Don't Starve Together

Don't Starve Together presents an interesting scaling study when paired with the Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070. The measured data shows a clear pattern where the game's frame rate is heavily influenced by both resolution and graphics settings, revealing where the bottleneck shifts between the CPU and GPU. This combination, ranking 316th out of 1667 tested combos, demonstrates that even a lower-end processor can keep pace with a high-end graphics card under the right conditions.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals a significant performance drop that scales predictably with pixel count. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate falls from 160 FPS at 1920x1080 to 108.1 FPS at 2560x1440, and finally to 67.7 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 57.7% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, which is substantial but not entirely linear, suggesting that the GPU becomes increasingly stressed as resolution climbs.

The Low settings preset tells a different story. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 280.6 FPS, which drops to 236.3 FPS at 1440p and 139.6 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K here is 50.2%, slightly less severe than at Ultra. This smaller relative decline indicates that at low settings, the CPU's limitations begin to surface at lower resolutions, capping the maximum achievable frame rate before the GPU becomes the primary constraint.

Medium settings show a middle-ground scaling pattern, with 238.7 FPS at 1080p, 163.8 FPS at 1440p, and 99.7 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 4K is 58.2%, nearly identical to Ultra. This consistency suggests that the GPU's workload scaling with resolution is the dominant factor once settings exceed Low, as the CPU has sufficient headroom to feed the graphics card at these frame rates.

High settings present an interesting anomaly, with 200.9 FPS at 1080p, 139 FPS at 1440p, and 81.2 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 4K reduction is 59.6%, the largest of all presets. This could indicate that High settings introduce a specific combination of effects that disproportionately burden the GPU at higher resolutions, making this preset the most resolution-sensitive of the four tested.

Settings Recommendations

For players prioritizing smooth gameplay at 4K, the data suggests that Medium settings at 99.7 FPS provide a substantial improvement over Ultra's 67.7 FPS, representing a 47.3% increase in frame rate with likely minimal visual degradation. The jump from Medium to High at this resolution is significant though, dropping from 99.7 to 81.2 FPS, a 18.5% reduction that may not justify the visual gains.

At 1440p, the choice becomes more nuanced. Ultra achieves 108.1 FPS, which is already above the 100 FPS threshold many players consider smooth. High settings at 139 FPS offer a comfortable margin, while Medium at 163.8 FPS and Low at 236.3 FPS provide increasingly higher refresh rate compatibility. The data indicates that High settings at 1440p strike the best balance, offering 28.6% more performance than Ultra while maintaining visual fidelity.

For 1080p users, the story is about maximizing refresh rates. Low settings deliver 280.6 FPS, which is 75.4% higher than Ultra's 160 FPS. However, Medium at 238.7 FPS still provides excellent performance while offering better visuals than Low. Given that the jump from Medium to High only costs 15.8% performance (238.7 to 200.9 FPS), High settings at 1080p appears to be the sweet spot for competitive play without sacrificing too much visual quality.

GPU Role

The RTX 5070's specifications provide context for these results. With 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 672.0 GB/s bandwidth, the card has ample resources for Don't Starve Together, which is not a particularly demanding title in terms of video memory. The GPU's boost clock of 2512 MHz and base clock of 2325 MHz, combined with 6144 shading units, suggest it can handle the game's stylized art style efficiently.

The GPU's FP32 performance of 30.87 TFLOPS and texture rate of 482.3 GTexel/s explain why the game scales so well at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the GPU is clearly not the limiting factor in most presets, as evidenced by the high frame rates achieved. The 80 ROPs and 192 TMUs contribute to the card's ability to maintain consistent output even as resolution increases.

The memory configuration plays a crucial role at 4K. The 12 GB capacity is more than sufficient for this game, as the frame rates at Ultra settings suggest the GPU is compute-bound rather than memory-bound. The 672.0 GB/s bandwidth allows for efficient data transfer, though the significant frame rate drops at higher resolutions indicate that raw compute throughput becomes the bottleneck.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results show a clear hierarchy across settings. Low leads with 280.6 FPS, followed by Medium at 238.7 FPS, High at 200.9 FPS, and Ultra at 160 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 75.4%, demonstrating that settings have a dramatic impact on performance at this resolution.

