Question Question about CPU and Nvidia RTX cards

[jorge_medion]

Hi,

I am researching gaming laptops and most of them (not customizable) use CPU Intel i7-8750H but are paired with Nvidia RTX 2060,2070,2080.

For those who are not familiar with laptop CPUs, it is said that i7-8750H is the equivalent in desktop: Intel Core i5-8400, since this last one has the closest specs to i7-8750H. Imagine the most intensive/demanding CPU games, then, those CPUs would make a bottleneck. What's the reason to pair this CPU with the strongest GPUs in the market if that CPU will bottleneck before reaching the max. power of these GPUs? Is there any feature in Nvidia RTX cards that helps the CPU? If not, if I am playing a very intensive/demanding CPU game, would make sense to have a RTX card if the game needs more CPU than GPU?

Thanks in advance for any help and advice you can bring me in this topic.

 

[WildCard999]

You can't just say CPU+GPU=Bottleneck, there's more factors that play a role such as the game itself and resolution. At 1440P/4K pairing a 8400/2080 would be more then acceptable for gaming. Now using the 8750H with those RTX cards in laptop form would be fine as well depending on the resolution. Good pairings would be...

8750H+2060=1080P
8750H+2070=1440P
8750H+2080=1440P/4K

Now this (^^^) is pretty generic but even if you had the 8750H+2080 @1080P you could utilize Nvidia DSR at 2X/4X which would utilize the GPU more and look better then some AA settings.

Nvidia DSR.
https://www.geforce.com/hardware/technology/dsr/technology

How to Determine GPU vs CPU Bottlenecks and Possible Solutions | Daves Computer Tips

A bottleneck, when talking about computer hardware, and not your favorite rustic libation, refers to the slowest device in the system. That one piece of hardware that is bogging down everything else.

davescomputertips.com

There's no feature that directly helps the CPU from the GPU but using DSR would increase the GPU usage if for some reason the CPU is holding back the performance.

Also the 8750H is better then the 8400 due to the extra 6 threads.

 

[jorge_medion]

Thanks to the article I finally understood the CPU bottleneck:

Now, here’s what you’ve all been waiting for…
If lowering the graphics settings has no effect on frame rates, then the bottleneck is your CPU
If lowering the graphics settings increases the frame rate, then your GPU is reaching its upper limits

In the gaming laptop I have now, is Alienware 17 from 2016 (CPU i7-6700HQ 2.6-3.5 GHz, RAM 16 GB DDR4 2100 MHz, GPU Nvidia GTX 970M 3 GB DDR5, HDD SATA 7200 rpm) I have been testing Empire Total War, the game that is now more CPU demanding than GPU demanding and I lowered the graphics settings, having no effect on frame rates, then the bottleneck is my CPU. If I want to play this game and other Total War games, I realized I have to take more seriously the CPU than the GPU.