About CheckBottleneck.com
CheckBottleneck.com was built out of pure frustration. After spending hours researching whether a new GPU would actually improve gaming performance — only to find generic advice, outdated tools, and calculators that just compared two numbers without any real context — we decided to build something better.
Our Mission
Our mission is simple: give every PC gamer, builder, and creative professional a fast, accurate, and free way to understand exactly where their system's performance limits are. Not just a CPU vs GPU score comparison — a full system analysis that accounts for resolution, workload type, RAM configuration, and storage speed.
How the Calculator Works
Our bottleneck calculator uses a composite benchmark database calibrated against real-world data from Cinebench R24, PassMark 11, and 3DMark TimeSpy. Every CPU and GPU in our database has a normalized performance score derived from these industry-standard benchmarks — not manufacturer spec sheets or theoretical numbers.
When you run a calculation, we apply workload-specific weighting profiles. Gaming at 1080p weights the CPU more heavily because frame rates at low resolution are primarily CPU-limited. Video editing weights RAM and CPU more heavily. 3D rendering on GPU engines weights GPU VRAM capacity and compute. Each profile reflects how real workloads actually distribute load across your components.
Why We Include RAM and Storage
Most bottleneck calculators only compare CPU score vs GPU score. We go further because bottlenecks don't only happen between the processor and graphics card. Insufficient RAM forces Windows to use slow virtual memory. Single-channel RAM cuts memory bandwidth in half. A spinning hard drive creates constant texture-streaming stutters even on the most powerful GPU. These are real, measurable bottlenecks that deserve real analysis — and that's what we provide.
Keeping Up With Hardware
We update our hardware database with every major release from Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA. Our current database includes Intel Core Ultra 200 series (Arrow Lake), AMD Ryzen 9000 (Granite Ridge), NVIDIA RTX 5000 Blackwell, AMD Radeon RX 9000 (RDNA 4), and Intel Arc Battlemage — all with benchmark scores calibrated to real-world data available at launch.
Who Runs CheckBottleneck.com
CheckBottleneck.com is maintained by a small team of PC hardware enthusiasts with a combined 30+ years of experience building, benchmarking, and optimizing gaming rigs and workstations. We're not affiliated with any hardware manufacturer — our analysis is independent and driven entirely by benchmark data.