Discussion Quit Being Obsessed With Bottlenecking.

[Alazaar]

Older CPU's are just fine and will still work well with the newest video cards. I'm sick of seeing people post that it will be a major bottleneck. I think people just like saying the word "bottleneck" over and over. I'm running a 10 year old Phenom 2 965, 8 gigs DDR2, and a geforce 2080 and it plays all games on highest settings wonderfully. No slow down, no lag, no bottlenecking. You don't need the newest million dollar Intel processor to have real world results. If you're a benchmark junkie who lives and dies to brag on the forums I hope all that money you're spending makes you happy in your virtual world. Your eye can't tell the difference until you start to drop under 40 FPS. You don't need to run 200 FPS. It's a waste of money.

 

[WildCard999]

I think what get's people riled up is that Bottlenecker website which gives terrible advice as it doesn't account for the game nor the resolution which has a big impact.

As for the whole 60 vs 144 vs 240 etc, the difference can be seen between 60 & 144+ however it does come down to the game. Going from 60 to 144 on a MMO or slower paced game and this difference is mild if not noticeable but doing that comparison on a FPS or racing game with blur turned off is a massive difference that I've experienced myself. That being said I'm happy gaming in the 75hz range up to 100hz on most games including racing titles & FPS. Even more so since I'm using Freesync which keeps everything smooth.

Just wondering what resolution are you using that 965/2080 at? Not saying the CPU is bad (friend is still rocking my 965 @3.8ghz with a R9 290) but it must have some FPS dips on open world games such as newer AC games, Rust, Division, etc?

 

[captaincharisma]

the problem there is you would likely get the same game performance from a 1060 or 1070 because you phenom CPU can't use the 2080 to its full advantage so its a waste of money for a build like that unless you plan on upgrading soon

 

[R4DIO4CT1VE]

I think you are using "work fine" in a very vague way. Ideally the CPU and GPU compliment each other in power, if they don't than you are paying for performance that you dont get to see, have you looked at you CPU/GPU utilization?

 

[Alazaar]

I run at 1080 resolution. Utilization is like rarely above 50% on either the card or the processor. That's exactly the point I'm making, is that people throw money away for power they don't use. I got the 2080 with 11 gig of ram mainly for the fact that it has tons of video memory. It DOES outperform the 1060/1070 on my processor. That's exactly my point. Soooooo many people are like no no your processor blah blah blah what people don't understand is that for instance an old Phenom 2 965 quad core like mine or the FX line that so many people think is garbage, guys the software out there today can only use so much processing power and after that it's just overkill. Captaincharisma where do you get the idea that my processor can't take full advantage of the 2080 besides assuming it can't? In the real world it absolutely does. GTA5 everything maxed never any slowdown nothing, full speed awesome game play all the time. The new DOOM maxed graphics full throttle no slowdown all the time. Those are the two most graphics intense games I have at the moment and I would argue that they are currently two of the most demanding when cranked all the way up.

 

[WildCard999]

Utilization is like rarely above 50% on either the card or the processor.

That is the problem, while having CPU usage lower then GPU usage is a good thing having the GPU usage so low is not. That is where your "bottleneck" is as your not getting the full usage from the GPU.

Now if your fine with the performance then great but if my system wasn't able to utilize a GPU to it's full (or close) potential then it's a massive waste.

 

[Alazaar]

What games are pushing the 2080 to the max? It's not a waste, it's future-proofing for a while. Buy the 2080 and don't worry about it for 10 years. Again, mainly for the memory capacity. Back to the original point, the processor is fine and fast and handles everything the video card has to offer. That's the point. I see tons of threads saying the processor is going to bottleneck the 2080 unless it's anything but the newest intel stuff. Simply not true. When I see guys with 6 and 8 core processors that are asking if it's going to bottleneck a 2080 and people are screaming yes bottleneck bottleneck bottleneck it's simply not true and it's wrong advice. Processor technology has been faster than the software that's being utilized for quite some time now. If anything has been lacking it has been the video cards and memory capacity. With 1080 and 2080 with 8-11 gigs of memory it has finally caught up. Upgrading video should be a priority if you're running an older card. The point is if you're running a decent quad core or better you're fine on the processor.

 

[TerryLaze]

That is the problem, while having CPU usage lower then GPU usage is a good thing having the GPU usage so low is not. That is where your "bottleneck" is as your not getting the full usage from the GPU.

Now if your fine with the performance then great but if my system wasn't able to utilize a GPU to it's full (or close) potential then it's a massive waste.

Eh,you can always go 4k ultra and pretend you are PC master race...

 

[TerryLaze]

What games are pushing the 2080 to the max? It's not a waste, it's future-proofing for a while. Buy the 2080 and don't worry about it for 10 years. Again, mainly for the memory capacity. Back to the original point, the processor is fine and fast and handles everything the video card has to offer. That's the point. I see tons of threads saying the processor is going to bottleneck the 2080 unless it's anything but the newest intel stuff. Simply not true. When I see guys with 6 and 8 core processors that are asking if it's going to bottleneck a 2080 and people are screaming yes bottleneck bottleneck bottleneck it's simply not true and it's wrong advice. Processor technology has been faster than the software that's being utilized for quite some time now. If anything has been lacking it has been the video cards and memory capacity. With 1080 and 2080 with 8-11 gigs of memory it has finally caught up. Upgrading video should be a priority if you're running an older card. The point is if you're running a decent quad core or better you're fine on the processor.

