Dave The Diver

Dave The Diver presents an interesting scaling profile for the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 combination, with the data revealing a system that remains remarkably fluid even under the heaviest load. The measured frame rates across the three resolutions show that this pairing is far more capable than the GPU’s mid-range positioning might suggest, delivering playable performance at 4K and exceptional headroom at 1080p. The benchmark results indicate a title that is well-optimized for a wide range of hardware, but the specific bottlenecks shift noticeably as pixel count increases, making the resolution scaling analysis particularly revealing for this specific CPU-GPU duo.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 demonstrates a predictable but steep performance curve. At 1080p with Ultra settings, the system produces an average of 153 FPS. Moving to 1440p at the same preset drops the average to 115 FPS, a reduction of 38 frames, or roughly 24.8%. The jump to 4K at Ultra further compresses the frame rate to an average of 77 FPS, another 38-frame drop from the 1440p result, translating to a 33% decrease. This linear pattern of performance loss suggests that the RTX 4060’s rendering pipeline is being taxed consistently, with the 128-bit memory interface and 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth becoming increasingly critical at higher resolutions.

The scaling behavior at lower settings tells a different story about the limiting component. At Low settings, the system achieves 231 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 174 FPS at 1440p (a 57 FPS decline) and further to 117 FPS at 4K (another 57 FPS decline). The consistency of the 57-frame drop between each resolution step at Low settings indicates a hard limit being hit, likely the GPU’s raw shading throughput of 15.11 TFLOPS rather than memory bandwidth. In contrast, the High preset shows a 43-frame drop from 1080p (173 FPS) to 1440p (130 FPS), but only a 43-frame drop again from 1440p to 4K (87 FPS), suggesting that at High settings the balance between pixel fill rate and shader work shifts slightly.

At Medium settings, the only preset with complete min/max data, the frame rate progression is 194 FPS at 1080p, 146 FPS at 1440p, and 98 FPS at 4K. The deltas between resolutions are 48 frames each, showing a remarkably consistent scaling factor of approximately 75% of the previous resolution’s performance. This regularity implies that the game engine scales its workload linearly with pixel count, and the RTX 4060’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory is sufficient at all tested resolutions to avoid capacity-related stutters, as the minimum FPS values remain high (83 FPS at 4K Medium). The data shows that the CPU, with its 14 cores and 20 threads, never becomes the primary constraint, as even at 1080p Low—where CPU overhead would typically surface—the system maintains a 231 FPS average.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data strongly favors the High preset as the optimal balance of visual fidelity and frame rate for this hardware combination. At 4K, High settings deliver an 87 FPS average, which is only 10 frames below the Medium preset but a full 10 frames above Ultra, representing a significant visual upgrade for a modest performance cost. The leap from High to Ultra at 4K costs 10 FPS (from 87 to 77), and given that Ultra typically introduces diminishing returns in shadow quality and post-processing, High appears to be the sweet spot for 4K displays.

At 1440p, the High preset’s 130 FPS average provides ample headroom for high-refresh-rate monitors, and the data shows that even Ultra at 115 FPS remains playable. However, the Medium preset at 146 FPS with a minimum of 124 FPS offers a more consistent frame pacing, which could be preferable for competitive play where frame time variance matters more than absolute peaks. For users prioritizing maximum smoothness, Medium at 1440p is the safest choice, but High is recommended for its superior image quality with only a 16 FPS penalty.

The 1080p results make settings recommendations less critical, as every preset clears the 144 Hz threshold. Ultra at 153 FPS is entirely viable, and even the most demanding settings leave enough performance headroom for streaming or background tasks. The Low preset’s 231 FPS average is excessive for most displays, and the visual degradation is not worth the extra frames. The data suggests that High or Ultra at 1080p is the correct choice, with Ultra providing a 173 FPS average that satisfies all but the most extreme 240 Hz panels, while High’s 153 FPS is still well above typical refresh rates.

GPU Role

The RTX 4060’s performance in Dave The Diver is defined by its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, paired with a boost clock of 2460 MHz. The memory bandwidth of 272.0 GB/s is the most likely limiting factor at 4K, where the High preset’s 87 FPS average represents a 34% drop from the 1440p result. The GPU’s 3072 shading units and 48 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s, which is sufficient for this title’s stylized art direction, but the texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s becomes strained as resolution increases.

The GPU’s benchmark profile places it in the 61st percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 17639. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon HD 7790, scores 17666 with a deltaPct of -0.2%, indicating that the RTX 4060 sits at the boundary of a performance tier. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2302 and the Geekbench OpenCL score of 95057 provide context for its compute capabilities, but the gaming-specific results show that Dave The Diver is more dependent on memory subsystem efficiency than raw compute throughput.

