Will your Intel (i7, i5, i3) or AMD’s CPU good enough to support the latest NVIDIA’s GTX 1080 graphics card? A bottleneck is when your graphic card cannot perform its full potential because it is way too fast for your CPU, this will put a limit on the gaming performance. Why? For example, when your graphic cards is rendering a frame up to 120fps while your CPU can only manage to render 60fps – your CPU will have trouble rendering these frame that can cause gaming issues because of this limitation.
![](https://i0.wp.com/gamingph.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/gtx-1080-bottleneck.jpg?resize=950%2C534&ssl=1)
Here are the list chart of CPU’s that are bottleneck for your GTX 1080.
* Excellent is no bottleneck issue and Poor is bottleneck.
CPU | Score |
6th Gen Intel i7 6950x, 6900K, 6850K, 6700K, 6700, 6600K | Excellent |
6th Gen Intel i5 6600, 6500, 6400, 6300 | Good |
5th Gen Intel i7 5960X, 5930K, 5820K, 5775R | Excellent |
5th Gen Intel i5 5675R | Good |
4th Gen Intel i7 4960X, 4930K, 4820K, 4790K, 4790, 4790S, 4470K, 4471, 4770, 4470S, 4470 | Excellent |
4th Gen Intel i5 4690K, 4690, 4690S, 4670K, 4670, 4590S, 4590, 4670S, 4670, 4570S, 4570, 4440S, 4440, 4430S, 4430 | Good |
4th Gen Intel i3 4370, 4360, 4350, 4340, 4330, 4170, 4170, 4160, 4150, 4130 | Poor |
3rd Gen Intel i7 3970X, 3960X | Excellent |
3rd Gen Intel i7 3930, 3820, 3770K, 3770, 3770S | Good |
3rd Gen Intel i5 3570K, 3570, 3570S, 3470, 3470S, 3450, 3450S, 3340, 3340S, 3330, 3330S | Fair |
3rd Gen Intel i3 3250, 3245, 3240, 3225, 3220, 3210 | Poor |
2nd Gen Intel i7 2600, 2600k, 2700k, 2600s | Poor |
2nd Gen Intel i5 2300, 2310, 2320, 2380P, 2400, 2450, 2500, 2500K, 2550K, 2400S, 2405S, 2500S, 2500T | Poor |
2nd Gen Intel i3 2100, 2102, 2105, 2120, 2125, 2130, 2100T, 2120T | Poor |
1st Gen i7 920, 930, 940, 950, 960, 965 Extreme Edition, 975 Extreme Edition | Poor |
1st Gen i5 770, 760, 750S | Poor |
1st Gen i3 530, 540, 550, 560 | Poor |
If your monitor is running at 60Hz and got Excellent, Good or Fair score , you have nothing to worry about bottleneck issue you can still play games very smooth as it. But if you have a 144Hz monitor you really have to upgrade your CPU to get the full potential of your rig.