The 2560x1440 results compress this spread slightly. Low achieves 236.3 FPS, Medium 163.8 FPS, High 139 FPS, and Ultra 108.1 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra here is 118.6%, showing that the gap widens in absolute terms as resolution increases, but the relative reduction from 1080p is consistent across settings.

At 3840x2160, the performance hierarchy remains but with reduced absolute values. Low produces 139.6 FPS, Medium 99.7 FPS, High 81.2 FPS, and Ultra 67.7 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that falls below 70 FPS, suggesting that this combination may struggle to maintain high refresh rates at maximum settings with this resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i3-12100F and RTX 5070 combination ranks 316th out of 1667 tested combos for Don't Starve Together, placing it in the 81st percentile of all tested configurations. This is a strong showing for a CPU that only achieves a 72nd percentile ranking among all processors, indicating that the game is not heavily CPU-dependent in most scenarios.

The combo's ranking suggests that the RTX 5070's performance is the primary driver of the high position. The GPU's 83rd percentile ranking among all graphics cards aligns more closely with the combo's overall placement than the CPU's 72nd percentile. This implies that for this specific game, the graphics card is doing most of the heavy lifting, and the i3-12100F is sufficient to avoid becoming a significant bottleneck.

Given that the combo ranks in the top 19% of all tested configurations, it outperforms many systems with more balanced or higher-end processors. This data indicates that Don't Starve Together rewards GPU investment over CPU investment, at least when paired with a capable processor like the i3-12100F.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F provides 4 cores and 8 threads, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB L2 cache per core are modest but adequate for this game's demands. The processor's 3DMark single-thread score of 893 and multi-thread score of 4023 suggest it handles single-threaded workloads well, which is relevant for games that rely heavily on a single core.

The CPU's Cinebench R23 scores of 1681 single-core and 11912 multi-core indicate that it has sufficient processing power to keep up with the RTX 5070 in this title. The PassMark single-thread score of 3444 and multithread score of 14015 further confirm that the i3-12100F is not holding back the GPU in most scenarios, particularly at higher resolutions where GPU load is more intensive.

The data suggests that the CPU becomes a limiting factor primarily at 1080p with Low settings, where the 280.6 FPS result likely approaches the processor's maximum frame delivery capability. At 4K, the CPU's role diminishes significantly, as evidenced by the frame rate differences across settings being driven more by GPU workload than CPU capability. The 4-core, 8-thread configuration appears well-suited for this game, providing enough parallelism without the overhead of additional cores that may go unused.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved by this combo?

A: The highest measured average is 280.6 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next highest is 238.7 FPS at 1080p with Medium settings.

Q: How does the i3-12100F compare to its nearest rival in CPU benchmarks?

A: The i3-12100F has an average benchmark score of 13516, which is 0.1% behind the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (13534) and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Core i7-1250U (13462). It also leads the Intel Core i3-10105 (13430) by 0.6% and the Intel Core i7-7700K (13280) by 1.8%.

Q: What is the RTX 5070's performance relative to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 5070 has an average benchmark score of 41687, which is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (41610) and 0.6% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (41441). It trails the NVIDIA Tesla M40 (41897) by 0.5% and the AMD Radeon Pro 580X (41991) by 0.7%.

Q: Does this combo maintain high frame rates at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo achieves 67.7 FPS on average. This is playable but below the 100 FPS threshold that many users prefer for smooth gameplay. For higher 4K frame rates, Medium settings at 99.7 FPS or Low at 139.6 FPS are better options.

Q: How does the combo's ranking in this game compare to its component rankings?

A: The combo ranks 316th out of 1667 tested combos, placing it in the top 19% overall. This exceeds both the CPU's 72nd percentile and the GPU's 83rd percentile rankings, suggesting the pairing is well-matched for this specific game.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the combo delivers 200.9 FPS at 1920x1080 and 81.2 FPS at 3840x2160, representing a 59.6% reduction. The 1440p result of 139 FPS falls between these two values, showing a gradual decline with increasing resolution.