Minecraft

Minecraft with the Intel Core i5-13400F and AMD Radeon RX 570 produces a playable but heavily GPU-bound experience, with average frame rates ranging from 24 FPS at 4K Ultra to 187 FPS at 1080p Low. The data shows that the RX 570 is the primary limiting factor in this pairing, as performance scales dramatically with both resolution and graphics settings, while the i5-13400F provides ample headroom to push high frame rates at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance curve as resolution increases, indicating that the AMD Radeon RX 570 is the bottleneck in this configuration. At 1080p High, the combo achieves 118 FPS average, but this drops to 74 FPS at 1440p High and further to 39 FPS at 4K High — a reduction of roughly 37% from 1080p to 1440p, and another 47% from 1440p to 4K. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU that is saturated by pixel throughput demands.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens considerably at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the spread from Low (187 FPS) to Ultra (74 FPS) is 113 FPS. At 1440p, that spread narrows to 72 FPS (118 FPS Low vs 46 FPS Ultra). At 4K, the spread shrinks further to 38 FPS (62 FPS Low vs 24 FPS Ultra). This convergence suggests that at 4K, even the Low preset is near the GPU's maximum capability, leaving little room for additional visual features without severe frame rate penalties.

The data indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor in most scenarios. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 187 FPS, which is a high enough frame rate that the i5-13400F's single-thread performance (3dmark_single_thread score of 960, passmark_single_thread score of 3634) can sustain. However, at 4K Ultra, the 24 FPS result is far below what the CPU could deliver, confirming that the RX 570's 4 GB GDDR5 memory and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are the constraining resources.

The Medium preset provides the only complete FPS data across all resolutions, with min and max values recorded. At 1440p Medium, the average is 94 FPS with a range of 80 to 108 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average drops to 49 FPS with a 42 to 56 FPS range. These figures suggest that the Medium preset offers the most consistent frame pacing relative to its average, likely because it balances GPU load without overwhelming the memory subsystem.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combo can achieve in Minecraft?

A: The highest measured average is 187 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next highest is 148 FPS at 1080p Medium, followed by 118 FPS at both 1080p High and 1440p Low.

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

A: At 4K, the combo delivers playable results only on Low settings (62 FPS average). Medium drops to 49 FPS, High to 39 FPS, and Ultra falls to 24 FPS, which is below typical playability thresholds.

Q: Which preset provides the best balance of visual quality and performance?

A: The Medium preset at 1440p offers 94 FPS average with a narrow 80-108 FPS range, making it the most consistent high-performance option. At 1080p, Medium delivers 148 FPS with a 126-171 FPS range.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: At High settings, the drop is from 118 FPS to 74 FPS, a 44 FPS reduction. At Low settings, the drop is from 187 FPS to 118 FPS, a 69 FPS reduction. The percentage loss is roughly 37% for High and 37% for Low.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more responsible for the performance bottleneck?

A: The GPU is clearly the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 187 FPS, indicating the CPU can push well beyond that. The dramatic FPS drops at higher resolutions and settings align with the RX 570's 4 GB VRAM capacity and 150 W TDP.

Q: What is the worst-performing configuration in the measured data?

A: The 4K Ultra preset produces the lowest average at 24 FPS. The 4K High preset follows at 39 FPS, and 4K Medium at 49 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the Medium preset is the optimal choice for most users. At 1080p, Medium delivers 148 FPS average, which is only 39 FPS below Low but provides substantially better visual quality than the Low preset. The min FPS of 126 at 1080p Medium ensures that even demanding scenes stay well above 60 FPS, making this the smoothest high-quality option.

For 1440p displays, Medium again stands out with 94 FPS average and a min of 80 FPS. This is the only 1440p configuration in the data that maintains a minimum above 60 FPS while still offering moderate visual fidelity. High at 1440p drops to 74 FPS average, which is acceptable but leaves less headroom for frame drops in complex scenes.

At 4K, the recommendation shifts to Low, which achieves 62 FPS average. Medium at 4K produces 49 FPS, which may be playable for some but sits below the standard 60 FPS target. High at 4K (39 FPS) and Ultra at 4K (24 FPS) are not recommended for smooth gameplay; they represent the extreme end of the GPU's capability.

Ultra settings are only viable at 1080p, where the combo manages 74 FPS average. At 1440p Ultra, the 46 FPS result is borderline, and at 4K Ultra, the 24 FPS average makes the game effectively unplayable for most users. The performance gap between Medium and Ultra at 1080p is 74 FPS (148 vs 74), which is a significant sacrifice for the additional visual features.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a clear progression across settings. Low produces 187 FPS average, Medium produces 148 FPS with a range of 126 to 171 FPS, High produces 118 FPS, and Ultra produces 74 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 39 FPS, from Medium to High is 30 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 44 FPS. This non-linear scaling suggests that the Ultra preset introduces features that disproportionately impact the RX 570's performance.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds but with lower absolute values. Low achieves 118 FPS, Medium achieves 94 FPS with an 80-108 FPS range, High achieves 74 FPS, and Ultra drops to 46 FPS. The relative gaps are smaller in percentage terms: Low to Medium is a 24 FPS drop (20%), Medium to High is a 20 FPS drop (21%), and High to Ultra is a 28 FPS drop (38%).

