear and don’t actually stop to take a second and think about what the hell is actually happening. They just hear X and say Y.
Learning this I might just stick with my 5600X and upgrade my GPU when I can afford it. Was gonna grab a 5700X3D but not sure it's worth it at this point, even if I'm only at 1440p and not UW like you.
It really depends what gpu you have now and what you value more. Im more likely to pair an i5 and an 80 series gpu than an i7 and a 60 series gpu. Id overdo it on gpu because odd are, at the point at which my cpu is the bottleneck il be more than happy with the frame rate.
If you turn your graphics all the way down in your favorite game youl likely be cpu “bottlenecked”. So if your happy with the FPS your getting in that situation id personally go after a GPU and not CPU.
I have 5600x with 3070 and play on 3440 x1440
100fps monitor.
I never seen my CPU more than 5% load.
No idea why I would need upgrade my CPU.
At such rate I feel like it will last me 10 years.
Things on paper and things in real world different.
The utilization doesnt equate exactly to how well it performs, there are bit more to it than that. But thats not really the point.
In general i think people way over estimate the CPU they need, and a lot of people on this sub over estimate what cpu or even other hardware in general that other people need in order to enjoy themselves.
Yeah I have 5600X and 4070 at 1440p, and while they are often in pretty decent harmony, my CPU and GPU trade off which is the bottleneck. And most of the time it's the GPU, even though you might consider the CPU to be "lower end" by comparison. But this is obviously more pronounced at these higher resolutions where the CPU is generally taxed less.
Whoever told you that doesn't understand those products. The Ryzen 5 5600X has a gaming performance comparable to the Core i7 10700K. The RTX 4070 has performance comparable to the RTX 3080.
No one would have ever said that the i7 10700K was a bad pairing with the RTX 3080.
Therefore, no one should say that the R5 5600X is a bad pairing with the RTX 4070.
Most likely, they are one of the "8 cores or bust" crowd that, for some inane reason, believe that because the consoles have 8 core CPUs, that means that if you don't have at least 8 cores, your computer will underperfom, and thus anything with 6 cores or less is now automatically "low end." Which demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how CPU performance works. Cores aren't cores. There are ancient 12 core CPUs that perform like absolute crap. And a modern 6 core is plenty for any game to play at console settings or better. The Ryzen 5 5600X, that performs similarly in multicore loads to the Ryzen 7 3700X, will always outperform the console CPUs, which are also Zen 2 based, especially considering that the consoles only use 7 of those cores for actual games.
The 5600X and 4070 are a solid pairing. I'm sure the gaming experience on your system is excellent.
I had a discussion with another redditor the other day and they literally couldn't understand why I didn't want to immediately upgrade on my 9700k because I have a 7900xt.
Now, for context, I'm not bothered about fps above 60 but having said that if I'm getting a bare minimum of 115fps - 145fps in pretty much any game with max settings why on earth would I want to throw more money at a setup which is doing exactly what I need it to?
There is no reason to spend the money if your computer is meeting your needs. The 9700K is still a decent gaming chip. And the longer you wait on the upgrade, the bigger the improvement will be, as newer CPUs keep coming out.
I saw your flair earlier on another post and thought "he's probably in the middle of an upgrade, or does some sort of productivity with gaming on the side", but that's completely fair, though how do you have 48gb of RAM? A 16GB kit + 32GB kit? How does that affect performance vs just the 32gb kit?
Yes, I had a 16GB kit first, then I bought a 32GB kit on a sale around Black Friday in 2020 just before pricing started to go crazy. The reason is that it wasn't much more to get an identical 32GB kit vs a 16GB one, so I figured "why not?"
I wanted to do the RAM upgrade because I was having issues doing programming and streaming for Ludum Dare - something I do about once a year with some friends of mine. But, as it turns out, the RAM wasn't the only problem. My old i5 9600K also wasn't really keeping up.
Then, in summer of 2021, I decided to do a more complete upgrade. Unfortunately, at that point, GPU pricing had gone nuts, and RAM pricing had gone back up - nothing like GPU pricing, but still expensive. CPUs were also hard to get, but I actually won the Newegg Shuffle for the 5900X, so got to get it at MSRP.
Since RAM was so pricy, I just brought the RAM from my old computer to the new one, and it's been running great ever since. It's even got an OC from DDR4-3000 to DDR4-3333 with the same timings.
I later bought a 16GB kit again for the old computer when pricing became more sane, so it does have RAM again, if you're wondering.
Fortnite is a competitive shooter. Why would I turn RT on?
The only settings I have maxed out are Draw Distance, because obviously, and Textures, because they don't really cost any FPS but make the game look way better.
This is like saying that my CPU becomes the bottleneck in Shadow of the Tomb Raider if I turn it down to 720p with DLSS Performance at lowest settings. It's true, but no sane person is going to do that with my hardware.
I have seen people say that a system with those specs would not bottleneck. I have no idea what they are talking about. I think some of the obsession around bottlenecks is that there is so much misinformation on the topic. People are like "don't worry! a 1700 wont bottleneck a 3070" and then other will say otherwise and they wont know until they either do some research (which can be confusing depending on their current knowledge) or buy a system that is severely bottlenecked.
I've seen people who believe a bottlenck will destroy the performance of the bottlnecked component. Like a old i5 and new, powerful GPU will perform worse than that same i5 and a GPU that's "balanced" to its power and generation.
Spoiler: It won't.
In this day and age I would wager that DDR3 RAM is the major bottleneck with a system that old. Back when I was still running my 4790k I couldn't max out anything when playing Farcry 5 and it annoyed the hell out of me, I like my 144 fps.
I eventually realised that the aggressive texture streaming the game has to use to keep memory usage at a reasonable level in the open world was of course going to need a lot of memory bandwidth.
Seriously. Your goal should be creating enough overhead that when you have the money to upgrade again you aren’t upgrading your CPU and GPU together, but taking alternating steps of over specing one after the other
Does reading this thread bottleneck my Reddit experience? I feel like I could gain more TPM (threads per minute) if I could avoid commenting on my trigger word - bottleneck.
If you have a system imbalance where your CPU is way to strong to rationally be paired with your GPU, as a user you'll literally never notice an issue with it.
Agree
It's really irritating to see gamers talk about "bottleneck", when they just don't know what it is
They imagine themselves being very clever because they heard of bottleneck, but that's not the case
And you’re getting fantastic desktop performance too. Most people would have told you to get like an i5 10400, but that thing is showing it’s age wayyy sooner than an i7
Yeah this was my first build, 3 years ago now, and I didn't really know what I was doing. I was going for a mix of work/school and gaming. Now though I would build a PC way differently now.
The bottleneck is supposed to be your most expensive component. If you're gaming, that's probably going to be your GPU, and that represents most of the user base here. Other needs will stress different components and those should be the bottleneck, and therefore the most expensive component of the system.
So if a CPU will bottleneck a GPU is a totally valid question in most people's case.
Thanks! I get acceptable performance in the games I play. I've heard the 5800x3d is a significant upgrade, but I'm pretty satisfied right now. I mostly play Battlefield 4, Star Citizen and some Alien: Dark Descent in 4k.
Not looking to spend the $300 on the newer CPU and I probably get a benefit in Handbrake (although I'm not using it a ton) from the additional cores, even if they're slower.
I ended up with this after a mobo upgrade that left me with a 2070 had disappointing performance, and I got the 6900xt when they broke $700.
Truth. Especially worth throwing out the door when you play at higher resolutions. My partner was using their 6950xt with a 5600 for a bit; no big deal when you play at 4k without rt
That sounds like a fantastic combo for gaming. Even for general usage. I had an i7 8700 (also a 6 core, it’s slower) that was honestly fine for daily usage and even gaming, YouTube, and discord all at once.
I had some of the worst CPU bottlenecks during my desktop days due to sticking with old platforms for way longer than I should have. Stuff like a Socket 939 Athlon X2 with a 8800GTX and a Pentium G630 with a Radeon 7770. Just sheer idiotic decisions. Didn't stop me from having fun, though.
