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CPU/GPU Bottleneck Confusion

Keylonta
Level 7
I used two different bottleneck calculators to compare the Intel Core i7-6700K with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, and both calculators indicate that the CPU is too weak for the GPU.

Bottleneck Calculator 1

Bottleneck Calculator 2

"Intel Core i7-6700K (Clock speed at 100%) with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (Clock speed at 100%) x1 will produce 12.08% of bottleneck."

But the clock speeds are as follows:

Intel Core i7-6700K
Clock: 4.0 GHz (4000 MHz)
Turboclock: 4.2 GHz (4200 MHz)

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
Core Clock: 1365 MHz
Boost Clock: 1830 MHz
Effective Mem. Clock: 14000 MHz

The core clock speed for the CPU is higher than the GPU, so why are the bottleneck calculators indicating that the CPU will bottleneck the GPU?

Exactly what specifications do I need to compare between a CPU and a GPU to avoid bottlenecking?
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2 REPLIES 2

Keylonta
Level 7
Reply from ASUS support.

Please be informed that we have received the escalation feedback from the ASUS Global Technical Support Department regarding your case. According to them, unfortunately, this is not something we can answer. There are too many variables, down to the specific game/operation being performed.

There are websites dedicated to testing this, please check them out for assistance as we cannot provide these answers, sorry.

Super_Gnome
Level 11
Some applications are definitely more CPU intensive and vice versa. Also, you might also look at a CPU bottleneck as merely more headroom for you GPU--for example 12.08% more headroom for your GPU. I wouldn't worry about it, myself. A bottleneck will only come into play at max capacity or if you really want to push your hardware. In a lot of cases, can you not also make in game/application adjustments, such as via in game settings? In my case, I look at the temperatures of both my CPUs and GPUs and make adjustments to keep them down (for example by limiting the FPS). If you can't do that, or are not interested, and are hitting max temperatures, in this case, with your CPU, it will simply throttle so as to not suffer any damage. You might also look at getting a beefier CPU cooler if your CPU temperatures are getting really high.