Which do you prefer? CPU or GPU bottleneck?

[Evolution90]

This is not as clear cut and easy to answer as many will have you believe.

 

Sure a GPU being the bottleneck means that you need to turn settings down, but when it's unplayable even at low settings.. it's a miserable experience.

 

Now turn that on it's head, say your CPU is hitting 99% before the GPU but the eye candy is gorgeous, you get some momentary FPS drops here and there when facing a large crowd of enemies, but so long as it looks great who cares? right?

 

 

Thought this would make for an interesting poll

[StarWarsCentral]

This is so ridiculously dependant on what hardware you've got, any bottleneck is a bad thing, especially when it negates an expensive graphics card, 
But in this case there isn't really a correct answer because there are no set parameters for the discussion. 

An i7 with a 8800gts will suck. 
But a 1080 on an FM1 apu will also suck.

I'd probably say having an average processor is more important than having a ridiculous GPU, but again, entirely speculative without parameters.
I would say this is something Linus should explore, but this is more something that Scrapyard wars already actively brings forwards, and its proven that a mixture is always better than topheavy either side bottlenecking.

So the takeaway to all of it is focus on getting a best all round system. as per usual

[Cookybiscuit]

CPU bottlenecks piss me off because there's nothing you can do about it, at least with a GPU bottleneck you can either turn settings down or buy/wait for a better card.

 

Also yes I'm stupid and believe if GPU usage is at 99% there is no bottleneck because that's true so long as you're getting the framerate you want.

[vikiplayz]

I think i prefer gpu cause its usually easier and chaeper to upgrade than a cpu

 

[Nicnac]

rig I threw together a while back: i3 530 plus gtx 1050ti. Gotta love me some cpu bottleneck  

best thing are the 200fps in csgo with dips below 40 lol

[Lord Nicoll]

4 minutes ago, Evolution90 said:

This is not as clear cut and easy to answer as many will have you believe.

 

Sure a GPU being the bottleneck means that you need to turn settings down, but when it's unplayable even at low settings.. it's a miserable experience.

 

Now turn that on it's head, say your CPU is hitting 99% before the GPU but the eye candy is gorgeous, you get some momentary FPS drops here and there when facing a large crowd of enemies, but so long as it looks great who cares? right?

 

 

Thought this would make for an interesting poll

Which would you like more, me to cut off one of your arms or one of your legs? See neither is ideal but depending on what you do, if you had to make that choice, you'll know the answer right away, personally I prefer a GPU bottle neck as it's usually easier and maybe cheaper to fix. 

[EunSoo]

I had an i3 paired with a rx480. The i3 6100 was definitely bottlenecking the rx480 hard but I never replaced it because I got 60fps in overwatch easy. So I guess the real observable bottleneck was my monitor, not my cpu.

[panther420]

I prefer having a gpu bottleneck, because usually the game will still run fine as long as you turn down graphical settings (most of the time). Also as some else mentioned, upgrading a gpu is easier than a cpu, because with a cpu you have to buy a new cpu and a motherboard, and possibly even ram. CPU bottlenecks induce all kinds of extremely annoying problems too. The game will usually run fine from an average fps standpoint, but will have stutters, crashing, lag spikes, input lag, and a whole lot of other issues. Having a bad CPU has bad implications for other applications too, so I'd much rather have a lacking gpu than a lacking CPU.

[Evolution90]

Just now, panther420 said:

I prefer having a gpu bottleneck, because usually the game will still run fine as long as you turn down graphical settings (most of the time). Also as some else mentioned, upgrading a gpu is easier than a cpu, because with a cpu you have to buy a new cpu and a motherboard, and possibly even ram. CPU bottlenecks induce all kinds of extremely annoying problems too. The game will usually run fine from an average fps standpoint, but will have stutters, crashing, lag spikes, input lag, and a whole lot of other issues. Having a bad CPU has bad implications for other applications too, so I'd much rather have a lacking gpu than a lacking CPU.

I once games on a Radeon 4570m with 512mb of DDR3 over it's 64 bit wide interface with a core 2 duo at 2.2ghz..

 

Both bottlenecked each other.. was really pretty bad... got Skyrim to run at decent FPS though, tweaked Windows 7 to annihilation point... tweaked ini for Skyrim, was able to turn settings up at 480x720 res lol.

[MadModder]

Couldn't vote because I don't prefer either. 

[panther420]

Just now, Evolution90 said:

I once games on a Radeon 4570m with 512mb of DDR3 over it's 64 bit wide interface with a core 2 duo at 2.2ghz..

 

Both bottlenecked each other.. was really pretty bad... got Skyrim to run at decent FPS though, tweaked Windows 7 to annihilation point... tweaked ini for Skyrim, was able to turn settings up at 480x720 res lol.