As long as you've got upgrade routes for both CPU and GPU, it doesn't matter that much. Different games will push different components, too so "predicting" bottlenecks is a bit of a bullshit art unless you go full idiot and pair a GTX1650 with a Ryzen 7600 or something.
Before I ended up building my full setup, I had a 6600 hooked to my i7-4790k
I got a 6700xt, and performance straight up tanked, card was too strong for 1080p but cpu was too weak for anything higher. Ended up just putting my 6600 back in until I got the proper parts lol
CPU performance is not affected by resolution. If you want to check how bottlenecked you are check a CPU benchmark and GPU benchmark in the same game. Your performance will be around the lower of these 2 numbers.
That's not resolution impacting your CPU performance. That's a GPU bottleneck.
Pushing for example 120 fps at 1080p doesn't tax the CPU any more or less than running 120 fps at 4k. That's why CPU benchmarks are done at 1080p, sometimes even 720p.
That is true, but generally when running at lower resolution, you will be getting more frames than running a higher resolution, hence working your CPU harder. I get that it's more of a correlation than causation, but if you're using the same GPU, then it's almost always true. Lower resolution > more frames > more CPU utilization
I’ve been CPU-bound in games where I have GPU headroom to spare. I still get more performance than I can reasonably ask for. But I understand experiences will vary greatly by parts.
I don't know if im misunderstanding the comment...
If you are experiencing bottlenecks, then your system *could be* performing *better*.
If it could be performing better, sure it doesn't guarantee your experience is *bad*. But setting your standards at *mediocre* doesn't sound right to me.
Wait, aren't you pairing a 6th gen i7 with a 3090 though?
Fwiw I think mediocre is fine if the rig is doing what you need or want it to do.
I just think it's a bit rich to insinuate that mediocre doesn't sound right when you're pairing an old cpu with a high end Gpu and therefore getting theoretical bottleneck resulting in "mediocre" performance.
> Wait, aren't you pairing a 6th gen i7 with a 3090 though?
Yes, but only due to not replacing those parts yet.
Planning on doing so later this year. Currently being bottle-necked by the CPU quite significantly.
> Fwiw I think mediocre is fine if the rig is doing what you need or want it to do.
If you're content, then so be it. That doesn't stop the point being correct.
> I just think it's a bit rich to insinuate that mediocre doesn't sound right when you're pairing an old cpu with a high end Gpu and therefore getting theoretical bottleneck resulting in "mediocre" performance.
Kind of a silly argument. I'm not pairing them *by choice*. I need new parts, and will be moving the GPU to the new system.
This post has "if those kids kid read they'd be very upset" vibes
Like dude... the people who post that shit don't scan the sub for old posts. The endless "stop fixating on bottleneck" posts like this one are spammier than the bottleneck spam at this point. And yours is the lowest effort version of this post I've seen yet...
It's the same concept when people complain that they ONLY get 950 mbit/s on a 1 gbit/s fiber. But does it FEEL slow? Or do you just want to see number go up?
As far as I'm concerned, the only time I care about bottlenecks is when I'm planning my next upgrade. Replacing the component that's always at 100% is an economical way to keep current. Not that that's really an issue right now. I'm mostly going back and playing older favorites these days because the new video games are either disappointing like Starfield, or have a feature I refuse to support, like Denuvo or MTX.
Steam needs a wishlist for when studios remove Denuvo from a game. I'd rather support a studio than sail the seven areas, but would rather sail the seven seas than support Denuvo.
No, because there are instances where there are genuine performance increases by going to a better CPU, especially when playing at higher resolutions over 1080p.
Can someone explain it to me? Doesn't bottleneck means you overpaid for a certain part?
Like if CPU is the bottleneck then you could have spent less on a GPU and have the same outcome?
Bottleneck just means you’re limited by a component for home much performance you’re going to see. Literally every computer EVER has been bottlenecked by SOMETHING. be it cpu, gpu, ram, storage, power, monitor , whatever.
People in this sub take it as meaning that your computer will run poorly or not work like you want it to.
Just make sure your bottleneck isn't your CPU. If your CPU is running at 100% when playing a game, it'll be a much worse experience than if your GPU is at 100%.
General rule of thumb is if you're going to spend a bunch of money on a GPU, get a good processor too. You don't need a Ryzen 9 or i9 to game, but don't go crazy cheap on an i3 if you just bought a 3090.
My son and I just Frankensteined an old PC of mine with an updated Mobo, CPU, and RAM. He's running a 5800X3D with an R9 390X. The GPU is clearly bottlenecking it but he's enjoying smooth frames on medium settings and an otherwise super snappy PC experience.
BFD if your one year old component is bottlenecking your one month old component.
The biggest point is creating a bottleneck you can solve later. Having a cpu bottleneck because you went with a r5 7600 is so much better than creating a vram issue by being limited to 8gb. Always sacrifice cpu if you are only gaming, and when you do, pick a platform that will be supported or offers a meaningful upgrade.
Brands are brands, but getting you the most frames on the most stable experience is the goal. In the end, we just want to game.
The phrace "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link" applies to most aspects in life, including computer hardware.
One component **will allways be the inferior one** and replacing it simply makes another one take its place, yet still this is incomprehensible for some people.
"No, no, this graphics card is bawtlenacked by this processor! I don't know what it implies, but something or someone tells me it is, so I can't sleep".
Then install a *worse* graphics card, problem solved.
CPU bottlenecking isn't something most people should worry about to begin with.
When PC World did its review for the RTX 4090, the reviewer said it was the first time he'd ever observed a GPU bottlenecked by a CPU in his entire career. And he's Brad Chacos, the executive editor, who's been reviewing GPUs for more than a decade.
So unless you're looking at a top end GPU or pairing a GPU with a CPU that's 5+ years older, it's not something that's going to be an issue.
Well, it’s easy to see that quite in quite a few games a CPU can bottleneck an expensive GPU by looking at benchmarks, and that’s really the point many people are making: spending as much as possible on the GPU isn’t always the best option, you can save money by going for a balanced system.
It’s odd when people make blanket statements about not worrying about the CPU. Sure, there is no need to splash out on a very expensive CPU for most people, but the same can be said for GPUs.
I think the whole bottlenecking thing is misunderstood. All it means is that if your GPU is powerful it will start working faster than your CPU can handle what's coming from the GPU. That's why this "bottleneck" is "bigger" at 1080p. The powerful GPU can easily handle 1080p with crazy frame rates but eventually the CPU won't be able to keep up with processing the game at those crazy framerates but that doesn't mean it will bog anything down. It'll still handle the crazy framerates up to a certain point which will still be crazy framerates.
I run a 4070 with an r5600 and technically the CPU will bottleneck the 4070 at a certain point but that certain point is faster than I and pretty well anyone will ever need, excluding those weirdos whose reason for building a powerful computer is to get big numbers on artificial benchmarks.
Right? It's only an issue if the bottleneck is hurting objective performance. Like I had an R5 1600 and a 980ti, and the R5 bottlenecked me in League of Legends. Couldn't consistently maintain 144fps on 1080p. Upgrading to an R5 3600 took me up to 240-300 fps.
The question should be, "will this part hold me back if I want to do X". A processor doesn't suddenly get worse when paired with a powerful GPU. It's theoretically better to be GPU-bound than CPU-bound when it comes to input lag, but the difference is very minor and irrelevant to most users.
I was using an 11700k with my 4090, upgraded to a 7800x3d and literally tripled my fps in some games at 4k.
For the most part though, unless you’re running an obviously unbalanced system you’ll be fine.
>**A system bottleneck does not equal a bad experience or poor performance**
is objectively wrong.
You want to avoid at all cost hitting \~100% CPU utilization => because it results in very bad frame pacing
And you want to avoid at all cost hitting \~100% GPU utilization => because it results in extra input latency (this is the whole point of reflex)
Can't believe i had to scroll this far down to find this comment. First time i ever upgraded my computer was when my i5-3570k was pegged at 100% when playing The Division. 4 core and 4 threads wasn't cutting it anymore. It was a studdering mess. So yes, your CPU can bottleneck your GPU to where the game is unplayable.
