Minecraft

# Minecraft with Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + AMD Radeon RX 9060

The data measured for this combination spans four preset levels across three resolutions, revealing a system that scales predictably with settings but shows distinct behavior depending on whether the workload is GPU-bound or CPU-bound. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus, with its 24 cores and 5.80 GHz boost clock, pairs with the AMD Radeon RX 9060, which carries 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and a 2990 MHz boost clock. Across the twelve measured rows, average frame rates range from a low of 56 FPS at 4K Ultra to a high of 428 FPS at 1080p Low, indicating a wide operating envelope. The combination ranks 609th out of 1176 tested combos for this game, placing it near the middle of the database’s tested configurations. This analysis breaks down the resolution scaling, component roles, and settings behavior using only the measured data.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, but the magnitude of that drop depends heavily on the preset. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 428 FPS at 1080p to 270 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 158 FPS, and then to 141 FPS at 4K, another drop of 129 FPS. This represents a 67% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, which suggests that even at the lowest quality preset, the GPU is becoming a limiting factor at higher pixel counts. The transition from 1080p to 1440p at Low costs 37% of the frame rate, while the transition from 1440p to 4K costs another 48%, indicating that the scaling is not linear and that 4K imposes a disproportionately heavy load on the Radeon RX 9060.

At Medium settings, the pattern is similar but with lower absolute values: 339 FPS at 1080p, 214 FPS at 1440p, and 112 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 37% from 1080p to 1440p and 48% from 1440p to 4K, nearly identical to the Low preset’s relative scaling. This consistency suggests that the resolution scaling behavior is largely independent of the preset level, with the GPU’s pixel throughput being the dominant factor. The High preset shows 269 FPS at 1080p, 170 FPS at 1440p, and 89 FPS at 4K, with percentage drops of 37% and 48% respectively, again matching the same pattern. Even at Ultra, where the absolute frame rates are much lower—168 FPS at 1080p, 106 FPS at 1440p, and 56 FPS at 4K—the relative scaling holds at 37% and 47%.

This uniform scaling behavior points to the GPU as the primary bottleneck when resolution increases. The Radeon RX 9060’s 128-bit memory bus and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth appear sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K data suggests that the card’s 8 GB VRAM and memory bandwidth constrain performance more severely at higher pixel counts. The fact that the percentage drops are nearly identical across all four presets indicates that the resolution penalty is additive rather than multiplicative, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario where fill rate and memory bandwidth are the limiting resources. However, the absolute frame rates at 1080p, especially at Low (428 FPS) and Medium (339 FPS), are high enough that the CPU’s 24 threads and 5.80 GHz boost clock are clearly capable of feeding the GPU without becoming a bottleneck at lower resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and the AMD Radeon RX 9060 ranks 609th out of 1176 tested combos in Minecraft, placing it in the 48th percentile of all tested configurations. This mid-pack ranking is notable because the CPU itself sits in the 96th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU ranks in the 59th percentile among all GPUs. The disparity between the CPU’s high percentile and the combo’s middling rank suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing for Minecraft, which is consistent with the resolution scaling data showing GPU-bound behavior at higher settings.

The CPU’s nearest rivals provide context for its performance class. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K scores an average of 83807, which is 0.2% lower than the 290K Plus’s 84003 average, making these two processors effectively equivalent in overall benchmark terms. The AMD EPYC 4584PX scores 83090, 1.1% lower, and the AMD EPYC 9135 scores 82980, 1.2% lower. On the higher side, the AMD EPYC 7F72 scores 85072, which is 1.3% higher than the 290K Plus. These deltas are all within a narrow 2.5% band, indicating that the 290K Plus is solidly in the high-end desktop CPU tier but not at the absolute top of the database’s CPU rankings.

For the GPU, the AMD Radeon RX 9060’s average benchmark score of 16014 places it just below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which scores 16129, a 0.7% difference. The AMD Radeon R9 370X and AMD Radeon RX 7700 both score around 15852-15862, which is 1% lower, and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 scores 15679, 2.1% lower. This puts the RX 9060 in the mid-range GPU category, which explains why the combo ranking is not higher despite the CPU’s strength. In Minecraft, which can be sensitive to both CPU and GPU depending on settings, the GPU’s mid-pack performance drags the overall combo ranking down from what the CPU alone would suggest.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060, built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 44 chip, brings 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs to this pairing. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory operates across a 128-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 2250 MHz, translating to 18 Gbps effective, while the GPU’s game clock is 2400 MHz and the boost clock reaches 2990 MHz. The card’s 21.43 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 334.9 GTexel/s texture rate are the raw throughput figures that drive the measured frame rates.

In the context of Minecraft, the GPU’s role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution and settings rise. At 1080p Low, the frame rate of 428 FPS is so high that the CPU’s 24 threads are likely the limiting factor, but at 4K Ultra, the 56 FPS average suggests the GPU is fully saturated. The 8 GB VRAM is a potential constraint at 4K with higher settings, as the measured 4K High and Ultra averages of 89 FPS and 56 FPS, respectively, show a significant drop from the 4K Medium’s 112 FPS. The jump from Medium to High at 4K costs 23 FPS (20.5%), while the jump from High to Ultra costs 33 FPS (37.1%), indicating that the Ultra preset’s additional memory and shading demands exceed the card’s comfortable operating range.

