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3 signs that your CPU is bottlenecking the GPU
When you're building a gaming or rendering PC, you need the best graphics card you can afford. After all, it's the one component that maximizes your frame rate. However, having an equally capable CPU is important to make the most of your GPU's horsepower, and many people — including myself sometimes — tend to overlook that.
I upgraded to the RTX 4090 in 2022 when it launched without upgrading my CPU first — the Ryzen 5900X. Honestly, I was just waiting for the 7950X3D to notice a significant performance boost, but AMD didn't launch it until February 2023. I quickly realized that my 5900X was holding my RTX 4090 back, especially at 1440p resolution. And these were the signs I noticed which you should look out for.
4 clear signs it's time to upgrade your CPU
Don't let your CPU hold your PC back
Low GPU usage
GPU usage rarely exceeds 80%
Your graphics card utilization should ideally be above 90% most of the time. It's hard to achieve this in every game, though, because game optimization plays a key role too. So, if you don't get the performance gains Nvidia advertised for your graphics card, it's time to monitor your GPU usage using a PC monitoring tool like MSI Afterburner. If the GPU usage is sitting below 80% most of the time, your CPU is likely struggling to keep up with your powerful new graphics card.
You're more likely to encounter low GPU usage in competitive games like Valorant, Counter-Strike 2, Fortnite, etc., since they're not nearly as graphically demanding as some AAA games like Black Myth: Wukong and Cyberpunk 2077. For instance, I used to play Valorant on a 240Hz monitor almost daily. When I upgraded to the RTX 4090 from the 3090, I expected the frame rate to stay above 240FPS consistently. However, my aging Ryzen 5900X limited my GPU usage to the point that I barely noticed any significant improvements. On the other hand, my RTX 4090 had no trouble flexing its muscles in Cyberpunk 2077 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
No gains at lower resolutions
Lowering the resolution doesn't improve the FPS much
Typically, when you lower the in-game resolution, you should notice a significant uplift in your frame rate since it's easier for the graphics card to render new frames. However, if your graphics card is too powerful for your CPU, you won't notice a big FPS jump. That's because the game is more taxing on the CPU at lower resolutions. If your CPU can't feed more data to the GPU as fast as the latter renders more frames, the GPU usage will be even lower to notice any meaningful improvement.
Therefore, playing at higher resolutions is better to minimize the CPU bottleneck. The more demanding a game is on your graphics card, which most games are at 4K resolution, the less CPU bottleneck you'll experience. This is one of the reasons Nvidia advertises high-end graphics cards like the RTX 5080 and 5090 for 4K gaming. Even if you have the fastest gaming CPU, like the Ryzen 9800X3D we reviewed, you'll still experience some CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions if you pair it with these GPUs.
FPS drops and stuttering
Your PC will show its weakness in CPU-intensive games
If your CPU is bottlenecking your GPU, you'll experience stuttering in open-world games that have tons of NPCs, multiplayer titles (especially battle royale modes), and strategy games, as they're more demanding on the CPU rather than the GPU. For instance, your CPU handles the netcode in online multiplayer games, not your GPU. So, if you're in an area with too many players, your CPU may get overwhelmed and cause the game to stutter.
Likewise, a fast CPU is crucial to ensuring a consistent frame rate. You may have noticed 1% and 0.1% lows in various GPU benchmarks. If your CPU isn't fast enough, those numbers will take a significant hit, which you experience as FPS drops. A slow CPU will increase the frame times, which is the time your CPU takes to process each frame. If the frame times are high, but your GPU renders a game at 60FPS, you'll still feel like the game is running at sub-60FPS.
Don't let your CPU throttle your GPU
Never overlook your CPU when you're in the market for a new graphics card, especially if you're eyeing a high-end model like the RTX 5080 or 5090. Even if you're upgrading from the last-generation RTX 4090, your current CPU might not be fast enough for these newer GPUs. If you plan to game exclusively at 4K resolution, you can get away with a slightly older CPU like the 5800X3D. Still, as we discussed here, your CPU's performance is crucial in competitive multiplayer games and at lower resolutions like 1440p and 1080p.
Therefore, if you're experiencing CPU bottlenecking, you'll benefit more from a CPU upgrade alone. Sure, you may have to spend money on a new motherboard, but at least you're not wasting $1000+ on a graphics card you can't make the most of. Take my build as an example; if I upgrade to the Ryzen 9800X3D, I can expect 10-20% more performance from my RTX 4090 at 1440p because of higher GPU utilization.
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