Question Bottleneck

[BossyBigBoss]

Every bottleneck related threads are just people asking if the components of their built is going to bottleneck, which doesn't help. Could someone please tell me how to know when components can bottleneck and whatnot? Would be really helpful, cause I'm upgrading my pc, but I want to figure out by myself.

 

[ElectrO_90]

Every bottleneck related threads are just people asking if the components of their built is going to bottleneck, which doesn't help. Could someone please tell me how to know when components can bottleneck and whatnot? Would be really helpful, cause I'm upgrading my pc, but I want to figure out by myself.

when something is really cheap or old going with something that's new and expensive

 

[BossyBigBoss]

when something is really cheap or old going with something that's new and expensive

That's exactly what the Bottlenecker defines bottlenecking as. Please elaborate.

 

[AllanGH]

You will ALWAYS have a bottleneck in a system.

The trick is to know when that slowdown in data transfer will cause a particular facet of system operation to upset you.

Most people obsessing over 'bottlenecking' are high pissed-off about it because it affects their frame rates while gaming.

You can avoid the grosser effects of data transfer slow down by balancing system component selections to allow a particular subsystem to run at its designed speed and capacity.

This means matching CPU performance to GPU performance, along with memory speeds which don't constrain either, as well as sufficient memory capacity so as to reduce swapping--particularly if frame rates are going to be your primary pet peeve.

That's where some serious research comes into play.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Well, it isn't super easy to give a magic formula for what will bottleneck. It depends on about a dozen different things. Just because you have a GPU bottleneck in one game doesn't mean it will exist in another, and the same goes for a CPU bottleneck.

Plainly stated a bottleneck is when one piece of the system prevents the rest of the system from hitting the performance it is capable of. Bottlenecks are easy to spot though. Just look for the component that is maxing out when the rest of the system still has unused resources.

Ideally when building a system you want a balanced system. So, I'll use my desktop as a good example. I have an i5 4590, RX 470, 16GB of RAM, and two midrange SSDs. In most games I'm GPU bottlnecked, but not in a major way. When my GPU is maxed out, my CPU is around 75-85% used in games that are graphics intensive. This allows my system to have additional CPU resources in case there is something that needs to happen in the background. I always like to have some extra CPU resources and to max out the GPU. If I hit a game where I'm CPU bottlenecked I crank the graphics settings until the GPU is working harder, which is an option for alleviating a CPU bottleneck.

Now, if I were to throw an RTX 2070 into my system I'd have an almost constant CPU bottleneck. The CPU just can't feed a 2070 enough and will max out. If I were to upgrade to a Ryzen 7 2700X, I'd max out the GPU but use less than half of what the CPU is capable of. Neither of those is a great case as I'd be wasting money for performance I could never use. A serious bottleneck is one where you waste money. It wouldn't be as bad if I were using the system for something outside of gaming that would take advantage of the extra resources though. This is why a 2700X with a RX 580 or something would make sense for someone who wants to do some gaming but mainly needs the PC for video editing. The CPU resources are being used, just not all for gaming, and when it is time to game the RX 580 can give everything it has to give even though the CPU sits mostly idle. It isn't a waste because the extra resources have a purpose.

Hopefully that wasn't confusing.

 

[hftvhftv]

All computers have a bottleneck at some task. When gaming, you always want to have your GPUs be the weakest link, so you can utilize them 100%. I have an AMD FX 8350 with two GTX 770s in SLI, and right now, my bottleneck is not the two graphics cards, but rather my CPU. So in order to increase my gaming performance, my only option is to replace my CPU with a faster model. I can throw as much money I want at for example an RTX Titan, but my gaming performance is going to be limited by my now quite old FX 8350. On the other hand, when I initially built my PC with a GeForce 9800 GX2, my bottleneck was my CPU, and also for when I had a GTX 750 Ti, but now I have finally reached the point where I need to upgrade my computer's entire CPU platform to see an increase in gaming performance.

 

[BossyBigBoss]

You will ALWAYS have a bottleneck in a system.

The trick is to know when that slowdown in data transfer will cause a particular facet of system operation to upset you.

Most people obsessing over 'bottlenecking' are high pissed-off about it because it affects their frame rates while gaming.

You can avoid the grosser effects of data transfer slow down by balancing system component selections to allow a particular subsystem to run at its designed speed and capacity.

