Minimum

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivers an exceptionally strong performance profile for Minimum, a third-person shooter from 2014. The data shows that this combination not only clears the 60 FPS playable threshold at every tested resolution, but does so with enough headroom to run the game at its maximum visual quality across the board. This analysis breaks down the measured frame rates, component roles, and how this specific pairing stacks up against other tested configurations.

Best Settings per Resolution

At 3840x2160 (4K), the most demanding preset that stays at or above 60 FPS is Ultra, with an average frame rate of exactly 60 FPS. This is the ceiling for this resolution, as the game’s highest settings precisely meet the playable threshold. For players who prefer a buffer above the minimum, the High preset at 4K delivers a more comfortable 79 FPS average, while Medium and Low offer 94 FPS and 123 FPS respectively.

Moving down to 2560x1440 (1440p), the Ultra preset remains the best choice, achieving a robust 112 FPS average. This is more than double the playable threshold and indicates the GPU has significant spare capacity at this resolution. The High preset runs at 147 FPS, Medium at 175 FPS, and Low at 228 FPS, all of which are far beyond what is needed for smooth gameplay.

At 1920x1080 (1080p), the Ultra preset again takes the top spot with an impressive 173 FPS average. The data shows a clear pattern: this hardware combination is powerful enough to run Minimum at its highest settings at every resolution, with the only caveat being that 4K Ultra lands precisely on the 60 FPS line. For 1440p and 1080p, Ultra settings provide a high-refresh-rate experience that is well above the 60 FPS target.

CPU and GPU Roles

The benchmark results indicate that the GPU is the primary performance driver for Minimum, though the CPU’s role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions. At 3840x2160, the average frame rates scale from 60 FPS at Ultra to 123 FPS at Low, a difference of 63 FPS. This substantial scaling with settings shows that the render resolution and graphical load are heavily taxing the GPU, especially at 4K where pixel throughput is the main bottleneck.

At 2560x1440, the scaling pattern continues but with higher absolute numbers: Ultra sits at 112 FPS, while Low reaches 228 FPS. The gap between Ultra and Low here is 116 FPS, which is larger than at 4K. This widening gap suggests that as resolution decreases, the GPU has more headroom to render additional frames, but the CPU must keep up with the increased draw call and physics workload. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus, with its 24 cores and 24 threads, appears well-suited to this task, as evidenced by the fact that even at 1080p Low, the system reaches 354 FPS without appearing to hit a CPU-imposed wall.

The 1920x1080 results reinforce this interpretation. The Ultra preset at 1080p produces 173 FPS, while Low jumps to 354 FPS. The scaling from 1440p to 1080p shows a smaller relative increase in frame rates at Ultra settings (112 to 173 FPS) compared to the jump from 4K to 1440p (60 to 112 FPS). This indicates that at 1080p, the system is approaching a balance point where both CPU and GPU are heavily utilized, though neither becomes a strict bottleneck. The data suggests that for 4K gaming, the RTX 4080 SUPER is the limiting factor, while at 1080p, the CPU’s ability to feed frames becomes increasingly important, though the Core Ultra 9 290K’s strong single-thread performance (evidenced by its 4823 Passmark single-thread score) keeps it ahead of the game’s demands.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed look at performance across all settings and resolutions. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset averages 60 FPS, with no min or max values recorded. High averages 79 FPS, Medium averages 94 FPS with a minimum of 80 and maximum of 108, and Low averages 123 FPS. The Medium preset’s recorded range shows a 28 FPS fluctuation between minimum and maximum, which is the most significant variance in the entire dataset.

At 2560x1440, Ultra averages 112 FPS, High averages 147 FPS, Medium averages 175 FPS (with a minimum of 149 and maximum of 201), and Low averages 228 FPS. The Medium preset again shows a wide range, with a 52 FPS difference between its minimum and maximum values. This variance is notable but still keeps the lowest recorded frame rate well above the playable threshold.

