GPU bottlenecking can have a severe impact on your performance whether you are playing your latest gaming obsession or designing stunning artwork. But what is a GPU bottleneck?
We’ve put together this blog post detailing everything you need to know about GPU bottlenecks, how it can affect your performance, and our top tips on how to avoid them.
What is GPU Bottleneck?
A GPU bottleneck is where your graphics card isn’t performing fast enough to handle the workloads processed by your CPU and RAM. As a result, your other components are left waiting for your GPU to effectively catch up with rendering the images.
How Does GPU Bottlenecking Affect Performance?
Bottlenecking is essentially a traffic jam happening within your PC. In this instance, whilst your CPU and RAM are performing at maximum capacity, your GPU is struggling to render your images as and when requested. Instead of working seamlessly in sync, your PC is left waiting for that one specific component, the GPU, to catch up.
This traffic jam can have a notable effect on performance, especially in games and other graphically intensive workloads. Reduced frame rates, display stutter, and slow speeds will soon start interrupting your latest gaming adventure or creative project.
How to Avoid GPU Bottlenecks
Bottlenecks can have a severe impact on your PC’s performance. Thankfully, there are some simple things you can do to avoid them. This includes:
- Monitoring real-time performance
- Reduce unnecessary background applications
- Lower graphics settings
- Keep GPU drivers up to date
- Upgrading outdated hardware
Monitor Real-Time Performance
Monitoring software, such as MSI Afterburner, delivers real-time information about your graphics card such as temperature, voltages, and even potential bottlenecks. You can carefully track your GPU’s usage whilst gaming to find any unwanted performance drops and make adjustments where needed.
Reduce Background Applications
Unnecessary background applications, especially when gaming, can take up precious resources which could be otherwise spent on rendering your gaming worlds.
Limiting the number of background applications is easy. All you need to do is open the Task Manager, right-click on any unwanted programs, and select End Task.
Lower Graphics Settings
Lowering your in-game settings can notably help to lighten your graphics card’s workload. Reducing the resolution, turning off ray tracing, and more will help your GPU render complex frames faster, giving your performance a much-needed boost.
If you’re looking for more ways to optimise your in-game settings, check out our dedicated blog post for more!
Keep GPU Drivers Up to Date
Keeping GPU drivers up to date is vital. Regularly updating drivers ensures you utilising the latest performance enhancements, bug fixes, and security improvements to fine-tune your gaming experience and reduce any unwanted issues.
If you are unsure how to update your graphics card drivers, we’ve got a handy step-by-step guide that shows you everything you need to know.
Upgrade Your Hardware
Lastly, if you’ve tried everything to no avail, upgrading your hardware can help to eliminate any bottlenecking. The latest generation of GPUs come equipped with powerful cores, higher integrated VRAM, and faster clock speeds to deliver even better performance in both gaming and creative applications.
If you’re in the market for a new GPU, you can find plenty of models from both NVIDIA and AMD at Overclockers UK. We’ve selected our top two faves below, but you can also click the relevant buttons to explore our full range.
Sapphire Radeon RX 7800 XT Pure 16GB GDDR6 Graphics Card
- AMD Radeon RX 7000 Series
- RDNA 3 architecture
- 3840 stream processors
- 2430MHz boosted clock speed
- 16GB GDDR6 video memory
ASUS GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Super 16GB GDDR6X Graphics Card
- NVIDIA RTX 40 Series
- Ada Lovelace architecture
- 8448 CUDA cores
- 2670MHz boosted clock speed
- 16GB GDDR6X video memory
Learn More About Your Graphics Cards
Share Your Top Tips!
Do you have any other tips for avoiding GPU bottlenecks? Help out your fellow gamers and share them in the comments below.
- 4 min read
Ruth Rowley
Author
Ruth has been with Overclockers UK for over a year and has gone on to write about everything ranging from in-depth hardware guides to monthly game releases.
Outside of writing blog posts, she can be found wrapped in a blanket with her black cat, engrossed in a book or playing life-simulation games such as The Sims, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing.
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