There are plenty of thoughts that go into building a high-performance desktop computer. Some key pieces of knowledge are essential that most people lack.
That results in one of the most common performance-related mishaps that PC users face which is CPU and GPU bottleneck.
We all know more or less than the CPU can bottleneck the GPU. But what about the motherboard?
The motherboard does not directly bottleneck the GPU. Even if you have an old motherboard that supports PCI-E 2.0, you’ll have a 1% bottleneck. But you won’t even notice that. However, an old motherboard supports an old CPU and RAM. And you’ll generally be either bottlenecked by the GPU or CPU.
A brief explanation of CPU and GPU bottleneck should be enough to explain whether or not can a motherboard bottleneck a GPU.
So, without any further ado, let’s get started.
Motherboard’s Role in PC Performance
Motherboards can impact the performance of a computer. The VRM of a motherboard delivers power to the CPU and RAM. If the VRM is not up to the standard, the components won’t get enough voltage to achieve the optimum clock speed, resulting in below standard performance.
The BIOS design is also another factor that can cause performance issues. Some BIOS have no option to overclock your CPU or RAM. Also, sometimes default BIOS settings can run the components below their capability.
BIOS also controls the VRM, so slight tweaking might be necessary to get the full potential of your newly built computer.
Single and dual-channel RAM has a huge impact on PC performance, particularly in AMD processors. They perform better with dual-channel RAM. If your motherboard does not have the required DIMM slot, there is one less option to get better performance.
If you look closely, I’ve talked about the motherboard’s relationship with CPU and RAM but not GPU. It is because GPUs are installed on the PCI-E slot.
And these are backward compatible. So, they do not cause any noticeable hindrance to GPU performance. But more on that later.
What Exactly Is a Bottleneck?
A bottleneck is a situation where the neck of the bottle is too thin to pour the contents of the bottle at a steady speed. Even though the bottle has enough content, whether water or any other drink; the thin neck is responsible for hampering the delivery of that content.
This term literally applies to a PC’s performance-related shortcomings. The CPU and the GPU work in unison to accomplish many tasks.
If the CPU is weak and can’t keep up with the pace of the GPU, a bottleneck occurs. Here the CPU is bottlenecking the GPU and it is called CPU bottlenecking.
Similarly, if the graphics card is low-end compared to the processor, there is a bottleneck which is known as GPU bottleneck. Now that you know what bottleneck is, let’s jump into the burning question, can a motherboard cause GPU bottleneck?
Can Motherboard Cause GPU Bottleneck?
The motherboard has no role in causing a bottleneck. All the components of a computer are connected to the motherboard. These parts coordinate with each other via this board and also get power through the motherboard from the power supply unit.
If the CPU is weak, CPU-intensive games will suffer in two ways. First, the low power of the CPU shall affect the game’s physics, UI, real-time game actions, audio, etc.
At the same time, the CPU shall bottleneck the GPU and hamper the game’s graphical aspects such as textures, resolution, etc.
In short, the motherboard does not cause a GPU bottleneck. Neither it affects the CPU performance which in turn would hold back the graphics card.
So, Can a motherboard limit the GPU?
No, the motherboard doesn’t affect the GPU memory.
The Graphics card is installed to a slot called PCI express slot. PCI express slot is backward compatible meaning that you can run a PCI express 3.0 card on a motherboard with a PCI express 2.0 slot.
It slightly affects the performance due to the slower bandwidth transfer rate. The effect is so negligible that you wouldn’t even notice any performance lacking.
But there can be an indirect bottle neck. A motherboard from 10 years ago will most probably support a very weak CPU and no more than DDR3 RAM.
Those can significantly cut down your GPU performance in CPU and RAM-heavy applications. So, this can be considered an indirect bottle neck.
Is There Any Situation Where the Motherboard Can Cause GPU Bottleneck?
For general consumers, the motherboard’s specs shouldn’t be a thing of worry. The chipset, supported sockets, PCI express version, VRM, etc. doesn’t matter much as long as the board supports the CPU. As far as the graphics card and RAM is concerned, almost every board supports every GPU and RAM.
However, if you are an overclocker, the motherboard becomes the single most important component of your computer. Why is that you might wonder?
Overclocking means supplying your PC components with extra power so that they can perform beyond their optimum capacity.
VRM or voltage regulatory module of a motherboard is responsible for supplying the required voltage to the CPU. A low-end motherboard won’t deliver the overclocking performance you would expect from a high-end processor.
The motherboard doesn’t affect GPU overclocking performance.
So, the scenario is that due to the motherboard’s specs, the CPU can’t be overclocked to its fullest extent, unlike the GPU.
The CPU will lag in performance which might bottleneck the GPU resulting in CPU bottleneck. So technically the motherboard here is affecting the GPU performance.
But note that this is only a theory and applies when overclocking. Besides overclocking, the motherboard does not affect the GPU or CPU performance in any shape.
Final Words
So, can a motherboard bottleneck a GPU? No. Many have this misconception that high-end motherboards are needed for high performance. This is completely wrong. Yes, high-end parts are necessary but what’s even more important is compatibility between the parts.
When looking for a motherboard just look for whether it is compatible with your current CPU or the CPU you are planning to buy.
And also make sure it supports DDR4. As with any previous generation, RAM is more likely to bottleneck your GPU.
