Dave The Diver

Dave The Diver is not the kind of title that typically stresses a flagship GPU, and the measured results for this AMD Ryzen 5 5500 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 pairing confirm that the frame rates are astronomically high across the board. The data shows a system that is massively overqualified for the task, delivering esports-level refresh rates in a pixel-art adventure game. The benchmark results indicate that the primary limiting factor in this configuration is not the graphics card, but rather the processor, which struggles to push the frame rate past the 320 FPS mark even at the lowest settings.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic CPU-bound scenario. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces an average of 320.9 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at Low settings, the average drops to 296.1 FPS, a relatively modest decline that suggests the CPU is still the primary bottleneck at this resolution. When the resolution is pushed to 3840x2160 at Low settings, the average FPS falls to 236.5, showing that the GPU is finally starting to take on more of the workload, but the frame rate remains exceptionally high.

The pattern holds across all settings presets. At High settings, the frame rate goes from 291.6 FPS at 1080p to 264.1 FPS at 1440p, and then down to 178.4 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K is more pronounced (around 32% in this case), which is a sign that the GPU is being engaged more heavily at the higher resolution. However, even the most demanding configuration tested—4K Ultra—still yields an average of 158.3 FPS. This indicates that the RTX 5090, with its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, is barely breaking a sweat in this title, and the overall frame rate ceiling is being set by the Ryzen 5 5500's single-thread performance.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested hardware combinations, this pairing sits at rank 87 out of 1626 combos for Dave The Diver. This places it in the top 5.4% of all tested systems, which is a strong showing, but it is notably not at the absolute top. The data suggests that while the RTX 5090 is one of the most powerful GPUs available, the Ryzen 5 5500 prevents this combo from reaching the highest echelons of the ranking table. A system with a more capable processor would likely push this combination higher, as the GPU is clearly capable of much more.

The combo's percentile rank highlights a disparity between the components. The GPU itself sits in the 94th percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU is in the 79th percentile among all CPUs. This gap in relative performance is a clear indicator that the processor is the weaker link in this pairing. The benchmark results show that the CPU's average benchmark score of 20875 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i5-12500 which scores 20897 (a delta of -0.1%), and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE at 20900 (-0.1%). This puts it in a solid mid-range tier, but far from the performance class of the RTX 5090.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. It has 16 MB of L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus. In Dave The Diver, which is not a heavily multi-threaded title, the CPU's single-thread performance is the most critical factor. The benchmark data shows a single-thread score of 836 in 3dmark and 2319 in Cinebench R23, which are respectable but not class-leading figures.

The processor's role in this configuration is to feed frames to the GPU. The data indicates that it does this effectively up to a point. The frame rate at 1080p Low (320.9 FPS) is likely close to the maximum output the CPU can sustain. The fact that increasing the resolution from 1080p to 1440p only reduces the frame rate by around 8% at Low settings (from 320.9 to 296.1 FPS) suggests that the CPU is still the limiting factor at 1440p. It is only when the resolution jumps to 4K that the GPU's workload becomes significant enough to lower the frame rate more substantially. The CPU's 65W TDP and 7nm process node make it an efficient part, but its performance ceiling is clearly evident in this high-end pairing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured results provides a clear picture of the system's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 320.9 FPS on Low, 301.4 FPS on Medium, 291.6 FPS on High, and 277.1 FPS on Ultra. The spread between Low and Ultra is only 43.8 FPS, which is a narrow margin that again points to a CPU limitation, as the GPU should have no trouble with any of these settings at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 296.1 FPS (Low), 273.8 FPS (Medium), 264.1 FPS (High), and 232.8 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Ultra widens slightly to 63.3 FPS, showing that the GPU is beginning to have a more meaningful impact. The 4K results at 3840x2160 are 236.5 FPS (Low), 197.8 FPS (Medium), 178.4 FPS (High), and 158.3 FPS (Ultra). Here, the difference between Low and Ultra is 78.2 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU is the dominant factor at this resolution.

Across all settings, the system never drops below 158 FPS, which is far beyond the refresh rate of most displays. The data shows that even the most demanding scenario tested—4K Ultra—is handled with ease. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K shows a 33% reduction in frame rate, which is a substantial performance cost for the visual fidelity improvements. However, the absolute numbers are so high that the choice of settings is purely a matter of preference rather than necessity.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a behemoth of a graphics card, with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a massive 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. It is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture and features 21,760 shading units, 170 RT cores, and a boost clock of 2407 MHz. Its compute power is staggering, with an FP32 performance of 104.8 TFLOPS. In Dave The Diver, this hardware is massively underutilized.

The GPU's role in this game is to render a relatively simple 2D-style pixel-art world, which is not demanding on rasterization or ray tracing. The benchmark results confirm this, as the card is able to achieve over 230 FPS even at 4K with Low settings. The passmark G3D score of 39650 places it in the 94th percentile of all GPUs, but this power is not needed here. The GPU's memory bandwidth and capacity are irrelevant to the game's requirements, as the title does not have complex textures or large open worlds that would benefit from them.

The RTX 5090's performance in this combo is essentially capped by the CPU. The measured FPS at 1080p are all within a narrow band, which is a classic sign of a CPU bottleneck. The GPU is capable of rendering the frames much faster, but it has to wait for the processor to provide the draw calls. This is a classic example of a high-end GPU being paired with a mid-range CPU, resulting in a system that performs exceptionally well but leaves a significant amount of GPU performance on the table. The GPU's 575W TDP and 950W suggested PSU highlight its power requirements, but its actual workload in this game is minimal.