January 1, 2026 8:20 AM PST
You can stare at Task Manager, watch GPU-Z, and scroll through Reddit “will it bottleneck?” threads, or you can get a data-driven answer in under a minute.
A
Bottleneck Calculator is a free, browser-based engine that compares thousands of real-world benchmarks, crunches the numbers, and spits out a single percentage telling you whether your CPU or GPU is the performance choke-point. Pick your processor, graphics card, RAM amount, and gaming resolution, hit “Calculate,” and you’ll see:
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Exact bottleneck % (0–10 % = balanced, 20 %+ = clear limiting factor)
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Predicted average FPS in popular titles at your chosen resolution
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Cheapest upgrade that removes the bottleneck (e.g., “Ryzen 5 3600 → 5600 adds 22 % fps”)
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Power-draw delta so you know if your PSU is still safe
Because the math is weighted by resolution, the same hardware pair might show 4 % at 4K and 24 % at 1080p, proving that “bottleneck” is situational, not absolute. Use the number to shop smart: upgrade the part that’s actually starving your frames, skip the part that’s already asleep, and never again waste money on a shiny component that sits idle while something older drags the whole rig down.
You can stare at Task Manager, watch GPU-Z, and scroll through Reddit “will it bottleneck?” threads, or you can get a data-driven answer in under a minute.
A
Bottleneck Calculator is a free, browser-based engine that compares thousands of real-world benchmarks, crunches the numbers, and spits out a single percentage telling you whether your CPU or GPU is the performance choke-point. Pick your processor, graphics card, RAM amount, and gaming resolution, hit “Calculate,” and you’ll see:
-
Exact bottleneck % (0–10 % = balanced, 20 %+ = clear limiting factor)
-
Predicted average FPS in popular titles at your chosen resolution
-
Cheapest upgrade that removes the bottleneck (e.g., “Ryzen 5 3600 → 5600 adds 22 % fps”)
-
Power-draw delta so you know if your PSU is still safe
Because the math is weighted by resolution, the same hardware pair might show 4 % at 4K and 24 % at 1080p, proving that “bottleneck” is situational, not absolute. Use the number to shop smart: upgrade the part that’s actually starving your frames, skip the part that’s already asleep, and never again waste money on a shiny component that sits idle while something older drags the whole rig down.