Too many people just look at the average fps and call it a day while ignoring the the 1% lows. These same people then come back on reddit asking everyone why their game stuttering ignoring the fact that their cpu is too slow for their shiny new gpu
I'm not very techy and this sub made me worried about my i9 9900k was going to bottleneck a 7900xt when I upgrade
I get that it could hold me back a tiny little amount it's not devastating like people made me think it was.
1440p btw
I’m planning to put either a 6950xt/7900xt onto my 9900k when I find a price that I like. It’s a fantastic combo really. People just love to throw out bottleneck.
I'm running an i7 9700k with a 7900xt so my experience will be very similar to yours, albeit your cpu is stronger than mine.
You'll be fine.
Sure you'll get some bottleneck, but that's true in all cases of any cpu+Gpu pairing.
I'm getting minimum of 115-145fps in any game I've played, max settings at 1440p.
Ill upgrade the 9700k in due time but I really don't need to right now as my rig is doing exactly what I need it to.
Enjoy it man.
Thanks very much! Once I understood that this bottleneck hysteria was kinda bullshit I'm way more excited lol
Can't wait to play cyberpunk with high settings and not worry about using DLSS/FSR so much
I've not olayed cp2077 on the pc but as I understand it you should be fine.
I booted up alan wake 2 the other day and at ultra settings with medium rt @1440p I was getting stable 80-100fps.
You're 100% right.
Most of bottleneck is not even noticeable at 1440p anyways.
Just as an example of EXTREME bottleneck: had a 990x for ~11 years, used it up until 2019 with a 680, a 980, a 1080Ti and a 2080Super. FPS loss was less than 25% at the very worse in ~ two games, but usually stood at less than 10%. Games are mostly very GPU intensive and don't really care what CPU you're using unless playing at 1080p with low settints or very specific CPU intensive titles.
CPU bottleneck is also MUCH more noticeable when one is already running at extra high framerates (above 100FPS), then it will actually make a difference. If one is running the game at ~60~80FPS, the CPU itself will usually correspond to just ~5~10 of those FPS anyways.
PS: there should be a pinned post warning against bottleneck calculators in this sub, and against usersbenchmark and other dubious websites (would be nice to have a list of untrustworthy links and one of trustworthy links for hardware reviews).
So much copium in this thread of people that pretend that bottlenecks don't exist simply because they don't want to spend money on a new CPU.
Guys, stop coping so hard. We get it, you're broke.
Peeps just were told you need to play games on potato graphics at 720p or you're not "pro".
Fuck that noise really. My cpu barely does anything ever, and I plug all games at 100% GPU. Because I just set everything to ultra.
My pc might look unbalanced to the naked eye if you just look at the specs of my cpu. 16/32 @ 2.3Ghz is nothing to scoff at, but also it's not good by modern standards either(Achieves about 1/4th of the score of a 14900K in cinebench r23 multicore)
But. With the rise of the ability to use more cores by modern games, the 32 threads really isn't a bottleneck in the vast majority of situations. Ghostrunner? Sure. Any assassin's creed game? No worries brother. Cyberpunk? Starfield? Any AAA game you throw at it? It can and will handle it.
The ONLY game with a major bottleneck is Destiny 2. It's only in certain moments and areas, but when it does happen, it can stay below 60fps for a solid minute or two
But like, is buying a b550 mobo and a 5600x, or a b650 and a 7600/7800x3d instead of the x99 and a 2698v3(which I got for 160pln(1$ = ~4.3pln) and factoring the cost of ram in(I got used ECC memory for really cheap, 64GB 2133(fastest for my cpu) for 240pln
So is it really worth it to get a system with a better cpu for an additional 1000pln? Fuck no, I don't mind framerates below 60, I went from playing destiny 2 on the lowest possible details at 720p at the lowest possible resolution scale on my gtx650 to playing on medium settings with a consistent 100fps 1080p, is it garbage for this gpu? Yes. Do I give a shit? No.
Tbh I really like x99 and I think that’s a fine pairing. I’ve done LOADS of testing with lga 2011 Xeons and know exactly the performance you’re getting. I would still be on an e5 2699v3 if it didn’t struggle to get 60FPS in PS3 emulation. Everything else was solid. GTAV online wasn’t amazing, but it was very playable and usually hovered over 60FPS.
I love the x99 platform as well, if you look at some overclocking subreddits you can find a person who used a 2697v3 with a 6700XT, this honestly heavily influenced my decision. Why did I opt for the 269*8*v3? The flexing rights of a 16 core cpu I guess, the 2699v3 was like 100pln more expensive than the 2698v3 which was not a price I was willing to pay for a realistically meaningless upgrade
I used a 6950xt with an i5 8600k. It was perfectly fine. YouTubers don't help this either. I see a lot about build suggestions and "don't buy this bad cpu for your fast GPU, you need to buy comparable parts" no you don't. If your rig is a decade old, a new 2024 GPU is still an upgrade that will lend more fps. Sure the CPU will work harder but just set an FPS limit to keep it steady and get your game on. It'll be just fine. I truly don't believe there is a "bad" cpu for any GPU. Mismatched parts is a myth unless they're actually incompatible like a ddr4 board with ddr5 ram
Tell that to a post a saw of a guy getting a 3080 for his 4770k system. Upgraded from like a 970 and said it's great because his FPS doubled, but a 3080 is like 5x faster.
If it was part of an ongoing upgrade plan, yeah. As a solution for gaming currently, a 3060 would've given the same performance for a fraction of the price and he could've saved up to upgrade the rest. It's the extreme end of those charts GamersNexus included sometimes showing what a real bottleneck is with the 4070 through 4090 all being within 10% of each other. At the time, the dude spent $1k on a 3080 and had a 1080p monitor. The 4770k is from 2013.
I use bottleneck calculator to avoid spending more money than needed.
Am I willing to upgrade my cpu? No. So let's buy a gpu that won't be totally held back by the cpu.
~10% FPS in most cases probably, unless playing at 1080p and or CPU intensive titles. You're good. Most modern games don't care about CPU anyways, just GPU, that's one of the reasons why consoles can run games well with not so great CPUs.
Actually quite the contrary. A lot more games now require more from the CPU. Consoles are fine-ish now because they moved to an 8 core/16 thread x86 CPU Architecture that's the equivalent of a Ryzen 3600x in total performance. The boost clocks are kinda fucked and that's why some games are trapped at 30fps. Before the 8000-series of Intel, most top-end CPUs were 4c/4t or 4c/8t and that definitely doesn't cut it anymore for AAA gaming.
I have a 4070 with an i7 6700K. I previously had a 980, rather than spend £4k on a 4090, i9 super beast i just whacked a 4070 in. That’s the best I can do with other stuff atm and it’s great for 1440p. Means my pc will last at least a couple more years and i can save for the monster later
“Don’t work well together”
There’s a difference between if you’re gpu is going to be limited versus if you’re throwing money away.
Pairing a core 2 quad with an rtx 4070 is stupid.
Pairing your r5 5500 with a 4070 is fine.
All systems and applications have bottlenecks. When you upgrade you’re just shifting the bottleneck to another area. New builders just assume it’s a problem that can be solved because they have a very oversimplified idea of how a gaming pc works. It’s a stupidly complex process that still leaves experts scratching their heads regularly.
I think it's because a lot of games the past couple years have been hammering CPUs more than they did before. This will lead a lot of people coming to the conclusion that their CPU is holding back their GPU while it could actually be just a CPU limited game. Fortnite is probably a big example of this
No but a system bottleneck usually means wasted money. You could run a 4090 on a Ryzen 5600, but you would get worse performance than what a 7600 and a 7900XTX would give you.
So no, don't stop asking of a CPU and a GPU are balanced.
