Dave The Diver

Dave The Diver is a light adventure title, and the benchmark data for the Intel Core i5-14600KF with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 shows a combination that is heavily skewed toward CPU performance. The results indicate that this pairing is capable of delivering high frame rates at all tested resolutions, but the GPU becomes the limiting factor when pushing towards 4K. The data shows a clear hierarchy where the CPU provides a massive headroom, allowing the GPU to be the primary bottleneck in most scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal experience is achieved at Medium settings for most users, as it provides the best balance between visual fidelity and performance headroom. At 1080p, Medium settings deliver an average of 151 FPS, which is a 15.8% improvement over High settings (130.4 FPS) while still offering a significant visual upgrade over Low settings (175.9 FPS). The jump from Low to Medium costs 24.9 FPS, but the visual improvement is substantial, making Medium the sweet spot for high-refresh-rate displays.

At 1440p, the same pattern holds. Medium settings produce 113.8 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold and only 19.8% lower than the Low preset's 133.7 FPS. The High preset at 101.1 FPS is also viable, but the incremental visual gains over Medium do not justify the 12.7 FPS loss. For users prioritizing maximum smoothness, Low settings at 1440p (133.7 FPS) are a better choice than High at 4K (66.7 FPS).

At 4K, the data reveals a different story. Ultra settings drop to 56.5 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target. The High preset at 66.7 FPS is the only 4K option that clears this hurdle, but it does so by a narrow margin. Medium at 77 FPS is the recommended 4K preset, as it offers a 15.4% performance increase over High while maintaining a playable experience. The Ultra preset at 56.5 FPS is not recommended for smooth gameplay, as the 20.5 FPS deficit compared to Medium is too large to ignore.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. The GPU's base clock is 1365 MHz with a boost clock of 1680 MHz, and it houses 1920 shading units. The data shows that this GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K resolution, where the average FPS drops below 90 for all settings. The 4K Ultra result of 56.5 FPS is particularly telling, as it represents a 50.6% drop from the 1080p Ultra result of 114.5 FPS.

The GPU's VRAM capacity of 6 GB is sufficient for this game, as the data does not show any anomalous performance cliffs that would indicate memory capacity issues. The 14 Gbps effective memory speed and the 192-bit bus width provide enough bandwidth for the game's textures, but the GPU's raw compute power (6.451 TFLOPS FP32) is the limiting factor at higher resolutions. At 1440p and below, the GPU is less stressed, and the frame rates scale more linearly with settings, indicating that the CPU can feed the GPU adequately.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ranks 1342 out of 1626 tested combos in Dave The Diver. This places the pairing in the lower-mid tier of all tested configurations, which is surprising given the CPU's high benchmark scores. The CPU alone sits in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU only reaches the 58th percentile of all GPUs. This disparity explains the combo's ranking: the CPU's potential is largely untapped because the GPU is holding the system back.

The combo's rank suggests that while this pairing can play the game, other combinations with less powerful CPUs and more capable GPUs would likely deliver better in-game performance. The data indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing, and the CPU's performance headroom is wasted at 1080p where the GPU is already near its limits. The benchmark results show that this is a CPU-heavy pairing that does not optimize for this specific game's requirements.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the data shows a clear progression across settings. Low settings deliver an average of 175.9 FPS, which is the highest result at any resolution. Medium settings produce 151 FPS, a 14.2% reduction from Low. High settings drop further to 130.4 FPS, and Ultra settings bottom out at 114.5 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 61.4 FPS, indicating that the game's settings have a substantial impact on performance at this resolution.

At 1440p, the frame rates remain high but show a more pronounced scaling. Low settings yield 133.7 FPS, which is 24% lower than the 1080p Low result. Medium settings produce 113.8 FPS, a 24.6% drop from 1080p Medium. High settings deliver 101.1 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 89 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 44.7 FPS, which is a smaller absolute difference than at 1080p but a similar percentage drop.

At 4K, the performance drops significantly. Low settings average 88.2 FPS, which is a 34% reduction from 1080p Low. Medium settings produce 77 FPS, High settings yield 66.7 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 56.5 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 31.7 FPS, showing that the GPU is becoming increasingly stressed at this resolution. The 4K results are the only ones where the Low preset falls below 100 FPS, confirming the GPU's role as the bottleneck.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a clear resolution scaling pattern: moving from 1080p to 1440p reduces frame rates by an average of 23.5% across all settings, while moving from 1440p to 4K reduces frame rates by an additional 33.5%. The most significant drop occurs between 1440p High (101.1 FPS) and 4K High (66.7 FPS), which represents a 34% loss. This steep decline indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting component at higher resolutions.

The scaling behavior also reveals the CPU's role. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 175.9 FPS, which is close to the CPU's potential limit. The fact that this frame rate does not increase when moving to lower resolutions suggests that the CPU is not the bottleneck at 1080p. Instead, the GPU is already working at its maximum capacity. The resolution scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a 49.9% drop in Low settings (from 175.9 to 88.2 FPS), which is proportional to the increase in pixel count, further confirming the GPU is the limiting factor.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Dave The Diver?

A: The 1440p Medium settings (113.8 FPS) provide the best balance of visual quality and performance. The 1080p High settings (130.4 FPS) are also excellent, but 1440p offers more screen real estate without dropping below 100 FPS.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K at 60 FPS?

A: At 4K High settings, the combo averages 66.7 FPS, which is above 60 FPS. The 4K Medium settings (77 FPS) also clear this threshold, but the Ultra preset (56.5 FPS) does not.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 2060's average benchmark score of 16074 is 0.5% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 7600S (15996) and 1.8% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15786). It is 1.7% lower than the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M (16351).

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the bottleneck at all resolutions. The CPU's high benchmark scores (93rd percentile) are not fully utilized, as evidenced by the 1080p Low frame rate of 175.9 FPS, which is limited by the GPU.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings?

A: At 1080p, the difference is 61.4 FPS (from 175.9 FPS on Low to 114.5 FPS on Ultra). At 1440p, the difference is 44.7 FPS (133.7 to 89), and at 4K, it is 31.7 FPS (88.2 to 56.5).

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

A: It ranks 1342 out of 1626 total combos, placing it in the lower 17.5% of all tested configurations in Dave The Diver.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. It features a 24 MB shared L3 cache and supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. The CPU's benchmark results are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32889 and a single-core score of 4643, placing it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs.

In Dave The Diver, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with enough data to maintain high frame rates. The data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor, as the frame rates scale with resolution in a way that suggests GPU-bound performance. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 175.9 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's maximum game engine throughput, but the GPU still prevents higher frame rates. The CPU's high single-thread performance (PassMark single-thread score of 4273) is sufficient for this game's logic, and the multi-core performance (Cinebench R20 multi-core score of 13813) ensures that background tasks do not interfere with gameplay. The CPU's 125W TDP and Socket 1700 compatibility are standard for this class, but the data shows that the GPU is the component that determines the final frame rate.