Minecraft

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 delivers a performance profile in Minecraft that is heavily dictated by resolution and graphics preset. The measured data reveals a system that can handle the game smoothly at lower resolutions but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K, particularly when visual fidelity settings are raised. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS results to understand the balance between the CPU and GPU in this specific combination.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data shows a clear and predictable drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At the Low settings preset, the average FPS falls from 186 at 1080p to 117 at 1440p, and further to 61 at 4K. This represents a significant 67% reduction in performance from 1080p to 4K, indicating that even at the lowest settings, the rendering load at 4K is substantial for this GPU.

The scaling pattern becomes more pronounced at higher settings. With the High preset, the average FPS drops from 117 at 1080p to 74 at 1440p, and then to 39 at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K is a 47% reduction, while the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 37%. This steeper decline at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor as pixel count increases.

The Medium preset shows a similar trend, with average FPS of 147 at 1080p, 93 at 1440p, and 49 at 4K. The Ultra preset, which is the most demanding, yields the lowest frame rates across all resolutions, with 73 FPS at 1080p, 46 at 1440p, and just 24 at 4K. This last figure is particularly telling, as it falls below the generally accepted threshold for smooth gameplay, indicating that the GTX 1650 is simply not capable of handling Minecraft at maximum settings in 4K.

The data suggests that at 1080p, the CPU has more headroom to feed the GPU, allowing for higher frame rates. However, as the resolution climbs to 1440p and especially 4K, the GPU's workload increases exponentially, and the frame rate becomes increasingly bottlenecked by the graphics card's processing power. The fact that the FPS drops by roughly half when moving from 1080p to 4K at the Low and High settings points to a system where the GPU is the dominant constraint at higher resolutions, while the CPU is sufficient to keep up at lower ones.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is a Turing-architecture GPU with 896 shading units and 32 ROPs. Its core clocks are listed with a base of 1485 MHz and a boost of 1665 MHz. The memory configuration is 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 128.1 GB/s. These specifications are modest by modern standards, and the benchmark data confirms the GPU's position in the lower-mid range, with a percentile rank of 40 among all GPUs.

In Minecraft, the GPU's role is primarily to handle the rendering of blocks, textures, and lighting effects. The measured FPS at 4K with the Ultra preset (24 FPS) versus the Low preset (61 FPS) demonstrates how heavily the GPU is taxed by the game's more demanding visual settings. The GPU's compute capabilities, rated at 2.984 TFLOPS for FP32, are sufficient for 1080p gaming but are stretched thin at higher resolutions.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 7472 places it very close to several rivals, including the AMD Radeon HD 8850M (7447, deltaPct 0.3) and the Intel UHD Graphics 750 (7441, deltaPct 0.4). This proximity in scores indicates that the GTX 1650 offers only a marginal performance advantage over these integrated or older solutions, which helps contextualize its struggles with 4K Ultra settings in Minecraft. The GPU's passmark G3D score of 7880 and its DirectX 12 score of 35 further illustrate its limited capacity for high-end graphical workloads.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings for this combo depend heavily on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1920x1080, the High preset provides an average of 117 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset offers an even higher 147 FPS, and the Low preset reaches 186 FPS. For players with a 144Hz monitor, the Low preset is the only option that can consistently push frame rates high enough to take full advantage of such a display.

At 2560x1440, the High preset yields 74 FPS, which is still playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. The Medium preset at 93 FPS offers a better balance, while the Low preset at 117 FPS is the smoothest option. The Ultra preset at 46 FPS is borderline, and the data suggests it should be avoided for competitive play.

For 3840x2160, the situation is more challenging. The Low preset at 61 FPS is the only setting that achieves a playable frame rate. The Medium preset drops to 49 FPS, and the High preset falls to 39 FPS. The Ultra preset at 24 FPS is effectively unplayable. Therefore, at 4K, users are restricted to the Low preset for a consistent experience, and even then, the frame rate is marginal.

