Dave The Diver

# Dave The Diver — AMD Ryzen 5 7500F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080

The combination of AMD's Zen 4-based Ryzen 5 7500F and NVIDIA's Ampere-generation RTX 3080 produces remarkably high framerates in Dave The Diver, a game that clearly favors strong single-threaded CPU performance and substantial GPU bandwidth. This pairing delivers triple-digit average FPS at every tested resolution and settings level, from the lightest 1080p Low config to the heaviest 4K Ultra preset. The data shows a system that is overwhelmingly capable for this title, with headroom that suggests the bottleneck shifts from GPU-bound at high resolutions to CPU-bound at lower ones.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K follows a predictable pattern, but the magnitude of the drop is modest at every settings tier. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 306.9 at 1920x1080 to 154.4 at 3840x2160 — a reduction of roughly half. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 202.5 down to 103.6, again nearly halving. This consistent ~50% reduction across settings levels indicates that the RTX 3080's pixel throughput is the primary scaling factor as resolution climbs.

The interesting question is why the scaling is so uniform. At 1080p Low, the frame rate of 306.9 is almost certainly CPU-limited; the Ryzen 5 7500F's single-core performance (a 3DMark single-thread score of 974) is likely the ceiling. Yet at 4K Ultra, the 103.6 average suggests the GPU is now the limiting component, with its 10 GB of GDDR6X and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth being taxed heavily. The fact that the 4K Ultra figure remains above 100 FPS implies that even at maximum load, neither component is fully saturated — there is still untapped potential.

Comparing the high-to-ultra transition at each resolution reveals an interesting pattern. At 1080p, High delivers 228.4 FPS while Ultra drops to 202.5 — a 25.9 FPS penalty. At 4K, the same settings transition costs only 11.8 FPS (from 115.4 to 103.6). This shrinking absolute penalty at higher resolutions suggests that the extra graphics features enabled by Ultra are less impactful when the GPU is already working harder on pixel fill.

GPU Role

The RTX 3080 is the workhorse here, and its memory subsystem is particularly relevant to Dave The Diver's performance. With 10 GB of GDDR6X running at 19 Gbps effective across a 320-bit bus, the card delivers 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. This is paired with a boost clock of 1710 MHz and 8704 shading units. The benchmark results show that this GPU sits in the 80th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35787.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database are instructive. It sits just 0.2% behind the AMD Radeon Pro Duo (avg score 35860) and 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon 880M (35646). The RTX 3080 also edges out the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE by 0.9% (that card scores 36101) and leads the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile by 1% (35435). These narrow margins suggest that in raw compute terms, the RTX 3080 is well-positioned among its peers, though the actual gaming performance in Dave The Diver will depend heavily on how well the game utilizes its specific feature set.

At 4K Ultra, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor. The 103.6 FPS average is respectable but represents a 32.5% drop from the 153.4 FPS seen at 1440p Ultra. This is not a catastrophic scaling failure — the card is simply running out of pixel throughput. The 10 GB VRAM allocation is worth examining: at 4K with Ultra textures, memory pressure could be significant, though the measurable results do not show any catastrophic frame drops, suggesting the 10 GB pool is adequate for this title's demands.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 7500F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on Zen 4 architecture, running at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boosting to 5.00 GHz. Its 32 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (83.2 GB/s bandwidth) provide the kind of low-latency memory access that benefits games with complex simulation logic. The CPU's 3DMark single-thread score of 974 and multi-thread score of 6376 (at max threads) suggest strong per-core performance, which is what matters most for a game like Dave The Diver that likely has a primary game logic thread.

The CPU's benchmark standing is solid but not exceptional. It ranks in the 82nd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 24993. Its nearest rivals show just how tightly packed this performance tier is: the Intel Core i7-11850H scores 24974 (0.1% behind), the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X scores 25057 (0.3% ahead), the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F scores 25064 (0.3% ahead), and the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX scores 24897 (0.4% behind). These sub-1% differences mean that in CPU-bound scenarios, swapping between these processors would produce nearly indistinguishable results.

The CPU's role becomes apparent when examining the 1080p Low result of 306.9 FPS. That figure is extraordinarily high, and it is unlikely that the RTX 3080 is the limiting factor at such a low resolution and settings level. Instead, the CPU's 5.00 GHz boost clock and Zen 4 IPC are what enable such high frame generation. At 4K Low, the FPS drops to 154.4, which is still high but now reflects the GPU's ability to process pixels rather than the CPU's game logic throughput.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the results show a clear hierarchy based on settings. Low settings produce an average of 306.9 FPS, Medium drops to 257.1, High delivers 228.4, and Ultra comes in at 202.5. The gap between Low and Ultra is 104.4 FPS, which highlights how much headroom the settings presets can consume even at a resolution where the CPU is heavily involved.

