[SOLVED] How much of a bottleneck is a R5 1600 for an RTX2060?

[deNameMo]

How much of a bottleneck is an Amd ryzen 5 1600 cpu for an nvidia Rtx 2060 in terms of performance and generally.

 

[Karadjgne]

It's not. Cpu cannot 'bottleneck' a gpu at all. The cpu works to the best of its ability, but one thing it doesn't do is choke gpu outputs or slow them down. You get what you get.

Cpu sets fps, gpu lives upto that amount or fails, depending on the resolution and detail levels.

Just because a Lamborghini can do 250mph does not mean that the driver doing 70mph is a bottleneck. It means the driver is doing all the speed the speed limit allows, or the road conditions, or the traffic etc.

No, a 1600 isn't going to 'bottleneck' your 2060 at all, but if you set ultra settings on a 1440p you won't get as many fps as low on a 1080p. Can probably set very high or even ultra details on that 2060 in many games and get the same fps as low at 1080p, whatever that fps happens to be will be determined by the cpus ability to create frames in a second from the game code.

 

[RTX 2080]

CPU bottlenecks are poorly understood by most gamers. The most accurate answer I can give you is that it depends entirely on what you're planning to use this CPU and GPU for.

A GPU cannot render a frame until the CPU requests data from your storage drive or RAM, pre-renders the frame, and then sends it over the PCIe bus to the GPU. The GPU then renders it the rest of the way and displays it on your computer monitor.

If a CPU can't pre-render frames fast enough to give your GPU a frame when its ready for it, then your CPU is holding back your GPU and causing it to be underutilized by placing an artificial limit on its performance and causing what is commonly referred to as a CPU bottleneck.

In the case of a Ryzen 1600 and a RTX 2060, I would imagine the target resolution for someone using these parts would be a 1080p monitor. A Ryzen 1600, 2600, and 3600 all to various degrees suffer from relatively low clock speeds and low IPC compared to the Intel processors they competed against when they were new. It is only in this last generation of Ryzen CPUs that AMD and Intel are now similarly matched when it comes to outright gaming performance. The Ryzen 1600, of course, is the oldest and least performant of the Ryzen CPUs I just listed.

Because of its low boost clocks and low IPC, a Ryzen 1600 is poorly suited for most 'modern gaming' because it can be easily overwhelmed and be unable to render at what are considered high refresh rates. Thus, if one where to pair it with a RTX 2060 and attempt to play a game at 1080p at say 144 fps by turning down graphical settings all the way, they would find that their GPU utilization is low and their CPU utilization is high and that no matter how low they turn down their settings, their fps won't go above 60-80 fps (as an example).

As a side note, bottlenecking isn't even necessarily resolution-dependent; the way different games are coded can put a higher strain on the CPU even when gaming at lower frame rates or higher resolutions. But that's another debate entirely.

The idea that a "Cpu cannot 'bottleneck' a gpu at all" is categorically false. I cannot tell you how many individuals on this forum I have helped who had gaming performance issues that were either significantly improved or completely eliminated by upgrading their CPU to one capable of meeting the demands of their GPU. Unless you are gaming at 60 fps or lower and are playing games that are not heavy on the CPU, a Ryzen 1600 will be very likely to bottleneck (or 'limit the performance of' for those that don't like the word bottleneck) a RTX 2060.

 

[Karadjgne]

CPU is holding back your GPU

That's not right. A cpu never 'holds back' a gpu. That's operating under the assumption that a gpu is supposed to perform at a certain level and cannot because of the cpu.

The idea that a "Cpu cannot 'bottleneck' a gpu at all" is categorically false. I cannot tell you how many individuals on this forum I have helped who had gaming performance issues that were either significantly improved or completely eliminated by upgrading their CPU

No, it's not false. You don't use a 2 handed 10lb sledgehammer to drive a nail into drywall. You only need a small hammer and a small % of your arm strength to get the job done.

Just because a gpu might be capable of rendering more frames fully, doesn't mean the cpu is holding it back or bottlenecking, just means the gpu is capable of more but does not need to use more. It's still going to put those frames out at 100% of its ability to do so, even if not using its full capacity of frame amounts.

