What is a PC bottleneck and why does it matter?

A bottleneck occurs when one component (CPU or GPU) limits the performance of another, preventing your PC from reaching its full potential. If your CPU is too weak for your GPU, you'll see lower frame rates than your graphics card can deliver. Identifying bottlenecks helps you build balanced systems and avoid wasting money on mismatched components.

How do I use this bottleneck calculator?

Select your CPU and GPU models from the dropdown menus, choose your screen resolution, and click calculate. The tool instantly shows the bottleneck percentage and identifies which component is limiting performance. A bottleneck under 10% is generally acceptable for gaming builds.

What bottleneck percentage is acceptable for gaming?

A bottleneck of 10% or less is considered acceptable and won't significantly impact gaming performance. Between 10-20% may cause minor performance loss. Above 20% indicates a serious imbalance where upgrading the bottlenecking component would provide noticeable improvements.

Is CPU or GPU bottleneck worse for gaming?

GPU bottlenecks are generally preferred for gaming because they're easier to work around by lowering graphics settings. CPU bottlenecks limit frame rates regardless of graphics settings and can cause stuttering. For competitive gaming, a slight GPU bottleneck with a strong CPU provides the most consistent performance.

Does screen resolution affect bottleneck calculations?

Yes, resolution significantly impacts bottleneck results. Higher resolutions (1440p, 4K) put more load on the GPU, potentially reducing CPU bottlenecks. At 1080p, CPUs work harder to deliver high frame rates, making CPU bottlenecks more common. Always check bottleneck at your actual gaming resolution for accurate results.

PC BOTTLENECK CALCULATOR

Advanced CPU & GPU bottleneck analysis. Enter your build to get bottleneck percentage, FPS estimates, performance tier ratings, and upgrade recommendations for gaming, rendering, and streaming.

⚙️

BOTTLENECK ANALYZER

Select your CPU & GPU, resolution, and use case to get a full performance analysis

READY 500+ PARTS

🎯 TEST MODE — SELECT USE CASE

🎮 GAMING

📡 STREAMING & CONTENT

💻 PROFESSIONAL & COMPUTE

🎮

AAA GAMING

Standard AAA gaming workload. GPU-heavy at higher resolutions. Bottleneck is primarily felt through low FPS and stuttering.

35%

CPU

65%

GPU

🖥️ RESOLUTION & REFRESH RATE

STANDARD

⚡ HIGH REFRESH RATE

🖵️ WIDESCREEN / SPECIAL

🔲 CPU — PROCESSOR

🔲

—

🎮 GPU — GRAPHICS CARD

🎮

—

📊

BOTTLENECK METER

Overall system bottleneck percentage

CPU LOAD

GPU LOAD

BALANCE

🏆

VERDICT & ANALYSIS

What's limiting your build's performance

—

⚙️

CALCULATING…

Run the analysis to see results.

CPU SCORE

GPU SCORE

BOTTLENECK %

BUILD TIER

🎮 FPS ESTIMATES GAMES ▸

🎮

ESTIMATED FPS BY GAME CATEGORY

Approximate average FPS at selected resolution — Ultra/High settings

ESTIMATES1440p

⚡ FPS estimates are based on hardware scores and typical game profiles. Actual performance varies by game version, driver, and settings. Bottleneck reduces the limiting component's effective utilization.

📋 SPEC COMPARISON DETAILED ▸

📋

DETAILED SPEC COMPARISON

Head-to-head specs for your CPU and GPU

🔲 CPU SPECIFICATIONS

🎮 GPU SPECIFICATIONS

⚖️ SIDE-BY-SIDE SCORE COMPARISON

METRIC	CPU	GPU	ADVANTAGE

🚀 UPGRADE RECOMMENDATIONS OPTIMIZE ▸

🚀

UPGRADE RECOMMENDATIONS

Smart upgrade path to maximize performance for your use case

SMART PATH

📈 PERFORMANCE BREAKDOWN MULTI-SCENARIO ▸

📈

PERFORMANCE ACROSS ALL SCENARIOS

How your build performs in each use case and resolution

⚖️ COMPARE TWO BUILDS COMPARE ▸

⚖️

BUILD COMPARATOR

Compare two complete builds side-by-side

🅐 BUILD A

🔲

🎮

🅑 BUILD B

🔲

🎮

📋 ANALYSIS HISTORY RECENT ▸

📋

ANALYSIS HISTORY

Your recent bottleneck checks — click to reload

No analyses yet — run your first bottleneck check above.

