Minimum

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 delivers a strong 1080p and 1440p experience in Minimum, but 4K requires a settings compromise. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 92 FPS at Ultra preset, clearing the 60 FPS playable threshold with headroom. At 2560x1440, High settings produce 78 FPS, while Ultra dips to 59 FPS—just below the threshold. At 3840x2160, only Low settings remain playable at 65 FPS, with Medium dropping to 50 FPS and High to 42 FPS. The data indicates a well-balanced pairing where the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

FAQ

*Q: Can this PC run Minimum at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings?*

A: Yes. The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 Ultra is 92, which is 32 FPS above the 60 FPS playable threshold. This is the most demanding preset tested at this resolution and it remains fully playable.

Q: What is the best playable settings preset at 2560x1440?

A: High is the best playable preset at 2560x1440, delivering an average of 78 FPS. The Ultra preset at this resolution averages 59 FPS, which falls just 1 FPS short of the 60 FPS playable threshold, making it technically unplayable by the benchmark's standard.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with this combo?

A: Viability at 3840x2160 is limited. Only the Low preset achieves playable performance, with an average of 65 FPS. Medium drops to 50 FPS, High to 42 FPS, and Ultra to 32 FPS, all below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the RX 9060 compare to its nearest rival in GPU performance?

A: The RX 9060 has an average benchmark score of 16014, placing it 0.7% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (16129) and 1% ahead of both the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862) and AMD Radeon RX 7700 (15852). It ranks in the 59th percentile among all GPUs.

Q: What is the CPU's benchmark standing relative to other processors?

A: The Intel Core i7-12700K scores an average of 35287 across benchmarks, putting it in the 84th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival is the Intel Core i5-13600T (35305), which is only 0.1% faster, indicating near-identical overall performance.

Q: At which resolution does the FPS drop below 60 for the first time when increasing settings?

A: At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset averages 59 FPS, which is the first instance of a preset falling below the 60 FPS threshold. At 1920x1080, all presets including Ultra (92 FPS) stay above 60 FPS. At 3840x2160, only Low (65 FPS) remains above the threshold.

CPU and GPU Roles

The performance data reveals a clear shift in bottleneck behavior across resolutions. At 1920x1080, the CPU and GPU work in concert, but the GPU is not saturated: the jump from Low to Ultra only reduces the average FPS from 187 to 92, a 95 FPS drop, indicating that even at Ultra the GPU has spare capacity. The scaling from Low to Medium at 1080p shows a 44 FPS reduction (187 to 143), while Medium to High costs another 23 FPS (143 to 120), and High to Ultra costs 28 FPS (120 to 92). This pattern suggests that at 1080p, the i7-12700K's 12 cores and 20 threads provide ample headroom, allowing the RX 9060 to be the primary driver of frame rate differences between presets.

Moving to 2560x1440, the GPU load increases noticeably. The Low preset averages 121 FPS, which is 66 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result (187 FPS), showing a significant resolution penalty. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 62 FPS (121 to 59), a similar absolute difference to 1080p, but the Ultra preset now falls below the 60 FPS threshold. This indicates that at 1440p, the RX 9060's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus become more taxed, though the CPU still keeps up. The 1440p High preset (78 FPS) is only 14 FPS behind the 1080p High (120 FPS), showing that the GPU handles the resolution increase gracefully until Ultra.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the unequivocal bottleneck. The Low preset at 4K (65 FPS) is nearly half the 1440p Low result (121 FPS), demonstrating a steep scaling curve. Medium at 4K (50 FPS) is 42 FPS behind 1440p Medium (92 FPS), and High at 4K (42 FPS) is 36 FPS behind 1440p High (78 FPS). The Ultra preset at 4K bottoms out at 32 FPS, just 27 FPS above the 1080p Ultra result (92 FPS) but far below playability. The data shows that at 4K, the RX 9060's compute resources—1792 shading units and 21.43 TFLOPS FP32—are insufficient for high-fidelity rendering, while the i7-12700K's performance remains consistent regardless of resolution.

The percentile data reinforces this split. The CPU's 84th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it is a high-end part that will not limit most gaming workloads. The GPU's 59th percentile ranking indicates a mid-range performer that requires settings adjustments at higher resolutions. The measured FPS data confirms this: at 1080p, the combo achieves 92 FPS at Ultra, but at 4K Ultra it drops to 32 FPS, a 60 FPS reduction. This 65% performance loss from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra (92 to 32 FPS) is disproportionately large compared to the 1440p Ultra to 4K Ultra drop (59 to 32 FPS, 27 FPS), highlighting that the GPU hits a memory bandwidth or shading ceiling at 4K.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The nearest rivals for the Intel Core i7-12700K are all within a 0.4% performance delta, meaning any of these CPUs would produce nearly identical frame rates in Minimum. The Intel Core i5-13600T has an average score of 35305, just 0.1% higher than the i7-12700K's 35287. The Intel Core i7-12700KF (35365) is 0.2% faster, and the Intel Core i7-13700T (35403) is 0.3% faster. The Intel Core 5 213PE (35428) is the closest at 0.4% faster. All four rivals are effectively interchangeable with the i7-12700K for this game, as the sub-1% differences would translate to less than 1 FPS variation in practice.