Moving to 2560x1440, the same settings pattern holds but with lower absolute numbers. Low settings average 231.3 FPS, Medium achieves 189.3, High reaches 172.8, and Ultra settles at 153.4. The low-to-ultra spread here is 77.9 FPS, slightly narrower than at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU is beginning to assert its influence.

At 3840x2160, the results compress further. Low settings produce 154.4 FPS, Medium drops to 131.6, High delivers 115.4, and Ultra bottoms out at 103.6. The spread is now just 50.8 FPS between Low and Ultra. This compression is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario — the settings' graphical features matter less when the GPU is already working near its pixel throughput limit.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset consistently offers a compelling middle ground, typically sitting about 15% below Low and about 13% above High in terms of FPS. The Ultra preset, while visually demanding, never pushes the system below 100 FPS at 4K, which confirms the overall balance of this CPU-GPU pairing.

FAQ

Q: Is the RTX 3080 or the Ryzen 5 7500F the primary bottleneck in Dave The Diver?

A: The bottleneck shifts with resolution. At 1080p Low (306.9 FPS), the CPU's single-thread performance (3DMark single-thread score of 974) is likely the ceiling. At 4K Ultra (103.6 FPS), the GPU's pixel throughput becomes the limiting factor, given its 10 GB VRAM and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: How does the RTX 3080 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 3080's average benchmark score is 35787, placing it 0.2% behind the AMD Radeon Pro Duo (35860), 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon 880M (35646), 0.9% behind the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (36101), and 1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile (35435).

Q: What is the best settings preset for maintaining high FPS at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium settings deliver 189.3 FPS, which is 57.9 FPS higher than Ultra's 153.4 and only 42 FPS lower than Low's 231.3. Medium offers a strong balance between visual quality and performance headroom.

Q: Does the CPU's multi-threaded performance matter for this game?

A: The Ryzen 5 7500F scores 6376 in 3DMark max-threads and 22799 in Cinebench R23 multicore, but the more relevant metric is single-thread performance (974 in 3DMark single-thread). The minimal FPS differences between settings at 1080p suggest the game's frame pacing is more dependent on single-core speed than multi-core throughput.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: This pairing ranks 476th out of 1626 total tested combos in Dave The Diver, placing it in the top 30% of all systems tested for this game.

Q: Is the 10 GB VRAM on the RTX 3080 sufficient for 4K gaming in this title?

A: The measured data shows 103.6 FPS at 4K Ultra with no reported minimum frame drops, indicating that 10 GB of GDDR6X is sufficient for Dave The Diver's memory demands at this resolution and settings level.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Medium settings as the most balanced choice across all resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 257.1 FPS versus 306.9 on Low — a 49.8 FPS sacrifice for improved visuals. At 1440p, Medium's 189.3 FPS is 42 FPS below Low but 36.5 FPS above High and 35.9 FPS above Ultra. At 4K, Medium's 131.6 FPS sits comfortably above the 115.4 High result and the 103.6 Ultra result.

For players with high-refresh-rate displays, the 1440p Medium configuration is particularly compelling: 189.3 FPS is well above the 144 Hz threshold that many gaming monitors target, while still leaving plenty of GPU headroom for demanding scenes. If maximum visual fidelity is the priority, 4K Ultra at 103.6 FPS is still playable and represents only a 27.8 FPS drop from 4K High.

The Low preset is difficult to recommend except for competitive play or extreme refresh-rate displays, as even at 4K it only reaches 154.4 FPS — a modest gain over Medium's 131.6 for what is likely a significant visual downgrade. The Ultra preset, while producing the lowest FPS, never drops below 100 FPS at 4K, so it remains a viable option for players who prioritize image quality over raw frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 ranks 476th out of 1626 tested combos in Dave The Diver. This places the pairing in the 71st percentile of all systems tested, which is a strong showing given that many combos in the database likely feature more recent or higher-end components.

The ranking context matters: the CPU sits in the 82nd percentile among all CPUs, and the GPU in the 80th percentile among all GPUs. The fact that the combo rank (71st percentile) is slightly lower than either component's individual percentile suggests that this pairing may not be perfectly optimized for this specific game. The 6-core/12-thread CPU might not fully utilize all of the RTX 3080's capabilities in every scenario, or the game's engine might favor different hardware configurations.

Despite the rank, the absolute performance is impressive. The lowest measured result — 103.6 FPS at 4K Ultra — is still a very playable frame rate. The highest result — 306.9 FPS at 1080p Low — demonstrates exceptional headroom. For a game like Dave The Diver, which is not typically considered a graphics stress test, this combo provides far more performance than necessary for a smooth experience at any reasonable settings and resolution combination. The data shows a system that is well-balanced, with neither component clearly holding back the other except at the extreme ends of the resolution and settings spectrum.