Minecraft

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS for this CPU-GPU combo in Minecraft at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS is 140 at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings.

Q: How much faster is the 1080p Low preset compared to the 4K Ultra preset?

A: The 1080p Low preset achieves 356 average FPS, while the 4K Ultra preset achieves 46 average FPS. This represents a difference of 310 FPS, with the 1080p Low preset delivering roughly 7.7 times the frame rate of 4K Ultra.

Q: What is the only setting/resolution combination that reports a minimum FPS value?

A: The Medium preset at every resolution (1080p, 1440p, and 4K) provides minimum FPS data. At 1920x1080 Medium, the minimum is 240 FPS; at 2560x1440 Medium, the minimum is 151 FPS; and at 3840x2160 Medium, the minimum is 79 FPS.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested combinations in Minecraft?

A: This combo ranks 2818 out of 3710 tested combinations, placing it in the lower portion of the tested field.

Q: What is the GPU's average benchmark score and its percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6600 has an average benchmark score of 19036 and sits in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs.

Q: What is the CPU's single-threaded performance score in Passmark?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X scores 2656 in Passmark single-thread performance.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a Navi 23 chip. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus delivers 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a critical factor for Minecraft's texture streaming and chunk loading. The base clock runs at 1626 MHz, with a game clock of 2044 MHz and a boost clock of 2491 MHz. This clock configuration suggests that the GPU has headroom to ramp up performance when demand spikes, which is relevant for Minecraft's occasionally intense frame-time spikes during world generation.

The GPU's FP32 throughput is 8.928 TFLOPS, and it has 1792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs. These specifications translate into a pixel rate of 159.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 279.0 GTexel/s. For Minecraft, texture rate matters more than raw pixel throughput because the game's blocky aesthetics rely heavily on texture sampling for varied biomes and block types. The measured FPS data shows that the GPU handles the game well across all presets at 1080p, with even the Ultra preset maintaining 140 average FPS.

At 1440p, the GPU starts to show strain at Ultra (88 average FPS), but still delivers smooth frame rates at Medium (178 FPS) and High (141 FPS). The 4K results reveal the GPU's limits, particularly at Ultra where the average FPS drops to 46. This pattern indicates that the RX 6600's 8 GB VRAM and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth become bottlenecks at higher resolutions with demanding settings, as the game requires more memory bandwidth for larger render targets and more detailed textures.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 63 among all GPUs suggests it's a mid-range performer, and the measured results in Minecraft align with that positioning—capable at mainstream resolutions but not designed for maximum settings at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings. At Low, the average FPS falls from 356 at 1080p to 225 at 1440p and then to 118 at 4K. That's a 67% reduction from 1080p to 4K. At Medium, the drop goes from 282 to 178 to 93—a 67% decrease as well. High settings show 224 at 1080p, 141 at 1440p, and 74 at 4K, which is a 67% reduction. Ultra is the most affected: 140 at 1080p, 88 at 1440p, and 46 at 4K, representing a 67% decline.

This consistent percentage drop across all settings points clearly to the GPU as the limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the scaling from 1080p to 1440p would show a smaller FPS drop because the GPU would have more work to do, but the CPU would still keep up. Instead, the proportional reduction at every preset indicates that the RX 6600's rendering resources—its 1792 shading units and 224.0 GB/s memory bandwidth—are being saturated as pixel count increases.

The 4K Ultra result of 46 average FPS is particularly telling. At this resolution, the GPU is likely hitting memory bandwidth limits, as the 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit bus struggle to feed the render pipeline with the highest-quality textures and effects. The fact that Low at 4K still achieves 118 FPS suggests the GPU can handle the geometry load but not the texture and shading complexity of higher presets at this resolution.

Interestingly, the Medium preset's minimum FPS values show a progressive decline that mirrors the averages: 240 at 1080p, 151 at 1440p, and 79 at 4K. This reinforces the idea that the GPU's performance scales linearly with resolution for this game, with no sudden cliffs or unexpected drops.

Settings Recommendations

The data suggests that the Medium preset offers the best balance of performance and visual quality. At 1080p, Medium achieves 282 average FPS with a minimum of 240 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most monitors. At 1440p, Medium still delivers 178 average FPS with a minimum of 151 FPS, making it a strong choice for high-refresh-rate displays at this resolution. The Medium preset is the only one that provides minimum FPS data across all resolutions, which suggests the benchmark measured it more thoroughly, and those minimums are respectable even at 4K (79 FPS).

High settings at 1080p (224 FPS) and 1440p (141 FPS) are also playable, but the jump from Medium to High costs roughly 20% of the frame rate at both resolutions. Ultra at 1080p (140 FPS) is still smooth, but at 1440p (88 FPS) it approaches the threshold where some users may notice stutter, and at 4K (46 FPS) it's not enjoyable for fast-paced gameplay.

