Minimum

The pairing of AMD’s Ryzen 5 2600 with NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX 5090 D in Minimum is a study in extremes—a six-core Zen+ processor from 2018 driving one of the most powerful consumer GPUs ever made. The measured frame rates reveal a system that is almost always GPU-bound at higher resolutions, but the CPU’s architecture becomes a clear limiting factor when settings drop. This analysis breaks down the data across resolutions, presets, and component roles.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS across 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160 shows how Minimum responds to pixel count changes. At High settings, the average frame rate moves from 204 FPS at 1080p to 176 FPS at 1440p—a drop of 28 FPS, or roughly 14%. Jumping to 4K (3840x2160) yields 96 FPS, which is a steep 53% reduction from the 1440p figure. This pattern indicates that the GPU’s rendering workload scales dramatically with resolution, as expected for a third-person shooter with modern visual effects.

The Low preset tells a similar story but with different magnitudes. At 1080p Low, the system hits 239 FPS, while 1440p Low produces 206 FPS (a 33 FPS decrease). At 4K Low, the average falls to 149 FPS—a 57 FPS drop from 1440p. The fact that 4K Low (149 FPS) still exceeds 1080p High (204 FPS) by a wide margin shows that the RTX 5090 D has ample headroom, but the scaling from 1440p to 4K is consistently severe across all presets.

Medium settings offer the only complete data set with min and max FPS. At 4K Medium, the average is 114 FPS with a minimum of 97 FPS and maximum of 131 FPS. Dropping to 1440p Medium raises the average to 187 FPS (min 159, max 215), while 1080p Medium reaches 217 FPS (min 184, max 249). The 73 FPS gap between 4K and 1080p at Medium is nearly identical to the 76 FPS gap at High, suggesting that the resolution penalty is consistent regardless of preset.

Ultra settings show the heaviest load. At 4K Ultra, the average collapses to 73 FPS—the lowest measured figure in the entire dataset. 1440p Ultra recovers to 136 FPS, and 1080p Ultra reaches 184 FPS. The 4K-to-1440p delta at Ultra is 63 FPS, the largest proportional drop among all presets. This indicates that Ultra preset combines effects that amplify the pixel-count burden, making 4K Ultra the only configuration that dips below 100 FPS.

The data reveals that the RTX 5090 D is the primary scaling driver. As resolution increases, the GPU’s shading units (21,760) and texture units (680) are pushed harder, and the frame rate falls accordingly. However, the gap between 1080p and 1440p is smaller than the gap between 1440p and 4K at every preset, which points to diminishing returns on GPU utilization as pixel count rises. The 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 512-bit bus width are never saturated, but the rendering pipeline still bottlenecks at 4K.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600 brings 6 cores and 12 threads to this pairing, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 3.90 GHz. Its Zen architecture, built on the 12 nm process, delivers a PassMark single-thread score of 2239 and a multithread score of 13160. In the context of Minimum, these numbers matter most at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the bottleneck.

At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 239, which is close to the practical ceiling for many 60 Hz and 144 Hz displays. The CPU’s single-thread performance becomes relevant here because the game’s draw calls and physics updates still require per-frame processing. The Ryzen 5 2600’s single-core score of 157.3 in Cinebench R15 and 1154 in Geekbench single-core suggests it can feed frames quickly, but it is not an elite gaming processor by modern standards.

The 1080p Ultra result of 184 FPS versus 1080p Low’s 239 FPS shows a 55 FPS gap. This gap is larger than what pure GPU load would explain, because Ultra settings often increase CPU-side work—more objects, more dynamic shadows, more AI calculations. The Ryzen 5 2600’s 16 MB of shared L3 cache and 512 KB L2 per core help mitigate latency, but the 2018 design cannot match the IPC of newer chips.

At 1440p, the CPU’s role diminishes. High settings produce 176 FPS, and Low produces 206 FPS. The 30 FPS difference between these presets is smaller than at 1080p (55 FPS), indicating that the GPU is taking over as the limiter. By 4K, the CPU is almost irrelevant: High hits 96 FPS, Low hits 149 FPS, and the preset-to-preset spread is driven almost entirely by GPU workload. The Ryzen 5 2600’s 12 threads are sufficient to keep the RTX 5090 D fed at 4K, but at 1080p with low settings, it becomes the ceiling.

The CPU’s benchmark percentile of 75 vs. all CPUs places it above average, but its nearest rivals—Intel Core Ultra 5 228V (0.2% faster), Intel Core i9-11900H (0.5% faster), and AMD EPYC 9454 (1.2% faster)—are all close in aggregate score. This suggests the Ryzen 5 2600 is not a weak link in raw throughput, but its single-thread performance (2239 PassMark) lags behind modern desktop parts. For Minimum, the data shows that the CPU is adequate for 4K and 1440p, but at 1080p with Low settings, the 239 FPS figure is likely near the CPU’s practical limit.

FAQ

Q: Why does 4K Ultra drop to 73 FPS while 1080p Ultra hits 184 FPS?

A: The 111 FPS difference comes from the GPU’s rendering workload. At 4K (3840x2160), the RTX 5090 D must process over four times as many pixels as 1080p. Ultra settings add more complex shading and post-processing, which compounds the pixel-count penalty. The 73 FPS result is the lowest measured in the dataset, showing that Ultra at 4K is the most demanding configuration for this combo.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 2600 holding back the RTX 5090 D at 1080p?

A: The data suggests yes at Low settings. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 239 FPS, which is higher than any 1440p result but still below what the RTX 5090 D could theoretically produce if unconstrained. The 1080p Low to 1080p Ultra gap (55 FPS) is larger than the 1440p Low to 1440p Ultra gap (70 FPS), implying that at 1080p, the CPU’s single-thread performance (2239 PassMark) becomes a more significant factor.

