Dave The Diver

Dave The Diver is a deceptively demanding adventure title when pushed to high refresh rates, and the Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 delivers a comprehensive dataset that reveals a system capable of overwhelming every monitor class. The measured frames per second (FPS) across twelve distinct configurations show a combo that is consistently bound by the CPU at lower resolutions and by the GPU at 4K, making it a versatile pairing for this specific game.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results indicate that the High preset offers the most balanced experience across all tested resolutions. At 1080p, the High setting produces an average of 321.8 FPS, which is only 42.4 FPS behind the Low setting’s 424.7 FPS but provides a substantial visual upgrade. The gap narrows further at higher resolutions; at 1440p, High averages 240.3 FPS against Low’s 327.4 FPS, and at 4K, the difference shrinks to 54.1 FPS (165.4 FPS vs. 219.5 FPS). The data suggests that the visual fidelity gains from High over Low do not come at a prohibitive performance cost, especially when considering that even the demanding 4K High configuration remains well above the 144 Hz refresh rate threshold.

For users with 144Hz displays, the Ultra preset is the optimal choice at 1080p and 1440p, yielding 284.2 FPS and 213.6 FPS respectively. These figures comfortably exceed the refresh rate, ensuring that the visual ceiling of the game is reached without introducing stutter. However, at 4K, the Ultra preset drops to 144.4 FPS, which is dangerously close to the 144 Hz line and leaves little headroom for demanding scenes. The Medium preset serves as a middle ground, providing 179.8 FPS at 4K, which is 35.4 FPS higher than Ultra and still maintains a stable experience on high-refresh 4K panels. The Low preset, while yielding the highest raw numbers (424.7 FPS at 1080p), sacrifices too much visual quality for a marginal competitive advantage in a single-player adventure title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-12700K and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 places 59th out of 1626 tested combos in Dave The Diver, which places it in the top 3.6% of all configurations evaluated. This rank is impressive given that the component pair is not the absolute latest generation hardware, yet it outperforms the vast majority of systems. The CPU alone sits in the 89th percentile against all CPUs, and the GPU also ranks in the 89th percentile against all GPUs, indicating a well-matched pairing where neither component significantly bottlenecks the other in this title.

The CPU’s nearest rivals provide context for its performance. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 scores a -0.3% delta, meaning it is essentially tied with the i7-12700K, while the Intel Core i5-14500HX is -0.7% behind. On the other side, the Intel Core i7-13700T is 0.6% faster, and the Intel Core i7-13800H is 0.8% faster. This clustering shows that the i7-12700K is positioned firmly in the upper mid-range of desktop processors, with its 12 cores and 20 threads providing ample headroom for the adventure genre’s physics and AI calculations. The RTX 5080’s rivals similarly show a tight grouping; the Intel Arc A570M is 1.6% behind, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5500X is 2.6% behind, but the NVIDIA card’s 2.5% lead over the Intel Arc A580 shows clear dominance in this specific workload.

FAQ

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

A: Yes, the data shows an average of 144.4 FPS at 4K Ultra. This is just above the 144 Hz threshold, so it is playable, but users should expect occasional dips below that mark in busy scenes, making High a safer choice for consistent frame times.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: The benchmark results indicate the CPU is the primary limiter at 1080p. The jump from Low to Ultra at 1080p only reduces FPS from 424.7 to 284.2, a 33% drop, whereas the GPU is clearly still capable of producing over 400 FPS on Low, suggesting the processor is reaching its instruction throughput ceiling.

Q: How does the RTX 5080 compare to its closest rivals in this game?

A: The RTX 5080’s nearest rival data shows it is 2.5% faster than the Intel Arc A580 and 2.6% faster than the AMD Radeon Pro W5500X. It is also 1.6% ahead of the Intel Arc A570M, but it trails the Intel Arc Pro A60 by 1.9%.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded in the dataset?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 424.7 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low preset. This extreme frame rate is well beyond the refresh rate capabilities of most monitors, but it demonstrates the CPU’s single-thread strength.

