bottleneck CPU bottleneck

[One eye purple people eatr]

I have a MSI 4080 Ventus and a amd 5900x Ryzen with 32gb ram at 3200 mhz and a 1tb nvme on window 11. Some of the bottleneck sites say I get a 8.5% bottleneck when I run games at 1440p but none at 4k. Is this a issue and is upgrading the CPU with it? Thanks

[Levent]

There is a reason why nobody uses those websites you know. They are all shit. Your system is good as is.

[WereCat]

The only time a bottleck is an issue is when you have bad performance to the point it gets in the way of your gameplay / workflow.

 

There's always a bottleck somewhere and always will be. 

 

These websites are a complete nonsense. 

[Eigenvektor]

4 minutes ago, One eye purple people eatr said:

Some of the bottleneck sites say I get a 8.5% bottleneck when I run games at 1440p but none at 4k. Is this a issue and is upgrading the CPU with it? Thanks

An "8.5% bottleneck" is meaningless. Either there is a bottleneck or there isn't. How much of a bottleneck there is entirely depends on the games you play.

 

If a game is very CPU intensive and/or doesn't properly scale to multiple cores there might be a bottleneck even on current top end CPUs. For more graphics intensive games that use little CPU it could be entirely fine.

 

Don't worry about it prematurely. Use a tool like Afterburner to measure GPU and CPU usage. If GPU usage is consistently well below 80% no matter what you do, a CPU upgrade might start to make sense. But otherwise, don't worry about it.

[One eye purple people eatr]

Thanks everyone 

[starsmine]

11 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

An "8.5% bottleneck" is meaningless. Either there is a bottleneck or there isn't. How much of a bottleneck there is entirely depends on the games you play.

There is always a bottleneck. at all points in time, in all tasks, you are 100% bottlenecked.

 

11 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

If a game is very CPU intensive and/or doesn't properly scale to multiple cores there might be a bottleneck even on current top end CPUs. For more graphics intensive games that use little CPU it could be entirely fine.

 

Don't worry about it prematurely. Use a tool like Afterburner to measure GPU and CPU usage. If GPU usage is consistently well below 80% no matter what you do, a CPU upgrade might start to make sense. But otherwise, don't worry about it.

Even if you are in this case, just ask am I happy with my performance. How much am I willing to spend to get more?
Dont even look at the number otherwise. CPU upgrades especially when you need to move to a new platform with new ram. You are talking about spending 500+ to go from 80 to 100 fps in a game. 
or 40 to 50
or 20 to 25.

Like it just doesnt mater at that point unless money is no object to you. 

[Eigenvektor]

4 hours ago, starsmine said:

There is always a bottleneck. at all points in time, in all tasks, you are 100% bottlenecked.

While you are technically correct that some component is always the limiting factor, I don't think it makes sense to categorically refer to it as a bottleneck. Nor does pointing it out help people with less experience to understand why it may not matter.

 

In any case, my primary point was that "8.5% bottleneck" has no true meaning. It's simply an average calculated across a range of games. It doesn't give you a clue whether it applies to the games you play, nor how much the CPU limit would actually affect your experience.

 

If you're CPU limited, it generally means the GPU may not be able to run at 100% utilization. With a faster CPU the limit might move back from the CPU to the GPU. However, if performance is still acceptable and consistent (i.e. no huge frame drops), then a CPU upgrade is potentially a waste of money.

 

If your game alternates between 20–80 fps, and GPU utilization is hovering around 20–60%, that's one thing. In that case a CPU upgrade would be something to urgently consider. But if you're still running at a stable 100+ fps and GPU utilization is around 80%, is it really worth spending money on an upgrade that might, maybe, increase frame rate to 120 fps?

[starsmine]

  

39 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

While you are technically correct that some component is always the limiting factor, I don't think it makes sense to categorically refer to it as a bottleneck. Nor does pointing it out help people with less experience to understand why it may not matter.

I think pointing it out is important, the whole concept is misleading and doesn't mean much.