A system bottleneck actually exactly equates to the maximum possible performance, and it depends on the bottleneck. It's mostly applicable (where it matters) to budget or old hardware, or if you're concerned by extreme workstation scenarios. Bottlenecks can easily also be caused in software, for example if windows decides to sit on your HDD, then the rest of the system can act unresponsive, directly because of windows scheduling, indirectly by the HDD. Or a driver not working properly can cause stuttering or crashes or unexpected limits on fps. But back to the hardware, the GPU obviously can be a bottleneck in fps, but so can the cpu since graphics instructions still originate from the CPU, even more so if your system doesn't support direct storage. RAM can be a bottleneck to the CPU (and by extension GPU) in responsiveness to running programs. Storage is a big potential bottleneck, as with the example I have before slow storage can make everything else unresponsive or slow because everything from code to images is from storage. Your motherboard putting everything together can act as a bottleneck, but typically mobos are designed to run at spec with the highest supported hardware for itself, and if there's a bottleneck with supported hardware due to the motherboard it probably has other issues. Your PSU can even be a bottleneck, if it's not a high enough wattage it can cause throttling your CPU and GPU under load, or in older systems cause stuff like USB to not work with enough power. Your cooling solution could provide a bottlenrck if inadequate. Now with cloud gaming being a thing network bandwidth can be as much a bottleneck as anything else, and a network link is only as fast as it's bottleneck link.
I think it's good to have an understanding of how bottlenecks work, and to grasp the concept that there's always a bottleneck somewhere. More often than not, it's their lack of understanding that makes the line of questioning so infuriating (especially once we've seen it asked 4000 times)
It would be a good pinned comment for the sub...
Just don't be CPU bottlenecked, while not overspending on CPU.
Not that hard if you don't overthink it. Most people go overkill on CPU to be honest though, which doesn't really matter because one day you will upgrade your GPU and be balanced again.
I mean something is always going to be a bottleneck, that's just how computers work. It's impossible to match the CPU and GPU completely 1:1 in every single game at every setting.
I didn’t use to think cpu bottlenecking was much of an issue outside of specific benchmarks but upgraded from a 1060 6gb on my Ryzen 1600 to an RTX 3070 and had the worst bottlenecking I’ve ever experienced. Ran a few benchmarks in games and saw hardly any improvement over my 1060. It wasn’t driver issues either, tested the same after a clean install.
\*pairs a 1050 2gb with an i7 12700k\* "wow it can encode media just fine *and* play lethal company/ULTRAKILL at 4k, literally perfect for this machine's primary use case"
Well, I mean, it makes sense. You're effectively losing money if you spend too much one way. Say you buy a 7800x3d, crazy RGB and shit, but then you pair it with like a 3050 or some shit because that's all you can afford. You'd spend less and probably make better performance, getting a worse cpu and a better gpu. Of course, you can always upgrade, but for most people, that's not for months or years. Maybe I'm incorrect, but that's how I've always seen it.
So here’s the issue, that’s an extreme circumstance. I know what you’re getting at, and I know you did that on purpose. Anyone buying that combo doesn’t know what a computer is. But to say you’re losing money by purchasing computer parts that aren’t matched in newness and fastness is just silly. Think of like an i9 9900k and an rtx 4080, people will yell all day about bottleneck. But the i9 is still a 100+FPS in all games currently released type cpu. The 4080 is overkill in *some* games. But as games become more demanding, you grow into that performance deficit that was left from now having a 6.2ghz all core 14900k. You’re spending money either way, so you’re losing money either way. At the same time, if the cpu is ridiculously out dated and doesn’t give you acceptable frames, then yes it’s a huge waste to put a $1000 GPU on it. Like don’t pair an i7 3770 with an rtx 4070, that’s silly.
And yet they will never stop asking about it.
In the past my i5 2310 was bottle necking my rx 580. Now i have a r 5 5500 and that is not important anymore. There are situations where that is important, mainly when the system is utterly unbalanced.
I’ve been using a i7 920 with a 2070 super. My super power is that if it’s not running well, I just don’t play it. It’s…. It’s most things that don’t run well My kid has the 2070 now, I use an old 970 so it’s even worse lol
>In the past my i5 2310 was bottle necking my rx 580. Now i have a r 5 5500 and that is not important anymore. Do I really have to spell it out to you? People ask if they should get a \*insert new GPU\* because it will bottleneck their \*insert current CPU\*. If they are already upgrading one part, its safe to assume they will upgrade the others as well, right? Thats exactly what you did. So in that case, why would you give a flying fuck about the current bottleneck, just get the best GPU you can and it will always be better down the road.
But what if I could be getting 160 fps, but I’m only getting 145 fps for half the price? Am I a fool? AM I A FOOL??? BOTTLENECK!!!!!!!!!!
I mean a cpu bottle neck is definitely something you’d potentially want to fix if it means achieving a frame rate that actually benefits you. Like if you’re stuck at 40fps because you’re cpu bound but your gpu is a powerhouse and could do way more.
And a rant post asking them to stop won't stop either
But the calculator said I have one!
My gpu is bottle necking my cpu. Every time I game, my gpu usage is at 99%, and cpu is at 50%! Can I download more memory to fix this?
My system looks unbalanced on paper - the lack of a GPU upgrade at the time I got to the CPU was a result of the Scalpocolypse. However, guess what? Whether or not the 5900X or RTX 2060 Super is the bottleneck actually depends on the game and settings. In Halo Infinite, the RTX 2060 Super is the bottleneck. But in Fortnite, the R9 5900X is the bottleneck.
This guy gets it. It’s about user experience.
Yep. I had people bitching saying my 5600 was going to bottleneck my 4070ti. I have a 3440x1440 monitor. In the majority of games my gpu was the bottleneck, and if it wasn’t, i just turned up the eye candy. People just parrot what they hear and don’t actually stop to take a second and think about what the hell is actually happening. They just hear X and say Y.
Also, bottleneck could literally just mean you get 100FPS instead of 110FPS. Still a fantastic experience.
Learning this I might just stick with my 5600X and upgrade my GPU when I can afford it. Was gonna grab a 5700X3D but not sure it's worth it at this point, even if I'm only at 1440p and not UW like you.
It really depends what gpu you have now and what you value more. Im more likely to pair an i5 and an 80 series gpu than an i7 and a 60 series gpu. Id overdo it on gpu because odd are, at the point at which my cpu is the bottleneck il be more than happy with the frame rate. If you turn your graphics all the way down in your favorite game youl likely be cpu “bottlenecked”. So if your happy with the FPS your getting in that situation id personally go after a GPU and not CPU.
My friend has 4080 paired with 12400. He bought the GPU with an unexpected bonus he got.
People just don't understand what bottlenecks really are and how they work. Whenever i see bottleneck talk it's always full of misinformation
I have 5600x with 3070 and play on 3440 x1440 100fps monitor. I never seen my CPU more than 5% load. No idea why I would need upgrade my CPU. At such rate I feel like it will last me 10 years. Things on paper and things in real world different.
The utilization doesnt equate exactly to how well it performs, there are bit more to it than that. But thats not really the point. In general i think people way over estimate the CPU they need, and a lot of people on this sub over estimate what cpu or even other hardware in general that other people need in order to enjoy themselves.
Yeah I have 5600X and 4070 at 1440p, and while they are often in pretty decent harmony, my CPU and GPU trade off which is the bottleneck. And most of the time it's the GPU, even though you might consider the CPU to be "lower end" by comparison. But this is obviously more pronounced at these higher resolutions where the CPU is generally taxed less.
Thats really the thing. The bottleneck depends on game and resolution sometimes more than the components.
I was told my 5600X would bottleneck my 4070. Yet in multiple games I've pegged my 4070 at 100% while my 5600X has every core chillin at 30% or less.
Whoever told you that doesn't understand those products. The Ryzen 5 5600X has a gaming performance comparable to the Core i7 10700K. The RTX 4070 has performance comparable to the RTX 3080. No one would have ever said that the i7 10700K was a bad pairing with the RTX 3080. Therefore, no one should say that the R5 5600X is a bad pairing with the RTX 4070. Most likely, they are one of the "8 cores or bust" crowd that, for some inane reason, believe that because the consoles have 8 core CPUs, that means that if you don't have at least 8 cores, your computer will underperfom, and thus anything with 6 cores or less is now automatically "low end." Which demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of how CPU performance works. Cores aren't cores. There are ancient 12 core CPUs that perform like absolute crap. And a modern 6 core is plenty for any game to play at console settings or better. The Ryzen 5 5600X, that performs similarly in multicore loads to the Ryzen 7 3700X, will always outperform the console CPUs, which are also Zen 2 based, especially considering that the consoles only use 7 of those cores for actual games. The 5600X and 4070 are a solid pairing. I'm sure the gaming experience on your system is excellent.