The data indicates that the Medium preset at 1080p or 1440p offers the best trade-off between visual quality and performance. At 1080p, it provides 147 FPS with minimums of 125 FPS, ensuring a stable experience. At 1440p, it maintains 93 FPS with minimums of 79 FPS. These figures suggest that Medium is the sweet spot for this GPU, delivering solid performance without the steep penalties seen at High or Ultra.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete set of measured FPS data provides a detailed look at this combo's capabilities. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low preset averages 186 FPS, Medium averages 147 FPS (with a minimum of 125 and maximum of 170), High averages 117 FPS, and Ultra averages 73 FPS. This shows a clear progression where each step up in settings costs roughly 30-40 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the figures are: Low at 117 FPS, Medium at 93 FPS (minimum 79, maximum 107), High at 74 FPS, and Ultra at 46 FPS. The relative performance drop from 1080p is consistent across settings, with about a 37% reduction in FPS when moving to 1440p. This consistency suggests that the GPU is scaling predictably with pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low at 61 FPS, Medium at 49 FPS (minimum 41, maximum 56), High at 39 FPS, and Ultra at 24 FPS. The drop from 1440p to 4K is steeper, with a 48% reduction in FPS at the Low setting. This indicates that the GPU is hitting a more severe bottleneck at 4K, likely due to memory bandwidth limitations and the sheer number of pixels that need to be processed.

The minimum FPS values are only available for the Medium preset, where they show 125 FPS at 1080p, 79 FPS at 1440p, and 41 FPS at 4K. These minimums are important for understanding frame time consistency. The fact that the minimum at 4K is 41 FPS, which is close to the average of 49 FPS, suggests that there are occasional dips that could cause noticeable stuttering in this demanding scenario.

How This Combo Ranks

In the overall database of tested hardware combinations for Minecraft, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 ranks at position 3548 out of 3710 tested combos. This places it in the bottom 5% of all configurations, which is a low ranking that reflects the GPU's limited performance in this game, particularly at higher resolutions.

The combo's rank is heavily influenced by the GPU's capabilities. The GTX 1650 has a percentile rank of just 40 among all GPUs, meaning it performs better than only 40% of the graphics cards in the database. This is a modest position, and when paired with a mid-range CPU, the overall system performance is constrained by the graphics card's limitations.

The CPU, on the other hand, has a percentile rank of 71 among all CPUs, indicating it is a more capable component. However, in Minecraft, the GPU's role becomes more dominant at higher resolutions, which pulls the combo's overall rank down. The fact that this combo sits at 3548 out of 3710 suggests that there are many other configurations that can achieve higher frame rates, likely those with more powerful GPUs that can handle the game's rendering demands more effectively.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its cache configuration includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. This CPU has an average benchmark score of 17177, placing it near several rivals including the AMD EPYC 7H12 (17120, deltaPct 0.3) and the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (17074, deltaPct 0.6).

In Minecraft, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, world generation, and entity updates. The data shows that at 1080p, the CPU is sufficient to feed the GPU, as evidenced by the high frame rates at the Low and Medium presets (186 FPS and 147 FPS, respectively). However, as the resolution increases, the CPU's workload becomes less critical, and the GPU takes over as the limiting factor.

The CPU's multi-threaded performance, as measured by its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14340, suggests it has ample processing power for the game's single-threaded and lightly-threaded tasks. Its single-core performance, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2024, is also respectable. These scores indicate that the CPU is not a bottleneck at lower resolutions, but at 4K, the GPU's inability to render frames fast enough means the CPU often sits idle waiting for work. The benchmark results clearly show that this is a GPU-limited scenario at higher resolutions, with the CPU having more than enough headroom to handle the game's demands.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with the High preset?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with the High settings preset is 117 FPS.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Minecraft?

A: At 3840x2160, the only playable preset is Low, which averages 61 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 49 FPS, and the High and Ultra presets fall to 39 FPS and 24 FPS, respectively, making them less suitable for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 144Hz monitor at 1080p?

A: The Low preset at 1920x1080 achieves an average of 186 FPS, which is the only setting that can consistently push frame rates above 144 FPS. The Medium preset at 147 FPS may also work but will not fully utilize a 144Hz display.

Q: How does the GTX 1650 compare to its nearest rival, the Intel UHD Graphics 750?

A: The GTX 1650 has an average benchmark score of 7472, while the Intel UHD Graphics 750 scores 7441, resulting in a deltaPct of 0.4%. This indicates a very small performance advantage for the GTX 1650.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested configurations in Minecraft?

A: This Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 combination is ranked 3548 out of 3710 tested combos, placing it in the lower percentile of all systems tested.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded at 1440p with Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with the Medium preset, the minimum FPS is 79, with an average of 93 FPS and a maximum of 107 FPS.