Question Will an i7-6700 bottleneck modern GPU's?

[theoneandonlyfoohyking]

Hello everyone,

Will modern GPU's be bottlenecked by an i7-6700? Thanks!

 

[Darkbreeze]

It depends on WHAT graphics card we are talking about, what kind of settings you want to run, what the resolution is and what the refresh rate of the monitor is?

For me, the answer is yes. I have an RTX 2060 Super, and it is being held back by my CPU. An upgrade is forthcoming, because when I reduce my graphics settings on a demanding game, my FPS does not increase. Therefore, I have a CPU bottleneck. It's not terrible, but it is not where I want it to be either. So the answer is actually, maybe, it depends on what is around the CPU.

 

[rodrigoxm49]

Hello everyone,

Will modern GPU's be bottlenecked by an i7-6700? Thanks!

That depends.

• What resolution?
• What games?

Higher resolutions means less CPU demading since GPU demands increase. 1080p is still a very demanding CPU, but 1440p is not that much, so weaker CPUs (i'm not saying that 6700 is weak) have more chance to not bottleneck GPUs. Most of CPUs that can easily bottleneck even midranges on 1080p, maybe doesnt bottleneck at all at 4k, for example.

Game is very important important too. There's games that needs only 4 cores, others 6 cores and very few 8 cores. So the bottleneck caused by CPU is very related with what games are being played.

Do you know how to notice if there's a CPU bottleneck? You only need to look at GPU usage. Of course there's other factor, but GPU usage below 95~100% generally indicates a subutilization and it's cause by CPU. Some areas on games are very GPU demanding, at point that 100% usage is impossible to reach with nowadays GPU. Sometimes we have bad optimization too. But generally low GPU usage indicates CPU bottleneck. When you are able to compare different CPUs, GPU usage is a even better data to shows CPU bottleneck.

6700 is something to 10% weaker than 7700. Look at this video and look at GPU usage. It's the firt % data after "GPU" indicator. Based on this video below, I could say that 6700 will bottleneck anything above RTX2060 Super at 1080p. 1440p or 4k is a entire different story. Every CPU on this test are on overclock.

But the main question should be: the bottleneck will cause me problems? I really don't think so. If you have oney to buy a RTX2080TI, go for it! Most games you will have much more frames than weaker GPUs, even with bottleneck.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTL95WnNhCc

 

[Darkbreeze]

It's also important to clarify that "not having a bottleneck" doesn't necessarily mean getting "more FPS" though. If you remove the bottleneck by increasing the resolution or quality settings, you are actually likely to end up with FEWER FPS, as it will cause the CPU to not be causing the GPU to wait, hence, no bottleneck, however the GPU will be taking longer to render frames so there will be fewer of them for the CPU to NEED to display, and therefore lower FPS.

The only way to increase FPS, if that is the desire, is by getting a stronger CPU, BUT, that will only increase FPS, IF, the GPU is not now the bottleneck, or, by reducing the quality settings AND having a CPU that can handle the increase in demand for frames.