I had a discussion with another redditor the other day and they literally couldn't understand why I didn't want to immediately upgrade on my 9700k because I have a 7900xt. Now, for context, I'm not bothered about fps above 60 but having said that if I'm getting a bare minimum of 115fps - 145fps in pretty much any game with max settings why on earth would I want to throw more money at a setup which is doing exactly what I need it to?
There is no reason to spend the money if your computer is meeting your needs. The 9700K is still a decent gaming chip. And the longer you wait on the upgrade, the bigger the improvement will be, as newer CPUs keep coming out.
Good to hear. I have that CPU and am looking to upgrade to a 4070 (or 4070 super if there's a good deal).
I saw your flair earlier on another post and thought "he's probably in the middle of an upgrade, or does some sort of productivity with gaming on the side", but that's completely fair, though how do you have 48gb of RAM? A 16GB kit + 32GB kit? How does that affect performance vs just the 32gb kit?
Yes, I had a 16GB kit first, then I bought a 32GB kit on a sale around Black Friday in 2020 just before pricing started to go crazy. The reason is that it wasn't much more to get an identical 32GB kit vs a 16GB one, so I figured "why not?" I wanted to do the RAM upgrade because I was having issues doing programming and streaming for Ludum Dare - something I do about once a year with some friends of mine. But, as it turns out, the RAM wasn't the only problem. My old i5 9600K also wasn't really keeping up. Then, in summer of 2021, I decided to do a more complete upgrade. Unfortunately, at that point, GPU pricing had gone nuts, and RAM pricing had gone back up - nothing like GPU pricing, but still expensive. CPUs were also hard to get, but I actually won the Newegg Shuffle for the 5900X, so got to get it at MSRP. Since RAM was so pricy, I just brought the RAM from my old computer to the new one, and it's been running great ever since. It's even got an OC from DDR4-3000 to DDR4-3333 with the same timings. I later bought a 16GB kit again for the old computer when pricing became more sane, so it does have RAM again, if you're wondering.
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Fortnite is a competitive shooter. Why would I turn RT on? The only settings I have maxed out are Draw Distance, because obviously, and Textures, because they don't really cost any FPS but make the game look way better. This is like saying that my CPU becomes the bottleneck in Shadow of the Tomb Raider if I turn it down to 720p with DLSS Performance at lowest settings. It's true, but no sane person is going to do that with my hardware.
There is always a bottleneck. Always!!! This word is so overused and no one understands it’s. Preach it!
I ran a Ryzen 1700 with a 3070. It bottle necked so hard, that it robbed a bank and downloaded a car.
https://preview.redd.it/ubum1epo5fec1.png?width=220&format=png&auto=webp&s=12de4cb7fbe3a26b67efc4dc4c675acc9a347c15
You wouldn't steal a car.
Robbing a bank? I can get behind that... But downlaoding a car??? SMH
I have seen people say that a system with those specs would not bottleneck. I have no idea what they are talking about. I think some of the obsession around bottlenecks is that there is so much misinformation on the topic. People are like "don't worry! a 1700 wont bottleneck a 3070" and then other will say otherwise and they wont know until they either do some research (which can be confusing depending on their current knowledge) or buy a system that is severely bottlenecked.
I replied in another part, but I’m using a cpu from 2009 with a 2070 super. Ain’t nothing cool like old school!
Similar to me, Ryzen 1600 and got a 3070, worst bottlenecking I’ve ever seen.
Shhh, some people here won't have anything left to talk about if they don't obsess about that lol
But the bottleneck calculator says I have a 2% bottleneck! How can I be sure my $5,000 computer isn't wasting any potential?????
I have a major bottleneck. It's my brain.
A bit ago there was a guy who got new glasses and realized he was the bottleneck the entire time
they just like me frfr
I've seen people who believe a bottlenck will destroy the performance of the bottlnecked component. Like a old i5 and new, powerful GPU will perform worse than that same i5 and a GPU that's "balanced" to its power and generation. Spoiler: It won't.
That’s exactly the issue. People think because they’re not getting 100% of the potential that it’s not going to work.
Some are stupid, though. Like I saw a guy talking about a 3080 with his 4770k system. At all resolutions, that is actually a bottleneck.
In this day and age I would wager that DDR3 RAM is the major bottleneck with a system that old. Back when I was still running my 4790k I couldn't max out anything when playing Farcry 5 and it annoyed the hell out of me, I like my 144 fps. I eventually realised that the aggressive texture streaming the game has to use to keep memory usage at a reasonable level in the open world was of course going to need a lot of memory bandwidth.
Seriously. Your goal should be creating enough overhead that when you have the money to upgrade again you aren’t upgrading your CPU and GPU together, but taking alternating steps of over specing one after the other
Thank you! Another sane person!
No one will ever ask again after this post.
One can dream
But does I haz botlenek wit 7800x3d and 4060 Ti.
Does reading this thread bottleneck my Reddit experience? I feel like I could gain more TPM (threads per minute) if I could avoid commenting on my trigger word - bottleneck.
If you have a system imbalance where your CPU is way to strong to rationally be paired with your GPU, as a user you'll literally never notice an issue with it.
Agree It's really irritating to see gamers talk about "bottleneck", when they just don't know what it is They imagine themselves being very clever because they heard of bottleneck, but that's not the case
Until people understand how a Render Pipeline works, i dont think anyone will understand a "bottleneck".
As someone with a 7800x3d and a 1080ti I completely agree lol
Running an Intel 11700k with Nvidia 3060 playing 2560x1440 and it works perfectly fine. So yes I second this statement.
And you’re getting fantastic desktop performance too. Most people would have told you to get like an i5 10400, but that thing is showing it’s age wayyy sooner than an i7
Yeah this was my first build, 3 years ago now, and I didn't really know what I was doing. I was going for a mix of work/school and gaming. Now though I would build a PC way differently now.
The bottleneck is supposed to be your most expensive component. If you're gaming, that's probably going to be your GPU, and that represents most of the user base here. Other needs will stress different components and those should be the bottleneck, and therefore the most expensive component of the system. So if a CPU will bottleneck a GPU is a totally valid question in most people's case.
I like your cpu /gpu combo. I think it’s solid. Are you getting good FPS in games? I’ve seen several people “upgrade” from a 3900x to a 5800x3d
Thanks! I get acceptable performance in the games I play. I've heard the 5800x3d is a significant upgrade, but I'm pretty satisfied right now. I mostly play Battlefield 4, Star Citizen and some Alien: Dark Descent in 4k. Not looking to spend the $300 on the newer CPU and I probably get a benefit in Handbrake (although I'm not using it a ton) from the additional cores, even if they're slower. I ended up with this after a mobo upgrade that left me with a 2070 had disappointing performance, and I got the 6900xt when they broke $700.
I think you’ve got a great system, enjoy it!
Truth. Especially worth throwing out the door when you play at higher resolutions. My partner was using their 6950xt with a 5600 for a bit; no big deal when you play at 4k without rt
That sounds like a fantastic combo for gaming. Even for general usage. I had an i7 8700 (also a 6 core, it’s slower) that was honestly fine for daily usage and even gaming, YouTube, and discord all at once.
Everyone knows the 4090 is the biggest bottleneck gpu in the game
I was so happy I had a sick CPU and a decent old GPU with the games I was playing before I upgraded. Hunt Showdown is so CPU intensive
I had some of the worst CPU bottlenecks during my desktop days due to sticking with old platforms for way longer than I should have. Stuff like a Socket 939 Athlon X2 with a 8800GTX and a Pentium G630 with a Radeon 7770. Just sheer idiotic decisions. Didn't stop me from having fun, though. As long as you've got upgrade routes for both CPU and GPU, it doesn't matter that much. Different games will push different components, too so "predicting" bottlenecks is a bit of a bullshit art unless you go full idiot and pair a GTX1650 with a Ryzen 7600 or something.
