Dave The Diver

Dave The Diver is not a demanding title by modern standards, but the data for this specific combination of an Intel Core i5-13400F and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 shows a system that is thoroughly overqualified for the task, delivering extremely high frame rates at every preset and resolution tested. The benchmark results indicate that the primary bottleneck in this pairing is almost never the GPU, shifting the focus to how the CPU handles the game's logic and how the display's refresh rate becomes the limiting factor for the user experience.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases, but with an unusual twist: the frame rates are so high at 1080p that they suggest a CPU limit, while the 4K results show the GPU finally starting to stretch its legs. At 1080p with High settings, the combo produces 305 FPS, and at 1440p High, it drops to 230 FPS, representing a roughly 25% performance hit from the resolution increase. Moving to 4K High, the average FPS falls to 154, which is a 33% drop from 1440p and a 49% drop from 1080p.

This scaling behavior is telling. The transition from 1080p to 1440p yields a significant reduction in frame rate, but the drop from 1440p to 4K is even more pronounced, indicating that the RTX 4080 is finally becoming the limiting component at the higher pixel counts. At lower resolutions, the game is likely constrained by the CPU's single-thread performance or the game's engine logic, since the GPU has ample headroom to render frames far faster than the processor can feed it. The fact that 1080p High produces 305 FPS while 1080p Ultra produces 269 FPS (a 36 FPS gap) shows that even at the same resolution, the graphics settings have a measurable impact, but the absolute numbers remain so high that any modern high-refresh-rate monitor would be saturated.

The pattern continues with the Low preset, where 1080p yields 384 FPS, 1440p yields 307 FPS, and 4K yields 206 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p here is a 20% drop, and from 1440p to 4K is a 33% drop. This suggests that as the graphics load decreases, the CPU becomes more of a factor at lower resolutions, but the GPU still dominates the scaling curve at 4K. For a user with a 144Hz monitor, every single measured configuration at every resolution and preset exceeds the refresh rate, meaning the display, not the hardware, is the bottleneck. The data demonstrates that this combo is capable of driving 4K High at 154 FPS, which is beyond the capability of most 4K displays, making the resolution scaling less about playability and more about headroom for future titles or more demanding scenes.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured frame rates, the settings recommendations are straightforward: there is no reason to compromise on visual fidelity with this hardware. At 4K, the Ultra preset still delivers an average of 136 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay and even exceeds the 120 FPS threshold for high-refresh-rate 4K monitors. The High preset at 4K offers 154 FPS, a 13% improvement over Ultra, but the visual difference between High and Ultra in Dave The Diver is likely minimal given the game's art style. The Medium preset at 4K provides 172 FPS with a minimum of 146 FPS, which is the safest choice for users with variable refresh rate displays who want to ensure no dips below the refresh rate.

At 1440p, the Ultra preset runs at 203 FPS, while High runs at 230 FPS and Medium at 257 FPS. For a 144Hz or 165Hz monitor, the Ultra preset is the optimal choice, as it provides a substantial visual upgrade over Medium while still maintaining a 50% headroom above the refresh rate. The Low preset at 1440p produces 307 FPS, but this is unnecessary for any practical display and would degrade the visual experience without a perceptible benefit. At 1080p, the Ultra preset delivers 269 FPS, which is still above the threshold for 240Hz displays, making it the recommended choice for competitive or high-refresh-rate play. The Low preset at 1080p hits 384 FPS, but this is purely a synthetic number with no real-world advantage.

The data shows that the Medium preset at 4K is the only configuration with a recorded minimum FPS (146), which suggests that the game can have occasional dips, but even this minimum is far above the 60 FPS playability floor. For the best balance of visual quality and performance, the High preset at 4K or Ultra at 1440p are the recommended starting points, as they offer the most headroom for scene complexity while maintaining frame rates that exceed all but the most extreme display refresh rates. Since the CPU is not a limiting factor at these settings, users should prioritize GPU-bound settings like shadow quality and texture resolution, as the RTX 4080's 16 GB of VRAM is more than sufficient for any configuration in this game.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. Its benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22604 and a single-core score of 3191, placing it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs. In the context of Dave The Diver, an adventure game that is unlikely to scale heavily with many cores, the CPU's single-thread performance is the more relevant metric, and the 3DMark single-thread score of 960 reflects a capable processor for game logic and physics calculations.

The measured FPS data suggests that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this game, even at 1080p where the GPU is least stressed. The fact that the combo achieves 384 FPS at 1080p Low indicates that the CPU can feed the GPU with frames at a rate that exceeds most displays' capabilities. However, the difference between 1080p Low (384 FPS) and 4K Low (206 FPS) shows that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases, meaning the CPU has the headroom to handle the game's demands without issue. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 7314 and max-thread score of 7307 are nearly identical, which suggests that the CPU's performance scales well with additional threads, but Dave The Diver is unlikely to utilize all 16 threads effectively.

