What does it mean when someone says a game is “CPU bound”?

Question

So I have a 1080p monitor, so when i look into games im interested in, i go and see how my specs perform at that resolution. When I was looking at Marvel’s Spider Man, the reviewer said that the game was CPU bound at 1080p. I assumed this to mean that the GPU won’t be utilized much, however when I eventually bought the game, I had a consistent 80+% GPU utilization. What exactly does being CPU bound mean then?

In: 2

Answer 1

it means the cpu is what is limiting the game from going to a higher framerate not the GPU, its taking longer to figure out the AI and what to draw than it takes the GPU to draw it. If your GPU is still at 80% utilization at 1080p than you likely didn’t have as powerful a GPU as the reviewer.