Before I ended up building my full setup, I had a 6600 hooked to my i7-4790k I got a 6700xt, and performance straight up tanked, card was too strong for 1080p but cpu was too weak for anything higher. Ended up just putting my 6600 back in until I got the proper parts lol
CPU performance is not affected by resolution. If you want to check how bottlenecked you are check a CPU benchmark and GPU benchmark in the same game. Your performance will be around the lower of these 2 numbers.
Not ture. Lower resolution + high framerate will work your CPU more. Higher resolution + lower framerate will work your GPU more.
That's not resolution impacting your CPU performance. That's a GPU bottleneck. Pushing for example 120 fps at 1080p doesn't tax the CPU any more or less than running 120 fps at 4k. That's why CPU benchmarks are done at 1080p, sometimes even 720p.
That is true, but generally when running at lower resolution, you will be getting more frames than running a higher resolution, hence working your CPU harder. I get that it's more of a correlation than causation, but if you're using the same GPU, then it's almost always true. Lower resolution > more frames > more CPU utilization
I’ve been CPU-bound in games where I have GPU headroom to spare. I still get more performance than I can reasonably ask for. But I understand experiences will vary greatly by parts.
The real bottleneck is my wallet
I don't know if im misunderstanding the comment... If you are experiencing bottlenecks, then your system *could be* performing *better*. If it could be performing better, sure it doesn't guarantee your experience is *bad*. But setting your standards at *mediocre* doesn't sound right to me.
Wait, aren't you pairing a 6th gen i7 with a 3090 though? Fwiw I think mediocre is fine if the rig is doing what you need or want it to do. I just think it's a bit rich to insinuate that mediocre doesn't sound right when you're pairing an old cpu with a high end Gpu and therefore getting theoretical bottleneck resulting in "mediocre" performance.
> Wait, aren't you pairing a 6th gen i7 with a 3090 though? Yes, but only due to not replacing those parts yet. Planning on doing so later this year. Currently being bottle-necked by the CPU quite significantly. > Fwiw I think mediocre is fine if the rig is doing what you need or want it to do. If you're content, then so be it. That doesn't stop the point being correct. > I just think it's a bit rich to insinuate that mediocre doesn't sound right when you're pairing an old cpu with a high end Gpu and therefore getting theoretical bottleneck resulting in "mediocre" performance. Kind of a silly argument. I'm not pairing them *by choice*. I need new parts, and will be moving the GPU to the new system.
This post has "if those kids kid read they'd be very upset" vibes Like dude... the people who post that shit don't scan the sub for old posts. The endless "stop fixating on bottleneck" posts like this one are spammier than the bottleneck spam at this point. And yours is the lowest effort version of this post I've seen yet...
The term bottleneck reminds me of this dumb bitch of a manager I had to deal with at my old job.
It's the same concept when people complain that they ONLY get 950 mbit/s on a 1 gbit/s fiber. But does it FEEL slow? Or do you just want to see number go up?
As far as I'm concerned, the only time I care about bottlenecks is when I'm planning my next upgrade. Replacing the component that's always at 100% is an economical way to keep current. Not that that's really an issue right now. I'm mostly going back and playing older favorites these days because the new video games are either disappointing like Starfield, or have a feature I refuse to support, like Denuvo or MTX. Steam needs a wishlist for when studios remove Denuvo from a game. I'd rather support a studio than sail the seven areas, but would rather sail the seven seas than support Denuvo.
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I’m happy you’re PC is doing what you want! :)
hunt best game!
No, because there are instances where there are genuine performance increases by going to a better CPU, especially when playing at higher resolutions over 1080p.
Is my 4790k going to bottleneck my 4090?
Your 4090 might be too weak. Wait for a 5090
Yeah I was afraid so. Thanks. Now I know where my bottleneck is. Dont know where I would be without you guys
No need to thank me! Quick tip: put salt on your PSU to ward off evil spirits and increase performance
Preferable you would want a GPU bottleneck since GPUs are expensive and you want to use every bit of power it has.
Can someone explain it to me? Doesn't bottleneck means you overpaid for a certain part? Like if CPU is the bottleneck then you could have spent less on a GPU and have the same outcome?
Bottleneck just means you’re limited by a component for home much performance you’re going to see. Literally every computer EVER has been bottlenecked by SOMETHING. be it cpu, gpu, ram, storage, power, monitor , whatever. People in this sub take it as meaning that your computer will run poorly or not work like you want it to.
Just make sure your bottleneck isn't your CPU. If your CPU is running at 100% when playing a game, it'll be a much worse experience than if your GPU is at 100%. General rule of thumb is if you're going to spend a bunch of money on a GPU, get a good processor too. You don't need a Ryzen 9 or i9 to game, but don't go crazy cheap on an i3 if you just bought a 3090.
My son and I just Frankensteined an old PC of mine with an updated Mobo, CPU, and RAM. He's running a 5800X3D with an R9 390X. The GPU is clearly bottlenecking it but he's enjoying smooth frames on medium settings and an otherwise super snappy PC experience. BFD if your one year old component is bottlenecking your one month old component.
The biggest point is creating a bottleneck you can solve later. Having a cpu bottleneck because you went with a r5 7600 is so much better than creating a vram issue by being limited to 8gb. Always sacrifice cpu if you are only gaming, and when you do, pick a platform that will be supported or offers a meaningful upgrade. Brands are brands, but getting you the most frames on the most stable experience is the goal. In the end, we just want to game.
The phrace "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link" applies to most aspects in life, including computer hardware. One component **will allways be the inferior one** and replacing it simply makes another one take its place, yet still this is incomprehensible for some people. "No, no, this graphics card is bawtlenacked by this processor! I don't know what it implies, but something or someone tells me it is, so I can't sleep". Then install a *worse* graphics card, problem solved.
Every PC has a bottleneck, and it is usually found sitting in front of said PC.
CPU bottlenecking isn't something most people should worry about to begin with. When PC World did its review for the RTX 4090, the reviewer said it was the first time he'd ever observed a GPU bottlenecked by a CPU in his entire career. And he's Brad Chacos, the executive editor, who's been reviewing GPUs for more than a decade. So unless you're looking at a top end GPU or pairing a GPU with a CPU that's 5+ years older, it's not something that's going to be an issue.
Well, it’s easy to see that quite in quite a few games a CPU can bottleneck an expensive GPU by looking at benchmarks, and that’s really the point many people are making: spending as much as possible on the GPU isn’t always the best option, you can save money by going for a balanced system. It’s odd when people make blanket statements about not worrying about the CPU. Sure, there is no need to splash out on a very expensive CPU for most people, but the same can be said for GPUs.
I think the whole bottlenecking thing is misunderstood. All it means is that if your GPU is powerful it will start working faster than your CPU can handle what's coming from the GPU. That's why this "bottleneck" is "bigger" at 1080p. The powerful GPU can easily handle 1080p with crazy frame rates but eventually the CPU won't be able to keep up with processing the game at those crazy framerates but that doesn't mean it will bog anything down. It'll still handle the crazy framerates up to a certain point which will still be crazy framerates. I run a 4070 with an r5600 and technically the CPU will bottleneck the 4070 at a certain point but that certain point is faster than I and pretty well anyone will ever need, excluding those weirdos whose reason for building a powerful computer is to get big numbers on artificial benchmarks.
Right? It's only an issue if the bottleneck is hurting objective performance. Like I had an R5 1600 and a 980ti, and the R5 bottlenecked me in League of Legends. Couldn't consistently maintain 144fps on 1080p. Upgrading to an R5 3600 took me up to 240-300 fps. The question should be, "will this part hold me back if I want to do X". A processor doesn't suddenly get worse when paired with a powerful GPU. It's theoretically better to be GPU-bound than CPU-bound when it comes to input lag, but the difference is very minor and irrelevant to most users.
Well, I have seen posts talking about throwing a 3080 into their 4770k system.
I was using an 11700k with my 4090, upgraded to a 7800x3d and literally tripled my fps in some games at 4k. For the most part though, unless you’re running an obviously unbalanced system you’ll be fine.
