Minecraft

Minecraft pairs an 8-core Zen 5 desktop processor with a Turing-generation mid-range GPU. The measured results show a combination that can push very high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but which becomes clearly GPU-limited at 4K Ultra settings. This analysis covers the measured FPS data, the role of each component, and how this specific CPU+GPU pairing ranks against other tested combinations in the database.

FAQ

Q: What is the measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings?

A: The combination delivers 355 FPS average at 1080p Low, which is the highest measured FPS in this entire dataset. The same resolution with Medium settings drops to 281 FPS average, High settings to 223 FPS, and Ultra settings to 139 FPS average.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 117 FPS on Low settings down to 46 FPS on Ultra settings. Medium settings produce 93 FPS average, while High settings produce 74 FPS average. Only the Medium preset has recorded min/max values, showing 79 FPS minimum and 107 FPS maximum.

Q: What is the CPU's multi-threaded benchmark score?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F scores 36,470 in the PassMark multithread test. Its single-thread score is 4,691. The processor has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz.

Q: What is the GPU's memory configuration?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The memory clock is 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The GPU's boost clock is 1680 MHz with a base clock of 1365 MHz.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score is 15,290. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 with a score of 15,283 (0% delta). The AMD Radeon 680M scores 15,270 (0.1% delta), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM scores 15,199 (0.6% delta), and the AMD Radeon RX 7600 scores 15,171 (0.8% delta).

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested combinations?

A: This CPU+GPU combination ranks 860th out of 1,176 tested combos in Minecraft. That places it in the lower-middle portion of the database, despite producing triple-digit frame rates at most settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is a Turing-generation GPU built on a 12 nm process with 10,800 million transistors on a 445 mm² die. Its 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 192-bit bus deliver 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which becomes a significant factor at higher resolutions. The GPU has 1,920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units. The boost clock of 1680 MHz and base clock of 1365 MHz are modest by modern standards, but the card's 58th percentile ranking among all GPUs shows it remains a capable mid-range option.

In Minecraft, the GPU's role scales heavily with resolution. At 1080p, the RTX 2060 is rarely the limiting factor — the CPU can feed it enough data to produce 223 FPS at High settings. The gap between 1080p High (223 FPS) and 1440p High (141 FPS) is a 37% drop, which indicates the GPU is starting to work harder. Moving to 4K High (74 FPS) shows a further 48% drop from 1440p, demonstrating that the GPU's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are being taxed heavily at that resolution.

The RTX 2060's 6 GB VRAM capacity is worth noting for Minecraft. While the game can run with far less memory at lower settings, the Ultra preset at 4K produces only 46 FPS average — the lowest measured result — suggesting that both the GPU's compute power and memory subsystem are overwhelmed. The fact that the GPU's nearest rivals include the GTX 580 (a much older card) and the RX 7600 (a newer card) with deltas of 0% and 0.8% respectively indicates that the RTX 2060 sits in a performance band where small differences in synthetic benchmarks translate to meaningful differences in real-world gaming loads.

The GPU's 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores are present, but Minecraft's measured results do not show ray tracing performance data, so their impact here remains unquantified by this dataset. What the data does show is a GPU that can handle 1080p and 1440p gaming comfortably, but which clearly becomes the bottleneck at 4K Ultra settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern of resolution-dependent scaling that reveals the balance between CPU and GPU load. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 355 FPS average — a number that is almost certainly CPU-limited, as the GPU would have minimal work at such low settings and resolution. Dropping to 4K Low (117 FPS) still produces a playable frame rate, but the 67% reduction from 1080p Low shows how much additional GPU work is required at 4K.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at each settings level tells a consistent story. At Low settings, 1080p produces 355 FPS and 1440p produces 224 FPS — a 37% reduction. At Medium settings, the drop is from 281 FPS to 177 FPS (37% reduction). At High settings, 223 FPS drops to 141 FPS (37% reduction). At Ultra settings, 139 FPS drops to 88 FPS (37% reduction). This uniform 37% reduction across all settings levels from 1080p to 1440p suggests that the limiting component scales linearly with pixel count, which points to the GPU becoming more important at 1440p but not yet being fully saturated.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is more dramatic. At Low settings, 224 FPS drops to 117 FPS (48% reduction). At Medium settings, 177 FPS drops to 93 FPS (47% reduction). At High settings, 141 FPS drops to 74 FPS (48% reduction). At Ultra settings, 88 FPS drops to 46 FPS (48% reduction). The larger percentage drops at 4K compared to 1440p indicate that the RTX 2060's pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth are becoming the dominant constraints. The GPU's 80.64 GPixel/s pixel rate and 336.0 GB/s memory bandwidth are simply insufficient to maintain the same efficiency at 4K.

The Uniform scaling pattern is striking. At every settings level, the 1080p-to-1440p drop is 37% and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 48%. This consistency suggests that Minecraft's rendering workload scales predictably with resolution, and that the RTX 2060 remains the limiting component at 1440p and 4K. At 1080p, the CPU's ability to feed the GPU at high frame rates becomes the limiting factor, especially at Low settings where the GPU has minimal work.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The full dataset provides 12 measured FPS points: four settings levels at three resolutions. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows:

• Low: 355 FPS average
• Medium: 281 FPS average (239 min, 323 max)
• High: 223 FPS average
• Ultra: 139 FPS average

At 2560x1440, the results are:

• Low: 224 FPS average
• Medium: 177 FPS average (151 min, 204 max)
• High: 141 FPS average
• Ultra: 88 FPS average

At 3840x2160, the results are:

• Low: 117 FPS average
• Medium: 93 FPS average (79 min, 107 max)
• High: 74 FPS average
• Ultra: 46 FPS average

The Medium settings are the only preset with recorded min and max FPS values, which allows for a closer look at frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the range from 239 to 323 FPS spans 84 FPS, showing a wide variance. At 1440p Medium, the range narrows to 53 FPS (151 to 204). At 4K Medium, the range tightens further to 28 FPS (79 to 107). This trend indicates that as the GPU becomes more heavily loaded, frame times become more consistent — the bottleneck shifts from CPU-side variance to steady GPU-bound rendering.

