Minimum

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination delivers exceptional performance in Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter. Across all tested resolutions and presets, the system maintains frame rates far above the 60 FPS playability threshold, with the data showing a clear ceiling at 1080p and gradual scaling down as resolution increases.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces staggering frame rates. Low settings yield an average of 403 FPS, while High settings still deliver 259 FPS. The Medium preset shows an average of 309 FPS, with a minimum of 262 and a maximum of 355. Ultra settings drop to an average of 197 FPS, which remains over three times the 60 FPS threshold. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1080p represents a reduction of roughly 51% in average frame rate, but the absolute performance is so high that even the most demanding preset is not a challenge.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern holds with strong results. Low settings produce an average of 260 FPS, while High settings average 167 FPS. Medium settings clock in at 199 FPS, with a minimum of 169 and a maximum of 229. Ultra settings still manage an average of 127 FPS. The resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p costs about 35% of the average frame rate at Ultra settings, but the system remains far beyond what the game demands.

At 3840x2160, 4K resolution, performance stays well above the playable threshold. Low settings average 140 FPS, and High settings deliver 90 FPS. Medium settings show an average of 107 FPS, with a minimum of 91 and a maximum of 123. Ultra settings, the most demanding configuration tested, still produce an average of 69 FPS. This is the only resolution where the Ultra preset dips below the 100 FPS mark, but it remains comfortably above 60 FPS.

The data shows a consistent hierarchy across resolutions: Low is fastest, followed by Medium, then High, with Ultra being the slowest. The minimum and maximum values provided only for Medium settings at each resolution indicate that frame pacing is tight; at 4K Medium, the 91 FPS minimum is still 31 FPS above the playability threshold, and at 1440p Medium, the 169 FPS minimum is nearly three times the threshold.

Similar Performance Alternatives

The CPU benchmarks place the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 in close competition with several enterprise processors. Its average benchmark score of 64,640 is nearly identical to the AMD EPYC 4464P, which scores 64,823, a delta of -0.3%. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265F is the nearest sibling, with a score of 64,438, a delta of 0.3% in favor of the 265. The AMD EPYC 7343 scores 64,202, a 0.7% difference, while the AMD EPYC 9124 scores 65,104, putting it 0.7% ahead. These deltas are all within a single percentage point, meaning any of these CPUs would deliver effectively identical performance in Minimum, which is not a CPU-intensive title at these frame rates.

On the GPU side, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 achieves an average benchmark score of 79,842. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB, scores 79,605, a delta of 0.3%. The Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB is also close at 79,396, a 0.6% difference. The AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT scores 78,940, a 1.1% gap, while the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X scores 80,959, placing it 1.4% ahead of the RTX 5090. For Minimum, these rival GPUs would produce nearly identical frame rates, though the RTX 5090’s 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are far beyond what this game can utilize.

The practical takeaway from the rival data is that this combination sits in a performance tier where the game’s frame rate is limited by the game engine itself, not the hardware. Whether the CPU is the 265 or an EPYC 4464P, or the GPU is the RTX 5090 or a Tesla P100, the results at 1080p would be indistinguishable to a player because the game’s rendering pipeline cannot push beyond several hundred frames per second.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 80th out of 3,712 combos for Minimum. That places it in the top 2.2% of all tested systems, a strong showing for a game from 2014. The high rank is driven primarily by the GPU’s raw power, as the RTX 5090’s 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 1,636.8 GTexel/s texture rate are massive overkill for a game of this era.

The rank also reflects the CPU’s solid single-thread performance, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 5,960 and a Passmark single-thread score of 4,689. While Minimum is not likely to stress all 20 cores of the Ultra 7 265, the high per-core performance ensures no bottleneck at the frame rates observed. The 93rd percentile ranking for the CPU against all processors and the 92nd percentile for the GPU against all graphics cards confirm that both components are near the top of their respective hierarchies.