Q: Is there a significant performance difference between the Medium and High presets?

A: The difference is consistent but not drastic. At 1080p, High is 42.4 FPS slower than Medium (321.8 vs. 364.2). At 1440p, the gap is 34.2 FPS (240.3 vs. 274.5), and at 4K, it is 14.4 FPS (165.4 vs. 179.8). The relative cost of High over Medium is roughly 12-13% across all resolutions.

Q: Does the combo rank in the top 5% of all tested systems?

A: Yes, the combo rank of 59 out of 1626 places it in the top 3.6% of all tested configurations, which is comfortably within the top 5% and indicates a high-performance pairing for this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance scaling across three resolutions and four settings presets. Starting at 1920x1080, the system shows exceptional headroom: the Low preset achieves 424.7 FPS, Medium follows at 364.2 FPS, High at 321.8 FPS, and Ultra at 284.2 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 140.5 FPS, which represents a 33% performance penalty for maximum visual quality. This scaling is nearly linear, with each step up in settings costing approximately 40-60 FPS, indicating that the CPU is handling the draw calls efficiently without introducing a hard bottleneck.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show a clear shift toward GPU dependence. The Low preset delivers 327.4 FPS, which is a 97.3 FPS drop from the 1080p result. Medium produces 274.5 FPS, High 240.3 FPS, and Ultra 213.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 113.8 FPS, a 34.8% reduction. Notably, the frame rate drop from 1080p to 1440p is more pronounced at Low settings (23%) than at Ultra settings (25%), suggesting the GPU is starting to feel the increased pixel count even on the lowest quality preset.

At 3840x2160, the performance curve flattens significantly as the GPU becomes the dominant constraint. Low averages 219.5 FPS, Medium 179.8 FPS, High 165.4 FPS, and Ultra 144.4 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra here is 75.1 FPS, which is a 34.2% reduction, consistent with the scaling observed at lower resolutions. However, the absolute values show that even at 4K Low, the system is producing over 200 FPS, which reflects the RTX 5080’s raw compute power. The progression from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings (284.2 to 144.4 FPS) represents a 49% reduction in frame rate, which is expected for a 4x increase in pixel count, though the actual loss is less severe due to the CPU limiting at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling analysis reveals a classic CPU/GPU bottleneck shift. When moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440, the average FPS across all settings drops by approximately 22-25%. The Low preset sees the largest absolute drop (97.3 FPS), while the Ultra preset sees a smaller drop (70.6 FPS). This pattern indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU has enough headroom to render frames faster than the processor can feed it. The i7-12700K’s 3.60 GHz base clock and 5.00 GHz boost clock are sufficient to push over 400 FPS on low settings, but the game engine’s draw call overhead limits the scaling.

The transition from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 tells a different story. Here, the FPS drops are more uniform across settings: Low drops by 107.9 FPS (33%), Medium by 94.7 FPS (34.5%), High by 74.9 FPS (31.2%), and Ultra by 69.2 FPS (32.4%). The consistency of these percentages indicates that the GPU is now the primary constraint, as the RTX 5080’s 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 compute are being fully utilized. The fact that the Ultra preset only loses 32.4% of its performance when moving from 1440p to 4K, while the Low preset loses 33%, suggests that the game’s visual effects at lower settings are not heavily pixel-bound, but the raw pixel fill rate is still the limiting factor.

The data clearly shows that the system is CPU-bound at 1080p and GPU-bound at 4K, with 1440p representing the sweet spot where both components are balanced. At 1440p High, the system produces 240.3 FPS, which is 45% higher than the 4K High result and 25% lower than the 1080p High result. This resolution offers the best compromise for high-refresh-rate gaming, as it maintains frame rates that are well above the 240 Hz threshold while providing a significantly sharper image than 1080p. For users with 4K 144Hz displays, the High preset (165.4 FPS) is the recommended choice, as it provides a 21 FPS buffer over the refresh limit, while Ultra (144.4 FPS) leaves virtually no headroom for frame time spikes.