Hello community! This guide is dedicated solely to the explanation and details of what electronic bottlenecking is, and which CPUs bottleneck the all new GTX 1000 series GPUs and all new RX 400 series GPUs.
What is Bottlenecking?
Bottlenecking is where one component is hindering another components performance/efficency.
Truth be told, there is ALWAYS a bottleneck in a computer. Like a CPU being bottlenecked by a GPU -- yeah that’s legit -- but it’s designed to be that way. When one component is not at 100% utilization, that means it’s being bottlenecked by something whether it’s temps, fans, software utilization etc.
Why Do GPUs Get Bottlenecked by CPUs (When Gaming)?
In a gaming oriented computer, the CPU is the 2nd most important component in your system. The CPU’s job is to send pre-rendered frames to the GPU. The contents of pre-rendered frames are basically anything not related to what the GPU will render. A good example of this is the positioning/location of AI and the positions of your teammates and enemies.
While pre-rendered frames aren’t as hard to render as fully rendered frames, it still takes quite a bit of power from the CPU to render them out --of course this depends on the game engine--. This is why you still need a powerful central processing unit for any kind of modern or advanced game you want to play.
All Games Are Different:
The reason why bottlenecking is so confusing is because it's on a game to game basis. Games A, B and C bottleneck, but X,Y and Z don't. This is why narrowing down which CPUs bottleneck which GPUs can get extremely difficult.
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Here are the charts of CPUs that will and will not bottleneck the GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 and RX 480/470.
I’ve broken down the type of bottlenecking in 4 colors:
Black = No bottlenecking issues.
Magenta = CPU bottlenecking GPU only in a worst case scenario.
Blue = CPU bottlenecking GPU only in more advanced/CPU intensive games (like Crysis 3).
Red = CPU bottlenecking GPU in all gaming applications.
These charts will most likely change in the upcoming year as we see more DX12 titles go online. The problem with almost half of the CPUs here is DX11 which only supports 1-4ish cores at best. DX12 should allow higher performance of CPUs by tapping into those extra unused CPU resources.
Disclamer: I will only be charting the most popular CPUs on the market right now, or else the charts would never get done…
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GTX 1080 Bottlenecking Chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17VRKPjyiTBx9Ewc2xkmaMZD2tA3gSOG3rNtH4OEiz3g/edit?usp=sharing
GTX 1070 Bottlenecking Chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EQOWVLxk0DOFXKfzCmz9lEZ-qpMb7mIvt8KUYek69A8/edit?usp=sharing
GTX 1060 Bottlenecking Chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q7lIYRK5T0ABLvAkgbM_2jJGvbhlep27mR-eRcCy4FA/edit?usp=sharing
RX 480 Bottlenecking Chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qSkGtqIXpBBFwidUxl2LlWpIh3CQQGTrfc4WySMe14o/edit?usp=sharing
The RX 470's performance is so similar to the RX 480 that I'm probably not going to do a bottlenecking chart for that GPU. However let me know, down below, if you still desire a chart for the 470. It's not going to look much different than the 480s chart.
What is Bottlenecking?
Bottlenecking is where one component is hindering another components performance/efficency.
Truth be told, there is ALWAYS a bottleneck in a computer. Like a CPU being bottlenecked by a GPU -- yeah that’s legit -- but it’s designed to be that way. When one component is not at 100% utilization, that means it’s being bottlenecked by something whether it’s temps, fans, software utilization etc.
Why Do GPUs Get Bottlenecked by CPUs (When Gaming)?
In a gaming oriented computer, the CPU is the 2nd most important component in your system. The CPU’s job is to send pre-rendered frames to the GPU. The contents of pre-rendered frames are basically anything not related to what the GPU will render. A good example of this is the positioning/location of AI and the positions of your teammates and enemies.
While pre-rendered frames aren’t as hard to render as fully rendered frames, it still takes quite a bit of power from the CPU to render them out --of course this depends on the game engine--. This is why you still need a powerful central processing unit for any kind of modern or advanced game you want to play.
All Games Are Different:
The reason why bottlenecking is so confusing is because it's on a game to game basis. Games A, B and C bottleneck, but X,Y and Z don't. This is why narrowing down which CPUs bottleneck which GPUs can get extremely difficult.
****************************************************************************
Here are the charts of CPUs that will and will not bottleneck the GTX 1080, 1070, 1060 and RX 480/470.
I’ve broken down the type of bottlenecking in 4 colors:
Black = No bottlenecking issues.
Magenta = CPU bottlenecking GPU only in a worst case scenario.
Blue = CPU bottlenecking GPU only in more advanced/CPU intensive games (like Crysis 3).
Red = CPU bottlenecking GPU in all gaming applications.
These charts will most likely change in the upcoming year as we see more DX12 titles go online. The problem with almost half of the CPUs here is DX11 which only supports 1-4ish cores at best. DX12 should allow higher performance of CPUs by tapping into those extra unused CPU resources.
Disclamer: I will only be charting the most popular CPUs on the market right now, or else the charts would never get done…
****************************************************************************
GTX 1080 Bottlenecking Chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17VRKPjyiTBx9Ewc2xkmaMZD2tA3gSOG3rNtH4OEiz3g/edit?usp=sharing
GTX 1070 Bottlenecking Chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EQOWVLxk0DOFXKfzCmz9lEZ-qpMb7mIvt8KUYek69A8/edit?usp=sharing
GTX 1060 Bottlenecking Chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q7lIYRK5T0ABLvAkgbM_2jJGvbhlep27mR-eRcCy4FA/edit?usp=sharing
RX 480 Bottlenecking Chart: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qSkGtqIXpBBFwidUxl2LlWpIh3CQQGTrfc4WySMe14o/edit?usp=sharing
The RX 470's performance is so similar to the RX 480 that I'm probably not going to do a bottlenecking chart for that GPU. However let me know, down below, if you still desire a chart for the 470. It's not going to look much different than the 480s chart.
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