I think you have a false picture about what bottleneck is...
A lot of people call bad performance no matter why they have it bottleneck,but it's just a term to explain which component in your system determines your maximum speed or in this case FPS.

 

[WildCard999]

What games are pushing the 2080 to the max?

94% average GPU usage on AC: Odyssey Benchmark and that's only at 1080P.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkrTXSOpbFY

 

[Alazaar]

I get what a bottleneck is. It's just that 80% of the "bottlenecks" people are asking about on forums especially when it comes to pairing a newer GPU with an older processor exist only on a theoretical benchmark somewhere or in someones mind. Go read the forums. One guy running a FX 8350 8 core was asking about putting a 1080 or 2080 up to it and everyone was "bottleneck bottleneck bottleneck" another guy with a Phenom 955 and same response from everyone. The point is stop listening to these kids that are living in their parents basement I can literally hear them screaming "Mom! More pizza puffs! My processors not the fastest anymore! Wah wah I need the new one! MOM!" Get the nice video card and throw it in there. You'll be playing all the newest games on high settings having a fine fast time, and in a couple years when you do upgrade guess what you'll still have that nice 2080 to throw into the new rig. Maybe by then the games will actually use all that processing and video power. These guys act like if you put a 2080 in a phenom 2 processor it's going to catch on fire and explode. No, the truth is you'll be gaming fast in hi def and you can tell those guys it's an I7 and they'll never know the difference. MOM! MORE PIZZA PUFFS!

 

[Rogue Leader]

OK settle down, we got your point. Please stop with the general insults or this thread will be ending.

 

[Alazaar]

Yeah Assassin's creed has a history of being a hog. I'd have to load it up and see how it runs. I still only run a DDR2 board so I'm maxed at 8 gigs ram. But having the 2080 with all that memory is a big part of the battle. I'd have to try it out. I'm not saying a phenom 2 is the fastest thing out there, I'm just saying older processors can still perform better than a lot of people think. Maybe I'll try it and post the results, I'm just not a huge fan of that game. What's some other games that are hogs? Like I said, I run GTA5 on max, The New DOOM on max, those are pretty big hogs.

 

[Alazaar]

Wow I inject a little bit of satire and you threaten to end my thread? I'll be deleting my account and you can have your safe space back. MOM! MORE PIZZA BAGELS!

 

[WildCard999]

Yeah Assassin's creed has a history of being a hog. I'd have to load it up and see how it runs. I still only run a DDR2 board so I'm maxed at 8 gigs ram. But having the 2080 with all that memory is a big part of the battle. I'd have to try it out. I'm not saying a phenom 2 is the fastest thing out there, I'm just saying older processors can still perform better than a lot of people think. Maybe I'll try it and post the results, I'm just not a huge fan of that game. What's some other games that are hogs? Like I said, I run GTA5 on max, The New DOOM on max, those are pretty big hogs.

The AC games aren't the best optimized games so that does play a part but in open world titles is where we can see performance drop even on older games such as Arma 3.

Richard Pedersen on DaveComputerTips explains how to figure it out and what to do.

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

 

[TJ Hooker]

And what FPS do you get in GTA V and Doom? Doom is a pretty well optimized game that generally runs well on a wide variety of hardware by the way, and GTA V is 4-5.5 year old game already (depending on whether you look at console or PC release).

I agree with the general sentiment of people worrying about bottlenecking too much, but find your example of a Phenom II + RTX 2080 being a good pairing questionable.

Edit:

Your eye can't tell the difference until you start to drop under 40 FPS.

This reminds me of when I see people say nonsense like 'the human eye can't perceive fps past 60". Just because you or I might not care about 40 fps vs 60 fps in the games we play doesn't mean it's imperceptible, or that other people need to be fine with it in their games. And that's not even taking into account v sync (and variations) considerations, where dropping below 60 might immediately cause to you drop down to 30 or to have screen tearing (depending on what sort of sync settings you're using).

 

[Alazaar]

60+ on GTA and DOOM, never less than 60, over 100 if you're kind of idle, the Phenom 2 works fine for now, no stuttering or noticeable lag, if I decide to upgrade in the near future an FX 8350 8 core and mobo can be had with 16 gigs of ram for a few hundred bucks and that has about 4X the processing power than what I'm running now. Again, not the fastest but in a real world setting when considering bang for the buck I think it's all one would really need. And yes optimization should be considered, when GTA4 came out it was terrible even for high powered rigs. I expect developers to create efficient games that utilize the hardware correctly.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Wow I inject a little bit of satire and you threaten to end my thread? I'll be deleting my account and you can have your safe space back. MOM! MORE PIZZA BAGELS!

This is a family friendly forum, where personal attacks aren't allowed. I don't care if you think its a bit of satire, you are referring to members of our userbase. Since you can't seem to see that acting in this manner is unaccpetable here, below is a copy of the rules, I suggest you read and understand them before posting.

https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/read-first-forum-rules-styling-posts.1757533/

Thread closed.

 

[InvalidError]

Your eye can't tell the difference until you start to drop under 40 FPS.

The improved smoothness is very much discernible beyond 60FPS, especially on larger monitors where the same in-game movement causes larger optical movements. Frequent dips below 40FPS is where people used to 60FPS start considering it painful. I wouldn't consider frequent dips from 60FPS to 40FPS acceptable.