[SOLVED] How to tell what is your PCs bottleneck?

[suitercrew]

Ok everyone I'm currently looking to do some cheap upgrades on a 2nd budget desktop I have. Currently running Fx6300 overclocked to 4.2ghz turbo disabled, R9 290x 4gb undervolted , 8gb ram, msi 970gaming mb. When researching this and using common sense would say if I'm playing a game and msiafterburner says my gpu is at 100% usage buy cpu us at 60-70% that I should upgrade the gpu, but wouldn't their still be fair gains to be had upgrading the cpu, even to a fx8350? If there are gains to be had which many YouTube videos suggest then why is my cpu only at 60% usage but holding performance back?

 

[Barty1884]

"Bottleneck" is a horrible term, too generic - and every system will have some form of bottleneck.

As for a CPU upgrade, it depends on the title. YEs, while 60% CPU vs 100% GPU would suggest the GPU would be where to start - an FX6300 is a 6 "core" CPU.
That could mean you're maxing out 2-3 cores in-game, with the balance for overhead. A CPU with a greater IPC might be beneficial there. Might see improved 1% & .1%, more stable FPS etc - but a GPU that's running at 100% isn't going to suddenly gain 20% more frames from upgrading the CPU, no.

 

[Roland Of Gilead]

The biggest bottleneck on any PC is you! The user (I also include any PC user in there).

You've described the basic understanding of a CPU/GPU bottleneck. However, changing CPU's, specially the FX line, will have little impact on your performance. If you stick and Intel CPU in there with the R9290x, would you have an increase in performance, yes! You would. But the increase could be anywhere from 5-15% (sometimes more) with the Intel chip. This is because it has higher IPC (instructions per clock) than a similar AMD chip. So will always perform better, specially at gaming at 1080p. Sticking an FX8350 in there might get you a 2-5% increase in FPS (gaming), but not much else.

I would not advice you to waste money changing CPU's. You should be looking at a base system upgrade, keep your GPU/PSU/case and try and build a better system. For about 400-500$ you could get something that will give you much better performance increase, than spending your money on an old system that is far surpassed by what's available now.