Which gives better guidance before a PC upgrade benchmarks or bottleneck calculators?

[Theltorither]

Hey everyone,

I’m planning to upgrade my PC soon (mainly GPU/CPU), but I keep running into a problem — different tools give me different answers.

Some benchmark tools (like Cinebench, 3DMark, UserBenchmark) are good for stress testing, but the results don’t always tell me how balanced my system will be in actual games.

Bottleneck calculators, on the other hand, directly show CPU/GPU balance at different resolutions, but I’m not sure how accurate they are compared to real benchmarks.

So my question is: which one do you trust more when planning upgrades? Do you rely on benchmarks, bottleneck calculators, or a mix of both?

Personally, I feel bottleneck calculators are a bit more useful for planning, but I’d love to hear the community’s thoughts before I make a final decision.

Thanks!

[Silent_Scone]

Hi @Theltorither 

What is the system for? B850, X870 and 9800X3D for gaming cannot be beat right now, depending on budget.

GPU vastly depends on budget.

[Theltorither]

hanks for the suggestions! That combo does look really strong for high-end gaming.

I guess my main concern was more about the planning stage like before locking down on a GPU/CPU, whether it’s smarter to lean more on benchmark results or on bottleneck calculators. Benchmarks are great for raw performance numbers, but sometimes they don’t show how balanced a system will be across different resolutions. Bottleneck tools seem helpful for that, though I’m not sure how accurate they really are compared to real-world benchmarks.

Curious to hear how others approach this do you usually check benchmarks first and then validate with bottleneck ratios, or the other way around?

[Nate152]

Hello Thelorither

If you go with the 9800X3D, just know you have the fastest gaming cpu at the moment, so there should be little to no bottlenecks with current gpu's. 

Your monitor can help determine what gpu to get.