Methodology

This page explains, in detail, how the numbers on ComputingSkill.com are actually produced — the data behind them, the formulas each calculator runs, and what we do (and don’t do) to keep both current. The short version lives on the About Us page; this page is the long version, for anyone who wants to see exactly how a specific result was reached before relying on it.

Two Kinds of Numbers on This Site

Everything you see falls into one of two categories, and it matters which one you’re looking at:

• Published specifications. Core counts, clock speeds, TDP, VRAM, memory bus width, and game system requirements — these are facts taken directly from a manufacturer’s or publisher’s own official page, not measured or estimated by us. Every CPU, GPU and game page on this site that uses this kind of data links directly to the specific source it came from.
• Derived estimates. Bottleneck percentages, FPS ranges, recommended PSU wattage, recommended RAM — these are calculated by our own formulas, using the published specifications above as inputs. They are reasoned estimates, not measurements, and we label them as such everywhere they appear.

Where the Hardware and Game Data Comes From

Every CPU and GPU in our calculators, and every game’s system requirements, is sourced from a manufacturer’s or publisher’s own page — NVIDIA, AMD and Intel’s own product/specification pages for hardware; each game’s own Steam listing or the developer/publisher’s own support page for system requirements. We do not use third-party aggregator sites, retailer listings, or community wikis as a primary source.

As of the most recent full audit (September 2026), every hardware and game entry on this site carries a visible source link on the page where it’s shown — the “Sources” line under a spec table, or the “Source” line under a game’s system requirements. If you ever see a spec without a source link, or a spec that looks out of date compared to its own linked source, please use the Contact page to tell us — that’s a bug, not intended behavior.

Specs change. A manufacturer revises a boost clock, a game studio raises its minimum requirements, storage footprints grow with content updates. We periodically re-check entries against their listed source and update anything that’s drifted; the source link on each page is also there so you can independently check whether it’s still current yourself, at any time, without waiting on us.

The Relative “Score” System

We generate this as a simplified relative gaming-performance index per part. A GPU’s score stands for its average gaming throughput at high settings, with the RTX 4090 at 100 (a faster card, such as the RTX 5090, scores above 100). A CPU’s score stands for the frame rate it can sustain in games when the graphics card isn’t the limit, so it ranks gaming speed, not multi-core work. Both are built from published specs and positioned using publicly reported review averages, never as an absolute performance claim; we don’t run our own benchmarks. CPU and GPU scores are separate scales, so the calculators convert between them instead of comparing the raw numbers.

This score is not a benchmark result, and we don’t present it as one. It exists purely to drive the math on this site — ranking parts against each other well enough to catch an obviously mismatched pairing or a reasonable FPS ballpark, not to stand in for a real performance review.

How Each Calculator’s Formula Works

PC Bottleneck Calculator

Compares your CPU and GPU separately at 1080p, 1440p and 4K. The CPU score stands for how many frames per second the CPU can prepare, which barely changes with resolution. The GPU score is scaled for each resolution by its pixel load (1080p ×1.00, 1440p ×0.68, 4K ×0.42, the same factors the FPS Calculator uses), because every extra pixel is extra work for the graphics card. Whichever part comes out lower at a resolution is the more likely limiting one there, so the same pairing can be CPU-bound at 1080p and GPU-bound at 4K. The estimated bottleneck percentage is the share of the stronger part’s capacity that goes unused (capped at 60%); anything under 6% is shown as balanced.

FPS Calculator

Estimates a GPU-driven frame rate from the GPU’s relative score, adjusted for your chosen resolution and graphics preset, then caps that estimate against a separate CPU-driven ceiling derived from the CPU’s relative score (so a very strong GPU paired with a weak CPU won’t show an unrealistically high number). The lower of the two becomes the estimate, shown as a range (roughly ±18%) rather than a single misleadingly precise figure, since actual FPS depends heavily on the specific game engine, drivers and settings we can’t see.

PSU Calculator

Adds up an estimated power draw from your CPU’s maximum turbo/boost power (Intel’s “Maximum Turbo Power”, AMD’s PPT, not its lower base TDP), your GPU’s TDP, and typical draw for RAM sticks, storage drives and case fans, plus a fixed allowance for the motherboard and other small components. It then applies roughly 30% headroom on top of that total (good practice for efficiency and transient power spikes) and rounds up to the nearest 50W. As a safety floor, the recommendation is never allowed to fall below the GPU manufacturer’s own published minimum PSU recommendation for that card, even if the component tally alone would suggest a lower number.

RAM Calculator

Uses a lookup table of baseline RAM recommendations by primary use case (browsing, gaming, streaming, content creation, development, heavy multitasking), then adds a small amount on top depending on how many applications or browser tabs you say you typically keep open at once, and rounds up to the nearest common kit size (8/16/32/64/128GB).

PC Power Consumption & Build Cost Calculators

Power consumption estimates two figures: load draw (CPU TDP + GPU TDP + the PSU Calculator’s allowance for RAM, drives, fans and motherboard) and idle draw (CPU and GPU at about 15% of TDP, the rest of the system at about 30% of its allowance). It multiplies each by your gaming and idle hours per day, then by your electricity rate. Build cost is a straightforward sum of whatever component prices you enter — no estimation involved, just arithmetic.

What These Formulas Deliberately Don’t Account For

None of these models can see your specific game engine, driver version, RAM speed, storage speed, background software, thermals, or power limits — all of which affect real-world results. They’re built to catch clearly mismatched hardware and give a reasonable planning number, not to replace an actual benchmark run on your specific system. Where a result is close to a threshold (a near-even bottleneck, a borderline RAM recommendation), treat it as “this probably doesn’t matter much either way” rather than a hard verdict.

Corrections

If you find a spec that’s out of date, a source link that’s broken, or a formula that seems to produce an unreasonable result, please use the Contact page — we read every message and update the underlying data or logic when a correction is confirmed against its source.