Dave The Diver

# Dave The Diver with Intel Core i5-14600KF + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060

This combo ranks 927th out of 1,626 tested configurations for Dave The Diver, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database. The pairing of Intel's Core i5-14600KF with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 4060 delivers frame rates that are more than sufficient for this adventure title, though the data reveals a system that is clearly GPU-limited at higher resolutions. The measured results show a configuration that excels at 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K performance remaining respectable but demanding settings compromises. This analysis breaks down exactly what the benchmark data indicates about this specific hardware combination.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 927 out of 1,626 tested combinations places it in the 57th percentile of all recorded configurations for Dave The Diver. This is a mid-pack result, and the measured frame rates explain why: the RTX 4060 delivers playable performance across all tested settings, but it does not dominate the leaderboard. The CPU component, however, is a different story. The Core i5-14600KF sits in the 93rd percentile against all CPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 49,367. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-14600K, scores 49,166 — a mere 0.4% difference, making the KF variant effectively identical in compute capability. The data shows the CPU is not the bottleneck here.

The GPU tells a more nuanced tale. The RTX 4060 ranks in the 66th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23,181. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6600M, scores 23,321, which is 0.6% higher. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti sits 0.7% ahead at 23,338, while the Intel Arc B580 trails by 0.7% at 23,021. This clustering around the 23,000-mark indicates the RTX 4060 is positioned in a competitive mid-range GPU bracket, and the Dave The Diver results reflect that positioning. The rank of 927th overall suggests that many other combos in the database achieve higher frame rates, but the absolute numbers remain strong for this game's demands.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Ultra settings as the optimal choice at 1080p and 1440p, but not at 4K. At 1920x1080, Ultra delivers 155 FPS average, which is 82.1% of the Low setting's 229.9 FPS — a negligible visual-quality tradeoff for the frame rate headroom available. At 2560x1440, Ultra produces 114.6 FPS average, still well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The story changes at 3840x2160, where Ultra drops to 76.8 FPS average. While this remains playable, the High preset at 85.3 FPS offers a better balance of visual fidelity and performance headroom.

The data indicates that High settings are the sweet spot for 4K, providing an 11.1% frame rate improvement over Ultra while maintaining most visual quality benefits. For competitive play or high-refresh-rate displays, Low settings at 1080p deliver 229.9 FPS, which exceeds the refresh rate of most monitors. Medium settings provide a middle ground, but the performance gap between Medium and High is small at all resolutions — at 1440p, High (131.2 FPS) beats Medium (145 FPS) by only 10.5%, making High the recommended preset for most users.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that becomes progressively GPU-bound as resolution increases. At High settings, the drop from 1920x1080 (173 FPS) to 2560x1440 (131.2 FPS) represents a 24.2% reduction, while moving to 3840x2160 (85.3 FPS) cuts performance by 50.7% relative to 1080p. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario — the RTX 4060's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus width become increasingly taxed at higher pixel counts.

The Low settings scaling tells a similar story but with steeper drops. From 1080p Low (229.9 FPS) to 1440p Low (176.2 FPS) is a 23.4% decrease, and 4K Low (116.4 FPS) represents a 49.4% reduction from 1080p. The consistency of these percentage drops across settings presets — all hovering around 23-24% for 1440p and 49-51% for 4K — strongly indicates the GPU is the limiting component. The Core i5-14600KF, with its 14 cores and 20 threads, provides ample compute headroom that is not being fully utilized at any resolution in this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 4060 delivers exceptional performance across all presets. Low settings produce 229.9 FPS average, Medium achieves 191.6 FPS, High reaches 173 FPS, and Ultra maintains 155 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 32.6%, demonstrating that even the most demanding preset leaves substantial performance on the table for higher refresh rates.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong but show the expected reduction. Low settings hit 176.2 FPS, Medium reaches 145 FPS, High delivers 131.2 FPS, and Ultra drops to 114.6 FPS. The percentage difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 35%, slightly larger than at 1080p, indicating the GPU is beginning to feel the resolution pressure.

