Dave The Diver

# Dave The Diver — Intel Core i5-12400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060

Dave The Diver presents an unusual scaling pattern for this mid-range combo. At 1080p, the RTX 4060 pushes 230.7 FPS on Low settings, but dropping to 4K Ultra cuts that to 74.7 FPS — a 67.6% reduction in frame rate. The relationship between resolution and settings is not linear; the gap between Low and Ultra widens dramatically as pixel count rises. At 1080p, Low to Ultra costs 75.0 FPS (230.7 to 155.7), while at 4K the same settings swing costs only 45.1 FPS (119.8 to 74.7). This compression at higher resolutions suggests the GPU becomes the bottleneck earlier than expected, given the modest graphical complexity of this adventure title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals a GPU-bound scenario that intensifies with quality presets. On Low settings, moving from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reduces average FPS from 230.7 to 119.8 — a 48.1% performance loss. On High settings, the same resolution jump sees 171.8 FPS fall to 89.7, a 47.8% decline. The pattern holds for Medium (192.2 to 99.9, down 48.0%) and Ultra (155.7 to 74.7, down 52.0%). The 4K Ultra figure of 74.7 FPS remains playable, but the 4K Low result of 119.8 FPS suggests the RTX 4060 has headroom if settings are dialed back. Notably, the 1440p step shows less punishing scaling: High goes from 130.6 FPS at 2560x1440 to 171.8 at 1080p, a 31.5% uplift. This indicates the sweet spot for this combo lies between 1440p and 1080p, where the 8 GB frame buffer and 128-bit memory interface do not yet throttle the pipeline.

How This Combo Ranks

This particular CPU-GPU pairing sits at rank 912 out of 1626 tested combos in Dave The Diver. That places it in the 56th percentile of all combinations, which is a middling result for hardware that individually scores well in synthetic benchmarks. The RTX 4060 ranks in the 66th percentile among all GPUs, while the Core i5-12400F sits in the 77th percentile among CPUs. The combo ranking being lower than either component's individual percentile hints that Dave The Diver does not fully utilize the strengths of this pairing — likely due to the game's modest thread requirements. The i5-12400F's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-8700K (0.1% ahead), Intel Core i5-1335U (0.3% ahead), AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (0.7% behind), and AMD EPYC 7773X (1.3% ahead). For the GPU, the nearest competitors are the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (0.6% behind), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (0.7% behind), Intel Arc B580 (0.7% ahead), and AMD Radeon 760M (0.8% behind). These tight deltas show the RTX 4060 is trading blows with older flagship GPUs and newer budget parts, meaning the 912th combo rank reflects a balanced but not exceptional pairing for this specific title.

GPU Role

The RTX 4060 brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective), with a base clock of 1830 MHz and boost up to 2460 MHz. The GPU's 3072 shading units and 48 ROPs drive a pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s. In Dave The Diver, the 4K Ultra result of 74.7 FPS suggests the 8 GB frame buffer is sufficient even at maximum settings, since the game's art style likely avoids heavy texture streaming. The FP32 throughput of 15.11 TFLOPS pairs with 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores, though this title rarely stresses ray tracing. The measured FPS at 4K Low (119.8) versus 1080p Ultra (155.7) shows a 35.9 FPS advantage for lower resolution with higher settings — indicating that pixel count matters more than quality settings for this GPU. The 66th percentile GPU rank places it above the RX 6600M by a razor-thin 0.6% margin, which in real-world terms means near-identical performance in this game.

Settings Recommendations

The data suggests Ultra settings at 1440p provide the most balanced experience: 114.8 FPS average. That is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining visual fidelity. For 4K users, High settings at 89.7 FPS is the sweet spot — dropping to Medium only gains 10.2 FPS (99.9), while Ultra costs 15.0 FPS (74.7) for marginal visual gains. At 1080p, even Ultra delivers 155.7 FPS, so there is no reason to reduce quality on lower-resolution displays. The Low preset at 1080p (230.7 FPS) is only useful for competitive play or high-refresh-rate monitors, but the game's genre does not demand such frame rates. The Medium preset at 1440p (149.1 FPS) offers a 34.3 FPS improvement over High (130.6), which could benefit players who prefer higher refresh rates over shadow quality. For 4K, the jump from Low (119.8) to Medium (99.9) costs 19.9 FPS — a reasonable trade for improved lighting and textures.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Dave The Diver at 4K smoothly?