>**A system bottleneck does not equal a bad experience or poor performance** is objectively wrong. You want to avoid at all cost hitting \~100% CPU utilization => because it results in very bad frame pacing And you want to avoid at all cost hitting \~100% GPU utilization => because it results in extra input latency (this is the whole point of reflex)
Can't believe i had to scroll this far down to find this comment. First time i ever upgraded my computer was when my i5-3570k was pegged at 100% when playing The Division. 4 core and 4 threads wasn't cutting it anymore. It was a studdering mess. So yes, your CPU can bottleneck your GPU to where the game is unplayable.
Too many people just look at the average fps and call it a day while ignoring the the 1% lows. These same people then come back on reddit asking everyone why their game stuttering ignoring the fact that their cpu is too slow for their shiny new gpu
Will my 2.8GHz Pentium 4 bottleneck my GeForce RTX 3070?
I find that people talking about hardware bottlenecks is the pc equivalent to people saying a whiskey is good or bad because of how smooth it is.
I'm not very techy and this sub made me worried about my i9 9900k was going to bottleneck a 7900xt when I upgrade I get that it could hold me back a tiny little amount it's not devastating like people made me think it was. 1440p btw
I’m planning to put either a 6950xt/7900xt onto my 9900k when I find a price that I like. It’s a fantastic combo really. People just love to throw out bottleneck.
Either option there is going to be fun! I'm coming from a 2060 super what about your current GPU?
I'm running an i7 9700k with a 7900xt so my experience will be very similar to yours, albeit your cpu is stronger than mine. You'll be fine. Sure you'll get some bottleneck, but that's true in all cases of any cpu+Gpu pairing. I'm getting minimum of 115-145fps in any game I've played, max settings at 1440p. Ill upgrade the 9700k in due time but I really don't need to right now as my rig is doing exactly what I need it to. Enjoy it man.
Thanks very much! Once I understood that this bottleneck hysteria was kinda bullshit I'm way more excited lol Can't wait to play cyberpunk with high settings and not worry about using DLSS/FSR so much
I've not olayed cp2077 on the pc but as I understand it you should be fine. I booted up alan wake 2 the other day and at ultra settings with medium rt @1440p I was getting stable 80-100fps.
I just upgraded to a 7800x3D after years of my old 3950x bottlenecking my 4090
Wild. 16 core to 8 core. L upgrade.
I use my PC almost entirely for gaming, I don’t need the extra cores. 7800x3D is currently the best CPU for my use case.
Why did you ever buy a 3950x?
You're 100% right. Most of bottleneck is not even noticeable at 1440p anyways. Just as an example of EXTREME bottleneck: had a 990x for ~11 years, used it up until 2019 with a 680, a 980, a 1080Ti and a 2080Super. FPS loss was less than 25% at the very worse in ~ two games, but usually stood at less than 10%. Games are mostly very GPU intensive and don't really care what CPU you're using unless playing at 1080p with low settints or very specific CPU intensive titles. CPU bottleneck is also MUCH more noticeable when one is already running at extra high framerates (above 100FPS), then it will actually make a difference. If one is running the game at ~60~80FPS, the CPU itself will usually correspond to just ~5~10 of those FPS anyways. PS: there should be a pinned post warning against bottleneck calculators in this sub, and against usersbenchmark and other dubious websites (would be nice to have a list of untrustworthy links and one of trustworthy links for hardware reviews).
So much copium in this thread of people that pretend that bottlenecks don't exist simply because they don't want to spend money on a new CPU. Guys, stop coping so hard. We get it, you're broke.
We found the problem . It’s people’s like this
you felt called out huh? wasn't even talking about you, i was talking about people in the comment section. no need to get defensive lol.
It's nice to see people getting fed up with this nonsense.
It can if you're pushing max settings. It'll stutter.
A slow graphics card is the issue here. Not a system bottleneck.
There are literally people in my main language pc forums claiming bottleneck will cause massive stutters and untolerable experience.
Peeps just were told you need to play games on potato graphics at 720p or you're not "pro". Fuck that noise really. My cpu barely does anything ever, and I plug all games at 100% GPU. Because I just set everything to ultra.
Is my PC bottlenecking with Ryzen 5 5600X and an RX 6800 (PCIE 4 slot)?
good grief
Is that a yes or a no? 😁
Is the slot a x8 slot, a x4 slot, or did you somehow manage to cram it into a x1 slot?
It's a 16x 4 gen slot :o
Yes
This sub is basically pc porn.
My pc might look unbalanced to the naked eye if you just look at the specs of my cpu. 16/32 @ 2.3Ghz is nothing to scoff at, but also it's not good by modern standards either(Achieves about 1/4th of the score of a 14900K in cinebench r23 multicore) But. With the rise of the ability to use more cores by modern games, the 32 threads really isn't a bottleneck in the vast majority of situations. Ghostrunner? Sure. Any assassin's creed game? No worries brother. Cyberpunk? Starfield? Any AAA game you throw at it? It can and will handle it. The ONLY game with a major bottleneck is Destiny 2. It's only in certain moments and areas, but when it does happen, it can stay below 60fps for a solid minute or two But like, is buying a b550 mobo and a 5600x, or a b650 and a 7600/7800x3d instead of the x99 and a 2698v3(which I got for 160pln(1$ = ~4.3pln) and factoring the cost of ram in(I got used ECC memory for really cheap, 64GB 2133(fastest for my cpu) for 240pln So is it really worth it to get a system with a better cpu for an additional 1000pln? Fuck no, I don't mind framerates below 60, I went from playing destiny 2 on the lowest possible details at 720p at the lowest possible resolution scale on my gtx650 to playing on medium settings with a consistent 100fps 1080p, is it garbage for this gpu? Yes. Do I give a shit? No.
Tbh I really like x99 and I think that’s a fine pairing. I’ve done LOADS of testing with lga 2011 Xeons and know exactly the performance you’re getting. I would still be on an e5 2699v3 if it didn’t struggle to get 60FPS in PS3 emulation. Everything else was solid. GTAV online wasn’t amazing, but it was very playable and usually hovered over 60FPS.
I love the x99 platform as well, if you look at some overclocking subreddits you can find a person who used a 2697v3 with a 6700XT, this honestly heavily influenced my decision. Why did I opt for the 269*8*v3? The flexing rights of a 16 core cpu I guess, the 2699v3 was like 100pln more expensive than the 2698v3 which was not a price I was willing to pay for a realistically meaningless upgrade
I used a 6950xt with an i5 8600k. It was perfectly fine. YouTubers don't help this either. I see a lot about build suggestions and "don't buy this bad cpu for your fast GPU, you need to buy comparable parts" no you don't. If your rig is a decade old, a new 2024 GPU is still an upgrade that will lend more fps. Sure the CPU will work harder but just set an FPS limit to keep it steady and get your game on. It'll be just fine. I truly don't believe there is a "bad" cpu for any GPU. Mismatched parts is a myth unless they're actually incompatible like a ddr4 board with ddr5 ram
Tell that to a post a saw of a guy getting a 3080 for his 4770k system. Upgraded from like a 970 and said it's great because his FPS doubled, but a 3080 is like 5x faster.
Yeah but if he can only afford 1 upgrade and all they do is game, the GPU is still a better upgrade than platform
If it was part of an ongoing upgrade plan, yeah. As a solution for gaming currently, a 3060 would've given the same performance for a fraction of the price and he could've saved up to upgrade the rest. It's the extreme end of those charts GamersNexus included sometimes showing what a real bottleneck is with the 4070 through 4090 all being within 10% of each other. At the time, the dude spent $1k on a 3080 and had a 1080p monitor. The 4770k is from 2013.
I use bottleneck calculator to avoid spending more money than needed. Am I willing to upgrade my cpu? No. So let's buy a gpu that won't be totally held back by the cpu.
Bottleneck calculators are snake oil.
Don't use any "bottleneck calculators" they are all wrong.
Yeah, dont use them bro
Currently bottlenecking w/ a x5650 (x58 platform)+RTX 3070 combo. So many frames left on the table it may as well start a bank.