It's like some dope on youtube gets 200fps out of a 2060 with a 9900k, therefore since I'm only getting 100 out of a 8400, my cpu is a bottleneck. No. Your cpu is just slow. It's not holding back gpu performance, the gpu is performing as it needs to, it just doesn't need to process 200fps. It still works just as fast to render those frames, it just doesn't have as many frames to render.

Looking at it from your perspective, everything is a bottleneck. A ssd can't move data as fast as ram can, therefore an SSD is a bottleneck. But even the best cpus cannot move as much data as an SSD can, therefore a cpu is a serious bottleneck to ram and ssd performance.....

In reality, both the ram and ssd only work as hard as they need to according to cpu demands regardless of their actual capacity to move the data. They'll still move it at 500mpbs r/w, they just only move 1Gb at a time not their full ability of 10Gb...etc.

And that's not including the game code itself. Would you consider CSGO a serious bottleneck because it only uses 2 threads? What about the other 10 threads not used, it's bottkenecking cpu performance. No, it just uses 2 threads and the cpu process each thread to the best of its ability.

 

[spentshells]

They are a good match, you could get more fps with a faster cpu, but If you pick up the card, Im sure it will be a decent upgrade from whatever you have.

 

[USAFRet]

"How much of a bottleneck ..."

Depends on your definition of "bottleneck".
Which is...?

 

[madmatt30]

Definitely a good match

Its a straight mid range pairing will do perfect job at 1080p at ultra or 1440p at medium to high

Ryzen 1600 does tend to top out at 90-100fps in a lot of newer titles so it's probably not ideal for 144htz but still manageable.

I'm running a ryzen 1700 with a 5700xt here, similar strength cpu with a fair bit more powerful gpu at 1080p, 1440p and even 4k to varying degrees.

I would not worry.

 

[RTX 2080]

"You don't use a 2 handed 10lb sledgehammer to drive a nail into drywall."

Of course not, because you're equating a 10 lb. hammer (which will not bang the nail in any faster) with a more powerful CPU which will allow a GPU to do its job faster. A 10 lb. hammer is the wrong tool for the job and I could drive the nail in just as quickly with a smaller hammer. However, using a small Dremel tool to cut a 5 inch pipe in half is going to take significantly longer than using an angle grinder with an appropriately sized cutting wheel. Why? Because the Dremel is too small to do the job effectively and will slow down the entire process. Make sense?


"Just because a gpu might be capable of rendering more frames fully, doesn't mean the cpu is holding it back or bottlenecking"

Actually, that is a very good way of describing a CPU bottleneck.


"No. Your cpu is just slow. It's not holding back gpu performance, "

FYI, slow CPUs can hold back GPU performance. If people were passing buckets of water down a line to put out a house fire, now matter how fast everyone in the chain is, if there is a slow/weak person at the start of the line filling up the buckets, they will never be able to dump more water on the fire than the guy filling up the buckets is able to fill. Since a GPU can't do its job until a CPU passes it the information it needs, a slow CPU will cause the same effect as the slow person filling up the buckets of water.


Seeing as how you say that CPUs don't hold back GPU performance, I guess if you replaced your Ryzen 3700x with a Ryzen 1600 you'd expect the exact same performance from your GPU? Because if you expect the same performance, I have some bad news for you, and if you do in fact expect your GPU to not perform as well, then congratulations, you have just experienced a CPU bottleneck.

 

[Karadjgne]

Seeing as how you say that CPUs don't hold back GPU performance, I guess if you replaced your Ryzen 3700x with a Ryzen 1600 you'd expect the exact same performance from your GPU? Because if you expect the same performance, I have some bad news for you, and if you do in fact expect your GPU to not perform as well, then congratulations, you have just experienced a CPU bottleneck.

Yes, I would expect the same performance. I'd expect the gpu to run at the same clocks, put out the frames at the same speed etc. I'd not expect the gpu to 'slow down' because of a lesser cpu putting out lesser fps.

Moving to a lesser cpu, I'd expect less frames output, that's a given, but the quality of picture or the ability of the gpu concerning the outputs won't change.