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly saturated. Low produces 62 FPS, Medium produces 49 FPS with a 42-56 FPS range, High produces 39 FPS, and Ultra produces 24 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 13 FPS, Medium to High is 10 FPS, and High to Ultra is 15 FPS. The min FPS of 42 at 4K Medium indicates that even the "playable" 4K results can dip below 60 FPS.

The data shows that the Medium preset is the only one with recorded min and max values at all three resolutions, providing the most complete picture of frame consistency. At 1080p Medium, the spread is 45 FPS (126 to 171). At 1440p Medium, the spread is 28 FPS (80 to 108). At 4K Medium, the spread is 14 FPS (42 to 56). This narrowing spread at higher resolutions further confirms the GPU bottleneck.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the dominant performance factor in this pairing. Its 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for 1080p Low and Medium settings but becomes stressed at higher resolutions and quality presets. The 4K Ultra result of 24 FPS strongly suggests that the VRAM capacity or bandwidth is exhausted, causing severe performance degradation.

The GPU's clock behavior shows a base of 1168 MHz and a boost of 1244 MHz. These modest clocks, combined with the Polaris 20 chip's 2048 shading units and 32 ROPs, produce a pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance of 5.095 TFLOPS places this GPU in a range where 1080p gaming is comfortable but 4K is a stretch.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its mid-range positioning. Its geekbench_vulkan score of 42752 and geekbench_opencl score of 32084 indicate competent compute performance. The 3dmark_steel_nomad_dx12 score of 880 is modest, reflecting the GPU's age (released 2017-04-17). The GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 74 means it outperforms 74% of all GPUs in the database, but this is skewed by the inclusion of many older or integrated parts.

The nearest rivals for this GPU show it sits in a tight performance cluster. The AMD Radeon RX 470 has an avgScore of 28996, just 0.8% higher, meaning the RX 570 is essentially a slight refresh of the same architecture. The AMD Radeon RX 6800M is 0.4% lower, and the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 8000 is 1.2% higher. These small deltas indicate that the RX 570's performance class is well established, and Minecraft's results are consistent with its general compute capability.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F provides substantial processing headroom in this configuration. Its 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost of 4.60 GHz, give it strong multi-threaded capability as evidenced by the cinebench_r23_multicore score of 22604. However, Minecraft is primarily single-thread bound, and the CPU's 3dmark_single_thread score of 960 and passmark_single_thread score of 3634 are more relevant to the game's performance.

The CPU's cache hierarchy — 80 KB L1 per core, 1.25 MB L2 per core, and 20 MB shared L3 — supports the kind of rapid data access that a game like Minecraft requires for chunk loading and entity processing. The 20 MB L3 cache is particularly important for keeping frequently accessed game data close to the cores.

Given that the system reaches 187 FPS at 1080p Low, the CPU is clearly capable of far more than the GPU can deliver at higher settings. The 3dmark_max_threads score of 7307 and 3dmark_16_threads score of 7314 show that the CPU's multi-threaded performance is consistent, meaning that even in scenarios with many simultaneous entity updates, the CPU should not become a limiting factor before the GPU does.

The CPU's nearest rivals confirm its mid-range positioning. The AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS has an avgScore of 25284 (0% delta), and the Intel Core 5 120 is 0.3% lower. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D is also 0.3% lower, while the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H is 0.4% higher. These minuscule differences suggest that the i5-13400F's performance is highly competitive with other CPUs in its class, and the Minecraft results would be nearly identical with any of these alternatives.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and Intel Socket 1700 platform make it an efficient choice, but the benchmark data shows that its performance is not the constraint in this game. At 4K Ultra, the CPU's utilization would be minimal, as the GPU is fully saturated at 24 FPS. The data indicates that upgrading the GPU would yield far greater performance improvements than upgrading the CPU.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 3485 out of 3710 tested combinations in Minecraft, placing it in the bottom 7% of all tested systems. This is a surprisingly low ranking given the individual components' percentiles — the CPU sits at the 77th percentile and the GPU at the 74th percentile. The discrepancy suggests that Minecraft's specific rendering requirements are particularly demanding on the RX 570's architecture.

The low ranking is primarily driven by the GPU's limited VRAM and bandwidth. While the CPU can sustain high frame rates, the GPU's 4 GB memory capacity becomes a bottleneck at higher resolutions and settings. The 4K Ultra result of 24 FPS is among the lowest in the database for a system with this CPU, indicating that the GPU is holding back an otherwise capable processor.

The rank of 3485 out of 3710 means that 225 combos perform worse, but this is a small margin. The data indicates that this pairing is near the bottom of the performance spectrum, which aligns with the GPU's end-of-life production status and the CPU's mid-range market segment. The RX 570 was released in 2017 with a launch MSRP of 169 USD, and its age is reflected in its inability to handle modern rendering loads.

For context, the GPU's nearest rivals all have comparable avgScores (28421 to 28996), suggesting that any of these GPUs would produce similar Minecraft results. The CPU's nearest rivals also have nearly identical avgScores (25201 to 25365), meaning that swapping either component for a direct rival would not meaningfully change the combo's ranking.

The low rank is not a reflection of the CPU's performance — the i5-13400F is capable of much higher frame rates in other games. Instead, it highlights the GPU's limitations in Minecraft's block-based rendering engine, which relies heavily on fill rate and memory bandwidth. For users seeking higher rankings, the data suggests that a GPU with more VRAM and higher bandwidth would be the necessary upgrade path.