Mismatched parts, like amotherboard and processor or a CPU & GPU, aren't always guaranteed to work well together, which can lead to instability, crashes, or even hardware damage. The last thing you want to do is pair a top-of-the-line graphics card like theNvidia GeForce RTX 4090 with a modest Intel Core i3 processor. Sure, they might fit together but your computing experience will suffer as they're not meant to be paired.
After picking out your parts, waiting for them to arrive, and putting them together, there is nothing more frustrating than one component bottlenecking the rest of your PC. Okay, not booting is more frustrating, but let's assume that didn't happen. While there are no hard and fast rules for pairing CPUs and GPUs, we recommend sticking to the same tier, or possibly one tier away. So you could pair budget CPUs with either budget or mid-range GPUs, for example. That way, you won't run the risk of overpaying for one component, only for it to sit doing nothing while the rest of your computer makes calculations.
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What is a bottleneck?
If one component causes the other to slow down, that's a classic sign
A system bottleneck is when a component isn't powerful enough to keep up with the rest of the PC. This usually involves a single component which is significantly less powerful than the rest. The most common culprit for this is your CPU or GPU, but it could also be that you have too little or slow RAM, or perhaps you are still using a disk-based hard drive instead of an SSD.
Unfortunately, there is no way to remove bottlenecks from your PC completely. There will always be discrepancies in performance between the different hardware on your PC, even if you've got the best hardware. On top of this, programs and games don't use hardware resources equally, meaning you will have to gear your build towards the type of work you will be doing on it.
If money isn’t an issue, simply go for thebest GPU and thebest CPU that money can buy. In such a case, you won’t need to worry about a bottleneck since you would be using the fastest existing consumer hardware. But for everyone else, make sure you do your research beforehand and pick components that are in your budget and match your needs for the PC.
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What's best for gaming?
To some extent, it depends on the games you want to play
Your GPU is the most important piece of hardware in a gaming PC, but that doesn't mean that you should neglect your CPU, as it has some very important roles to play as well. Rendering huge, 3D worlds is generally much more taxing on the GPU than it is on the CPU. The bulk of time spent rendering a single frame of a video game is at the GPU end, and only a small fraction of it is taken by the processor to perform any physics or logical calculations.
When running modern AAA single-player games at high resolution and graphical settings, having a powerful GPU becomes much more important. And if, along with that, you also want a high framerate, you’ll need to invest in both a good CPU and GPU, since framerate depends on both of them. In addition to this, most modern AAA games aren’t even very well optimized at launch, which leads us to running games that are more CPU-intensive.
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Games that have a lot of moving parts or have a lot of logical processes or simulations going on, thinkAssassin’s Creed Odyssey, Star Citizen,X4: Foundations, or most RTS games, can often bring low or mid-range CPUs to their knees. Similarly, trying to hit a framerate of more than 200 FPS in old games or competitive first-person shooters with relatively simple graphics likeValorantorRainbow Six Siege, becomes more taxing on your CPU than it would when it runs at a framerate of 60 or even 120 FPS. Since these games have simple graphics, any modern mid-range GPU should easily be able to hit a framerate of 200 and above, but you won’t be able to get away with an Intel Core i5 this time around.
So, for a gaming PC, it’s important to consider the average resolution and framerate of your games, as well as the type of games you’ll be running on it, before settling on a CPU and GPU. That said, keep in mind that even though you might be able to save some money by getting a relatively weak GPU or CPU that performs well according to your use case, it will restrict you from playing other types of games in the future where the weakest component will cause a bottleneck.
What's best for work?
Your CPU might be more important but some apps use a lot of graphics power
Most productivity-related applications and tasks tax the CPU more than the GPU. Things like running multiple browser tabs and spreadsheets. documents, Adobe applications, programming software, and web design all have a direct impact on your CPU. To get the most performance out of these, you need a powerful CPU, so you can pass on a strong GPU if you don't need it.
In 3D rendering software, both the CPU and GPU become equally important, so you can’t save on either. Similarly, video-editing and data analysis software also rely on both these components, so you’ll want a powerful CPU and GPU for the best performance there.
How to calculate a bottleneck
Keep in mind these are rough numbers but will guide your decisions
While this is considered a very rough estimate, any online bottleneck calculator can sometimes be useful. Here’s how to do it, but again, take it with a grain of salt.
- Go to theBottleneck Calculator website.
- Select theprocessor and GPUyou plan to purchase.
- Pick thescreen resolution of the monitor you want to run these components on.
- Select the kind of tasks you’ll most likely be running on this PC and pressCalculate. I’ll go with GPU-intensive tasks since I mostly play single-player games.
- The results will show you thepercentage of bottleneck a component will cause on the other. Anything below 5% is a good match.
It may be time for an upgrade
If you find out that your PC has a bottleneck after you’ve built it, there isn’t much you can do about it other than upgrade the affected hardware. Luckily, upgrading a GPU is pretty easy. You just have to plug in a new and faster graphics card, and you’re good to go.
Unfortunately, if you upgrade your CPU to a newer generation chip with adifferent socket, you’ll also need to get a new motherboard and might even need to upgrade your RAM from DDR4 to DDR5. Even if you upgrade your CPU within the same generation, the process is still much more tedious than a GPU swap. Hence, it’s always recommended to future-proof your processor as much as possible to save yourself the hassle of upgrading it later on.
