Why do Bottlenecks Matter?
The burden of bottlenecks can influence where to spend money upgrading. If your GPU is the weakest pair in terms of performance, upgrading the CPU offers no increase in frame rate or similar. On the other hand, if your CPU is holding you back, purchasing a faster GPU might not result in as big of gains.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider: How to test CPU performance in games
If you’re building or upgrading a gaming PC, it pays to know the difference between your CPU and GPU. Today, we are looking at CPU performance in one of the most recent and also more complex to run games: “Shadow of the Tomb Raider”.
Let us illustrate it with a case: If we are discussing the game Shadow of the Tomb Raider at 1080p, Among some CPUs that form different tiers like Intel Core i3 8100 to an inadequate graphics card (here NVIDIA GTX 1030), when paired up there would not be much difference in their performance as theoretically intended. Whichever CPU tried to show off was essentially held back by the weak GPU, as frame rate never made it above low 17 FPS.
Conversely, the biggest performance gains with a more powerful GPU like RTX 2060 occurred when paired with better CPUs. From lowly Core i3 to a powerhouse Core i9, that’s an 18% improvement in performance just by feeding the GPU silicon with more cores around it.
Slap something like an RTX 3070 in the machine and that old quad-core i3 is going to buckle under pressure. That’s when you get a CPU bottleneck. The high end i9 processor demonstrated the CPU was getting hung up, and once it got out of the way we saw a huge boost alongside similar gains overclocking for our little old GPU.
Resolutions & Bottlenecks: Impact of High Resolutions
Resolution is another bottleneck-influencing factor. The higher you bump up the resolution from 1080p to 1440 and finally, all the way up to 4K – it leans more toward a GPU load. 4K is so graphics-card-dependent that at this resolution, the CPU matters less and even cards like the RTX 3070 will have a tough time. Now, the frame rate is much more associated to what your GPU can do with respect the capability of showing visually-intensive pictures efficiently.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider 4K difference in between CPUs is almost non-existent when combined with RTX3070, by example. The basic reason for this is that places so much emphasis on the GPU, rather than CPU performance at resolutions where the GPU becomes a primary bottleneck. If you are a gamer that lean towards 4K gaming, a top-tier GPU will have lower latency per frame from upgrading the CPU.
Highlights of CPU-Intensive Games: When it’s all about CPUs
Although a bunch of the games are GPU-bound, some older or less graphically intensive games tend to scale with CPU performance more. Whereas, in a game like CS: GO which is built for maximum FPS the CPU holds more weight. If the CPU is upgraded it can double the frame rate, especially if combined with a mid-range GPU such as the RTX 2060.
Nonetheless, even in the case of such scenarios there is restriction to what CPU can handle. At this point the GPU becomes a bottleneck, and upgrading your CPU beyond that will give you increasingly smaller returns. This serves to illustrate that it is critical when upgrading your PC, that you take into account the needs of whatever games or applications you are using most.
What Should You Do to Avoid Your PC’s Potential Bottleneck?
The key points to remember are, be informed when building your PC and plan for the future: you’ll need one of those B550 motherboards now if HRD is where it’s at. Sure, it is easy to get drawn in by the newest gear available but always looking ahead and seeing how this may be expanded on later down the road. This is where we have to plan strategically.
The most important thing to consider is the CPU. The 5, you may be tempted to buy the most expensive chip available; however more pragmatic advice will steer you toward a processor that balances performance and future upgrade potential. A excellent instance of this will be AMD’s personal X series processors. They deliver great stock performance and a good platform for future upgrades.
AMD’s AM4 socket, for which the X series processors are the relevant CPUs has supported multiple generations of CPUs. This means that starting with a mid-range AMD X series processor could provide you with an upgrade path to a higher end model in future, without having to replace your motherboard. In retrospect, this flexibility can save you money in the long run by enabling you to keep your system up-to-date without overhauling it completely.
For example, many of AMD’s X series processors have higher clock speeds and better thermal performance than non-X variants, making them well suited for gaming as well as productivity tasks. Whether you need a machine for gaming, content creation or any other general use; going for an AMD X series processor guarantees you what is needed now and opens up possibilities of future upgrades.