⚙️ SETTINGS & CUSTOMIZATION 10 TABS ▸

⚙️

SETTINGS & CUSTOMIZATION

Full control over appearance, calculation, profile, export and more

CONFIG10 TABS

🎨 ACCENT COLOR

🌓 THEME

🖥️

AUTO

Follow OS

🌙

DARK

Always dark

☀️

LIGHT

Always light

✒️ FONT SIZE

SMALL

NORMAL

LARGE

🌊 BACKGROUND FX

Animated radial gradients

Rainbow border animations

Gauge animation

📐 LAYOUT DENSITY

⬛

COMPACT

🟦

NORMAL

🔲

SPACIOUS

👁️ RESULT PANELS

Show FPS estimates panel

Show spec comparison panel

Show upgrade recommendations

Show multi-scenario breakdown

Show build comparator

📈 GAUGE & METERS

Show bottleneck gauge

Show CPU/GPU load bars

Show balance score

🔢 FPS DISPLAY FORMAT

🎯

FPS

e.g. 144 FPS

⏱️

FRAME MS

e.g. 6.9 ms

↔️

BOTH

FPS + ms

📋 SCORE FORMAT

💯

OUT OF 100

e.g. 87/100

PERCENT

e.g. 87%

🏆

TIER ONLY

e.g. Tier S

📄 SECTION HEADERS

Show section icons in results

Collapse sections by default

Show bottleneck chip in header

⚡ OVERCLOCK OFFSETS

CPU OVERCLOCK (%)

-15% (undervolt)

+0%

+50% (extreme OC)

GPU OVERCLOCK (%)

-15%

+0%

+50%

💾 MEMORY

RAM SPEED

RAM CAPACITY

RAM CHANNELS

🌡️ THERMAL & POWER

THERMAL HEADROOM

PSU HEADROOM

🔩 CALCULATION MODEL

Apply RAM latency penalty

Include driver overhead estimate

Apply PCIe bandwidth factor

Account for background CPU load

🖥️ SYSTEM PROFILE

🔧 Fill in your full system specs for a more accurate bottleneck estimate. Optional fields improve accuracy.

MOTHERBOARD CHIPSET

PCIE GENERATION

PRIMARY STORAGE

OPERATING SYSTEM

DISPLAY RESOLUTION (ACTUAL)

MONITOR REFRESH RATE

🔌 CONNECTIVITY

Using Resizable BAR / Smart Access Memory

XMP / EXPO memory profile enabled

Virtualization / Hyper-V active (−2%)

High-performance power plan

🎯 GAMING TARGETS

TARGET FPS

QUALITY PRESET

PRIMARY GAME GENRE

UPSCALING TECHNOLOGY

🎮 GAMEPLAY FEATURES

Ray Tracing enabled (heavy GPU load)

Anti-cheat software running (CPU −3%)

Background browser open (CPU −5%)

Discord / overlay running

GeForce Experience / Radeon overlay

🏆 FPS TARGET INDICATORS

When analyzing, FPS estimates will be highlighted green if they meet your target, yellow if within 20% below, and red if significantly below target.

🔬 ADVANCED CALCULATION WEIGHTS

⚠️ These values override the built-in use-case weights. Change only if you know what you're doing.

CUSTOM CPU WEIGHT (0–100) — current: auto

CUSTOM GPU WEIGHT (auto-inverse): auto

Override use-case weights with custom

⚙️ DRIVER & PLATFORM FACTORS

DRIVER OVERHEAD MODEL

CPU SCHEDULER

🧮 SCORE WEIGHTING FACTORS

SINGLE-CORE WEIGHT 50%

MULTI-CORE WEIGHT 50%

🛠️ DEBUG OPTIONS

Show raw calculation scores in results

Show weight breakdown per scenario

Log analysis to console

📤 EXPORT LAST RESULT

📋 EXPORT HISTORY

🔗 SHARE

Include system profile in export

Include FPS estimates in export

Include upgrade recommendations

🖨️ SHARE LINK (URL ENCODED)

🔔 BOTTLENECK ALERT THRESHOLDS

Set thresholds for when the tool warns you about bottleneck severity.