Say a task is serial. CPU does half of it, GPU does the other half
consistently the CPU takes 20ms to do it, GPU takes 19, before handing it back to the CPU. (not how a gaming rendering pipeline works)

in this scenario, the CPU is 100% bottlenecking. EVERY time this task is ran, the limiting factor is the CPU. 
But you upgrade the CPU and now you gain... what, 1ms to be 100% GPU bound

This scenario is simplified because tasks are often not consistent and are usually Data-dependent and environmental-dependent. So lets have a normal Gaussian distribution around a specific data input. Lets just say here, make it the CPU 20ms mean time, GPU 19ms mean time, with a sigma of 5ms on the CPU and 2ms on the gpu. So you are now the bottleneck something close to 50% GPU/CPU.

Bottlenecks in the way people simplify them is one of the most misleading things about the performance of your computer.  You CAN abstract everything I said up there away, but you have to recognize its abstracted away. You dont need to get into the weeds, but the major take away is you WILL be bottlenecked and its not a boogyman to be feared. The way its discussed in forums and especially in not helpful places like shorts/tik tok or twitter or reddit is just not helpful and makes people who dont know better, like OP afraid.  Im not saying people need to take a course in Ahmdal's law. Which is the mathmatical law for bottlenecks, just that 

39 minutes ago, Eigenvektor said:

In any case, my primary point was that "8.5% bottleneck" has no true meaning. It's simply an average calculated across a range of games. It doesn't give you a clue whether it applies to the games you play, nor how much the CPU limit would actually affect your experience.

 

If you're CPU limited, it generally means the GPU may not be able to run at 100% utilization. With a faster CPU the limit might move back from the CPU to the GPU. However, if performance is still acceptable and consistent (i.e. no huge frame drops), then a CPU upgrade is potentially a waste of money.

 

If your game alternates between 20–80 fps, and GPU utilization is hovering around 20–60%, that's one thing. In that case a CPU upgrade would be something to urgently consider. But if you're still running at a stable 100+ fps and GPU utilization is around 80%, is it really worth spending money on an upgrade that might, maybe, increase frame rate to 120 fps?

As you point out here beautifully. the bottleneck isn't the metric that can tell you much of anything about the specific task of gaming which the performance basis is latency CONSISTENCY in the internal render pipeline.  

Just to point this out as the most extreme example. 

Here the the 3080 and above are clearly and obviously CPU-bound nearly 100%, they are sitting there waiting for the CPU to do its thing.
Who cares. You are maxing out the potential of the CPU. while in the rest of the cards, you could argue you overspent on the CPU for this specific task. (dont take this to heart OP)

Other games won't do this. Other resolutions won't do this, other settings wont do this (like turning on RT) 
The fact that you are CPU-bound isn't making the game inconsistent. 
But to also point out, you ARENT 100% CPU bound, you still gain FPS as you get faster GPUs because of the latency distribution still has overlap. There is still (some) value in upgrading your GPU. its just not necessarily worth the price increase for this specific title at these graphic settings, at this resolution for the majority of people. 

The thing about a comptuer is that they are general purpose and you can use that CPU power or GPU power for other tasks. That video rendering task when you want to digitize all your home movies, or start setting up a plex server. or you want to get into streaming so you use the NVENC to load up the GPU even harder, or you get into folding at home, or whatever. 

It is fair to when building a PC look at the best value you can for your planned tasks, it's a linear algebra problem, but it's also not worth thinking that hard over it beyond a certain point. I honestly recommend strongly that you go overboard on the CPU side then the GPU side because swapping out GPUs is quick and easy, and CPU bottlenecks are not really a significant thing at 1440p/4k and as games get more and more graphically demanding, as swapping out CPUs unless you buy into a long-lived platform early on, (AM4 with zen1/zen1+, or hopefully AM5 with zen4) is not cost-effective, as you have to swap the board and ram. 

Skylakes refreshes are still not terribly bottlenecked at 1440p/4k with a 4060ti. The problem is more the fact the 4060ti is 8GB for the titles coming out today. 

[Mark Kaine]

8 hours ago, starsmine said:

There is always a bottleneck. at all points in time, in all tasks, you are 100% bottlenecked.

oh, yeah?

