That’s the floor, but I wanted to investigate the ceiling. As you climb in resolution with DLSS enabled, at what point does CPU scaling disappear? All but the most CPU-bound games show almost no scaling at native 4K due to the massive workload put on the GPU. But in the age of upscalers, native 4K isn’t the way everyone plays games. According to Nvidia, at least, the vast majority of players don’t play that way, in fact.
That’s what we’re going to look at here, using five recent games from our test suite to see how CPU scaling works with DLSS in the equation. In addition to providing insight into one of the most important tools for modern PC gaming, we’ll also answer the question of how much CPU performance really matters for gaming above 1080p. If this is the way most PC gamers are playing their games — and that seems to be the case — it’s worth looking into. After all, if you assume CPU performance doesn’t matter at 1440p or 4K, you can easily create a bottleneck with DLSS enabled.
We’re mainly concerned with resolution here and how it impacts CPU performance as it goes down. As our testing reveals, however, resolution isn’t the only factor. Upscaling models have some overhead, which seems particularly pronounced with DLSS. We didn’t test FSR, though there’s a good chance we’d see less overhead with older, algorithmic versions of FSR compared to DLSS.
The table above illustrates why we’re so concerned with resolution. The highest possible resolution with DLSS turned on — short of native resolution with DLAA — is 1440p. Unless you have a 4K output, turning on DLSS means your internal render resolution is always below 1080p. As resolution drops, your CPU should become the performance bottleneck, and we’re taking a look at how that dynamic plays out in real-world tests here.
Core i5-14400, Core i7-14700K, Ryzen 5 9600X, Ryzen 5 9850X3D
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/cpu-scaling-with-dlss-investigating-cpu-performance-in-the-age-of-upscaling#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
- Sandisk's rebranded Optimus SSDs now available at eye-watering $999 for 2TB, $1,799 for 4TB — Optimus brings a 5% MSRP over previous models, but WD Black predec
- Yet another Windows update is wreaking havoc on gaming rigs worldwide — Nvidia recommends uninstalling Windows 11 KB5074109 January update to prevent framerate
- MSI MEG X870E Ace Max Motherboard Review: A second Ace up MSI’s AM5 sleeve?
- Jim Keller's Tenstorrent is downgrading Blackhole p150 cards from 140 to 120 tensor cores via firmware update — will ship cards with 120 tensor cores going forw
- Intel's Arrow Lake Refresh judgment day is reportedly on March 23 — missing Core Ultra 9 290K Plus from U.S. retailer listings spurs cancellation rumor
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.