Question Will I have a bottleneck?

[kubacs]

Currently ordered new parts, and here is what I got.

Ryzen 7 3700X
32GB DDR4 3600MHZ
RTX 3060 Gigabyte OC
750W Corsair TX750M
WD M.2 NVME SSD

Upgrading from a GTX 1080 to the 3060 and was wondering if I'll have a CPU bottleneck with my GPU, some sites, which I probably trust too much say that I'll have a bottle when gaming. I would like to know some opinions on this, will it be a problem?

Thanks in advance

 

[Frag Maniac]

No bottleneck there, it's pretty well balanced. 👍

 

[Nighthawk117]

It would depend on the game and what sort of performance you want from it such as 60hz or 144hz. Often in strategy games the CPU is always the bottleneck regardless of which one you have. If I was making the decision then I wouldn't replace a 3700X, it's still a very capable CPU. What games do you play and at what resolution and refresh rate?

 

[kubacs]

It would depend on the game and what sort of performance you want from it such as 60hz or 144hz. Often in strategy games the CPU is always the bottleneck regardless of which one you have. If I was making the decision then I wouldn't replace a 3700X, it's still a very capable CPU. What games do you play and at what resolution and refresh rate?

I play on 1920x1080, 240hz, usually play games like csgo, arma 3, beamng.drive, and im soon looking into buying a VR, to get into VR.

Other things I play alot less are for example fifa, or siege, only with friends though.

Apart from games I also mentioned VR, would it be an issue or some bottleneck when it comes to things such as VRchat? Or Pavlov VR?

Thanks again, for reply and in advance.

 

[hotaru.hino]

The problem you should be worried about is if the system gets the performance you want. Does it meet your frame rate and image quality (which includes resolution) requirements? If yes, then we don't have a problem. If no, then we have to know what games you like to play and what your requirements are to figure out what you should look at upgrading next, if there's anything needed at all.

 

[kubacs]

The problem you should be worried about is if the system gets the performance you want. Does it meet your frame rate and image quality (which includes resolution) requirements? If yes, then we don't have a problem. If no, then we have to know what games you like to play and what your requirements are to figure out what you should look at upgrading next, if there's anything needed at all.

I am very aware, and I upgraded from the 1080 to the 3060, though not a big upgrade, this card i've had for a very very long time and I think it's time to just get something newer and fresher, while getting some extra frames on the side. As I mentioned I play on 1080p, 240hz, with variety of games. My important ones would probably be csgo, arma3 and vrchat/vr games, as I am looking to get into vr soon ish.

Thanks again

 

[hotaru.hino]

I am very aware, and I upgraded from the 1080 to the 3060, though not a big upgrade, this card i've had for a very very long time and I think it's time to just get something newer and fresher, while getting some extra frames on the side. As I mentioned I play on 1080p, 240hz, with variety of games. My important ones would probably be csgo, arma3 and vrchat/vr games, as I am looking to get into vr soon ish.

Thanks again

This doesn't really describe what performance goals or requirements you want though. Running the above at 640x480 low quality at 10 FPS is still running them.

If your goals are something like 1080p, medium settings, and at least 30 FPS in the 99% percentile, then we can make a better conclusion.

 

[Nighthawk117]

I play on 1920x1080, 240hz, usually play games like csgo, arma 3, beamng.drive, and im soon looking into buying a VR, to get into VR.

Other things I play alot less are for example fifa, or siege, only with friends though.

Apart from games I also mentioned VR, would it be an issue or some bottleneck when it comes to things such as VRchat? Or Pavlov VR?

Thanks again, for reply and in advance.

Well I would have thought you should get 240 FPS in CSGO pretty easily with a 3700X and 3060 unless you want a lot more than your refresh rate. Arma 3 is pretty CPU intensive so you won't get 240hz on that. I would have thought you would achieve a high fresh rate on those VR games though.

Since you already have it, just try the games, you will soon know if the 3700X is insufficient for your needs. My two cents is, the 3700X will do a good job in pretty much everything which is why I wouldn't upgrade it. The new Intel and AMD chips are faster, it just wouldn't matter to me personally.

 

[kubacs]

This doesn't really describe what performance goals or requirements you want though. Running the above at 640x480 low quality at 10 FPS is still running them.

If your goals are something like 1080p, medium settings, and at least 30 FPS in the 99% percentile, then we can make a better conclusion.

If that's the case, it depends on the game, but

csgo: low settings, 1080p, 100fps is fine by me (I get alot more already so its quite high)
arma 3: low settings, 1080p, 25-30fps is playable as koth is very intense
vrchat: any settings, 1080p, 60fps is playable and feels nice for a vr game.

It strongly depends on the game, in csgo, you need the frames, whilst in arma it doesnt matter so much as its super poorly optimized so many will be playing on 30-40fps.

I dont need huge gains, im just simply asking will my cpu, or gpu, be getting bottlenecked by one another. I am already handling all of these games perfectly fine with the 1080, but my last setup was 1080 and ryzen 7 3700x, now its 3060 and ryzen 7 3700x, im just wondering if ill start possibly losing performance.

 

[kubacs]

Well I would have thought you should get 240 FPS in CSGO pretty easily with a 3700X and 3060 unless you want a lot more than your refresh rate. Arma 3 is pretty CPU intensive so you won't get 240hz on that. I would have thought you would achieve a high fresh rate on those VR games though.