This means matching CPU performance to GPU performance, along with memory speeds which don't constrain either, as well as sufficient memory capacity so as to reduce swapping--particularly if frame rates are going to be your primary pet peeve.

That's where some serious research comes into play.

Can you give me an example of "proportionally" equal performance between a GPU and CPU?

 

[BossyBigBoss]

Well, it isn't super easy to give a magic formula for what will bottleneck. It depends on about a dozen different things. Just because you have a GPU bottleneck in one game doesn't mean it will exist in another, and the same goes for a CPU bottleneck.

Plainly stated a bottleneck is when one piece of the system prevents the rest of the system from hitting the performance it is capable of. Bottlenecks are easy to spot though. Just look for the component that is maxing out when the rest of the system still has unused resources.

Ideally when building a system you want a balanced system. So, I'll use my desktop as a good example. I have an i5 4590, RX 470, 16GB of RAM, and two midrange SSDs. In most games I'm GPU bottlnecked, but not in a major way. When my GPU is maxed out, my CPU is around 75-85% used in games that are graphics intensive. This allows my system to have additional CPU resources in case there is something that needs to happen in the background. I always like to have some extra CPU resources and to max out the GPU. If I hit a game where I'm CPU bottlenecked I crank the graphics settings until the GPU is working harder, which is an option for alleviating a CPU bottleneck.

Now, if I were to throw an RTX 2070 into my system I'd have an almost constant CPU bottleneck. The CPU just can't feed a 2070 enough and will max out. If I were to upgrade to a Ryzen 7 2700X, I'd max out the GPU but use less than half of what the CPU is capable of. Neither of those is a great case as I'd be wasting money for performance I could never use. A serious bottleneck is one where you waste money. It wouldn't be as bad if I were using the system for something outside of gaming that would take advantage of the extra resources though. This is why a 2700X with a RX 580 or something would make sense for someone who wants to do some gaming but mainly needs the PC for video editing. The CPU resources are being used, just not all for gaming, and when it is time to game the RX 580 can give everything it has to give even though the CPU sits mostly idle. It isn't a waste because the extra resources have a purpose.

Hopefully that wasn't confusing.

Confusing, not, useful and appreciated, is. Just to clarify, in my current situation. I'm not really informed in the age of the Zotac GeForce GTX 1050Ti, but I assume it's quite new or recent(?) Matched with an AMD Ryzen 3 1200, which is, not old but not new either, creates CPU bottleneck, because of that age difference? So, I'm restricted in data transfer and background running performance, etc etc. Thus, I run framerate mediorcly because I'm restricted by my CPU. Did I get something wrong?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Confusing, not, useful and appreciated, is. Just to clarify, in my current situation. I'm not really informed in the age of the Zotac GeForce GTX 1050Ti, but I assume it's quite new or recent(?) Matched with an AMD Ryzen 3 1200, which is, not old but not new either, creates CPU bottleneck, because of that age difference? So, I'm restricted in data transfer and background running performance, etc etc. Thus, I run framerate mediorcly because I'm restricted by my CPU. Did I get something wrong?

The Ryzen 3 1200 isn't a bad CPU, and I wouldn't hesitate to pair it with something like an RX 580 or GTX 1060 6GB, or maybe even a GTX 1660. Age really isn't as much of a concern as performance and features are. Actually, you'll get roughly similar performance from something like a GTX 680 and an i5 2500, both of which are much older. So, age is only really part of the picture.

In your case, I'd say the GPU is your limiting factor. Another issue could be RAM, as in, you need more of it, but as long as you have 8GB or more then you are fine. For games the only thing that storage would cause a bottleneck in is load times or loading in game textures and such, and for most games that won't be a huge problem.

 

[fagetti]

What are your specs, psu cpu gpu ram everything is needed so we can explain more. I have tested my 9 year old cpu i7-875k with 1060 6gb and it was not bottlenecked in any game when overclocked, so basically gpu is what matters unless you go high end. Ryzen 3 1200 is faster than i7-875k and if you oc it there is noway in h*** that it will get bottlenecked by even 1060 6gb, however i never oc:d amd cpu so someone who knows about this might elaborate more.

You might go even for 1070 1080 or 980ti depending on your power supply. You can always upgrade the cpu later on if it somehow bottlenecks, you dont notice it until maybe gtx 1080