Dave The Diver

Dave The Diver, an adventure title released in 2023, presents an interesting case study when paired with an AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090. The benchmark data shows a configuration that is heavily skewed towards the GPU, yet the CPU still plays a measurable role in defining performance ceilings. Across all measured resolutions and settings, the system delivers exceptionally high frame rates, but the scaling patterns reveal where the bottleneck shifts between the processor and the graphics card.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 demonstrates classic behavior for a high-end GPU paired with a mid-range CPU. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 325.6 FPS, which drops to 293.9 FPS at 1440p and further to 229.9 FPS at 4K. This represents a 29.4% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, indicating that the RTX 4090 is far from saturated at lower resolutions. The Ryzen 5 5500, with its 6 cores and 12 threads based on Zen 3 architecture, becomes the limiting factor at 1080p, where the GPU could theoretically produce even higher frame rates if the CPU could feed it faster.

Moving to Ultra settings, the pattern shifts noticeably. At 1080p Ultra, the system produces 277 FPS, which drops to 226 FPS at 1440p and 154.2 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is 44.3% at Ultra, compared to 29.4% at Low. This wider gap at higher settings confirms that the GPU workload increases substantially with visual fidelity, allowing the RTX 4090 to become the dominant factor in determining performance. The RTX 4090, with its 16384 shading units and 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, has ample headroom, but the Ryzen 5 5500's single-thread score of 836 in 3DMark limits how fast draw calls can be processed.

The data suggests that at 1080p, regardless of settings, the Ryzen 5 5500 constrains the system. From 1080p Low to 4K Low, the frame rate drops by 95.7 FPS, while from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra, the drop is 122.8 FPS. This counterintuitive result—where higher settings show a larger absolute drop—indicates that the GPU is more engaged at Ultra, so resolution scaling has a more pronounced effect. At Low settings, the CPU bottleneck caps performance so severely that even reducing resolution from 1440p to 1080p only yields a 31.7 FPS improvement (293.9 to 325.6), which is minimal compared to the GPU's theoretical capability.

FAQ

Q: Is the RTX 4090 bottlenecked by the Ryzen 5 5500 in this game?

A: Yes, particularly at 1080p. The 325.6 FPS at 1080p Low is only 10.8% higher than the 293.9 FPS at 1440p Low, suggesting the CPU limits performance before the GPU becomes fully utilized. The Ryzen 5 5500's 3DMark single-thread score of 836 indicates modest per-core performance that can constrain frame pacing in CPU-bound scenarios.

Q: What is the best resolution for this configuration?

A: The data shows 1440p provides an optimal balance. At High settings, 1440p delivers 252.3 FPS versus 289.7 FPS at 1080p, a 14.8% reduction for a significant increase in pixel count. At 4K High, the system still manages 169.6 FPS, so all resolutions are playable, but 1440p maximizes the GPU's capability without exposing the CPU bottleneck as severely as 1080p.

Q: How does the RTX 4090 compare to its nearest rivals in this context?

A: The RTX 4090 has an average benchmark score of 66473, which is 0.4% lower than the NVIDIA Tesla T4's 66733 but 0.5% higher than the NVIDIA Tesla P40's 66127. These deltas are minimal, indicating the RTX 4090 performs similarly to these data-center-oriented cards in synthetic benchmarks, though the gaming-specific metrics in Dave The Diver show exceptional real-world performance.

Q: Does the Ryzen 5 5500's performance justify its position in this build?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score of 20875 places it in the 79th percentile of all CPUs, with its nearest rival being the Intel Core i5-12500 at 20897 (a 0.1% difference). In this game, the CPU's 16 MB of L3 cache and 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth appear sufficient for the adventure genre, but the 4.20 GHz boost clock limits peak frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios.

Q: What frame rate can be expected at 4K with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average is 154.2 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This is 24.2% lower than the 4K High result of 169.6 FPS, showing that Ultra presets impose a meaningful performance cost. The RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are more than adequate for this workload.

Q: Is there a significant difference between Medium and High settings?

A: At 1080p, Medium delivers 305.4 FPS versus 289.7 FPS on High, a 5.4% advantage. At 4K, the difference is 193.6 FPS on Medium versus 169.6 FPS on High, a 14.2% advantage. The gap widens at higher resolutions, suggesting that High settings place additional load on the GPU that Medium does not, making Medium a more efficient choice for maximizing frame rates.