You can't have a two-way bottleneck. A bottleneck means that one component is holding back the rest in your system. I would think in most cases that GPU would be the bottleneck though.

[Evolution90]

Just now, panther420 said:

You can't have a two-way bottleneck. A bottleneck means that one component is holding back the rest in your system. I would think in most cases that GPU would be the bottleneck though.

CPU lost it's shit when in a fight, GPU lost it's shit with effects on screen.... both bottlenecked.

[PCGuy_5960]

GPU bottleneck because this means that I can upgrade my GPU without having to upgrade my CPU as well 

[Evolution90]

1 minute ago, MadModder said:

Couldn't vote because I don't prefer either. 

But every computer in the world is bottlenecked, it's something you can't not have.

[JoeCoke]

CPU is much more important to me as I don't do much intensive gaming these days. So GPU bottleneck it is.

[MadModder]

I guess I'd have to pick GPU in that case. The reason being that processing power is more important (in the long run) than graphics abilities. Depending on what you're doing of course.

[Mira Yurizaki]

If you're asking me to choose between running a game on a Celeron with a GTX 1080 Ti or an i7-7700K overclocked to 5.0GHz but no discrete graphics card (or a Threadripper with the most bottom barrel video card I can find), then I'd rather just go with a more powerful CPU. That can deal with more use cases than a powerful GPU can.

[strat guy]

I'll take a GPU bottlenect anytime too, as has been repeatedly said already, it is much easier to swap out a graphics card (or lower in-game settings) than swapping cpus.

 

A hassle free upgrade every 2 or 3 GPU generations per build is how it goes for most ? CPU bottlenecks generally mean you need a new system, spl when you're oc'ing and still running into those bottlenecks holding a current gen graphics card back.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

CPU bottlenecks are pretty annoying as it's not as simple as switching CPUs. Oh no. By the time the CPU becomes a bottleneck, we're talking about potentially a full platform upgrade. That means, your current CPU, motherboard, and even potentially RAM would all go in the bin. 

[MrAlbertrocks]

I don't understand how a bottleneck works. If my GPU is at 99% usage in a game, it means my cpu is not bottlenecking it, right? And it is a good thing, because it means i'm putting to use every single fps my GPU is giving me, right? So what's the downside to having 99% gpu usage?

[Mira Yurizaki]

33 minutes ago, MrAlbertrocks said:

I don't understand how a bottleneck works. If my GPU is at 99% usage in a game, it means my cpu is not bottlenecking it, right? And it is a good thing, because it means i'm putting to use every single fps my GPU is giving me, right? So what's the downside to having 99% gpu usage?

The way the OP is written makes it sound weird, which is why I asked the question I did and it apparently wasn't taken very seriously.

 

I mean, ideally in games, as close to 100% GPU utilization is what you want. But this bit:

Quote

... but when it's unplayable even at low settings.. it's a miserable experience.

Makes it sound like the scenario is you have a crappy GPU.

[FrankV]

3 hours ago, Cookybiscuit said:

CPU bottlenecks piss me off because there's nothing you can do about it, at least with a GPU bottleneck you can either turn settings down or buy/wait for a better card.

 

Also yes I'm stupid and believe if GPU usage is at 99% there is no bottleneck because that's true so long as you're getting the framerate you want.

You can overclock your CPU.... 

[Teddy07]

honestly? You put way too much effort in the whole "bottleneck" thing

[AshleyAshes]

3 hours ago, StarWarsCentral said:

An i7 with a 8800gts will suck. 
But a 1080 on an FM1 apu will also suck.

Well, not quite.

 

 

Even in this video with the A8-3870K, Llano APU, they later test just he CPU with a GTX 1080.  While the bottleneck shows the 7700k testbench OBVIOUSLY outclassing it, the board does manage playable experiences in the 50-60fps average range at 1080p, at high settings, in modern games.  In comparison the 8800GTS would shit the bed in these games and in many, the games would likely refuse to run.

[Cookybiscuit]

1 minute ago, FrankV said:

You can overclock your CPU.... 

Yeah and the 10% performance gains you'll get from doing so totally makes up for the unbelievably stagnant single-thread CPU performance we've had since 2011, meanwhile GPU performance has been growing by a minimum of 50% year by year. The fact is anyone still running a 6 year old 3960X still has a great gaming CPU and pretty much zero reason to buy any other processor even right now, unless they have money to throw away and want at best a 10% performance bump and extra chipset features like SATA3 or PCIe 3.0. Anyone still hanging onto a GTX 580 or 680 effectively has a paperweight.