For users with 1080p monitors, Medium or High both work well, with Medium offering more headroom for frame-time consistency. For 1440p, Medium is the sweet spot, as it stays above 150 FPS even in the minimum. For 4K, Low (118 FPS) is the only preset that provides a consistently smooth experience, though Medium (93 FPS) is borderline acceptable. Ultra at 4K should be avoided given the 46 FPS average.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 356 average FPS, the highest recorded in this dataset. Medium achieves 282 average FPS with a minimum of 240 and a maximum of 325. High settings produce 224 average FPS, and Ultra drops to 140 average FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 216 FPS, which shows the significant cost of higher-quality rendering on this GPU.

At 2560x1440, Low produces 225 average FPS. Medium achieves 178 average FPS with a minimum of 151 and a maximum of 205. High settings yield 141 average FPS, and Ultra falls to 88 average FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 37% of the frame rate at each preset, confirming the GPU-bound nature of the workload.

At 3840x2160, Low still manages 118 average FPS. Medium delivers 93 average FPS with a minimum of 79 and a maximum of 107. High settings drop to 74 average FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 46 average FPS. The 4K results show that even the Low preset, while playable, is far from the 1440p Low result, and the Ultra preset is effectively unplayable for most users.

The Medium preset is the only one with complete min-max data at all resolutions, and its minimums are consistently about 85% of the average. This suggests that the GPU maintains relatively stable frame delivery, without severe spikes or drops, when running Medium settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. It's built on the Zen 2 architecture (Matisse) using a 7 nm process from TSMC. The CPU has 32 MB of L3 cache, 512 KB of L2 cache per core, and 64 KB of L1 cache per core. Its memory bandwidth is 51.2 GB/s on a dual-channel DDR4 interface.

In terms of raw performance, the CPU scores 2092 in Cinebench R15 multi-core and 204 in single-core. Passmark results show 22458 in multi-thread, 2656 in single-thread, and 1181 in physics. The Geekbench scores are 8899 multi-core and 1593 single-core. These numbers place the CPU in the 84th percentile of all CPUs, indicating strong multi-threaded performance for its generation.

Minecraft's Java-based engine is notoriously sensitive to single-threaded performance, and the 3700X's 2656 Passmark single-thread score and 204 Cinebench R15 single-core score are moderate for a desktop CPU from 2019. The boost clock of 4.40 GHz helps, but the Zen 2 architecture's single-thread performance is not class-leading. The data shows that even at 1080p Low (356 FPS) and 1080p Medium (282 FPS), the CPU is not completely bottlenecked, as the frame rates are very high. However, the fact that 1080p Ultra (140 FPS) is lower than 4K Low (118 FPS) at similar settings suggests the CPU can handle the game's logic and chunk updates without being the primary limiter.

The CPU's 84th percentile ranking and its nearest rivals—AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 (0.1% faster), AMD EPYC 4244P (0.1% faster), Intel Core i5-13450HX (0.2% faster), and Intel Core Ultra 7 165H (0.5% slower)—indicate that the 3700X is competitive with much newer processors in overall benchmark scores, though those scores emphasize multi-threaded workloads more than Minecraft's single-threaded tendencies.

How This Combo Ranks

This combo ranks 2818 out of 3710 tested combinations in Minecraft, placing it in the 76th percentile of the ranking (lower rank is better). This is a relatively low ranking, which initially seems surprising given the high FPS numbers—356 FPS at 1080p Low is objectively fast. However, the ranking context matters: this database includes many high-end combos with RTX 4090s and top-tier CPUs that can push far beyond these frame rates, particularly at higher resolutions.

The GPU's 63rd percentile and CPU's 84th percentile suggest that the CPU is the stronger component in this pairing, yet the measured FPS data shows the GPU as the primary limiter at higher resolutions. The ranking reflects this imbalance: the combo performs well in absolute terms at 1080p, but at 1440p and 4K, the RX 6600's mid-range positioning holds it back relative to other combos.

The GPU's nearest rivals—NVIDIA Quadro K6000 (0% difference), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Mobile (0.1% slower), NVIDIA Tesla K20m (0.3% slower), and NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation (0.4% faster)—are a mix of older workstation cards and newer mobile parts, which underscores the RX 6600's position as a mainstream desktop GPU. The CPU's rivals, meanwhile, include modern mobile and server parts that perform nearly identically in synthetic benchmarks, meaning the 3700X holds its own against much newer silicon.

For Minecraft specifically, the combo's 2818 rank indicates that while this pairing is perfectly playable at 1080p (and even 1440p at Medium), it is not optimized for high-resolution or ultra-quality gaming. Users seeking 4K Ultra performance in Minecraft would need a significantly stronger GPU, while those on 1080p displays will find this combo delivers well above the 60 FPS threshold in all but the most demanding scenarios.