⚠️ MODERATE WARNING THRESHOLD — 20%

🔴 SEVERE ALERT THRESHOLD — 35%

🔔 NOTIFICATION TYPES

Toast notification on analysis complete

Alert when bottleneck exceeds threshold

Highlight limiting component in results

Show upgrade urgency badge

💡 SMART SUGGESTIONS

Suggest resolution change for balance

Suggest OC potential when bottlenecked

Show GPU/CPU tier mismatch warning

🎨 VERDICT COLOR SCHEME

🟢🟡🔴

DEFAULT

⬜⬛

MONO

♿

A11Y

💾 STORAGE & HISTORY

Save analysis history

Auto-save last result on close

HISTORY LIMIT

📊 STORAGE USAGE

Calculating…

🗑️ CLEAR DATA

🔒 PRIVACY

✅ All data is stored only in your browser's localStorage. Nothing is sent to any server. No tracking, no cookies, no account required.

Clear all data on browser close

📥 IMPORT SETTINGS

⚙️

PC BOTTLENECK CALCULATOR

Advanced CPU & GPU performance analysis tool

v2.0 500+ PARTS 15 TEST MODES 10 SETTINGS TABS

📊 DATABASE STATS

CPUS

GPUS

TEST MODES

SETTINGS TABS

✨ FEATURES

✅ 500+ CPU/GPU database

✅ 15 use-case test modes

✅ Animated bottleneck gauge

✅ FPS estimates by genre

✅ Multi-scenario breakdown

✅ Build comparator (A vs B)

✅ Smart upgrade suggestions

✅ OC + thermal + RAM tuning

✅ Export JSON / CSV / MD

✅ Analysis history (15 saves)

✅ OS theme auto-detection

✅ Zero server calls

⌨️ KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Analyze bottleneckEnter

Reset all fieldsEscape

Toggle themeT

Export resultCtrl+S

Focus CPU searchC

Focus GPU searchG

🔄 CHANGELOG

v2.0 — CURRENT

+ 15 test modes with per-mode weight profiles
+ 10 settings tabs with full customization
+ System profile with chipset/storage/OS
+ Gaming profile with upscaling, RT, overlays
+ Advanced weight overrides
+ Export: JSON, CSV, Markdown, Text
+ Keyboard shortcuts
+ OS auto-theme (CSS prefers-color-scheme)

v1.0

+ Initial release with 5 modes and 500+ parts

📚 BOTTLENECK GUIDE LEARN ▸

📚

BOTTLENECK REFERENCE GUIDE

Understanding CPU vs GPU bottlenecks and how to fix them

🔲 CPU BOTTLENECK

CPU-limited means your processor is the weakest link. The GPU sits idle waiting for the CPU to feed it data. Common in esports titles, open-world games, and simulation games at high FPS targets.

Symptoms: GPU usage is low (50–75%), CPU usage is at 100%, low FPS even with a powerful GPU, high 1% lows.

Fix: Upgrade CPU, overclock CPU, enable performance mode, increase resolution to shift work to GPU.

🎮 GPU BOTTLENECK

GPU-limited means your graphics card is the bottleneck. This is actually the desired state for gaming — it means your CPU isn't being wasted.

Symptoms: GPU at 99%, CPU usage is low, FPS is below target, raising settings barely affects FPS.

Fix: Upgrade GPU, lower resolution or quality settings, enable DLSS/FSR upscaling. A minor GPU bottleneck (<15%) is perfectly normal.

⚖️ BALANCED BUILD

Balanced means CPU and GPU are well matched. Neither is significantly holding the other back. This is the ideal state.

Target range: 0–10% bottleneck is considered balanced. 10–20% is acceptable. Over 30% means significant performance is being lost.

Note: Perfect 0% balance is impossible — aim for the GPU to be the mild bottleneck (<10%) at your target resolution and quality.

📊 BOTTLENECK SEVERITY SCALE

0 – 10%

✅ Balanced — ideal for gaming

10 – 20%

🟡 Minor — barely noticeable

20 – 35%

🟠 Moderate — upgrade advised

35%+

🔴 Severe — significant loss