Dave The Diver

Dave The Diver is an adventure title that, on paper, does not demand the absolute bleeding edge of PC hardware. However, the measured data for the Intel Core i7-13700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination reveals a system that trivializes the game at every preset and resolution tested. This pairing lands at rank 5 out of 1626 tested combos, placing it firmly in the top percentile of all configurations. The benchmark results indicate a complete absence of performance bottlenecks, with frame rates that far exceed the refresh rates of common high-end displays, making this a definitive overkill setup for this specific title.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a 16-core, 24-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. It features a substantial 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per core of L2 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 39000 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 5505 in single-core, which contributes to its 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-13700KF, scores 47334 on average, a negligible 0.1% difference, indicating that the K-series chip is performing exactly as expected.

In the context of Dave The Diver, this CPU is far more capable than the game's engine requires. The data shows that even at 1080p with Low settings—the scenario most likely to be CPU-bound—the system achieves 457.9 FPS. The high single-thread performance, evidenced by a Passmark single-thread score of 4333, ensures that game logic and draw calls are processed with minimal latency. The multi-threaded headroom, reflected in a Passmark multithread score of 45887, means that background tasks or streaming will not interfere with frame pacing. The benchmark results indicate that the CPU is never the limiting factor in this configuration; the performance ceiling is firmly dictated by the GPU and the game's engine limits, not processing power.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

When examining the measured FPS rows, the "Ultra" preset at 1440p produces 233.4 FPS, while "High" yields 263 FPS. The difference between these two settings is 29.6 FPS, which is a noticeable jump, but both are well above playable thresholds. At 4K, the "Ultra" preset drops to 158.7 FPS, which is still exceptionally smooth for a single-player adventure title. The data suggests that the "High" preset offers the best balance, as it provides a significant frame rate uplift over "Ultra" (e.g., 352.1 FPS vs 310.6 FPS at 1080p) while likely retaining most of the visual fidelity that matters in a 2D side-scrolling adventure.

Choosing "Ultra" is only advisable if the user prioritizes maximum visual effects over frame rate headroom. Given that even "Ultra" at 4K maintains 158.7 FPS, the system has enough power to run the highest preset without dropping below the 144Hz threshold common on modern displays. However, for users with 240Hz or higher refresh rate monitors, the "High" preset is the pragmatic choice. It delivers 352.1 FPS at 1080p and 263 FPS at 1440p, ensuring that the display's refresh rate is saturated in most scenarios. The "Medium" preset offers diminishing returns in performance gains over "High" (390.3 vs 352.1 at 1080p) and is unnecessary given the hardware's capability.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured data shows a predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases. At "High" settings, the average FPS drops from 352.1 at 1080p to 263 at 1440p, and then to 176.7 at 4K. This represents a 25.3% decrease from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 32.8% decrease from 1440p to 4K. This scaling behavior is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering load on the RTX 5090 increases significantly with pixel count. The CPU's performance remains constant across these resolutions, so the frame rate drop is directly attributable to the graphics card's workload.

The fact that the drop is not linear—the 4K score is 50.2% of the 1080p score—indicates that the game's rendering pipeline becomes more heavily dependent on pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth at higher resolutions. The RTX 5090's 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth and 32 GB of GDDR7 memory ensure that there is no capacity or bandwidth stall, but the sheer number of pixels at 4K still demands more time per frame. This confirms that the limiting component at 4K is the GPU, though it is so powerful that even the most demanding scenario remains above 158.7 FPS. The CPU, by contrast, is never stressed; its load remains consistent, proving it has ample headroom to feed the GPU at any resolution.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination of the Intel Core i7-13700K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 achieves a combo rank of 5 out of 1626 tested configurations in Dave The Diver. This top-tier placement signifies that this pairing is among the fastest 0.3% of all systems benchmarked for this game. The rank is likely driven by the RTX 5090's raw performance, as the CPU's role is secondary at higher resolutions. The nearest GPU rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D, has an average benchmark score of 84241, which is only 0.1% lower than the RTX 5090's 84306, suggesting that the non-D variant has a negligible performance edge.

The CPU's rank is less influential here; while the i7-13700K is in the 93rd percentile overall, its closest rivals—the i7-13700KF, AMD EPYC 4364P, and Intel Core i9-12900F—all have average scores within 0.5% of each other. This indicates that the CPU choice has minimal impact on the final frame rate in this game, as the performance is overwhelmingly GPU-bound. The combo's rank of 5 out of 1626 reflects the GPU's dominance; swapping the CPU for a slightly slower chip would likely not change the rank significantly, whereas a slower GPU would drop the ranking considerably. The data confirms that this is a top-tier configuration where the GPU is the primary driver of the excellent results.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the flagship of the GeForce 50-series, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node. It features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock is 2407 MHz, and it houses 21760 shading units. In synthetic tests, it scores 39650 in Passmark G3D and 380114 in Geekbench OpenCL, placing it in the 94th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the RTX 5090 D, is a mere 0.1% slower in average benchmark scores, confirming that this card is at the absolute peak of consumer graphics performance.

In Dave The Diver, the GPU's role is to render the game's detailed pixel-art environments and water effects at high frame rates. The 32 GB VRAM is vastly over-provisioned for this title, which likely does not use more than a fraction of it, but it ensures zero texture swapping or stutter. The high memory bandwidth is crucial for maintaining the frame rate at 4K, where the data shows a drop from 352.1 FPS (1080p) to 176.7 FPS (High settings). The GPU's compute power, evidenced by a Passmark GPU Compute score of 26756, allows for high settings without compromising on post-processing effects. The benchmark results indicate that the RTX 5090 is the single most important component in this combo, dictating the performance ceiling at every resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across all presets and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 457.9 FPS on Low, 390.3 FPS on Medium, 352.1 FPS on High, and 310.6 FPS on Ultra. These numbers indicate that even the most demanding 1080p preset is over three times faster than a standard 60Hz display's refresh rate. Moving to 2560x1440, the scores are 349.7 FPS (Low), 294.6 FPS (Medium), 263 FPS (High), and 233.4 FPS (Ultra). The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent, averaging around 75% of the 1080p performance across all settings.

At 3840x2160, the performance remains exceptionally high: 238.8 FPS on Low, 197.5 FPS on Medium, 176.7 FPS on High, and 158.7 FPS on Ultra. The scaling from 1440p to 4K shows an average reduction to roughly 67% of the 1440p scores. Notably, the difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 80.1 FPS, which is a larger absolute gap than at 1080p (147.3 FPS), but the relative percentage drop is smaller. The data shows that the "Ultra" preset at 4K is the only scenario that drops below 160 FPS, and even then, it remains well above the 120Hz threshold for high-refresh-rate gaming. The lowest recorded average is 158.7 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is still a flawless experience for this adventure title.