Core i7-6700K + GeForce RTX 3090 Bottleneck Calculator
Whether the Core i7-6700K and the GeForce RTX 3090 hold each other back, at every resolution, with the frame rate you can expect and the single upgrade that fixes it.
- The platform itself is a limit here: an older socket usually means PCIe 3.0 and slower memory, which costs a few percent on top of the figure above.
The same pair at every resolution
A processor pushes roughly the same number of frames whatever the resolution. A graphics card pushes far fewer as pixels go up. That is why the limit moves as you climb this table, and why a bottleneck figure quoted without a resolution means nothing.
| Resolution | Estimated fps | Limited by | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 720p (1280 x 720) | 98 fps | CPU | 30.8% |
| 1080p (1920 x 1080) | 97 fps | CPU | 5.3% |
| 1440p (2560 x 1440) | 76 fps | Balanced | 0% |
| Ultrawide 1440p (3440 x 1440) | 63 fps | Balanced | 0% |
| 4K (3840 x 2160) | 44 fps | GPU | 11.1% |
| 8K (7680 x 4320) | 20 fps | GPU | 61.1% |
What to do about it
The Ryzen 9 5950X is the slowest CPU in our database that stops the GeForce RTX 3090 from idling at 1080p (1920 x 1080). A faster chip than that adds nothing at this resolution, so this is the step to buy, not the top of the stack.
See what the Ryzen 9 5950X pairs withModelled from published benchmark data, not measured on this exact combination. The indexes behind these figures and the sources they come from are on how we calculate this.