A: Yes, the measured 4K High average is 89.7 FPS, and even 4K Ultra stays above 60 FPS at 74.7 FPS. The RTX 4060's 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for this title's 4K textures.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4060 scores 23181 on average, which is 0.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6600M and 0.7% ahead of the Intel Arc B580. The delta from the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti is just 0.7%.

Q: What is the best resolution-to-settings ratio for this combo?

A: The data shows 1440p High at 130.6 FPS is the most efficient, but 1440p Ultra (114.8 FPS) offers the best visual quality without dropping below 100 FPS. 4K High (89.7 FPS) is the recommended 4K preset.

Q: Is the Core i5-12400F a bottleneck for the RTX 4060 in this game?

A: The combo ranks 912th out of 1626, while the CPU alone sits in the 77th percentile. The i5-12400F's 6 cores and 12 threads, boosting to 4.40 GHz, appear sufficient — the 3dmark single-thread score of 909 and Cinebench R23 single-core of 2332 suggest single-threaded performance is not limiting here.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its rivals?

A: The i5-12400F scores 16518 in Cinebench R23 multi-core, which places it 0.1% behind the Core i7-8700K and 0.3% behind the Core i5-1335U. It is 0.7% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS and 1.3% behind the AMD EPYC 7773X.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: The measured gap is 75.0 FPS: Low runs at 230.7 FPS average, while Ultra runs at 155.7 FPS. This is the largest settings-based delta across all tested resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F provides 6 cores and 12 threads with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost up to 4.40 GHz. This Alder Lake-S chip, built on Intel's 10 nm process, features 18 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 per core. Its benchmark results show strong scaling: 3dmark scores jump from 909 single-thread to 5895 at 16 threads, indicating good multi-thread efficiency. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16518 versus single-core of 2332 reveals a 7.1x scaling factor — typical for a 6-core/12-thread part. In Dave The Diver, the CPU's 77th percentile ranking suggests it handles the game's logic and AI without becoming the limiting factor. The nearest rival comparison shows the i5-12400F is essentially tied with the aging Core i7-8700K (0.1% difference) and the mobile-oriented Core i5-1335U (0.3% difference). The 65W TDP and LGA 1700 socket make this a straightforward upgrade path. The passmark multi-thread score of 19433 and single-thread of 3481 confirm that this CPU provides balanced performance that pairs well with the RTX 4060, though the combo's 912th rank suggests the game itself does not demand extreme CPU resources — leaving the GPU as the primary driver of frame rates across all settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 4060 delivers 230.7 FPS on Low, 192.2 on Medium, 171.8 on High, and 155.7 on Ultra. The step from Low to Medium costs 38.5 FPS, while Medium to High costs 20.4 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 16.1 FPS — diminishing returns as quality increases. At 2560x1440, the figures are 176.4 (Low), 149.1 (Medium), 130.6 (High), and 114.8 (Ultra). The 1440p Low to Ultra gap is 61.6 FPS, narrower than the 1080p gap. At 3840x2160, results drop to 119.8 (Low), 99.9 (Medium), 89.7 (High), and 74.7 (Ultra). The 4K Low to Ultra difference is 45.1 FPS, showing that resolution scaling compresses the settings range. Across all resolutions, the RTX 4060 never dips below 74.7 FPS even at maximum settings, meaning this combo delivers a consistently playable experience. The largest single-step drop occurs between 1080p Medium (192.2) and 1440p Medium (149.1) — a 43.1 FPS loss from one resolution tier to the next. The smallest step is between 1440p High (130.6) and 4K High (89.7), a 40.9 FPS loss. These numbers indicate the GPU's 272.0 GB/s bandwidth and 8 GB frame buffer are adequate for this title's demands, with the 128-bit bus showing no catastrophic bandwidth cliff at 4K.