A fairly common question in hardware forums and portals is whether the combination of a graphics card and a processor will form a bottleneck. Basically, the goal is to prevent one component from "strangling" the other and compromising the computer's performance. The portal The Bottlenecker presents a calculator that allows us to determine (to a certain extent) whether a CPU-GPU bottleneck will exist before we invest our money.
One of the reasons why any benchmarking session needs to be carried out with great care is the existence of bottlenecks. On certain occasions, the goal is to create them deliberately to detect the limits of a component, but in general terms, the user should escape them by any means possible.
Trying to buy the most powerful graphics card that your budget allows is very tempting. However, if the processor is not up to the task, all you'll achieve is to chain the GPU. Of course, the same can happen in the opposite direction, with a processor anchored to the "anemia" of the graphics chip. Accumulating information is vital when it comes to finding the exact balance for your hardware. The Web is full of benchmarks and personal experiences that help us a lot in establishing the link between CPU and GPU, but the portal The Bottlenecker offers something even better: a calculator.
A Bottleneck Calculator
All you have to do is enter essential parameters of the computer (whether real or theoretical), starting with the processor and the graphics card, the RAM modules, and finally the type of storage. If the percentage stays below 10 percent, The Bottlenecker will say it's an appropriate combination. Otherwise, it will indicate which piece is acting as the limit and share a list of replacements. The page has no restriction on the number of calculations you can make, and the complete history with the results appears at the bottom.
The Bottlenecker is a work in progress, and this is mainly noticeable through the available options. It's likely that some of the suggestions will surprise the user, but it's critical to remember that there is no kind of synergy within brands.
In other words, using an AMD CPU and GPU together won't make the computer faster. In fact, a very common recommendation is to pair an AMD APU with Nvidia video. At the end of the day, The Bottlenecker is one more reference and should not be interpreted as the "last word". Its information is useful, however, it needs complements.