Comparing the i5-13400F to its nearest rivals, it is essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS, with a deltaPct of 0, and sits within 0.3% of the Intel Core 5 120 and AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D. This indicates that the CPU's overall benchmark performance is competitive with other mid-range and high-end options, but for this specific game, the differences are negligible. The CPU's 20 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory provide flexibility, but the game's performance is so high that memory bandwidth is not a limiting factor. The boost clock of 4.60 GHz is sufficient for the game's single-threaded tasks, and the 65W TDP means the processor can sustain high clocks without thermal throttling in most systems.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-13400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 282nd out of 3710 tested combos in Dave The Diver, placing it in the top 7.6% of all configurations. This ranking is impressive, but it is important to interpret it in the context of the game's low system requirements. The high ranking is primarily driven by the RTX 4080's raw performance, as the CPU is not a limiting factor, and the GPU's 86th percentile ranking among all GPUs ensures that this combo outperforms the vast majority of systems.

The combo's rank of 282 means that there are 281 other combinations that achieve higher average FPS in this game, likely including systems with even more powerful GPUs like the RTX 4090 or multi-GPU configurations. However, given that the measured FPS at 4K Ultra is 136 FPS, the practical difference between this combo and a higher-ranked one is minimal, as both would exceed the refresh rate of almost any display. The ranking also reflects the fact that Dave The Diver is not a graphically intensive game, so the differences between high-end GPUs are compressed, and the RTX 4080's 16 GB of VRAM and 716.8 GB/s memory bandwidth are more than adequate for the game's textures and effects.

Relative to other combos, this pairing is in the top percentile, and the data shows that the i5-13400F does not hold back the RTX 4080 in this title. The CPU's average benchmark score of 25292 is within 0.4% of its nearest rivals, and the GPU's average score of 54247 is within 0.1% of the RTX 4080 SUPER, meaning that this combo is effectively at the performance ceiling for its class. For a user building a system for this game, the combo rank confirms that there is no need to spend more on a higher-tier CPU, as the i5-13400F provides ample performance to keep the GPU fed.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications show why it delivers such high frame rates in Dave The Diver. With 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, the GPU provides 716.8 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for the game's texture streaming and asset loading. The GPU's 9728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output pipelines are all high-end figures, and the boost clock of 2505 MHz ensures that these units are kept busy during rendering.

In benchmark tests, the RTX 4080 scores 34457 in Passmark G3D and 214739 in Geekbench OpenCL, placing it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, is only 0.1% ahead in average score, and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 2.6% behind, indicating that the RTX 4080 is a top-tier performer. For Dave The Diver, the GPU is rarely the limiting factor, as evidenced by the 4K Ultra result of 136 FPS, which is still far above the 60 FPS target. The GPU's ray tracing cores (76) and tensor cores (304) are not heavily utilized in this game, as it is not a ray-traced title, but they provide headroom for other applications.

The GPU's VRAM capacity of 16 GB is a key advantage, as it ensures that the game's highest-resolution textures at 4K will not cause memory pressure or stuttering. The measured FPS data shows that the GPU scales well with settings, with a 26% difference between 4K Low (206 FPS) and 4K Ultra (136 FPS), indicating that the graphics settings have a meaningful impact on workload. The GPU's power consumption is not a concern in this context, as the frame rates are so high that a user could cap the FPS to reduce power draw without sacrificing smoothness. Overall, the RTX 4080's role is to provide such a high performance ceiling that the game becomes playable at any resolution and preset, making the choice of settings purely a matter of visual preference rather than performance necessity.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1440p with High settings for this combo?

A: The measured average FPS at 2560x1440 with High settings is 230 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of any standard 1440p monitor.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 384 FPS, which is an extremely high frame rate that suggests the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU has more than enough power to render frames faster than the CPU can process game logic.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all other tested configurations?

A: This combo ranks 282nd out of 3710 tested combos in Dave The Diver, placing it in the top 7.6% of all systems tested for this game.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded at 4K Medium settings?

A: The minimum FPS at 3840x2160 with Medium settings is 146 FPS, which is still far above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: Is the RTX 4080's 16 GB VRAM sufficient for Dave The Diver at 4K?

A: Yes, the 16 GB of GDDR6X memory is more than sufficient for the game's highest settings at 4K, as the GPU never becomes memory-constrained in the measured results.

Q: How does the i5-13400F compare to its nearest rival CPU in benchmark scores?

A: The i5-13400F has an average benchmark score of 25292, which is exactly 0% different from the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS and within 0.3% of the Intel Core 5 120 and AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D.