The GPU’s 8 GB memory capacity is sufficient at all tested settings, as evidenced by the consistent frame rates and the absence of severe minimum FPS drops. The Medium preset at 4K shows a minimum of 83 FPS with a maximum of 112 FPS, indicating that the memory allocation remains within capacity even at 4K with moderate settings. The 17 Gbps effective memory speed and the 2125 MHz memory clock are adequate for this game’s demands, but the 128-bit bus width explains why the scaling from 1440p to 4K is more pronounced than the scaling from 1080p to 1440p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all presets. Low settings produce an average of 231 FPS, followed by Medium at 194 FPS with a minimum of 165 FPS and a maximum of 223 FPS. High settings average 173 FPS, while Ultra drops to 153 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 78 FPS, showing that the game’s settings have a substantial impact on GPU load even at the lowest resolution.

The 2560x1440 results show a tighter grouping. Low averages 174 FPS, Medium averages 146 FPS with a minimum of 124 FPS and a maximum of 168 FPS, High averages 130 FPS, and Ultra averages 115 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra is 59 FPS, a narrower range than at 1080p, indicating that resolution scaling begins to compress the settings-based performance differences. At 3840x2160, the compression continues: Low averages 117 FPS, Medium averages 98 FPS with a minimum of 83 and a maximum of 112, High averages 87 FPS, and Ultra averages 77 FPS. The 40 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 4K demonstrates that the GPU becomes the dominant constraint, with settings having less influence on the final frame rate.

The Medium preset is the only one with complete min/max data, and it reveals stable frame pacing across all resolutions. The 1080p Medium result of 194 FPS with a 165 FPS minimum shows no significant stuttering, and the 4K Medium result of 98 FPS with an 83 FPS minimum maintains this consistency. The absence of min/max data for other presets suggests less variability, but the Medium data provides the best evidence of the system’s stability under sustained load.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Dave The Diver at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, the data shows that even at Ultra settings, the system averages 77 FPS at 3840x2160. At High settings, the average rises to 87 FPS, and at Low settings it reaches 117 FPS, all of which are comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the best preset for a 1440p monitor with a 144 Hz refresh rate?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 averages 130 FPS, which is slightly below 144 Hz but still very smooth. For a more consistent frame rate, the Medium preset averages 146 FPS with a minimum of 124 FPS, making it the safest choice for maintaining a high refresh rate without drops.

Q: Is the RTX 4060’s 8 GB of memory sufficient for this game?

A: Yes, the measured data shows no evidence of memory-related performance issues. The 4K Medium preset has a minimum FPS of 83 and a maximum of 112, indicating that the 8 GB GDDR6 memory with 272.0 GB/s bandwidth is adequate for all tested settings and resolutions.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its nearest rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 4060 has an average benchmark score of 17639, placing it in the 61st percentile of all GPUs. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon HD 7790, scores 17666 with a deltaPct of -0.2%, meaning the RTX 4060 is nearly identical in synthetic benchmarks, though the gaming performance in Dave The Diver may differ.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 153 FPS. This provides sufficient headroom for a 144 Hz monitor and leaves room for background tasks without impacting gameplay smoothness.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance in this game?

A: The benchmark results indicate the GPU is the primary limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the system averages 231 FPS, and the frame rate drops consistently as resolution increases, which points to GPU-bound scaling. The Intel Core i5-14600K’s 14 cores and 20 threads do not appear to bottleneck the RTX 4060 at any tested setting.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K plays a supporting role in Dave The Diver, providing ample headroom that allows the RTX 4060 to operate as the primary performance driver. The CPU’s 14 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, deliver the kind of single-threaded performance that keeps game logic and physics simulations running smoothly without becoming a constraint. The benchmark data shows a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 24491 and a single-core score of 2064, positioning the chip in the 90th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 48618.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in benchmark terms include the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H with an average score of 48698 (a deltaPct of -0.2%) and the AMD EPYC 4345P with a score of 48470 (a deltaPct of 0.3%). These comparisons show that the i5-14600K sits in a performance tier populated by server and prosumer chips, but its gaming relevance comes from the 5.30 GHz boost clock and the 24 MB of shared L3 cache. The PassMark single-thread score of 4270 and the Geekbench single-core score of 2491 confirm that the chip’s per-core performance is exceptional, which is crucial for a game like Dave The Diver that relies on consistent frame pacing rather than massive multi-threaded workloads.

At 1080p Low, the system hits 231 FPS, and the fact that this is the highest measured result across all configurations suggests the CPU is not limiting even in the least GPU-intensive scenario. The data shows no evidence of CPU bottlenecking, as the frame rate scales smoothly with resolution changes. The 20 threads handle the game’s background tasks and any OS overhead without issue, and the 125 W TDP indicates that thermal throttling is unlikely to be a factor in a standard desktop configuration. The CPU’s memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 in dual-channel mode provides flexibility, though the game’s performance is more dependent on GPU memory bandwidth than system memory throughput.