 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, Eigenvektor said:

While you are technically correct that some component is always the limiting factor,

yeah, but that's just straight up  bad faith argument,  you can't just say the 220v of my power outlet are a "bottleneck" that's just not how it works... lol...

 

every computer has at least one theoretical "bottleneck" but that doesn't mean its always active.

 

its like "performance limit *idle*" in GPUZ... interesting but in the end meaningless,  or misleading, if the performance limit is idle, that really means there is no performance limit,  unlimited POWA!AA!  ... that's just also not how it works lol...

 

I agree,  at this point the term bottleneck actually became meaningless,  because people are constantly injecting their little hypotheses about how everyone is wrong and only they know what it means, the protectors of the holy bottleneck lmao ~ sad

 

 

PS: btw this is not directly aimed at you, more at the notion that there *always* is a bottleneck,  when there really isn't,  performance limit idle is literally the opposite of "bottleneck" (for example) 

[WereCat]

4 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

 

 

PS: btw this is not directly aimed at you, more at the notion that there *always* is a bottleneck,  when there really isn't,  performance limit idle is literally the opposite of "bottleneck" (for example) 

Ok... 

I meant you will usually hit one of the 3 main limiters (for gaming) unless you use FPS cap or VSync in some scenarios.

 

GPU

CPU

SOFTWARE

 

If your only goal is to chase FPS numbers you will be always limited either by CPU or GPU unless the game engine breaks or won't let you pass a certain threshold. 

 

For that reason alone a "bottleneck calculator" is a complete BS because it can literally throw random % number without any context and you can argue for specific scenarios where that is true or false. 

 

[starsmine]

5 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

oh, yeah?

 

 

 

Oh yeah?
You have a bottleneck dude. 
 

The numbers you have just are not telling you the whole story

 

turning on vsync is turning on an intentional bottleneck to your performance. Which can be a good thing. Again bottleneck isn’t a boogie man

 

under the hood, when drawing the frame there still exists a bottleneck one the cpu/gpus side but you just said with software “so long as the total tender latency is under a specified amount, I don’t care”, because I’m bottlenecking the output 

[Mark Kaine]

42 minutes ago, WereCat said:

If your only goal is to chase FPS numbers you will be always limited either by CPU or GPU unless the game engine breaks or won't let you pass a certain threshold

yes, but thats only a very specific set of users, generally most people won't run into a bottleneck constantly. 

 

 

[Eigenvektor]

8 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

yeah, but that's just straight up  bad faith argument,  you can't just say the 220v of my power outlet are a "bottleneck" that's just not how it works... lol...

every computer has at least one theoretical "bottleneck" but that doesn't mean its always active.

Let me try to be phrase it more clearly then: Some component will always be the limiting factor that determines the maximum performance your computer can reach for a given workload.

 

As an aside, your comparison would work better if you used a unit of power, rather than voltage. For example the maximum wattage of your power supply. Which can be a limiting factor, even if it isn't the limiting factor right now.

 

8 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

its like "performance limit *idle*" in GPUZ... interesting but in the end meaningless,  or misleading, if the performance limit is idle, that really means there is no performance limit,  unlimited POWA!AA!  ... that's just also not how it works lol...

Idle simply means that the computer's performance is currently limited by the fact that there's no work to do. Unlimited power would only come into play if you said Nothing was limiting it… So to me Idle is more technically correct than Nothing or None.

 

I agree that the work "Bottleneck" gets thrown around too much, which is why I personally try to avoid it. In my eyes calling it a performance limit is more clear. I would only call it a bottleneck if performance is unbalanced to an extreme degree.

 

4 hours ago, starsmine said:

turning on vsync is turning on an intentional bottleneck to your performance.

Please, let's not start calling an intentional limit a bottleneck. A bottleneck only exists if something limits performance to such a degree that everything else grinds to a halt waiting for work to do, i.e. something is limiting to such a degree (like the literal neck of a bottle) that throughput it greatly diminished.

 

Let's say your CPU is underpowered to such a degree that it can send work the GPU only in occasional bursts, leading to frame rates that vary between 20–100 fps. If your GPU is simply running at a somewhat reduce but still consistent frame rate, that's a performance limit, not a bottleneck.