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CPU "bottleneck"

Howard

Howard

Howard

Soldato
Joined
12 Jul 2007
Posts
16,318
Location
South East
Just to clear something up for me..

When you say that a CPU is bottlenecking a graphics card's performance, would the following be true:

If the CPU isn't running at constant 100% utilisation when playing the latest game for example, then it's not a bottleneck?

Or is that an oversimplified view?


Cheers
 
I think it applies in two ways.

1. When you're playing at a 'low' resolution and have a 'powerful' graphics card, the framerate the card is producing is so high it is restricted by the CPU from going any higher

2. When the actual CPU can't keep up with the game and slows down the graphics card, happens usually in mutliplayer games or MMOs, WoW is a good example.

I don't think the utilization is factor as no game will be using 100% of the CPU, its more to do with the frequency the CPU is running at and threads it can handle.
 
It's far easier to use a bit of common sense. For instance, stick a top end GPU with a mid-range CPU and you're going to be CPU limited, and vice versa. This may not be true for every title - as games like GTA4 well demonstrate - but it's a good starting point. Obviously the situation gets more complicated when you're talking about hardware from different generations and different ends of the pricing spectrum being used together but that's where hardware review sites come in. At the end of the day you shouldn't be upgrading to a top end CPU or GPU if the other part is over 12 months old, as that will simply create a bottleneck. Slap a 5850 or 5870 with a dual-core processor and you're going to hit a wall, just like matching a 4GHz Core i7 with a 4870 (I should know because that's exactly what I've done). There's no substitute to simply doing a bit of research. Read reviews, browse forums and talk to friends. Just remember that there is no perfect balance, as different games with stress your system in different ways. However, some combinations are definitely better than others.
 
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