Dave The Diver

The data for Dave The Diver with the Intel Core i7-13700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 shows a system with extraordinary headroom, delivering frame rates that far exceed display refresh rates at every tested configuration. The measured results indicate that this combination is limited by the game engine's frame pacing rather than by either the CPU or GPU, making it a top-tier performer for this title.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results show that the Ultra preset, while visually demanding, still produces an average of 296.7 FPS at 1920x1080 and 151.4 FPS at 3840x2160. These numbers suggest that players with high-refresh-rate monitors (144Hz or 165Hz) can comfortably use the Ultra preset at all resolutions without dipping below their display's refresh rate. At 4K, the 151.4 FPS average is still above the threshold for most high-refresh displays, though it approaches the lower boundary of what a 165Hz monitor would want.

However, the data indicates that the Medium preset may offer the optimal balance for competitive play or for users with 240Hz displays. The Medium settings yield a 377.2 FPS average at 1080p, a 288 FPS average at 1440p, and a 192.1 FPS average at 4K. This represents a significant jump over Ultra: the Medium preset is 27.1% faster at 1080p, 26.5% faster at 1440p, and 26.9% faster at 4K when compared to Ultra. Given that Dave The Diver is an adventure game where visual fidelity enhances the experience, the data suggests that High settings are the recommended compromise. The High preset delivers 338 FPS at 1080p, 251.7 FPS at 1440p, and 169.7 FPS at 4K, which remains above 165Hz at every resolution tested.

For users prioritizing maximum frame rates, the Low preset provides the highest measured averages: 453.9 FPS at 1080p, 341.9 FPS at 1440p, and 226.2 FPS at 4K. The difference between Low and Medium is 17.0% at 1080p, 15.8% at 1440p, and 15.1% at 4K, which is substantial for competitive scenarios but likely unnecessary given the game's genre.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090's specifications in the data show a 24 GB GDDR6X memory pool with a 384-bit bus and 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's memory clock runs at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective), with base and boost clocks of 2235 MHz and 2520 MHz respectively. The measured frame rates suggest that the GPU is far from being a bottleneck in this title. Even at the most demanding setting measured (4K Ultra), the average FPS of 151.4 indicates that the card has substantial compute headroom remaining.

The RTX 4090's performance percentile of 91 versus all GPUs, combined with an average benchmark score of 66473, places it in the top tier of graphics hardware. The data shows that the GPU's nearest rival, the NVIDIA Tesla T4, has an average score of 66733, which is 0.4% higher, a difference well within statistical noise. This positioning reinforces that the RTX 4090 is operating at the extreme high end of GPU performance, and its role in Dave The Diver is to render scenes with maximum fidelity while still maintaining triple-digit frame rates.

The GPU's architecture, Ada Lovelace, with 16,384 shading units and 128 RT cores, provides ample raw compute for this title. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (453.9 FPS) versus 4K Ultra (151.4 FPS) shows a 3.0x reduction in frame rate, which is significantly less than the 4x pixel-count increase from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the GPU scales efficiently with resolution in this game.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a clear pattern of frame rate reduction as resolution increases. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings reduces the average FPS from 338 to 251.7, a 25.5% drop. From 1440p to 4K at High settings, the frame rate drops from 251.7 to 169.7, a 32.6% reduction. The cumulative drop from 1080p to 4K at High settings is 49.8%, meaning the 4K average is roughly half of the 1080p average.

This scaling pattern indicates that the limiting component shifts as resolution increases. At 1080p, the frame rates exceed 450 FPS at Low settings, which suggests that the CPU is providing frames faster than any current display can show. At 4K, the frame rates drop to more moderate levels, but the 151.4 FPS minimum across all settings at 4K still indicates GPU headroom remains. The fact that the 4K Ultra score (151.4 FPS) is higher than what most monitors can display suggests that neither component is truly saturated; instead, the game's engine may have internal frame rate limits or rendering inefficiencies that cap performance.

The resolution scaling data also reveals that the difference between Low and Ultra settings shrinks as resolution increases. At 1080p, the gap between Low (453.9 FPS) and Ultra (296.7 FPS) is 34.6%. At 4K, the gap between Low (226.2 FPS) and Ultra (151.4 FPS) is 33.1%. This consistency indicates that the GPU workload scales predictably with both resolution and settings, and that the system's performance is not being limited by memory bandwidth or cache at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows the following averages: Low settings produce 453.9 FPS, Medium produces 377.2 FPS, High produces 338 FPS, and Ultra produces 296.7 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 16.9% reduction, from Medium to High is 10.4%, and from High to Ultra is 12.2%. This progression shows that each settings tier imposes a meaningful but manageable performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low at 341.9 FPS, Medium at 288 FPS, High at 251.7 FPS, and Ultra at 227.6 FPS. The relative differences are 15.8% from Low to Medium, 12.6% from Medium to High, and 9.6% from High to Ultra. The smaller percentage drop from High to Ultra at 1440p compared to 1080p suggests that the GPU is becoming more of a factor at this resolution, but it still has significant headroom.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low at 226.2 FPS, Medium at 192.1 FPS, High at 169.7 FPS, and Ultra at 151.4 FPS. The differences are 15.1% from Low to Medium, 11.7% from Medium to High, and 10.8% from High to Ultra. The data shows that even at 4K Ultra, the system maintains a frame rate that exceeds most high-refresh displays, making this combination effectively overkill for Dave The Diver.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i7-13700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 24th out of 1626 tested combos in Dave The Diver. This places the system in the top 1.5% of all tested hardware combinations for this game, which is notable given the game's modest system requirements. The high rank indicates that this combination delivers near-maximum possible performance for the title.

The combo's rank suggests that other combinations, likely with even higher-tier CPUs or specialized configurations, may provide marginally better performance. However, the measured FPS values show that this system already exceeds the practical limits of display technology. At 1080p, the lowest measured average (296.7 FPS at Ultra) is more than double the refresh rate of the most common high-refresh monitors. Even at 4K Ultra, the 151.4 FPS average exceeds 144Hz displays.

The rank of 24 out of 1626 also indicates that the system is not being held back by any single component. If the CPU were a bottleneck, the rank would be lower at 1080p where CPU load is highest. If the GPU were the bottleneck, the rank would suffer more at 4K. The consistent high performance across all resolutions points to a balanced setup that extracts near-peak performance from both the Core i7-13700K and the RTX 4090.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K features 16 cores and 24 threads with base and boost clocks of 3.40 GHz and 5.40 GHz respectively. Its benchmark results show a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 39000 and a single-core score of 5505, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 17731 and single-core score of 2850. The CPU's percentile versus all CPUs is 93, and its average benchmark score of 47282 is nearly identical to its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-13700KF, which scores 47334 (a 0.1% difference).

In Dave The Diver, the CPU's role appears to be providing frames faster than the GPU can render them at lower resolutions. The fact that 1080p Low produces 453.9 FPS indicates that the CPU can generate frames at a rate exceeding 450 per second in this title. The CPU's 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache likely contribute to this high frame generation capability, as the game's data fits comfortably within the cache hierarchy.

The CPU's multi-threading capabilities, with a PassMark multi-thread score of 45887 and 3DMark max-threads score of 12412, suggest that the 24 threads are effectively utilized by the game engine. However, the single-thread performance is also strong, with a 3DMark single-thread score of 1136 and PassMark single-thread score of 4333, which is crucial for game logic and physics. The data indicates that the Core i7-13700K is not a limiting factor at any resolution tested, as the frame rates scale consistently with GPU workload rather than showing CPU-related plateaus at higher resolutions.