For the GPU, the AMD Radeon RX 9060's nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which scores 16129 versus 16014—a 0.7% advantage for the NVIDIA card. This translates to roughly 0.5 FPS difference at 1080p Ultra (92 FPS vs. 91.4 FPS), which is imperceptible. The AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862) and AMD Radeon RX 7700 (15852) are both 1% slower, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679) is 2.1% slower. These deltas mean that a system with an RTX 3060 Ti would perform within 1 FPS of the RX 9060 at all tested settings, making them direct substitutes.

The practical implication is that users with any of these rival components would see nearly identical performance in Minimum. The CPU rivals are all within 0.4%, so the choice between them is irrelevant for this game. The GPU rivals span a 2.8% range (from the Pro W5500 at 15679 to the RTX 3060 Ti at 16129), which would affect the 4K Low preset (65 FPS) by approximately 1.8 FPS at most—still above the 60 FPS threshold. At 1440p Ultra (59 FPS), a 2.1% slower GPU like the Pro W5500 would produce approximately 57.8 FPS, still below the threshold, while a 0.7% faster RTX 3060 Ti would achieve approximately 59.4 FPS, still below 60. This means the playable settings verdict is identical across all rival GPUs.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-12700K + AMD Radeon RX 9060 combination ranks 2179 out of 3712 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the 58.7th percentile of all systems tested. This rank reflects the GPU's mid-range position: the CPU is in the 84th percentile, but the GPU's 59th percentile drags the overall combo down. The rank indicates that roughly 41.3% of tested combos perform better, which is consistent with the RX 9060's standing among GPUs.

The rank is driven primarily by the GPU's modest benchmark scores. The RX 9060's passmark G3D score of 17631 and 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 3322 are respectable but not exceptional. The combo's position in the upper half of tested systems suggests it can handle most games at 1080p and many at 1440p, but it will struggle with 4K high-refresh gaming. The measured FPS data confirms this: the combo achieves playable 60+ FPS at 1080p across all presets and at 1440p through High settings, but only at 4K Low.

The 3712 total combos tested provide context for the 2179 rank. Systems ranked above this combo likely feature higher-tier GPUs like the RTX 3060 Ti or better, while those ranked below may have weaker CPUs or older GPUs. The i7-12700K's strong single-thread performance (4013 in Passmark single-thread) ensures the combo does not drop ranks due to CPU limitations, but the GPU's 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 8 GB VRAM cap its 4K potential.

The Verdict

Yes, this PC can run Minimum at 1080p and 1440p with high quality, but 4K requires significant settings reduction. At 1920x1080, all four presets—Low (187 FPS), Medium (143 FPS), High (120 FPS), and Ultra (92 FPS)—clear the 60 FPS threshold with substantial margin. The Ultra preset's 92 FPS average is 53% above the threshold, indicating a comfortable experience for high-refresh monitors.

At 2560x1440, three presets are playable: Low (121 FPS), Medium (92 FPS), and High (78 FPS). The Ultra preset at 59 FPS falls just 1 FPS short of the 60 FPS threshold, making it technically unplayable but visually nearly identical. The 1440p High preset (78 FPS) is the recommended balance of visual quality and performance, offering 18 FPS of headroom over the threshold.

At 3840x2160, only the Low preset (65 FPS) is playable. Medium (50 FPS), High (42 FPS), and Ultra (32 FPS) all fall below the threshold. The 4K Low preset provides a 5 FPS margin over the 60 FPS threshold, but the visual quality reduction is significant. For 4K gaming, users would need to either lower resolution or accept sub-60 FPS performance at higher presets. The verdict is clear: this combo is a 1080p and 1440p performer, not a 4K solution.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is Low, with an average of 65 FPS. This provides a 5 FPS margin over the threshold. The Medium preset falls to 50 FPS and is not recommended for 60 FPS play.

At 2560x1440, the best playable preset is High, delivering an average of 78 FPS. This is the highest quality setting that maintains a comfortable 18 FPS margin above the 60 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset at 59 FPS misses the threshold by 1 FPS, so High is the optimal choice for quality and smoothness.

At 1920x1080, the most demanding preset that remains playable is Ultra, with an average of 92 FPS. This is 32 FPS above the threshold, and it is the highest preset available in the tested data. The Low preset at 187 FPS and Medium at 143 FPS offer higher frame rates for competitive play, but Ultra provides the best visual fidelity while still exceeding 60 FPS by a wide margin.