Easiest way to check for a cpu bottleneck?

What's the easiest way to see just how much a cpu is holding back one's gpu's? For example, I've got an i5 2500k that I normally OC to 4.2GHz, and a pair of 7950's with slight OC's as well. I've run Firestrike in both configurations, both non-crossfire and crossfired, and can see those results right after testing. Obviously, my crossfire scores are much higher, so I can see that there isn't much in the way of a bottleneck coming from my Sandy bridge there. But, I know that some games are a little more cpu biased, that can affect things as well. So, is there some sort of software that I can run that will help me detect future bottlenecks? Something that I can run at different clock speeds to see just how much of a "boost" my OC's are getting me and when they have become much less effective? I've been using 3dMark as an indirect method of testing my cpu as of late, and am just looking to find something that will actually "bring it to my attention" as it were.

I know my 2500k still has some life left in it (at the details and quality I like to play at), but any advice or methods of testing it would be appreciated.

This really heavily depended from each game's engine.

Generally I believe that there will be a few games that 2x7950 will be bottlenecked by your 4,2Ghz i5 2500K...

All you can do is a game by game basis. There is always a chance that a game can be poorly optimized and so it won't matter how much power you have, it's not going to run nearly as efficient. That Sandybridge should be good for at least another couple years, especially with that overclock. I wouldn't worry about it too much, man.

I usually run gpu-z and check to see what the gpu load is when im playing a game, if i'm getting poor framerates, but the gpu load isn't even max'd, then i know for sure its the cpu holding things up...

and theres nothing you can do about it if you've already got a good cpu, just bad optimization in a game will do that (in some games you can lesson it by disabling things that require the cpu to work hard). I see it in mmos a lot, my framerates will be very low, i'll check gpu-z, and the gpu load isn't even near halfway, obviously its the cpu holding back things to the gpu for some reason in those cases.

2500K is still strong in gaming, I wouldn't be worried about it in the next 3 years.

As for your question if your CPU is bottlenecking - the only way to test that is by installing the strongest GPU at the market right now (980) and test your CPU against stronger CPU like the i5 4690K - check the difference, if you'll see a 20fps increase in gaming then yes you're bottlenecked, but then again it depends on the GPU that you've got - so the best thing to do is actually hook that GPU setup that you've already got against multiple CPUs.

If you're planning on upgrading into 2x 970 then I'd say yes, you'll feel even more bottlenecked.

Check your gpu usage in game, if it's low then it's a cpu bottleneck generally.

this, you can also use the task manager, if the cpu is maxed out and your fan on your videocard is hardly moving

well there you have it

gpu bottleneck same thing, if the gpu is working hard but the cpu isn't doing much in task manager, gpu bottleneck..

My original set up was @md 8350 fx with his 7970. Upgraded to sapphire 7990 then omg talk about horrible bottleneck. Downgraded from 7990 to xfx r9 280x no problems. Seems like the 8350 has a limit when it comes to bottleneck. Now, I'm upgrading to amd 9590 fx so it'll super fast probably won't bottleneck with dual gpu but who knows maybe I'm wrong.

Wont do crap the 9590 will run into the same problems as the 8350, AMD dual gpu driver support tend to generally lacking. AMD's cpu's dont have enough processing power to feed multiple high end gpu's, especially when games only use a few threads. Once DX 12 and or more games come out with Mantle those AMD cpu's will get to save some resources and get to put those free resources back into the other tasks it was lacking before.

Download Rivatuner and configure the OSD to show in-game. Then you can monitor your CPU/GPU activity while you're playing. If your GPU activity is 99 % then your GPU is the bottleneck and vice versa.

Ah. Thanks for all the info.

CPU bottlenecks are usually the cause of the frame rate being bad even at low resolution and graphical settings. That's why GPUs aren't tested at 640x480 or 800x600.

Keep in mind... some games are just horribly optimized and will not max out your CPU or GPU and you will not get the full performance your rig is capable of. This is with V-Sync disabled of course.

It will probably hold up nicely for the coming 3 years, however I believe if he upgrades Skylake i5 and runs it at 4.2 he will increase his minimum fps and thus average to some degree. While increase in CPU power hasn't been much per generation... He is four generations behind the current generation of CPUs.

AHH! Necro thread!

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