AMD A10-6790K with Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1: will the CPU bottleneck the GPU?

xeonuu · Aug 25, 2016

If so, then:
1. By how much approximately in %?
(Say for example: CPU won't be able to keep up with the GPU and thus at 100% load for CPU, GPU would be at #% load)

2. What should I upgrade to?

3. Would I need to upgrade the CPU together with the Mobo?
If so, then which socket and which CPU would have enough "headroom" to add a 2nd GPU for 2-way SLI down the line?

My Mobo is: ASRock FM2A88M Extreme4+
12 gigs of DDR3 1333 MHz RAM.

Thank you!

Gam3r01 · Aug 25, 2016

It would be a substantial bottleneck, giving a percentage is nearly impossible, but its substantial.
You would want to upgrade to something like a skylake i5 or i7, this would require a new motherboard and RAM.

Ecky · Aug 25, 2016

I feel most people have a misunderstanding of how bottlenecks work. Your CPU will not cause you to have reduced GPU utilization directly. Rather, imagine that in a particular scene in a particular game, your old GPU can deliver 20fps at high graphical settings, 30fps at medium, and 50fps at low. Your new GPU can deliver 40fps at high, 60fps at medium, and 100fps at low. Your CPU will not allow the game to ever go above 45fps. What this means is that with your old GPU, your GPU utilization would not have been 100% at low, but would have at medium or high. your new GPU's utilization would be 100% only at high.

However, GPU utilization is irrelevant. If you're happy with 45fps, your GPU upgrade would let you have higher graphical settings at your same 45fps, but due to your CPU you would never get above that. If 45fps isn't enough for you, you really wanted a CPU upgrade, because you could've gotten higher framerates with your old card and a better CPU, just with lower graphical settings.

EDIT: The maximum framerate you can achieve will vary from game to game, and the only way to know what it is, is to test. Lower your graphical settings and resolution, and you'll see what your CPU's limits are. If the framerate is still high enough in all of the games you play, then there's no need for a new CPU.

Richard L · Oct 23, 2016

Ecky :

I feel most people have a misunderstanding of how bottlenecks work. Your CPU will not cause you to have reduced GPU utilization directly. Rather, imagine that in a particular scene in a particular game, your old GPU can deliver 20fps at high graphical settings, 30fps at medium, and 50fps at low. Your new GPU can deliver 40fps at high, 60fps at medium, and 100fps at low. Your CPU will not allow the game to ever go above 45fps. What this means is that with your old GPU, your GPU utilization would not have been 100% at low, but would have at medium or high. your new GPU's utilization would be 100% only at high.

However, GPU utilization is irrelevant. If you're happy with 45fps, your GPU upgrade would let you have higher graphical settings at your same 45fps, but due to your CPU you would never get above that. If 45fps isn't enough for you, you really wanted a CPU upgrade, because you could've gotten higher framerates with your old card and a better CPU, just with lower graphical settings.

EDIT: The maximum framerate you can achieve will vary from game to game, and the only way to know what it is, is to test. Lower your graphical settings and resolution, and you'll see what your CPU's limits are. If the framerate is still high enough in all of the games you play, then there's no need for a new CPU.

Richard L · Oct 23, 2016

TY Ecky!!
This is the straight Logical Technical answers people are really looking for instead of what is posted in most forums here.

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AMD A10-6790K with Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1: will the CPU bottleneck the GPU?

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