The GPU’s benchmark scores reinforce this mid-range positioning. Its Passmark G3D score of 17631 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3322 place it in the 59th percentile of all GPUs. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 88183 and Vulkan score of 39476 show compute capability, but the Passmark DirectX 12 score of 44 is notably low, which may indicate driver overhead or architectural differences in legacy workloads. The GPU’s 191.4 GPixel/s pixel rate and 334.9 GTexel/s texture rate are the physical limits that explain why 4K Ultra frame rates drop to 56 FPS, as the card’s fill rate is insufficient for the combined resolution and settings load.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured frame rates span a wide range across the four presets. Low settings produce an average of 428 FPS, which is the highest figure in the entire dataset. Medium settings reduce this to 339 FPS, with a minimum of 288 FPS and a maximum of 390 FPS, showing a 102 FPS spread between the 1% low and peak. High settings yield 269 FPS, and Ultra drops to 168 FPS. The reduction from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 260 FPS, a 60.7% decrease, which indicates that the Ultra preset imposes significantly heavier GPU load even at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease across all presets. Low settings average 270 FPS, Medium averages 214 FPS with a range of 182 to 246 FPS, High averages 170 FPS, and Ultra averages 106 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 164 FPS, a 60.7% decrease, matching the percentage drop at 1080p exactly. This consistency suggests that the relative cost of each preset is uniform across resolutions, reinforcing that the GPU’s per-preset workload scales proportionally with pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates become more modest. Low settings average 141 FPS, Medium averages 112 FPS with a range of 95 to 129 FPS, High averages 89 FPS, and Ultra averages 56 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra drop is 85 FPS, a 60.3% decrease, again nearly identical to the percentages at lower resolutions. The Medium preset at 4K, with its 95 FPS minimum, is the only measured row at this resolution that stays above 60 FPS for the entire frame time distribution, while High and Ultra fall below that threshold. The 4K Ultra average of 56 FPS indicates that this preset is only marginally playable, and the 4K High average of 89 FPS leaves little headroom for demanding scenes.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate measured for this combo?

A: The highest average frame rate is 428 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: At which resolution and preset does the combo fall below 60 FPS average?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average frame rate is 56 FPS, which is the only measured row below 60 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU’s benchmark score compare to its closest rival?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84003, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K’s score of 83807.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory configuration?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9060 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s and a memory clock of 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective).

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 609th out of 1176 tested combos in Minecraft, placing it in the middle of the database.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 2560x1440?

A: At 2560x1440, Low averages 270 FPS and Ultra averages 106 FPS, a difference of 164 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, with 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 cache per core. Its 125 W TDP and dual-channel DDR5 memory support, with 115.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth, position it as a high-end desktop part. The CPU’s benchmark results are strong: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 51731 and single-core score of 7303, plus a Passmark multithread score of 60860 and single-thread score of 4823.

In the context of Minecraft, the CPU’s role is most evident at lower resolutions and settings where frame rates exceed 300 FPS. At 1080p Low, the 428 FPS average is likely approaching the CPU’s maximum frame generation capability, as the GPU has ample headroom at this low settings level. The 24 threads handle the game’s world-generation and entity-update workloads efficiently, and the 5.80 GHz boost clock provides the single-thread performance that Minecraft’s primary game loop typically requires. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 96th among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84003, confirms that it is not the bottleneck in this pairing.

The CPU’s nearest rivals reinforce its high-end status. The 0.2% delta to the Core Ultra 9 285K is negligible, and the 1.1% to 1.2% deltas to the EPYC 4584PX and EPYC 9135 are also small. The EPYC 7F72 is 1.3% faster, but that is a server-class chip with different thermal and power characteristics. For Minecraft specifically, the CPU’s single-thread score of 7303 in Cinebench R23 and 4823 in Passmark single-thread indicate that it can sustain high frame rates even when the GPU is not fully utilized, as seen in the 1080p Low and Medium results. The 24 threads also provide headroom for background tasks and complex modded gameplay, though the measured data does not include modded scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and desired performance. At 1920x1080, all presets are playable, with Low at 428 FPS, Medium at 339 FPS, High at 269 FPS, and Ultra at 168 FPS. The Medium preset offers a balanced experience, with a minimum of 288 FPS ensuring smooth gameplay even in demanding scenes, while High at 269 FPS is also excellent. For users with high refresh rate displays, Low or Medium will push beyond 300 FPS, but Ultra at 168 FPS still exceeds most 144 Hz monitors.

At 2560x1440, Low at 270 FPS and Medium at 214 FPS are both strong choices, with Medium’s minimum of 182 FPS providing a comfortable margin. High at 170 FPS is also very good, while Ultra at 106 FPS remains playable but with less headroom. The data indicates that Medium is the sweet spot at 1440p, as it delivers over 200 FPS average with a minimum above 180 FPS, representing the best combination of visual quality and performance. High is a viable alternative for users who prioritize visuals, but the 56 FPS difference between Medium and High at this resolution may not justify the quality increase for competitive play.

At 3840x2160, the choices narrow considerably. Low at 141 FPS is the only preset that provides a high refresh rate experience, while Medium at 112 FPS with a 95 FPS minimum is the best balance of quality and smoothness. High at 89 FPS is acceptable for slower-paced gameplay, but Ultra at 56 FPS falls below the 60 FPS threshold and is not recommended for consistent play. For 4K users, Medium is the recommended preset because it maintains an average above 100 FPS and a minimum above 90 FPS, providing a smooth experience without the visual compromises of Low. Ultra should be avoided at 4K due to its 56 FPS average, which will drop further in complex scenes. The measured data shows that the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth are the limiting factors at 4K, and Medium is the highest preset that works within those constraints.