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forrestbmatthews

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3 Posts

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August 25th, 2025 07:20

Upgrading Dell laptop GPU/CPU – will there be a bottleneck?

Hello,

I have a Dell G15 gaming laptop with these specs:

  • Intel i7 11800H

  • NVIDIA RTX 3050 Ti

  • 16GB DDR4 RAM

  • 512GB SSD

I’m considering upgrading my RAM to 32GB and possibly switching to an external GPU in the future. But I’m worried about potential bottlenecks between the CPU and GPU.

Has anyone here tested similar setups? Will upgrading RAM or GPU really help performance, or will the CPU end up limiting things?

Thanks!

Laseron

1 Rookie

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1 Message

August 25th, 2025 07:26

Hi,

Good question — in laptops, upgrades are often limited and bottlenecks can happen depending on the balance between CPU and GPU. For example, if your CPU is weaker than the GPU, it won’t let the graphics card run at full potential (CPU bottleneck). The reverse is also possible if the GPU is weaker.

Dell has a helpful support page about system performance and upgrade guidelines here:
👉 Dell Official Support – System Performance

Additionally, if you want to check whether your planned upgrade might cause a CPU/GPU imbalance, you can use this Bottleneck Calculator . Just enter your CPU, GPU, RAM, and resolution, and it will show you if one component may limit performance.

This way you can combine Dell’s official guidance with a quick bottleneck analysis before making upgrade decisions.

(edited)

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