Since you already have it, just try the games, you will soon know if the 3700X is insufficient for your needs. My two cents is, the 3700X will do a good job in pretty much everything which is why I wouldn't upgrade it. The new Intel and AMD chips are faster, it just wouldn't matter to me personally.

Yeah, I already have them games and again im not looking to get massive gains or anything, im just worried my cpu or gpu might be getting bottlenecked since i upgraded from the 1080 to the 3060, in csgo I easily average 300-400fps while in normal competitive matches, in arma 3 i already average like 20-40fps, depending on the amount of action in koth, vrchat i also get very high frames, whilst not sure of the exact number, i definitely feel it's over 140.

 

[kubacs]

To add to both of them replies, im not having issues in running any of the games i mentioned, I just upgraded and am worried that a more powerful gpu could start bottlenecking my cpu, leading to sometimes worse performance.

 

[Zerk2012]

To add to both of them replies, im not having issues in running any of the games i mentioned, I just upgraded and am worried that a more powerful gpu could start bottlenecking my cpu, leading to sometimes worse performance.

Your not going to get worse performance.
Will you have a bottleneck (that is a really bad term) yes no matter what you buy something will limit your performance.

The CPU will determine the FPS you can get in a given game until you get limited by something else like turning the settings up so far that the video card can no longer keep up.

 

[hotaru.hino]

To add to both of them replies, im not having issues in running any of the games i mentioned, I just upgraded and am worried that a more powerful gpu could start bottlenecking my cpu, leading to sometimes worse performance.

GPUs can't bottleneck the CPU. The CPU isn't reliant on the GPU for anything to run the game. If the GPU isn't ready to render the next frame, the CPU simply moves on to processing the next game state.

As I say, graphics rendering is simply a beneift for the human.

 

[USAFRet]

Upgrading from a GTX 1080 to the 3060 and was wondering if I'll have a CPU bottleneck with my GPU

and am worried that a more powerful gpu could start bottlenecking my cpu, leading to sometimes worse performance.

Swapping in a better part does not result in worse performance.

 

[Nighthawk117]

To add to both of them replies, im not having issues in running any of the games i mentioned, I just upgraded and am worried that a more powerful gpu could start bottlenecking my cpu, leading to sometimes worse performance.

In most cases any CPU bottleneck should it exist will be quite small. There are already games out that are so graphically demanding that the 3060 will bottleneck long before the 3700X. If you told me you had a 1700X then I would say upgrade, but Zen 2 is still very strong.

 

[Frag Maniac]

GPUs can't bottleneck the CPU. The CPU isn't reliant on the GPU for anything to run the game. If the GPU isn't ready to render the next frame, the CPU simply moves on to processing the next game state.

As I say, graphics rendering is simply a beneift for the human.

Pretty sure he's worried about the CPU bottlenecking the GPU instead.

Anyway, OP, that only happens when you have a CPU that's considerably older and weaker than the GPU you upgrade to, which can make the GPU wait for rendering data to be calculated by the CPU before it's sent to it.

Again, you have a well balanced system for the vast majority of games, most of which are more GPU reliant. I doubt you'd even have a big problem with games that are CPU reliant, because again, you're starting with 0% bottleneck in games that aren't.

The only slight effect would be a game like Valorant might not yield as high FPS as other games, but would still likely be very playable.

There are sites that have bottleneck calculators if you don't believe me. Much of what's being said here is overkill worry.

 

[USAFRet]

There are sites that have bottleneck calculators if you don't believe me

Which are absolute trash.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Which are absolute trash.

They're only "trash" if the user has no idea what they mean or what they can and can't do, or that the only ones worth referring have a list of games to plug in.

 

[USAFRet]

They're only "trash" if the user has no idea what they mean or what they can and can't do.

What does an "18% bottleneck" actually mean?

And they are not even internally consistent.
Over time, I've gotten 3 different results from the same hardware.

 

[Frag Maniac]

What does an "18% bottleneck" actually mean?

And they are not even internally consistent.
Over time, I've gotten 3 different results from the same hardware.

I think most use sites like userbenchmark, which is pretty technical in what it can measure, and get a rough base from there because UBM talks in terms of X percentage higher or lower performance relatively speaking. However even TechPowerUp does this as far as measuring performance percentages of one GPU to another at a given resolution, which as far as I know is always taken from what percentage higher or lower FPS is produced.

TPU is pretty technical with their hardware reviews. I prefer W1zzard's reviews, and he's the one that also wrote GPU-Z. He is very meticulous about making sure he always uses the exact same test bed to compare game and GPU performance. However Steve at Gamers Nexus is also very good, and GN even uses their own advanced method of measuring cooling capabilities.

Ideally one learns about GPU model numbers and goes from there as far as staying in touch with the latest benchmarks, but these sites can serve as rough guides for those whom don't want to or don't have the time. As you said though, they aren't perfect. In their defense though, they can't be 100% consistent or even close to it, as many factors can affect such measurements, and beyond that, there's always a margin for error.

I have also seen such tools produce odd results as you say, but I also consider an experienced gamer whom knows hardware capabilities reasonably well is going to be able to recognize when it's off. Normally I don't recommend such tools to those asking advice for that reason, so I probably shouldn't have made that comment, my bad.