Bottlenecking refers to limiting the performance efficiency of the system due to differences in the maximum capabilities of the two components. A balanced PC comes with the hardware components well-equipped and efficient to support the workload the system will be handling, like gaming and others, to avoid bottlenecking to the maximum.
Bottleneck is caused in the PC due to the age and quality of components and mainly due to the performance. It is not bound to the CPU and GPU only, but a little performance difference can be seen in the high-end parts in the motherboard also.
Understanding Bottlenecking Clearly
To make the bottlenecking concept clear for you, let’s get it this way!
“Bottleneck is an imbalance or disproportion between the PC parts."
It occurs when you are using incompatible PC components, and the difference in performance creates a barrier to the full potential of the other components.
For instance, if you are using an Intel Core i3 processor (and entry-level CPU) with RTX 3090 GPUs (best GPU in the market), then it is obvious that both will not sync properly together. So, this way, you’ll not be able to get the most performance efficiency out of your beast GPU because of the low-grade CPU.
It’s this simple!
Cheap Vs. Good Motherboard to Avoid Bottlenecking
When it comes to the motherboard, the good news is that it will not let you witness any bottleneck, but IF YOU ARE A NORMAL USER. However, when it comes to gaming or performing another heavy-duty task, it might show some performance lag if the components are not overclocked.
So, if you are a person who likes to overclock their system often, it is extremely important for you that you choose a good quality motherboard. Getting the best-quality motherboard while overclocking the components will eliminate the heating factor that might affect the overall performance of the motherboard.
The cheap motherboard will not withstand overclocking, especially if you use it with a little heatsink. Instead of increasing the performance, overclocking will further decrease it due to the tremendous increase in temperature.
The heatsink, the quality of components, and the size of the motherboard are the main reasons why cheap motherboards can’t provide good performance while overclocking.
Heatsink:
The heatsink’s size and performance in the cheap motherboard greatly affect its performance. It is also one of the main reasons cheap motherboards show bottlenecking and can stand overclocking.
You can’t use bigger-sized heatsinks in cheaper motherboards because of their smaller size and lower price. This is why it affects the overclocking procedure and the motherboard’s performance while performing other tasks. Such motherboard heats up too quickly and shows up significant performance drop.
While on the other hand, a good motherboard can efficiently support larger heatsinks that come with advanced cooling technologies. This is why such a motherboard can survive longer overclocking sessions.
Quality of Components:
The quality of components in the motherboard also affects its performance and shows a significant performance drop. The quality components like capacitors and transistors are added in the good motherboards, while the quality of these components is cheaper in the low-budget and cheap motherboards.
Size:
The larger the size, the minimal the performance drop!
You might have seen the expensive motherboards coming in bigger sizes like E ATX, ATX, etc. This is because, in the bigger-sized motherboards, the manufacturers add up advanced features and use multiple PCB layers to boost the performance under any circumstance.
How to Tackle Motherboard Bottleneck?
To avoid the motherboard bottleneck, we recommend buying a good motherboard that can handle parts while overclocking well. You can also buy a mid-range motherboard to prevent bottlenecking.
The motherboard doesn’t bottleneck as long as it supports the PC components (GPU, RAM, CPU, and others) that are not overclocked. A motherboard doesn’t bottleneck the PC components at normal, but it shows much difference in performance when it comes to overclocking.
However, the users can see a bit of performance difference when they run the high-end parts of the motherboard in the budget motherboard.
To improve the motherboard’s performance, it is better to overlock it with compatible parts, i.e., a better and larger heatsink with an expensive motherboard and a smaller heatsink with a budget motherboard. It will balance the heat factor within the motherboard, and it will start working efficiently without bottlenecking other components in the PC.
So overall, a motherboard doesn’t create a bottleneck if it supports the components installed in the PC. However, you might witness some heating issues because of the quality of the motherboard you’ve installed, but that is fine as long as you are you’re not making the mistake we’ve mentioned.
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