What is "Bottle-necking"

[pwest15]

So I am looking to upgrade my graphics setup to twin 770's but first I want to know if my current motherboard and cpu will "bottle-neck" the upgrades. I'm really not sure what "bottle-necking" is but I've heard about it in videos where people talk about upgrading. I currently use SLI'd EVGA 560ti's with an i7-2600k and an ASRock z77 extreme4 motherboard. Please tell me if it is worth upgrading to twin 770's now or if I should wait a year and get the next-gen processor with next-gen motherboard and next-gen graphics.

[M-ursu]

Bottlenecking is that when other component is faster than other.

And in your case there is no bottlenecks, even if you upgrade to 770.

And it is totally worth to upgrade to 770. :)

[rashdanml]

Think about it this way.

 

Any object is only as strong as its weakest link. The weakest link breaks first, therefore limiting the capability of the other components.

 

In the case of computers, the computer is only as fast as its slowest component. Take an example: If you're playing a game, and your CPU is maxed out at 100%, but your GPU is only running at 30%, your CPU is the bottleneck: it got maxed out faster than the GPU. The opposite is also true, if the GPU is at 100% and CPU is at 30%.

 

The ideal scenario is where the GPU is the bottleneck, to get the most out of gaming performance. Your current CPU should be nowhere close to running at maximum capacity during gaming, so your GPU will be used to its fullest potential.

 

It'll take a much older CPU to bottleneck the 770 SLI. You're fine.

[SMURG]

Don't think you're gonna bottleneck a 2600k with SLI'd 770s.

A 'bottleneck' is where one component is significantly slower than the others to the point where it forms a limiting factor since everything else has to wait for it to finish.  An extremely simple example would be a game which requires 1 CPU process and 2 GPU processes to produce each frame; if the GPU processes finish before the CPU process finishes every time the CPU will bottleneck the GPU at every frame.

With two 770s and a 2600K the bottleneck will be the GPUs (this is normal with current games, but you're still talking excellent fps) and the game itself more than anything else.

[Cacao]

I'm sure you've heard "a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link", same thing applies to computers. Say you have a core duo and a gtx titan (exaggerated example), the titan will not be able to perform at it's full potential because it will be held back by the CPU. In your case, the 2600k will easily handle 2x 770s ;)

[Cacao]

Think about it this way.

 

Any object is only as strong as its weakest link. The weakest link breaks first, therefore limiting the capability of the other components.

 

In the case of computers, the computer is only as fast as its slowest component. Take an example: If you're playing a game, and your CPU is maxed out at 100%, but your GPU is only running at 30%, your CPU is the bottleneck: it got maxed out faster than the GPU. The opposite is also true, if the GPU is at 100% and CPU is at 30%.

 

The ideal scenario is where the GPU is the bottleneck, to get the most out of gaming performance. Your current CPU should be nowhere close to running at maximum capacity during gaming, so your GPU will be used to its fullest potential.

 

It'll take a much older CPU to bottleneck the 560 Ti SLI. You're fine.

He's talking about SLI 770s... 

[rashdanml]

He's talking about SLI 770s... 

Right. Makes no difference to the rest of the post either way.

[DudeWazap]

Does my PC have bottle necking? check my signature.

[IPCharger]

As Linus would say, there's always going to be a bottleneck. The idea is to reduce that bottleneck as much as possible. And in your case, you're fine. Your i7 won't bottleneck your 770s, actually, the 770s will bottleneck the i7 a little bit.

[rashdanml]

Does my PC have bottle necking? check my signature.

Potentially, if all 3 cards actually get used (can't say for sure though). If it's a game that doesn't support SLI, the 680 should still be a bottleneck. Try it out though, you can tweak the Nvidia settings to maximize usage of the graphics cards, then monitor CPU/GPU usage during gaming.

 

It generally takes a lot of GPU power to bottleneck the CPU. In most cases, it should be fine.

[pwest15]

Well I appreciate the responses all! Thank you. I hope this post is helpful to others as well

[IPCharger]

Does my PC have bottle necking? check my signature.

I would upgrade your CPU to a 8350. The 8350 should reduce the bottleneck.

[DudeWazap]

I would upgrade your CPU to a 8350. The 8350 won't bottleneck that much your GPUs.

I was thinking the same thing too but i don't know when the steam roller CPU's will be released. I don't want to buy the 8350 and a couple months later the next gen is released.

[IPCharger]

I was thinking the same thing too but i don't know when the steam roller CPU's will be released. I don't want to buy the 8350 and a couple months later the next gen is released.

I would would wait for steamroller. I don't think your bottleneck is so bad that it makes any game unplayable (I have the 6100 and can play any game on high fine). 

[I'm Batman]

Bottle necking = one component limiting the other one from giving its full performance

Ex. if you have a 100 $ cpu but a 1000 $ gpu that cpu will be bottle necking the gpu limiting it to run at a % 50 performance (the numbers are example they are not supported by maths or anytin)

[A10-FTW]

Does my PC have bottle necking? check my signature.

nope, you "don't have" a bottleneck there  ^_^

 

http://youtu.be/TGdo75gasaQ