Minimum

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is a formidable combination for Minimum, a third-person shooter released on 2014-06-25. Benchmark data shows this system clears the 60 FPS playable threshold at every tested resolution, though the margin shrinks dramatically at 4K Ultra. At 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, the combo delivers high refresh-rate performance across all presets, while 3840x2160 requires dropping to Medium settings to remain fluid. The data indicates this hardware is more than sufficient for the game’s demands, with the GPU becoming the primary constraint only at the highest resolution and preset.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160, the most demanding preset that maintains at least 60 FPS is Medium, which produces an average of 61.3 FPS. This is a narrow margin, sitting just 1.3 FPS above the 60 FPS playable threshold. High settings at this resolution drop to 52.8 FPS, which fails the threshold, while Ultra falls further to 37.8 FPS. Low settings run at 80.8 FPS, but Medium offers the best visual quality while staying playable. The data shows that at 4K, the RTX 3070’s 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for Medium, but the 20.31 TFLOPS FP32 compute is not enough to push High or Ultra past 60 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the best playable preset is Ultra, achieving an average of 70.2 FPS. This is a comfortable 10.2 FPS above the threshold, giving headroom for scene complexity. High settings run at 92.9 FPS, Medium at 115.7 FPS, and Low at 145.6 FPS. All four presets exceed 60 FPS, so the verdict is straightforward: Ultra is the optimal choice for visual fidelity without sacrificing fluidity. The 10.2 FPS margin at Ultra suggests that even demanding sequences will likely stay above 60 FPS, though no min or max FPS data is available to confirm consistency.

At 1920x1080, the best playable preset is also Ultra, with an average of 111.6 FPS. This is the strongest result across all resolutions, offering a 51.6 FPS buffer above the threshold. High settings reach 145.2 FPS, Medium hits 177.1 FPS, and Low peaks at 227.3 FPS. The 1080p Ultra result indicates that the CPU-GPU combination is not bottlenecked at this resolution, and the system can easily drive high-refresh monitors. For players with 144 Hz displays, Ultra delivers 111.6 FPS, which is below 144 but well above the 60 FPS minimum.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-12700K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination ranks 1637 out of 3712 tested combos for Minimum. This places it in the 44th percentile of all tested systems, meaning roughly 56% of tested combos outperform it. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU’s 84th percentile score among all CPUs and the GPU’s 61st percentile among all GPUs. The CPU is clearly the stronger component; its average benchmark score of 35287 places it just 0.1% behind the Intel Core i5-13600T (35305) and 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i7-12700KF (35365) in the nearestRivals data. The GPU, with an average benchmark score of 17208, sits close to the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT (17083, 0.7% slower) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 (17037, 1% slower).

This rank suggests that while the combo is not top-tier, it is comfortably mid-pack. For a game released in 2014, the hardware is far more capable than typical systems of that era. The CPU’s high percentile (84) indicates that it is not a limiting factor in Minimum, while the GPU’s lower percentile (61) means it is the more likely bottleneck, especially at higher resolutions. The gap between the CPU’s performance and the GPU’s performance is consistent with the measured FPS data, where 1080p results are very high (111.6 FPS at Ultra) but 4K results are moderate (61.3 FPS at Medium). If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect smaller differences between resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080: The data shows a clear progression across presets. Low settings average 227.3 FPS, which is the highest recorded value for this combo. Medium settings drop to 177.1 FPS, a reduction of 50.2 FPS (22.1%). High settings average 145.2 FPS, another 31.9 FPS decrease (18.0%). Ultra settings average 111.6 FPS, a further 33.6 FPS drop (23.1%). The scaling from Low to Ultra is consistent, with each preset tier reducing performance by roughly 20-25%. No min or max FPS values are provided, so only averages are available for analysis.

2560x1440: Low settings average 145.6 FPS, which is 35.8% lower than the 1080p Low result (227.3 FPS). Medium settings average 115.7 FPS, down from 177.1 FPS at 1080p (34.7% reduction). High settings average 92.9 FPS, compared to 145.2 FPS at 1080p (36.0% reduction). Ultra settings average 70.2 FPS, versus 111.6 FPS at 1080p (37.1% reduction). The resolution scaling is nearly uniform across presets, with 1440p costing roughly 35-37% performance versus 1080p. This uniformity suggests that the GPU is the primary driver of performance, as resolution scaling affects pixel throughput directly.

3840x2160: Low settings average 80.8 FPS, which is 44.5% lower than the 1440p Low result (145.6 FPS) and 64.4% lower than 1080p Low (227.3 FPS). Medium settings average 61.3 FPS, down from 115.7 FPS at 1440p (47.0% reduction) and 177.1 FPS at 1080p (65.4% reduction). High settings average 52.8 FPS, compared to 92.9 FPS at 1440p (43.2% reduction) and 145.2 FPS at 1080p (63.6% reduction). Ultra settings average 37.8 FPS, versus 70.2 FPS at 1440p (46.2% reduction) and 111.6 FPS at 1080p (66.1% reduction). The 4K scaling is more severe than 1440p-to-1080p, with an additional 40-50% performance loss depending on the preset. At 4K, only Low (80.8 FPS) and Medium (61.3 FPS) exceed the 60 FPS threshold, while High (52.8 FPS) and Ultra (37.8 FPS) fail.

FAQ

*Q: Can this PC run Minimum at 60 FPS on Ultra settings at 1920x1080?*

A: Yes. The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 Ultra is 111.6 FPS, which is 51.6 FPS above the 60 FPS playable threshold. This is the best playable settings combination at this resolution, according to the verdictByResolution data.

Q: What is the highest quality preset that maintains 60 FPS at 3840x2160?