The difference between Low and Ultra settings at each resolution shows the impact of graphics presets. At 1080p, moving from Low to Ultra reduces average FPS from 355 to 139, a 61% reduction. At 1440p, the same settings change drops FPS from 224 to 88, a 61% reduction. At 4K, Low produces 117 FPS while Ultra produces 46 FPS, again a 61% reduction. This consistent 61% reduction across all resolutions indicates that the Ultra preset imposes a uniform additional GPU workload regardless of resolution.

The 4K Ultra result of 46 FPS average is the only measured point below 60 FPS in the entire dataset. This makes 4K Ultra the only configuration where the combination fails to maintain a fluid 60 FPS baseline. Every other measured point exceeds 60 FPS, and most exceed 100 FPS. For a sandbox game like Minecraft, where smooth world interaction matters more than raw visual fidelity, this combination offers strong performance at all settings except the most demanding 4K Ultra preset.

How This Combo Ranks

This CPU+GPU combination ranks 860th out of 1,176 tested combos in Minecraft, placing it in the 73rd percentile of the database (meaning 73% of tested combinations rank higher). This ranking is notable because the measured FPS results are substantially higher than what the rank might suggest. A combination producing 139 FPS average at 1080p Ultra, 88 FPS at 1440p Ultra, and 46 FPS at 4K Ultra is performing well in absolute terms, yet the rank reflects the broader context of all tested hardware.

The rank of 860 suggests that many other combinations achieve higher FPS in Minecraft, likely due to more powerful GPUs or CPUs. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F itself ranks in the 94th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 69,996. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (avgScore 69,875, deltaPct 0.2%), the Intel Core i7-14700KF (avgScore 70,163, deltaPct -0.2%), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (avgScore 69,515, deltaPct 0.7%), and the Intel Core i7-14700K (avgScore 69,355, deltaPct 0.9%). The CPU's performance is essentially neck-and-neck with these high-end desktop and mobile parts, with deltas of less than 1% in either direction.

The GPU's ranking is less impressive. The RTX 2060 sits in the 58th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15,290. Its nearest rivals are all within 0.8% of its score, including the GTX 580, Radeon 680M, RTX 3050 OEM, and RX 7600. This puts the GPU in the mid-range tier, which explains why the combo ranks lower than the CPU alone would suggest. The CPU is a top-tier performer, but the GPU holds the combination back in Minecraft's more demanding settings.

The gap between the CPU's 94th percentile ranking and the combo's 73rd percentile ranking highlights that Minecraft at 4K Ultra is heavily GPU-bound. The 46 FPS result at that setting is more indicative of the RTX 2060's limits than the Ryzen 7 9700F's capabilities. For lower resolutions and settings, the combo's FPS numbers are strong, but the rank reflects the fact that many other tested combinations — presumably with more powerful GPUs — achieve even higher frame rates.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a Zen 5 (Granite Ridge) processor built on a 4 nm process with 8,315 million transistors on a 70.6 mm² die. It has 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. The CPU's cache hierarchy consists of 80 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3 cache. Memory support includes DDR5 with dual-channel configuration and 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth, plus ECC support. The processor uses the AMD Socket AM5, supports PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes, and has a 65 W TDP.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 9700F scores 36,470 in PassMark multithread, 4,691 in single-thread, and 4,691 in the single-thread variant. Its other notable scores include 120,788 in integer math, 77,955 in floating-point math, 421,988 in data compression, and 21,488 in data encryption. The CPU's 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms its position as a high-end desktop processor.

Minecraft's performance at 1080p Low (355 FPS average) is likely near the CPU's practical limit for this game. The fact that 1080p Low produces 355 FPS while 1080p High produces 223 FPS (a 37% reduction) suggests that the GPU begins to matter more as settings increase, even at 1080p. At 1080p Low, the GPU has minimal work, so the CPU's ability to handle game logic, world generation, and draw calls becomes the bottleneck. The 355 FPS result demonstrates that the 9700F's 8 cores and high boost clock are well-suited to Minecraft's single-thread-heavy workload.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database are all within 0.9% of its average score. The Intel Core i7-14700KF scores 70,163 (0.2% higher), the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX scores 69,875 (0.2% lower), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X scores 69,515 (0.7% lower), and the Intel Core i7-14700K scores 69,355 (0.9% lower). These tiny deltas mean that swapping the 9700F for any of these CPUs would produce nearly identical frame rates in Minecraft, assuming the same GPU.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and 4 nm process node allow for high clocks without excessive power draw, though the measured FPS data does not include power consumption figures. The processor's 32 MB L3 cache is shared across all 8 cores, which benefits games that need frequent access to shared world data. The DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth provides ample data throughput for the GPU, though Minecraft's memory footprint is modest compared to more demanding titles.

At 1080p and 1440p, the 9700F is likely not the limiting component for most settings. The GPU's role becomes more prominent at 1440p and 4K, as shown by the consistent resolution scaling patterns. The CPU's 94th percentile ranking and strong single-thread score of 4,691 suggest that it can keep up with even faster GPUs than the RTX 2060, making this combination somewhat CPU-heavy for the GPU's capabilities. For Minecraft specifically, the 9700F ensures that frame rates never dip below 60 FPS except at 4K Ultra, where the GPU is clearly the bottleneck. The data shows a balanced pairing at 1080p and 1440p, with the CPU providing headroom for future GPU upgrades without becoming a bottleneck itself.