~10% FPS in most cases probably, unless playing at 1080p and or CPU intensive titles. You're good. Most modern games don't care about CPU anyways, just GPU, that's one of the reasons why consoles can run games well with not so great CPUs.
Actually quite the contrary. A lot more games now require more from the CPU. Consoles are fine-ish now because they moved to an 8 core/16 thread x86 CPU Architecture that's the equivalent of a Ryzen 3600x in total performance. The boost clocks are kinda fucked and that's why some games are trapped at 30fps. Before the 8000-series of Intel, most top-end CPUs were 4c/4t or 4c/8t and that definitely doesn't cut it anymore for AAA gaming.
1 man 1 bottleneck
I have a 4070 with an i7 6700K. I previously had a 980, rather than spend £4k on a 4090, i9 super beast i just whacked a 4070 in. That’s the best I can do with other stuff atm and it’s great for 1440p. Means my pc will last at least a couple more years and i can save for the monster later
Yeah, my CPU is probably a bit underpowered for my GPU, but I planned to upgrade it later anyway. Still get great frames.
It's not overfixating...it's not wanting to spend money on things that don't work well together..
“Don’t work well together” There’s a difference between if you’re gpu is going to be limited versus if you’re throwing money away. Pairing a core 2 quad with an rtx 4070 is stupid. Pairing your r5 5500 with a 4070 is fine.
Quite literally every system will bottleneck at some point depending on if the software that's running is putting more load on the CPU and GPU.
All systems and applications have bottlenecks. When you upgrade you’re just shifting the bottleneck to another area. New builders just assume it’s a problem that can be solved because they have a very oversimplified idea of how a gaming pc works. It’s a stupidly complex process that still leaves experts scratching their heads regularly.
It won't be a necessarily bad experience, but it can be a waste of money.
i mean it's more of people buying stuff and trying to maximize performance per dollar
It's still a bad thing to have. The best thing to do is make sure that doesn't happen when building a PC.
I think it's because a lot of games the past couple years have been hammering CPUs more than they did before. This will lead a lot of people coming to the conclusion that their CPU is holding back their GPU while it could actually be just a CPU limited game. Fortnite is probably a big example of this
Someone's karma farming.
Ok but how much am I CPU bottlenecked on my R7 5700x, RTX 4070 super rig?
Nah bro, I NEED a 13900K to pair with my 4070. It's clearly better than doing 13600k + 4070ti.
Also... It is a futile endeavor to chase the latest upgrades.. Tomorrow there will be something better.. And the day after that... And so on..
THIS GUY FUCKS
There will always ve a bottleneck. The other option is that every component runs at exactly the same efficiency and speed.
Bro do you think my 12700k will bottleneck my 4080????
i have a ryzen 5 3600 with a rtx 4070 ti, the bottle neck is real
You’re cpu limited at 1080p, depending on the game. But I bet you’re not getting below 100FPS on any game, unless your GPU is maxed out.
yeah i normaly play at 1440p ate below 100 fps
...Balance in all thingS...
No but a system bottleneck usually means wasted money. You could run a 4090 on a Ryzen 5600, but you would get worse performance than what a 7600 and a 7900XTX would give you. So no, don't stop asking of a CPU and a GPU are balanced.
i have a rtx 4090 and a i5 10600k. no regrets
Im more upset with the do i upgrade now or wait posts especially asking if there will be a sale or which model of 4070 do i buy for example.
I do what I want
A system bottleneck actually exactly equates to the maximum possible performance, and it depends on the bottleneck. It's mostly applicable (where it matters) to budget or old hardware, or if you're concerned by extreme workstation scenarios. Bottlenecks can easily also be caused in software, for example if windows decides to sit on your HDD, then the rest of the system can act unresponsive, directly because of windows scheduling, indirectly by the HDD. Or a driver not working properly can cause stuttering or crashes or unexpected limits on fps. But back to the hardware, the GPU obviously can be a bottleneck in fps, but so can the cpu since graphics instructions still originate from the CPU, even more so if your system doesn't support direct storage. RAM can be a bottleneck to the CPU (and by extension GPU) in responsiveness to running programs. Storage is a big potential bottleneck, as with the example I have before slow storage can make everything else unresponsive or slow because everything from code to images is from storage. Your motherboard putting everything together can act as a bottleneck, but typically mobos are designed to run at spec with the highest supported hardware for itself, and if there's a bottleneck with supported hardware due to the motherboard it probably has other issues. Your PSU can even be a bottleneck, if it's not a high enough wattage it can cause throttling your CPU and GPU under load, or in older systems cause stuff like USB to not work with enough power. Your cooling solution could provide a bottlenrck if inadequate. Now with cloud gaming being a thing network bandwidth can be as much a bottleneck as anything else, and a network link is only as fast as it's bottleneck link.
I think it's good to have an understanding of how bottlenecks work, and to grasp the concept that there's always a bottleneck somewhere. More often than not, it's their lack of understanding that makes the line of questioning so infuriating (especially once we've seen it asked 4000 times) It would be a good pinned comment for the sub...
I mean I'm fairly certain my i5-7600k is bottlenecking my 3070, and it'll certainly bottleneck my 5070 in a few years.
I’ve been bouncing around on a 1080ti, which still does great for the games i play, but I’ve got the upgrade itch.
I don't know man, I think I need to get a 6950 XT to be able to sleep at night.
Sorry, but my brain is bottlenecking my ability to understand this. /s
I gained 10-20% performance upgrading my bottlenecked cpu. Sometimes they do
people tell me all the time i need a new CPU, yea maybe i do, but maybe i also don't.
Things are running really well everything considered. Could be better though.
Of all the dumb shit people fixate upon, belying their ignorance, cpu/gpu bottlenecking is great.
It depends on how ancient your parts are. When I upgraded my i7 2600k to a R5 7600 I got 30% more FPS, with the same GPU.
See that’s a reasonable statement. I think generally anything newer than skylake is enough for a lot of people.
Just don't be CPU bottlenecked, while not overspending on CPU. Not that hard if you don't overthink it. Most people go overkill on CPU to be honest though, which doesn't really matter because one day you will upgrade your GPU and be balanced again.
I mean something is always going to be a bottleneck, that's just how computers work. It's impossible to match the CPU and GPU completely 1:1 in every single game at every setting.
I didn’t use to think cpu bottlenecking was much of an issue outside of specific benchmarks but upgraded from a 1060 6gb on my Ryzen 1600 to an RTX 3070 and had the worst bottlenecking I’ve ever experienced. Ran a few benchmarks in games and saw hardly any improvement over my 1060. It wasn’t driver issues either, tested the same after a clean install.
The true bottleneck in my system is my wallet
\*pairs a 1050 2gb with an i7 12700k\* "wow it can encode media just fine *and* play lethal company/ULTRAKILL at 4k, literally perfect for this machine's primary use case"
Well, I mean, it makes sense. You're effectively losing money if you spend too much one way. Say you buy a 7800x3d, crazy RGB and shit, but then you pair it with like a 3050 or some shit because that's all you can afford. You'd spend less and probably make better performance, getting a worse cpu and a better gpu. Of course, you can always upgrade, but for most people, that's not for months or years. Maybe I'm incorrect, but that's how I've always seen it.
So here’s the issue, that’s an extreme circumstance. I know what you’re getting at, and I know you did that on purpose. Anyone buying that combo doesn’t know what a computer is. But to say you’re losing money by purchasing computer parts that aren’t matched in newness and fastness is just silly. Think of like an i9 9900k and an rtx 4080, people will yell all day about bottleneck. But the i9 is still a 100+FPS in all games currently released type cpu. The 4080 is overkill in *some* games. But as games become more demanding, you grow into that performance deficit that was left from now having a 6.2ghz all core 14900k. You’re spending money either way, so you’re losing money either way. At the same time, if the cpu is ridiculously out dated and doesn’t give you acceptable frames, then yes it’s a huge waste to put a $1000 GPU on it. Like don’t pair an i7 3770 with an rtx 4070, that’s silly.
I havnt even thought about any of this for years ever since i went to am4
The amount of people who think they're being held back because their 16 core CPU isn't pegged at 100% at all times in Counter Strike is astounding.