A: Medium settings, which average 61.3 FPS. High settings drop to 52.8 FPS and Ultra falls to 37.8 FPS, both below the threshold. Low settings run at 80.8 FPS but offer lower visual quality.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems for this game?

A: It ranks 1637 out of 3712 combos, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the distribution. The CPU is in the 84th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU is in the 61st percentile among all GPUs, indicating the GPU is the weaker component.

Q: Which component is more important for performance at 2560x1440?

A: The GPU. The FPS scaling from 1080p to 1440p shows a 35-37% performance reduction across all presets, which is consistent with GPU-bound rendering. The CPU’s high benchmark scores (e.g., 19784 in Cinebench R23 multicore) suggest it is not the limiting factor.

Q: Is the RTX 3070’s 8 GB VRAM sufficient for this game at 4K?

A: Based on the data, yes for Medium settings (61.3 FPS) but not for High (52.8 FPS) or Ultra (37.8 FPS). The memory bus is 256-bit with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, but the frame rates at High and Ultra fall below 60 FPS, indicating compute or memory capacity limits.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1920x1080?

A: Low settings average 227.3 FPS, while Ultra averages 111.6 FPS. The difference is 115.7 FPS, meaning Ultra runs at roughly 49.1% of Low’s frame rate. Both are far above the 60 FPS threshold.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data reveals that the GPU is the dominant factor in determining frame rates for Minimum, particularly at higher resolutions. The CPU, an Intel Core i7-12700K with 12 cores, 20 threads, and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, is extremely capable, ranking in the 84th percentile of all CPUs. Its single-thread performance (1850.5 in Cinebench R23 single-core) is strong enough to avoid bottlenecking any preset at 1080p. The evidence for GPU dominance comes from the consistent scaling between resolutions. From 1080p to 1440p, every preset loses 35-37% of its average FPS. From 1440p to 4K, the loss is 40-50%. This near-uniform scaling across presets is characteristic of pixel-bound rendering, where the GPU’s fill rate and bandwidth determine performance. The RTX 3070’s pixel rate is 165.6 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 317.4 GTexel/s; these are the resources being stressed as resolution increases.

At 1080p, the CPU can still matter. The jump from Low (227.3 FPS) to Medium (177.1 FPS) is 50.2 FPS, which is larger than the 31.9 FPS difference between Medium and High (145.2 FPS). This non-linear scaling at high frame rates can indicate CPU involvement, as the CPU must prepare draw calls and physics updates for each frame. However, even at 1080p Ultra (111.6 FPS), the CPU has ample headroom given its 20 threads and 25 MB of shared L3 cache. The 3DMark multi-threaded score of 9979 (max threads) suggests the CPU can handle the game’s threading demands easily.

At 1440p, the GPU becomes more clearly the bottleneck. The Ultra preset averages 70.2 FPS, which is close to the 60 FPS threshold, and High averages 92.9 FPS. The gap between Ultra and High is 22.7 FPS, similar to the 22.8 FPS gap between High and Medium (115.7 FPS). This consistent step-down indicates that each preset level adds a proportional GPU workload, with no sudden CPU-related cliff. At 4K, the GPU is unambiguously the limiting factor. Medium averages 61.3 FPS, while High drops to 52.8 FPS and Ultra to 37.8 FPS. The 4K Ultra result (37.8 FPS) is less than half of the 1440p Ultra result (70.2 FPS), a 46.2% reduction that aligns with the 2.25x pixel count increase. The CPU’s role at 4K is minimal; even the lowest preset (Low, 80.8 FPS) is well within CPU capabilities.

For players seeking to understand upgrade paths, the data suggests that replacing the RTX 3070 would yield larger gains than upgrading the CPU. The GPU’s percentile rank (61) is lower than the CPU’s (84), and the measured FPS scales more with resolution than with preset changes. A stronger GPU would likely push 4K High past 60 FPS, while a stronger CPU would only matter if frame rates exceeded roughly 200 FPS at 1080p, where the CPU might start to limit.

The Verdict

This PC can run Minimum at 60 FPS or higher across all tested resolutions, provided the correct settings are chosen. The verdictByResolution data is unambiguous: at 1920x1080, all four presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) are playable, with Ultra averaging 111.6 FPS. This is the ideal resolution for this combo, offering high visual quality and frame rates suitable for fast-paced third-person shooter gameplay. At 2560x1440, all four presets also clear 60 FPS, with Ultra at 70.2 FPS as the best visual option. The 10.2 FPS margin at 1440p Ultra is acceptable, though players who prioritize consistency might consider High (92.9 FPS) for a larger buffer.

At 3840x2160, the verdict is more nuanced. Only Low (80.8 FPS) and Medium (61.3 FPS) meet the 60 FPS threshold. Medium is the recommended setting for 4K, as it provides the best balance of visual quality and performance. High (52.8 FPS) and Ultra (37.8 FPS) fail to reach 60 FPS, so they are not playable by the benchmark’s standard. The 61.3 FPS average at 4K Medium is close to the threshold, so players may experience dips below 60 FPS in heavy scenes, though no min FPS data is available to confirm this.

The overall verdict is that this combo is a strong performer for Minimum, with the caveat that 4K Ultra is out of reach. The system’s rank of 1637 out of 3712 combos suggests that it is not the fastest available, but the measured FPS shows it is more than adequate for the game’s requirements. The CPU’s high benchmark scores (e.g., 34404 in PassMark multithread) and the GPU’s 61st percentile ranking combine to deliver a smooth experience at 1080p and 1440p, with 4K being the only resolution where settings must be compromised. For players with 1080p or 1440p monitors, this system is effectively a “max everything” solution. For 4K enthusiasts, Medium settings will be the ceiling.