Bottleneck Calculator

Average over the run, from an overlay such as the one in your GPU driver or a system monitor. Use total CPU utilisation, or the busiest thread if the workload is single-threaded.
Average over the same run and the same window as the CPU figure.
Optional. Used only to express the best-case uplift in the same unit you measured.
Limiting component
GPU
Bottleneck Calculator
CPU headroom
40.0 %
GPU headroom
2.0 %
Gap between the two
38.0 percentage points
Best-case throughput multiplier if the limiter were removed
1.633
Best-case uplift
63.3 %
Both components saturated
no
What this means
The GPU is the limiter in this workload: it sits at 98% while the other sits at 60%.
Worked out from Theory of constraints: system throughput is set by the most utilised resource and 1 other source.
These numbers describe the workload you measured. A different game, resolution, setting or scene will move both utilisations and can change which component limits.
The uplift figure is a ceiling from the utilisation law, not a prediction. Frame time is not linear in utilisation, and a faster part often shifts the limit somewhere else entirely - memory, storage or a single game thread.
This is a comparison of utilisation figures YOU measured, not a prediction from component names. There is no published model that converts a CPU and GPU model pair into a bottleneck percentage, and this tool does not pretend to have one. The uplift figure assumes throughput scales linearly with utilisation, which is a ceiling rather than a forecast; the only way to know what a part swap gains is to test it.

How this is worked out

4 steps
  1. Measured: CPU 60%, GPU 98%.
  2. Headroom: CPU 40 points, GPU 2 points; the two differ by 38 points.
  3. The busier component, the GPU, is the limiter.
  4. Utilisation law ceiling: 98 / 60 = 1.633x, i.e. at most 63.3% more throughput if the limiter stopped limiting and everything else scaled perfectly.

Results are general information, not financial, tax, legal, medical or engineering advice.