Gadgetory

happy Halloween to those who celebrate it I am dressed up currently as a college student and I expect I'll be dressed up as a college student again tomorrow what do you know for today's video we'll discuss what exactly the phrase is a GPU bound and CPU bound mean in regards to video games it's a question often asked by those who build their own computers after assembling a list of parts one typically decides in the back of his or her mind which component will be the limiting factor either the graphics card or central processing unit that is after all what being bound means this term is unique because unlike fixed parameters it changes with respect to in game settings games that run at very low resolutions and high frame rates will usually result in CPU bound scenarios and titles run at high resolutions and lower frame rates they're trade-offs will typically be GPU bound by nature of their architectures more on that here but how would you go about assessing your own personal situation how would you properly diagnose whether your GPU or your CPU is holding you back welcome to the crash course playlist without sugarcoating anything or dragging this video out there is one surefire way of determining whether or not your CPU or GPU is the limiting factor download a program like MSI Afterburner or NC X T's cam software and enable both GPU and CPU percent usages in their drop-down menus step-by-step guides on how to do this are linked in this video's description whenever you open a game with these presets you should be able to see them in some corner of your screen usually the top left I've simulated three different examples with my own personal rig walter white version 2.0 it's sporting an i7 69 hundred K octa-core processor at 4.4 gigahertz 16 gigabytes of ddr4 and two gtx 1070 s boosted to eighteen hundred and twenty megahertz in sli from just hearing these specifications which segment of my computer do you expect will be the limiting factor again it all depends on the game here is our first scenario this is witcher 3 running in the 1440p resolution at max settings across the board the game looks beautiful with everything on and according to our framerate my apologies for the unnecessary overlap is well above the 60fps threshold ignore though these are inaccurate but do take a look at our CPU and GPU usages first and foremost we notice that both graphics cards are being heavily utilized staying well above 90% for both this is typically an indication of being GPU bound our CPU usage verifies this it's only utilizing one fifth of its full processing potential and isn't even getting very hot with this game without a doubt we're being bound by our graphics cards even though we have two gtx 1070 s in here they're essentially being choked used to their fullest potential z' for a game like this jumping from 210 70's to 210 80s would be the ideal thing to do given how much CPU headroom we appear to have that on top of the fact that most games won't fully take advantage of anything more than about 4 physical cores but there are cases in which the i7 6900 k that's right folks a $1000 processor is the bottleneck can you guess which game I'm referring to in particular Tri City skylines notorious for its aggressive demand of CPU horsepower it'll choke the life out of any situation when dense populations and heavy mods are in effect which is the case here just check out our frame rates are you kidding me sure we're running mac settings in 1440p but this is a $2,500 computer and I can't even push above 60fps what garbage is this it's called poor optimization for one have a peek at our second GPU usage it hasn't even passed ten percent since the start of this run this tells me that cities isn't SLI optimized and is essentially ignoring the second graphics card big waste of money in this case but wait Greg how can you say this is a CPU bound title if it's only being stressed to around 30% there are two reasons for this actually keep in mind this one here's for overall CPU usage it's basically an average of all CPU utilization in the case of Witcher 3 all cores were moderately used but in the case of city skylines three cores are being stressed to the max while the other five sit at bay hyper-threading does help in this game as i've proven here but it doesn't change the game's architecture this can be verified by MSI Afterburner control hub which monitors independent core usage I know three is a weird number but that's what we're getting here so our CPU is being maxed out but only on a few cores this is entirely dependent on the games API encoding the other way to verify that we are in fact CPU bound take a look at GPU usage whether we're zoomed in or out it doesn't really matter GPU one rarely exceeds 50% while GPU 2 is practically non-existent this is typically indicative of a limiting CPU whether it be the result of a CPU itself or the game's architecture no matter what I do or where I hover in this game I'm being bound by my central processing unit this may be a one thousand dollar chip but it isn't being used to its full potential an i7 6700 K while less than half the cost of the sixty nine hundred K would be more ideal here since that CPU still packs enough cores to be fully utilized but with higher individual core performance of course using a more powerful GT X 1080 singular would also help our framerate here okay so you've seen what a GPU bound scenario looks like or GPUs in this case and you've also seen what a CPU bound scenario looks like but is there a middle ground can you find a good balance between GPU and CPU usage in any given game to be fair you'll always be bound by one or the other there is no such thing as a perfectly balanced system with that said however when the two work together in harmony you'll see your frame rates increase as well as overall smoothness stuttering should be non-existent in frame rate should be constant and high with respect to your native gaming resolution incomes dying light while this one undoubtedly favors Nvidia graphics cards the developers made no secret of that just look at their intro it plays very well on Walter white version 2.0 check out our usages both GPU 1 and GPU 2 are being utilized about the same this is good indicating excellent SLI optimization and CPU usage often pegs above 50% I don't expect dying light to utilize all eight cores and sixteen threads of the 6900 K that would be a bit crazy but 50 to 60 percent usage tells me that it's actively using the industry standard and that's for physical cores for modern gaming while I would normally consider this a CPU bound title for the simple reason that replacing my 6900 K with my 6700 K yields slightly higher frame rates thanks to higher single core performance our graphics card utilization is still relatively high indicating a healthy balance between the two departments when it comes to selecting parts for your new gaming PC ask yourself what kinds of games you intend to play do a bit of research into what those games and generally leverage more either the central processing unit or graphic card and base your component choices on that obviously it wouldn't make any sense to pair an i3 6100 with a Pascal tight next I really hope you didn't do that you'll likely be cpu-bound in almost every game at every standard resolution but the difference between an i-5 6400 plus rx 480 and an i3 6100 + gtx 1070 in terms of frame rates will certainly vary from game to game doing this research beforehand could save you a heck of a lot of buyer's remorse as well as just pure sheer frustration city skylines I am looking at you if you like this video be sure to give it a thumbs up give it a thumbs down if you feel good opposite or hit every button to have any stay tuned for more content like this this is Salazar studio have a safe and happy Halloween