Dave The Diver

Dave The Diver is not a demanding title, but the combination of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D produces exceptionally high frame rates across all tested configurations. The measured data shows that this pairing is capable of pushing well beyond the refresh rates of most displays, making the choice of settings more about visual fidelity than achieving playable performance. The dataset provides a clear hierarchy of performance across three resolutions and four quality presets, allowing for a methodical analysis of where the system's bottlenecks lie and how the hardware responds to increasing graphical loads.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data across all resolutions indicates that the Ultra preset is the only setting that presents any potential constraint, and even then, the performance remains far above standard display refresh rates. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset yields an average of 164 FPS, which is still exceptionally smooth for a high-resolution experience. The High preset at the same resolution averages 186 FPS, while Medium averages 208 FPS. For users with high-refresh-rate 4K displays (144Hz or 165Hz), the Ultra preset is the optimal choice, as it delivers frame rates that saturate such panels while providing the maximum visual quality the game offers. The data shows that the step from High to Ultra costs 22 FPS at 4K, a minor trade-off for the increased graphical fidelity.

At 2560x1440, the performance envelope expands significantly. The Ultra preset averages 245 FPS, which is sufficient for even the fastest 240Hz gaming monitors. The High preset at this resolution averages 277 FPS, and the Medium preset averages 310 FPS. The recommendation for 1440p is to use the Ultra preset, as the 245 FPS average is well above the threshold for competitive play and provides the best visual experience without sacrificing smoothness. The Low preset at 371 FPS is unnecessary for this title, as the visual downgrade provides no tangible benefit given the high frame rates already achieved at higher settings.

For 1920x1080, the system is almost entirely CPU-limited, with the Ultra preset still achieving a massive 325 FPS average. The High preset averages 368 FPS, Medium averages 412 FPS, and Low reaches 450 FPS. At this resolution, the recommendation is unequivocally the Ultra preset. The 325 FPS minimum is far beyond what any display can refresh, and the visual improvements from Ultra are the only meaningful differentiator. The data suggests that the RTX 5090 D is severely underutilized at 1080p, as the frame rate scaling from Medium to Low is only 38 FPS, indicating that the CPU is reaching its limit in single-threaded game logic.

The optimal experience across the board is the Ultra preset at any resolution. The only scenario where a lower preset might be considered is if a user has a 500Hz+ esports monitor at 1080p, where the Low preset's 450 FPS could theoretically be leveraged. However, for the vast majority of users, the Ultra preset provides the best balance of visual quality and performance, with the data showing that even at 4K Ultra, the system maintains a 164 FPS average.

How This Combo Ranks

The benchmark database places this specific combination at rank 20 out of 2,867 tested combos for Dave The Diver. This top-1% ranking is expected given the hardware involved, but the data reveals interesting nuances about how this game scales with top-tier components. The combo's position in the 99th percentile indicates that the i5-14600KF and RTX 5090 D pairing is among the most capable configurations for this title, though the game's lightweight nature means that many mid-range systems also achieve high frame rates.

The ranking reflects the RTX 5090 D's raw compute capabilities, which are largely wasted on Dave The Diver's modest graphics demands. The GPU's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth are far beyond what this game requires, yet the system still ranks 20th because the CPU's strong single-threaded performance (measured at 4,594 in Cinebench R23 single-core) prevents it from bottlenecking at lower resolutions. The data shows that the combo's rank is more dependent on the i5-14600KF's ability to feed frames quickly than on the RTX 5090 D's graphics throughput.

Comparing to other combos in the database, this pairing outperforms 99.3% of all tested configurations. The rank of 20 suggests that only a handful of systems with even more powerful CPUs (potentially overclocked or higher-tier chips) can extract slightly higher frame rates in this CPU-bound scenario. The performance gap between this combo and the top-ranked systems is likely minimal, as the game's frame rate ceiling at 1080p appears to be around 450 FPS, which is a hard limit imposed by the game engine's single-threaded nature rather than the hardware's capability. The measured data for this combo shows that it achieves 450 FPS at 1080p Low, which is likely near the engine's absolute maximum.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU with a massive 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. For Dave The Diver, these specifications are extreme overkill. The game's art style and rendering requirements are modest, meaning the GPU's role is largely to render simple 2D sprites and light 3D geometry at high frame rates. The GPU's boost clock of 2407 MHz and 21,760 shading units provide ample compute for this task, but the data shows that the GPU is not the limiting factor in most scenarios.

The GPU's memory configuration is particularly notable. With 32 GB of VRAM, the RTX 5090 D has more than enough memory to handle any texture loading or asset streaming that Dave The Diver requires at 4K Ultra. The memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s ensures that any data transfer between VRAM and the GPU cores is instantaneous, eliminating any potential memory bottlenecks. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (164 FPS) demonstrates that the GPU can handle the highest resolution and settings without breaking a sweat, as this frame rate is likely limited by the CPU's ability to process game logic rather than the GPU's rendering throughput.

The GPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks reinforces its dominance. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 310,674 and Vulkan score of 376,915 place it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. However, for Dave The Diver, these scores are irrelevant to actual gameplay. The GPU's DirectX 12 performance (Passmark score of 219) and DirectX 11 performance (371) indicate that it excels in modern API workloads, but the game likely uses simpler rendering paths. The data suggests that the RTX 5090 D's role in this combo is to provide headroom for future titles or higher-fidelity games, while for Dave The Diver, it simply needs to maintain high frame rates without becoming a bottleneck.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the system achieves its highest frame rates. The Low preset averages 450 FPS, which represents the absolute ceiling of what this CPU-GPU combination can achieve in this game. The Medium preset lowers the average to 412 FPS, with a minimum of 351 FPS and a maximum of 474 FPS. The High preset averages 368 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 325 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1080p shows a 125 FPS drop, indicating that while the GPU is capable of rendering more complex scenes, the CPU's single-threaded performance limits the overall frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain exceptionally high. The Low preset averages 371 FPS, a drop of 79 FPS from the 1080p result, showing that the GPU is starting to play a larger role. The Medium preset averages 310 FPS (minimum 264, maximum 357), the High preset averages 277 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 245 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1440p shows a 126 FPS drop, which is nearly identical to the 1080p scaling, suggesting that the GPU is now the primary factor in determining frame rates at higher settings.

At 3840x2160, the system still delivers outstanding performance. The Low preset averages 248 FPS, the Medium preset averages 208 FPS (minimum 177, maximum 239), the High preset averages 186 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 164 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K shows an 84 FPS drop, which is smaller than at lower resolutions. This indicates that at 4K, the GPU's rendering workload is becoming more significant, but the RTX 5090 D's raw power still ensures high frame rates. The minimum FPS values at 4K Medium (177 FPS) and 1440p Medium (264 FPS) show that even in the most demanding scenes, the system never drops below 144 FPS, which is the threshold for high-refresh-rate gaming.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a clear pattern of how frame rates scale with resolution. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS across all settings drops by approximately 17-20%. For example, at High settings, the average drops from 368 FPS to 277 FPS, a 25% reduction. At Low settings, the drop is from 450 FPS to 371 FPS, an 18% reduction. This scaling indicates that the system is transitioning from a CPU-bound state at 1080p to a more balanced state at 1440p, where both CPU and GPU contribute to performance.

From 1440p to 4K, the frame rate drops are more significant, ranging from 33% at Low settings (371 to 248 FPS) to 33% at High settings (277 to 186 FPS). The Medium preset shows a 33% drop (310 to 208 FPS), and the Ultra preset shows a 33% drop (245 to 164 FPS). This consistent ~33% reduction across all settings when moving from 1440p to 4K indicates that the GPU is now the primary limiting factor. The total pixel count increases by 2.25x from 1440p to 4K, and the frame rate drops by approximately 1.5x, which is less than the pixel increase, demonstrating that the RTX 5090 D has enough headroom to handle the additional workload without a proportional performance hit.

The scaling behavior reveals that the CPU is the bottleneck at 1080p, as the frame rates barely change between Low and Medium settings (450 to 412 FPS), suggesting the CPU is maxed out. At 4K, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, as evident from the larger frame rate differences between settings (248 to 164 FPS). The resolution at which the system becomes GPU-bound is somewhere between 1440p and 4K, likely at 4K for this particular game. This analysis is confirmed by the fact that the frame rate difference between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings (79 FPS) is smaller than at High settings (91 FPS), indicating that the CPU is still a factor at 1440p.

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. For Dave The Diver, the CPU's role is critical, as this game appears to be heavily dependent on single-threaded performance. The processor's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,594 and Geekbench single-core score of 2,445 indicate strong single-threaded capabilities, which directly translate to high frame rates in CPU-limited scenarios.

The CPU's 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache provide fast access to game data, reducing latency and improving frame pacing. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (450 FPS) is likely near the game engine's maximum frame rate, and the CPU's boost clock of 5.30 GHz enables it to process game logic quickly enough to feed the GPU at these extreme rates. The CPU's performance percentile of 90th among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 49,394, places it just 0.3% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 and 0.8% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245, showing that it is competitive with higher-tier alternatives.

However, the data shows that the CPU becomes less relevant as resolution increases. At 4K, the frame rates are primarily determined by the GPU, as evidenced by the consistent 33% drop from 1440p. The CPU's multi-threaded performance (Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32,544) is more than sufficient for the game's background tasks, but the game likely only uses a few threads effectively. The Passmark single-thread score of 4,273 corroborates the strong single-core performance, which is the key metric for this game. The CPU's 125W TDP and unlocked multiplier allow for overclocking, which could potentially push frame rates even higher at 1080p, but the measured data already shows exceptional performance.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS this combo achieves in Dave The Diver?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 450, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset. This represents the system's peak performance ceiling in this game.

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

A: This combination ranks 20th out of 2,867 tested combos, placing it in the top 0.7% of all systems tested for Dave The Diver.

Q: At what resolution does the GPU become the primary bottleneck?

A: The data indicates a transition between 1440p and 4K. At 1440p, frame rates still show CPU influence, but at 4K, the consistent 33% frame rate drop across all settings from 1440p confirms the GPU is the limiting factor.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 248 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 164 FPS, representing a difference of 84 FPS or approximately 34% lower performance at Ultra settings.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 5090 D have, and is it sufficient for this game?

A: The RTX 5090 D has 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth. This is more than sufficient for Dave The Diver, as the game's modest graphical demands do not approach the memory capacity limit.

Q: What is the CPU's boost clock and how does it relate to performance?

A: The i5-14600KF has a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This high clock speed contributes to the strong single-threaded performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,594), which is critical for maintaining high frame rates at 1080p where the CPU is the limiting factor.