A Ferrari has the same performance at 50mph as it does as 250mph. Performance doesn't lower just because the speed does. It's not going to drive like a mini-van just because it's not doing 250mph, it's still a Ferrari and will perform the same. Same with a gpu, it's not going to change performance with a lesser cpu, it'll just not have as many frames to output.

There's never a perfect balance, there's always going to be games that output more fps than the gpu can handle, or less fps than the gpu can handle at any given resolution. A 1600 with a 3080 does just fine at 4k, just as a 3700x and 2070Super does at 1080p.

So a broad statement that a 1600 is going to bottleneck a 2060 is bogus, it'll not put out as many frames as a 9900k, yet it'll put out more than a r3 1200.

Whether it puts out enough to live upto Op's expectations is a different story altogether. If Op wanted 200fps, and got 150fps instead, I guess you could call that a cpu bottleneck, but realistically it's not, the cpu is doing as intended, not the cpus fault Op demands more, even if the gpu is capable of handling the fps outputs or not.

 

[RTX 2080]

Yes, I would expect the same performance. I'd expect the gpu to run at the same clocks, put out the frames at the same speed etc. I'd not expect the gpu to 'slow down' because of a lesser cpu putting out lesser fps.

Moving to a lesser cpu, I'd expect less frames output, that's a given, but the quality of picture or the ability of the gpu concerning the outputs won't change.

A Ferrari has the same performance at 50mph as it does as 250mph. Performance doesn't lower just because the speed does. It's not going to drive like a mini-van just because it's not doing 250mph, it's still a Ferrari and will perform the same. Same with a gpu, it's not going to change performance with a lesser cpu, it'll just not have as many frames to output.

There's never a perfect balance, there's always going to be games that output more fps than the gpu can handle, or less fps than the gpu can handle at any given resolution. A 1600 with a 3080 does just fine at 4k, just as a 3700x and 2070Super does at 1080p.

So a broad statement that a 1600 is going to bottleneck a 2060 is bogus, it'll not put out as many frames as a 9900k, yet it'll put out more than a r3 1200.

Whether it puts out enough to live upto Op's expectations is a different story altogether. If Op wanted 200fps, and got 150fps instead, I guess you could call that a cpu bottleneck, but realistically it's not, the cpu is doing as intended, not the cpus fault Op demands more, even if the gpu is capable of handling the fps outputs or not.

Unlike you, most people buy a GPU with the desire that they will be able to use all of its available resources to produce the result they are desiring. Thus, many want to know whether or not their current CPU will prevent that from happening. By answering people's questions about CPU bottlenecking with stuff like "Cpu cannot 'bottleneck' a gpu at all," you are imposing your own priorities on the OP rather than answering the question they are asking.

And if you read my responses all the way through, you'll see that I never made "a broad statement that a 1600 is going to bottleneck a 2060." I said:

"Unless you are gaming at 60 fps or lower and are playing games that are not heavy on the CPU, a Ryzen 1600 will be very likely to bottleneck (or 'limit the performance of' for those that don't like the word bottleneck) a RTX 2060."

If you want to pair weak CPUs with powerful GPUs be my guest, but when it comes to giving advice on this forum, I prefer to actually help people with the problems they have rather than pushing my own set of priorities on them in ways that are not in their best interest.

 

[Karadjgne]

Unlike you, most people buy a GPU with the desire that they will be able to use all of its available resources to produce the result they are desiring. Thus, many want to know whether or not their current CPU will prevent that from happening.

Exactly. (and leave me outta that).
A 1600 can most definitely use all a 2060's resources, in many games at 1080p it just won't maximize usage of those resources all the time. If a game only uses 4Gb of vram, that's all it uses, or another game only uses 5Gb of vram, that's all it uses. Just because it has 8Gb of vram doesn't mean the cpu is a bottleneck because it doesn't require using all 8Gb all the time. A lesser cpu doesn't 'slow down' a gpu, it just won't output the fps like a stronger cpu, regardless of what resources are used or not.

Op can easily run most games with a 4k DSR and still have room to spare, without pushing the gpu to 100% and choking fps, something not always doable with a lesser gpu. As long as minimum fps is above monitor refresh, maximum fps is a moot point anyways, doesn't make a difference if the cpu can output 150fps or 300fps minimums, you get the same picture.