At 3840x2160, the performance picture shifts dramatically. Low settings produce 116.4 FPS, Medium achieves 98.1 FPS, High delivers 85.3 FPS, and Ultra falls to 76.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 34%, but the absolute numbers reveal that even the lowest preset struggles to maintain triple-digit frame rates, unlike at lower resolutions. The 4K Ultra result of 76.8 FPS is the only measured point below 80 FPS in the entire dataset, confirming that 4K is the resolution where this combo's GPU limitations become apparent.

GPU Role

The RTX 4060's specifications directly explain the measured performance patterns. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for Dave The Diver's art style but becomes a constraint at 4K Ultra settings. The GPU's boost clock of 2460 MHz and base clock of 1830 MHz, combined with 3,072 shading units, deliver 15.11 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. These figures place the RTX 4060 in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals — the RX 6600M, GTX 780 Ti, and Arc B580 — all score within 0.8% of the RTX 4060's average benchmark score of 23,181.

The transistor count of 18,900 million on a 159 mm² die, manufactured on TSMC's 5 nm process, gives the RTX 4060 a transistor density of 118.9M per mm². This efficiency is reflected in the GPU's ability to maintain playable frame rates at 4K despite its mid-range positioning. The 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores provide hardware acceleration for ray tracing and DLSS, though the measured data for Dave The Diver does not include these features, as the game's stylized visuals do not require them. The GPU's 115 W TDP and PCIe 4.0 x8 interface are modest, but the benchmark results show no bandwidth-related bottleneck at any tested resolution.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo capable of 4K gaming in Dave The Diver?

A: Yes, but with caveats. The measured data shows 4K Ultra delivers 76.8 FPS average, while 4K High improves to 85.3 FPS. Both are playable, but the GPU is clearly the limiting factor at this resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RTX 4060's average benchmark score is 23,181. The AMD Radeon RX 6600M scores 23,321 (0.6% higher), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti scores 23,338 (0.7% higher), and the Intel Arc B580 scores 23,021 (0.7% lower). Performance is tightly clustered.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1440p gameplay?

A: Ultra settings produce 114.6 FPS average at 2560x1440, which is the highest visual quality with frame rates well above 60 FPS. High settings at 131.2 FPS provide additional headroom if desired.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: No. The Core i5-14600KF ranks in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 49,367, and the resolution scaling pattern indicates the GPU is the limiting component at all settings.

Q: How does the Core i5-14600KF compare to its closest CPU rival?

A: The Core i5-14600K scores 49,166, which is 0.4% lower than the 14600KF's 49,367. The AMD EPYC 4345P scores 49,595 (0.5% higher), and the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X scores 49,062 (0.6% lower).

Q: What frame rates can be expected at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average is 155 FPS at 1920x1080 Ultra, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on gaming monitors. Low settings push this to 229.9 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF provides substantial compute resources that Dave The Diver does not fully utilize, as evidenced by the GPU-limited scaling patterns. This 14-core, 20-thread processor from the Core 14th Gen series features a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, built on Intel's 10 nm Raptor Lake architecture. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache, which supports its strong synthetic benchmark results.

In Cinebench R23, the 14600KF scores 32,889 in multi-core and 4,643 in single-core tests. Geekbench results show 15,636 multi-core and 2,778 single-core. PassMark tests reveal particularly strong integer math performance at 125,982 and floating-point math at 93,048. The CPU's 93rd percentile ranking against all CPUs confirms it is a high-end processor, yet the Dave The Diver frame rates do not improve when resolution decreases — the opposite of what would happen if the CPU were the bottleneck. The 125 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory support are adequate for this workload.

The CPU's nearest rivals all score within 1.4% of its 49,367 average benchmark score, indicating that the 14600KF is well-positioned among top-tier processors. The Intel Xeon Gold 5318H trails by 1.4% at 48,698, while the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X is 0.6% behind at 49,062. This consistency across rivals suggests that any of these CPUs paired with the RTX 4060 would yield similar results in Dave The Diver, as the game's demands are modest enough that the GPU determines the outcome. The data confirms that the 14600KF is more than sufficient for this title, and users with this combo should focus on GPU settings rather than CPU considerations when optimizing performance.