Being 80th out of 3,712 combos means that only 79 other system configurations produce higher frame rates in this game. Given that the RTX 5090 is one of the fastest consumer GPUs available, the systems ahead of it likely consist of exotic multi-GPU setups or higher-clocked variants, though the data does not specify which combos rank higher.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: this PC can run Minimum at any tested setting and resolution. The verdict by resolution lists High, Low, Medium, and Ultra as playable at all three resolutions, with the playable threshold set at 60 FPS. At 4K Ultra, the system averages 69 FPS, just 9 FPS above the threshold, making it the only configuration that comes close to being challenged. At 1440p Ultra, the average is 127 FPS, more than double the threshold, and at 1080p Ultra, the average is 197 FPS, over three times the threshold.

The best settings at each resolution are Ultra, meaning there is no reason to lower quality for the sake of frame rate. At 4K, the 69 FPS average at Ultra is playable, but users who prefer a larger margin could drop to High for 90 FPS or Medium for 107 FPS. At 1440p and 1080p, Ultra is the obvious choice, as the frame rates are so high that any reduction in settings would be imperceptible in terms of smoothness.

This is a case where the hardware is several generations ahead of the game’s requirements. The game launched in 2014, and the CPU and GPU both launched in January 2025, meaning over a decade of GPU architecture improvements separate this system from the game’s original target hardware. The result is that the system never dips below 60 FPS in any measured scenario, and the only limitation is the game’s own engine frame rate cap, if one exists.

CPU and GPU Roles

The data indicates that the GPU is the dominant component at all resolutions, but the CPU becomes relatively more important as resolution decreases. At 4K, the frame rates range from 69 to 140 FPS across presets, a spread of 71 FPS. At 1440p, the range is 127 to 260 FPS, a spread of 133 FPS. At 1080p, the range is 197 to 403 FPS, a spread of 206 FPS. This widening spread at lower resolutions is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario shifting toward CPU-bound behavior as the pixel count drops.

Specifically, the scaling from 4K to 1080p at Ultra settings shows a 2.85x increase in average frame rate, from 69 to 197 FPS. At Low settings, the same resolution change produces a 2.88x increase, from 140 to 403 FPS. The consistency of this scaling factor across presets suggests that the game’s rendering load scales predictably with pixel count, and that the RTX 5090 is the limiting factor at 4K, while the CPU’s single-thread performance becomes more relevant at 1080p where the GPU has less work per frame.

The CPU’s benchmarks support this interpretation. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42,216 and Passmark multi-thread score of 49,682 show strong overall throughput, but it is the single-core scores that matter for this game. A 5.30 GHz boost clock and a Passmark single-thread score of 4,689 ensure that the CPU can feed the GPU at high frame rates. If the CPU were weaker, the 1080p Low average of 403 FPS would likely be lower, as the game’s draw call processing would become a bottleneck.

At 4K, the GPU’s 32 GB of memory and 512-bit bus are irrelevant for a 2014 title, but the sheer compute power of 21,760 shading units drives the 69 FPS Ultra average. The GPU’s 92nd percentile ranking versus all GPUs, combined with the CPU’s 93rd percentile ranking, means both components are among the best available, and the game simply cannot saturate either one effectively.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 1920x1080, the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, with an average of 197 FPS. There is no reason to use any lower preset, as even the minimum frame rate at Ultra is likely far above 60, though the data only provides minimums for Medium (262 FPS). The 197 FPS average at Ultra leaves enormous headroom for future driver overhead or background tasks.

At 2560x1440, Ultra is again the best choice, averaging 127 FPS. This is more than double the 60 FPS threshold, and the minimum frame rate at Medium is 169 FPS, suggesting that Ultra’s minimums are also well above the threshold. The 127 FPS average means that even a 120 Hz monitor would be fully utilized at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, Ultra remains the best setting, but the margin narrows to 69 FPS average. This is the only resolution where the choice of preset has a meaningful impact on playability. For users with a 60 Hz 4K display, Ultra at 69 FPS is a solid experience, but those sensitive to frame dips might prefer High at 90 FPS or Medium at 107 FPS for a larger safety margin. The Medium preset’s minimum of 91 FPS shows that even the worst-case frame time stays well above the threshold, so any of the four presets would be playable, but Ultra is the only one that maximizes visual quality while still clearing 60 FPS.