CPU & GPU Bottleneck Calculator
Pick your CPU and GPU and see which one is the bottleneck, by how much, and how it changes across 1080p, 1440p and 4K. Spot a mismatched pairing before you spend a penny.
At 1080p the GPU is working hardest and the CPU has spare headroom. Being GPU-bound is the goal in gaming: it means the graphics card is fully used.
💡 This is a good place to be — the CPU headroom helps with high-refresh gameplay and future GPU upgrades.
Popular CPU + GPU pairings
Bottlenecks, explained
What is a CPU or GPU bottleneck?
A bottleneck is when one component can't keep up with the other, so the faster part sits partly idle and you lose performance. A CPU bottleneck means the processor can't feed the graphics card frames fast enough; a GPU bottleneck means the graphics card is the limit. In gaming, being GPU-bound is actually the goal — it means your graphics card is fully used.
Does resolution affect bottleneck?
Hugely — it's the single biggest factor. At 1080p the CPU works hardest, so CPU bottlenecks show up. As you raise the resolution to 1440p or 4K, the GPU does far more work per frame, so the CPU matters less and a modest processor can happily feed a powerful GPU. That's why the same pairing can be CPU-bottlenecked at 1080p but perfectly balanced at 4K.
Is a small bottleneck a problem?
No. Every PC has some imbalance, and anything under about 10% is well within normal — you won't notice it. It only becomes worth acting on when one component is clearly holding the other back (roughly 20%+), or when you're building new and can pick a better-matched pairing.
How accurate is a bottleneck calculator?
Treat any bottleneck calculator, including this one, as a guide rather than a benchmark. Real performance depends on the specific game, settings, RAM speed and drivers. This tool uses relative gaming-performance indexes and models the resolution effect to give you a sensible, directional answer — enough to spot a bad pairing before you buy.
Building this PC? Check the PSU wattage it needs too.