At 1920x1080, Ultra averages 173 FPS, High averages 228 FPS, Medium averages 271 FPS (with a minimum of 230 and maximum of 312), and Low averages 354 FPS. The Medium preset at 1080p shows the largest absolute fluctuation in the dataset, an 82 FPS spread, but the minimum of 230 FPS is still more than 3.8 times the playable threshold. Overall, the data shows consistent performance with no dips below 60 FPS in any configuration, and the only recorded minimums (80 FPS at 4K Medium, 149 FPS at 1440p Medium, 230 FPS at 1080p Medium) all occur at the Medium preset, suggesting that this particular quality level introduces the most frame-time variance, though it remains perfectly playable.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 311 out of 3712 tested combos for Minimum. This places it in the top 8.4% of all tested configurations, which is consistent with the high frame rates observed. The percentile data for the individual components supports this ranking: the CPU is in the 96th percentile among all CPUs, and the GPU is in the 86th percentile among all GPUs.

The combo rank of 311 indicates that while this is a very fast pairing, there are 310 other combinations that achieve higher average frame rates in this game. Given that the game is from 2014 and this hardware is modern, the ranking is likely influenced by systems with even more powerful GPUs or CPUs that can push frame rates higher at 1080p, where the CPU becomes more relevant. The 4K Ultra result of exactly 60 FPS suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor at that resolution, so combos with a faster GPU would rank higher. However, for the vast majority of use cases, this rank demonstrates that the system provides a top-tier experience for this title.

Similar Performance Alternatives

Looking at the nearest rivals for both components provides context for what other hardware would behave similarly. For the CPU, the closest competitor is the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, which has an average benchmark score of 83807 compared to 84003 for the 290K Plus, a delta of just 0.2%. In practical terms, these two processors would deliver nearly identical frame rates in Minimum at all resolutions, as the game is not heavily CPU-bound at 4K and the 285K would keep pace at 1080p. The AMD EPYC 4584PX (score 83090, 1.1% slower) and AMD EPYC 9135 (score 82980, 1.2% slower) are also within a small margin, though these are server-class chips that would behave similarly in this gaming workload due to their high core counts and strong multi-threaded performance. The AMD EPYC 7F72 is slightly faster with a score of 85072, meaning it would be 1.3% ahead of the 290K Plus, an imperceptible difference in real-world frame rates.

For the GPU, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the closest match, with an average score of 54247 versus 54209 for the RTX 4080 SUPER, a delta of -0.1%. This means the non-SUPER version would perform within a fraction of a percent, producing nearly identical frame rates in Minimum. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (score 54828, 1.1% faster) and AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (score 55698, 2.7% faster) are also close, though the RX 6750 GRE’s higher score suggests it might edge out the RTX 4080 SUPER by a few FPS at 1080p. The AMD Radeon 8060S (score 55757, 2.8% faster) is the fastest in this rival group. In practice, any of these GPUs would deliver a very similar experience in Minimum, with differences of a few FPS at most, well within the margin of error for a game that runs this fast.

The Verdict

The verdict is unequivocal: this PC can run Minimum at every resolution and settings combination tested. The data shows that the 3840x2160 Ultra preset is playable at exactly 60 FPS, which is the minimum threshold for smooth gameplay. This is the only configuration that sits precisely at the line, so players who want a safety margin at 4K should consider the High preset at 79 FPS. At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset delivers 112 FPS, and at 1920x1080, Ultra averages 173 FPS, both of which are far above the playable threshold.

The system’s bottleneck at 4K is clearly the GPU, as the RTX 4080 SUPER is pushed to its limit with Ultra settings. At lower resolutions, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus provides ample headroom, allowing the GPU to stretch its legs and produce frame rates that would satisfy even the most demanding high-refresh-rate displays. The measured data shows no instances of frame rates dropping below 60 FPS in any scenario, making this a reliable choice for playing Minimum at maximum quality. The only practical consideration is that 4K Ultra leaves no performance margin, so enabling any additional background tasks or future game updates could theoretically cause dips below 60 FPS, but as tested, the game runs perfectly at its highest settings.