Most ppl agree that the glass is either half full, or half empty. Not my fault if I see the glass as being twice as big as it needs to be. Same with the cpu/gpu thing, I don't see a 1600 'slowing down' a 2060 or 'bottlenecking' it's performance, I see a 2060 as being capable of doing everything the cpu can give it, with possible room for anything extra like 4k DSR etc.

If Op wants more fps, by all means get a stronger cpu with higher fps outputs, but at 1080p, a 2060 gpu isn't going to be the cause of any fps loss at any detail setting, for almost any game.

Pair a 1050ti with the 1600 and the gpu does become a bottleneck in most detail levels. Games requiring 4Gb of vram or better will be choked, the cpu can send higher fps than the gpu can handle etc. That's a bottleneck. The gpu slows down the flow of fps to the monitor. Not so with a 2060, there's no slow down, the monitor sees whatever the cpu gives it.

 

[deNameMo]

I should've noted that I am playing on
custom high->very-high at 3440x1440p 35" @ 100hz.

 

[RTX 2080]

I should've noted that I am playing on
custom high->very-high at 3440x1440p 35" @ 100hz.

What games are you playing? What frame rate are you trying to hit? Are you willing to upgrade your hardware to hit your detail settings are frame targets? If so, what is your budget?

 

[Karadjgne]

1440p is going to be rough on a 2060 in some of the newest heavy games like the Tom Clancy stuff, CoD etc. But won't be an issue for CSGO or minecraft (unless heavily modded). To get beyond 100Hz at those settings in most games is going to take a 3060ti / 2070Super / 2080ti.

That resolution won't affect the cpu much, but it's @ 1.7x as many pixels as 1080p and that will affect the gpu significantly. Tomb Raider on a 2060/1440p is in the 40's at Ultra for instance, so very-high/custom will be closer to the 60's-80's range at best. The cpu will be the least of your worries.

 

[deNameMo]

1440p is going to be rough on a 2060 in some of the newest heavy games like the Tom Clancy stuff, CoD etc. But won't be an issue for CSGO or minecraft (unless heavily modded). To get beyond 100Hz at those settings in most games is going to take a 3060ti / 2070Super / 2080ti.

That resolution won't affect the cpu much, but it's @ 1.7x as many pixels as 1080p and that will affect the gpu significantly. Tomb Raider on a 2060/1440p is in the 40's at Ultra for instance, so very-high/custom will be closer to the 60's-80's range at best. The cpu will be the least of your worries.

You hit the nail on the head.
With Custom High I mean I try to aim for high but some things are on medium or even off if they hog massive amounts of frame and are useless.
I try to aim at 100 but below it, on custom-high as many fps as possible is okay, not very picky about that.

 

[madmatt30]

1440p is going to be rough on a 2060 in some of the newest heavy games like the Tom Clancy stuff, CoD etc. But won't be an issue for CSGO or minecraft (unless heavily modded). To get beyond 100Hz at those settings in most games is going to take a 3060ti / 2070Super / 2080ti.

That resolution won't affect the cpu much, but it's @ 1.7x as many pixels as 1080p and that will affect the gpu significantly. Tomb Raider on a 2060/1440p is in the 40's at Ultra for instance, so very-high/custom will be closer to the 60's-80's range at best. The cpu will be the least of your worries.

He's running 1440p Ultrawide so in actuality that's 2. 5 x the pixel count of 1080p.

A 2060 is REALLY going to struggle at that res, all the talk of a ryzen 1600 being a bottleneck goes out of the window.

 

[Karadjgne]

He's running 1440p Ultrawide so in actuality that's 2. 5 x the pixel count of 1080p.

A 2060 is REALLY going to struggle at that res, all the talk of a ryzen 1600 being a bottleneck goes out of the window.

Yeah, lol, missed that. So used to seeing it around I totally missed that 1440p is 2560x1440 for a standard 16:9, Op is running 21:9.

Gonna take a lot more juice than a 2060 for sure, a 3070 would be the preferred card for games that have support for that resolution.