Settings Recommendations

For players prioritizing frame rate above all else, the Low preset at 1080p delivers 325.6 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the dataset. However, given the game's adventure genre and the RTX 4090's capabilities, this setting leaves significant visual quality untapped. The data indicates that Medium settings provide the best compromise between performance and fidelity across all resolutions. At 1440p Medium, the system produces 275.5 FPS, which is 6.3% lower than 1440p High's 252.3 FPS—wait, actually the Medium is higher. Correcting: 1440p Medium at 275.5 FPS is 9.2% higher than 1440p High at 252.3 FPS, so Medium offers better performance with presumably acceptable visual trade-offs.

At 4K, Medium's 193.6 FPS is 14.2% higher than High's 169.6 FPS, making Medium the recommended preset for 4K displays. The Ultra preset, while offering the highest visual quality, delivers 154.2 FPS at 4K and 226 FPS at 1440p, both of which are still high but represent 20.4% and 18.0% reductions compared to Medium at their respective resolutions. Given that the Ryzen 5 5500 may introduce frame pacing inconsistencies at very high frame rates, the Medium preset's lower GPU load could help maintain smoother output. The combination of 1440p Medium at 275.5 FPS appears to be the sweet spot, offering near-300 FPS performance without the CPU bottleneck fully manifesting.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce 325.6 FPS, Medium produces 305.4 FPS, High produces 289.7 FPS, and Ultra produces 277 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 48.6 FPS, or 14.9%, indicating that even at 1080p, the GPU has sufficient headroom to handle increased visual complexity without dramatic frame rate penalties. The progression from Low to Medium reduces performance by 6.2%, from Medium to High by 5.1%, and from High to Ultra by 4.4%, showing diminishing performance costs as settings increase.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show a wider gap between settings. Low produces 293.9 FPS, Medium produces 275.5 FPS, High produces 252.3 FPS, and Ultra produces 226 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 67.9 FPS, or 23.1%, which is larger than at 1080p. This indicates that the GPU is becoming more engaged at 1440p, so settings changes have a greater impact. The step from High to Ultra at 1440p is 26.3 FPS (10.4%), the largest single-step drop in this resolution, suggesting Ultra introduces significant additional GPU work.

At 3840x2160, the system still maintains triple-digit frame rates but with the largest settings-dependent variation. Low produces 229.9 FPS, Medium produces 193.6 FPS, High produces 169.6 FPS, and Ultra produces 154.2 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 75.7 FPS, or 32.9%, demonstrating that at 4K, the GPU is the primary performance determinant. The step from Medium to High at 4K is 24 FPS (12.4%), while High to Ultra is 15.4 FPS (9.1%), showing that the most significant performance cliff occurs between Medium and High at this resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD102 chip, is the dominant component in this configuration. Its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for Dave The Diver's textures and geometry. The GPU's 16384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 render output units allow it to process the game's pixel and texture workloads at extremely high rates. With a boost clock of 2520 MHz and a base clock of 2235 MHz, the RTX 4090 maintains high throughput across all measured scenarios.

The GPU's benchmark results reinforce its capability. Its PassMark G3D score of 38194 and Geekbench OpenCL score of 317684 place it in the 91st percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 66473. Comparing to rivals, the RTX 4090 trails the NVIDIA Tesla T4 by 0.4% (66733 vs 66473) but leads the NVIDIA Tesla P40 by 0.5% (66127 vs 66473). These rivals are professional-grade cards, so the RTX 4090's gaming performance is exceptional. The GPU's 128 ray tracing cores and 512 tensor cores provide advanced features, though Dave The Diver's art style likely doesn't heavily utilize ray tracing.

In the context of this game, the RTX 4090's role is to ensure that frame rates remain high even at 4K Ultra, which it does with 154.2 FPS. The GPU's 443.5 GPixel/s pixel rate and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate are critical for handling the game's visual effects. At 1080p, the GPU's performance is partially wasted due to the CPU bottleneck, but at 4K, the RTX 4090's full capabilities are engaged. The measured data shows that the GPU's performance scales predictably with resolution, with a 32.9% reduction from Low to Ultra at 4K, which is a reasonable cost for the visual quality increase. The 450 W TDP and 850 W suggested PSU indicate this is a power-hungry component, but its benchmark results justify the power draw in this context.