Dave The Diver

# Dave The Diver — Intel Core i5-14600K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080

This combination of Intel's 14-core Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA's Blackwell-architecture RTX 5080 delivers exceptional performance in Dave The Diver, placing 170th out of 3,710 tested combos. The measured frame rates show a system capable of maintaining well above 140 FPS at 4K Ultra, with 1080p Low exceeding 420 FPS, indicating that this pairing is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at lower resolutions and remains highly playable even at the most demanding settings. The data set includes twelve measured configurations across three resolutions and four quality presets, providing a comprehensive picture of how this hardware behaves in this adventure title.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor from the Core 14th Gen series, built on Intel's Raptor Lake architecture using a 10 nm process. It operates with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The chip features a hybrid design with 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration, and includes UHD Graphics 770 integrated graphics, though the discrete RTX 5080 handles all rendering in this benchmark set.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-14600K scores 24,491 points in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,064 points in single-core. Its Geekbench results are 16,673 multi-core and 2,491 single-core. The PassMark multi-thread score is 38,682, with a single-thread score of 4,270. These numbers place the CPU at the 90th percentile among all tested processors, with an average benchmark score of 48,618. The nearest rivals in benchmark performance include the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (average score 48,698, delta -0.2%), the AMD EPYC 4345P (48,470, delta +0.3%), the Intel Core Ultra 5 245HX (48,287, delta +0.7%), and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (48,995, delta -0.8%). The i5-14600K sits essentially within 1% of all four comparators, indicating a tightly clustered performance envelope.

For Dave The Diver, the CPU's role is significant but not dominant. The game's measured FPS at 1080p Low — 423 FPS — represents the highest frame rate in the entire data set, and at this resolution the CPU's single-thread performance becomes the limiting factor. The 5.30 GHz boost clock and strong single-core Cinebench R23 score of 2,064 allow the processor to feed frames quickly enough to reach this extreme level. However, moving from 1080p to higher resolutions shows a clear shift: the FPS drop pattern is consistent with GPU limitation taking over, as the CPU's headroom at 1440p and 4K is ample for this title.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using a 5 nm process at TSMC, with the GB203 chip containing 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die. It features 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU runs at a base clock of 2295 MHz with a boost clock of 2617 MHz, and memory at 1875 MHz effective 30 Gbps. It has 10,752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, 112 ROPs, 84 ray-tracing cores, and 336 tensor cores. The compute throughput is 56.28 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16, with pixel rate of 293.1 GPixel/s and texture rate of 879.3 GTexel/s.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5080 scores 8,637 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 235,901 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 255,450 in Geekbench Vulkan. The PassMark G3D score is 36,565, with GPU compute at 21,789. These results place the GPU at the 87th percentile among all tested graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 56,083. The nearest rivals show interesting deltas: the AMD Radeon 8060S scores 55,757 (delta +0.6%), the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB scores 55,698 (delta +0.7%), the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54,828 (delta +2.3%), and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE scores 57,367 (delta -2.2%). The RTX 5080 sits between these competitors, within 2.3% of all of them.

In Dave The Diver, the GPU's role is dominant across most measured configurations. The 16 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for this title, which at 4K Ultra shows 141 FPS average. The memory bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s and the high boost clock of 2617 MHz enable the GPU to maintain high throughput even at 4K resolution. The difference between 4K Low (213 FPS) and 4K Ultra (141 FPS) demonstrates the GPU's scaling under load, while the 1440p and 1080p results show the GPU being increasingly underutilized as resolution drops, with the CPU becoming the bottleneck at 1080p Low.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks 170th out of 3,710 tested combinations in Dave The Diver. This places the combo in the top 4.6% of all tested systems, indicating that it outperforms the vast majority of configurations in this game. The rank reflects the synergy between the CPU's strong single-thread performance and the GPU's high bandwidth and compute capability, which together deliver the frame rates shown in the measured data.

The ranking context is important: while the RTX 5080's average benchmark score of 56,083 places it at the 87th percentile among GPUs, and the i5-14600K's average score of 48,618 places it at the 90th percentile among CPUs, the combo's in-game rank of 170 out of 3,710 is relatively better than either component's percentile alone would suggest. This indicates that Dave The Diver is a title where both components contribute meaningfully, and the combination avoids significant bottlenecks. The CPU's nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 4345P, has a nearly identical average score (48,470, delta +0.3%), while the GPU's closest rival, the AMD Radeon 8060S, is also within 0.6% — yet the specific pairing here achieves a top-200 overall rank.

In practical terms, the 170th rank means that approximately 3,540 other combos are slower, and only 169 are faster. For a game like Dave The Diver, which is not typically considered a high-end stress test, this ranking confirms that the system is far above the threshold for smooth gameplay at any settings. The data shows no configuration in the measured set drops below 141 FPS, which is already well above the 60 FPS standard for smooth play, and the rank of 170 reflects the headroom this combo provides.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured FPS data spans three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four quality settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). At 1080p, the average FPS ranges from 423 at Low to 279 at Ultra, with Medium at 354 and High at 316. The Medium settings include minimum and maximum values of 301 and 407 FPS respectively, indicating some variance but consistently high performance. At 1080p, all settings exceed 279 FPS, meaning even Ultra is nearly three times the 60 FPS threshold.

At 1440p, the average FPS ranges from 318 at Low to 210 at Ultra, with Medium at 266 and High at 238. The Medium settings show a minimum of 227 FPS and maximum of 306 FPS. The step from Low to Ultra at 1440p costs 108 FPS (from 318 to 210), which is a 34% reduction, but the absolute numbers remain very high. At 1440p Ultra, the 210 FPS average still provides a substantial margin over any standard refresh rate, including 144 Hz and 165 Hz monitors.

At 4K (3840x2160), the average FPS ranges from 213 at Low to 141 at Ultra, with Medium at 179 and High at 159. The Medium settings show a minimum of 152 FPS and maximum of 205 FPS. The 4K results show the most significant drop from Low to Ultra, with a 72 FPS difference (from 213 to 141), representing a 34% reduction similar to the 1440p scaling. The 4K Ultra average of 141 FPS is still above 120 FPS, making it suitable for high-refresh-rate 4K displays, while the 4K Low result of 213 FPS approaches the 240 FPS tier.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The resolution scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear pattern of GPU limitation at higher resolutions and CPU limitation at lower ones. At Low settings, the FPS drops from 423 at 1080p to 318 at 1440p to 213 at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 105 FPS (25%), while the 1440p-to-4K drop is another 105 FPS (33%). At Medium settings, the drops are from 354 to 266 to 179, with the 1080p-to-1440p drop being 88 FPS (25%) and the 1440p-to-4K drop being 87 FPS (33%). At High settings, the progression is 316 to 238 to 159, with drops of 78 FPS (25%) and 79 FPS (33%). At Ultra settings, the FPS goes from 279 to 210 to 141, with drops of 69 FPS (25%) and 69 FPS (33%).

The consistent percentage drops across all settings — roughly 25% from 1080p to 1440p and 33% from 1440p to 4K — indicate that the scaling is primarily driven by the GPU's rendering load rather than CPU constraints. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would stay relatively flat as resolution increased, since the CPU work per frame does not change with resolution. The fact that FPS drops proportionally with the number of pixels (1080p has roughly 2 million pixels, 1440p has roughly 3.7 million, and 4K has roughly 8.3 million) confirms that the RTX 5080 is the limiting component at all resolutions above 1080p.

At 1080p Low, the 423 FPS result suggests the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU could theoretically render even more frames if the CPU could supply them. This is consistent with the i5-14600K's strong but not top-tier single-thread performance — while it scores 2,064 in Cinebench R23 single-core, some higher-end CPUs might push the 1080p Low result even higher. However, the fact that the FPS still increases from 423 at Low to 316 at High at 1080p shows that even at this resolution, the GPU is not fully idle, and the settings changes do affect performance. Overall, the scaling analysis points to a well-balanced system where the GPU is the primary driver of performance at 1440p and 4K, with the CPU providing adequate headroom.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the target display refresh rate and resolution. At 4K, the Ultra preset delivers 141 FPS average, which is ideal for 120 Hz or 144 Hz displays. The High preset at 4K gives 159 FPS, which provides a buffer above 144 Hz, and the Medium preset at 179 FPS is suitable for 165 Hz or 180 Hz displays. For users with 240 Hz 4K monitors, the Low preset at 213 FPS is the only option that approaches that refresh rate, though it does so at the cost of visual quality.

At 1440p, the Ultra preset at 210 FPS is sufficient for 240 Hz displays, making it the best choice for users with high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors. The High preset at 238 FPS provides additional headroom, and Medium at 266 FPS is even higher, but the Ultra setting offers the best visual quality while still exceeding 200 FPS. For 1080p, even the Ultra preset at 279 FPS is well above 240 Hz, so users can choose any settings without concern for frame rate — the Ultra preset is recommended for maximum visual fidelity, as the performance headroom is substantial.

The Medium settings provide the only measured minimum FPS values in the data set (301 at 1080p, 227 at 1440p, 152 at 4K), which suggests that Medium is the most stable preset in terms of frame time consistency. For users who prioritize avoiding any frame drops, the Medium preset at 4K (179 FPS average, 152 FPS minimum) offers the best combination of visual quality and stability, as the minimum FPS stays above 150 even in the most demanding moments. In summary, the data recommends Ultra at 1080p and 1440p for most users, while at 4K, either High (159 FPS) or Medium (179 FPS) provides the best balance depending on whether visual quality or frame stability is prioritized.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved by this combo in Dave The Diver?

A: The highest average FPS is 423, measured at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. The next highest is 354 FPS at 1080p Medium, followed by 318 FPS at 1440p Low.

Q: Can this system run Dave The Diver at 4K with Ultra settings?

A: Yes, the measured average FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra is 141 FPS. This is above 120 FPS, making it suitable for high-refresh-rate 4K displays, though it is the lowest measured average in the data set.

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

A: The Intel Core i5-14600K has an average benchmark score of 48,618. Its nearest rival, the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H, scores 48,698 (delta -0.2%), while the AMD EPYC 4345P scores 48,470 (delta +0.3%), the Intel Core Ultra 5 245HX scores 48,287 (delta +0.7%), and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 scores 48,995 (delta -0.8%).

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks at the 87th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 56,083. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon 8060S, scores 55,757 with a delta of +0.6%.

Q: How much FPS is lost when going from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings?

A: At Ultra settings, the average FPS drops from 279 at 1080p to 210 at 1440p to 141 at 4K. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 138 FPS, which represents a 49% reduction in frame rate.

Q: Which settings preset provides the highest minimum FPS at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 has a minimum FPS of 227, which is the only measured minimum value at that resolution. The average FPS for this configuration is 266, with a maximum of 306 FPS.