Q: What is the best resolution for consistent frame delivery above 100 FPS?

A: 2560x1440 at Medium provides an average of 187 FPS with a minimum of 159 FPS, making it the highest-resolution setting that stays comfortably above 100 FPS even in dips. 4K Medium averages 114 FPS with a 97 FPS minimum, which is also viable but closer to the 100 FPS threshold. For a locked 100+ FPS experience, 1440p Medium is the safest choice.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 D compare to its nearest GPU rivals in this game?

A: The RTX 5090 D’s average benchmark score of 77,712 places it 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76,904) and 2.4% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605). However, the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB is 2.1% faster, and the RX 6850M XT is 1.6% faster. In Minimum, the measured FPS at 4K High (96 FPS) indicates the GPU performs within this competitive range.

*Q: Does the 32 GB VRAM matter for Minimum at these settings?*

A: The game is from 2014 and does not require large textures. The 32 GB GDDR7 buffer is never a constraint at any resolution or preset in the measured data. The GPU’s memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s and 512-bit bus provide more than enough throughput, but the bottleneck at 4K Ultra is compute, not memory capacity.

Q: Is the 73 FPS at 4K Ultra playable, or should users drop to High?

A: The 4K High preset averages 96 FPS, which is 23 FPS higher than Ultra. Given that Ultra’s visual gains over High are typically marginal in a 2014 title, the data supports using High at 4K for a smoother experience. The 96 FPS at High is far above the 73 FPS at Ultra, making High the better trade-off for frame pacing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the four presets produce a clear hierarchy. Low settings deliver the highest average at 239 FPS. Medium follows with 217 FPS, a 22 FPS reduction. High drops to 204 FPS, another 13 FPS lower. Ultra sits at 184 FPS, which is 55 FPS below Low. The Medium preset records a minimum of 184 FPS and a maximum of 249 FPS, showing tight frame pacing. No min/max data is available for Low, High, or Ultra at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, Low leads with 206 FPS. Medium averages 187 FPS, with a minimum of 159 FPS and maximum of 215 FPS. High produces 176 FPS, and Ultra falls to 136 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 70 FPS, which is wider than at 1080p (55 FPS). This indicates that GPU load increases more steeply with preset at higher pixel counts. The Medium minimum of 159 FPS is the lowest recorded at this resolution, but still above the 4K Ultra average.

At 3840x2160, the results are significantly lower. Low averages 149 FPS, Medium averages 114 FPS (min 97, max 131), High averages 96 FPS, and Ultra averages 73 FPS. The Medium min/max data shows a 34 FPS range, which is the widest of any Medium preset across all resolutions. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 76 FPS, the largest absolute gap in the dataset. This confirms that 4K magnifies the impact of preset changes.

The complete ranking across all 12 measured configurations places 1080p Low (239 FPS) first, followed by 1080p Medium (217 FPS), 1080p High (204 FPS), 1440p Low (206 FPS), 1080p Ultra (184 FPS), 1440p Medium (187 FPS), 1440p High (176 FPS), 1440p Ultra (136 FPS), 4K Low (149 FPS), 4K Medium (114 FPS), 4K High (96 FPS), and 4K Ultra (73 FPS). Notably, 1440p Low (206 FPS) outperforms 1080p Ultra (184 FPS), suggesting that users prioritizing frame rate should favor lower presets at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU built on a 5 nm TSMC process, featuring 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. Its 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs deliver a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s and a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s. The boost clock of 2407 MHz and base clock of 2017 MHz drive these units, with FP32 performance rated at 104.8 TFLOPS. The 32 GB of GDDR7 memory runs at 1750 MHz with a 28 Gbps effective speed across a 512-bit bus, yielding 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth.

In Minimum, the GPU’s role is dominant at every resolution above 1080p. At 4K Low, the 149 FPS average shows that even the lightest preset still requires substantial pixel throughput. The GPU’s 176 ROPs handle the fill-rate demands, while the 680 TMUs manage texture sampling. The 4K Ultra result of 73 FPS indicates that the GPU’s compute units (FP32 pipes) are saturated by the combination of high resolution and maximum effects.

The RTX 5090 D’s benchmark percentile of 92 vs. all GPUs places it near the top of the performance hierarchy. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (1.1% slower), AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (1.6% faster), and NVIDIA Tesla P100 variants (2.1% to 2.4% faster). In the context of Minimum, the GPU’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 14,326 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 376,915 suggest strong compute capabilities, yet the 4K Ultra frame rate shows that no GPU is immune to the game’s heavy shader workloads.

The 32 GB VRAM is never a limiting factor. Even at 4K Ultra, the game’s texture requirements from 2014 are far below the available memory. The 1.79 TB/s bandwidth provides ample headroom for streaming geometry and textures. Instead, the limiting factor is the GPU’s raw shading throughput, which is taxed more by the Ultra preset’s lighting and post-processing effects than by memory capacity.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal preset depends on the target resolution and frame rate goals. For 4K displays, High settings at 96 FPS is the best choice for smooth gameplay, as it avoids the 23 FPS penalty of Ultra while remaining well above the 60 FPS threshold. Users with 120 Hz or higher refresh monitors should drop to Medium at 4K, which delivers 114 FPS average and a 97 FPS minimum—the only 4K configuration that stays above 90 FPS in the worst case.

For 1440p, Medium at 187 FPS (min 159) offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. High at 176 FPS is close behind and may be preferable for users who want sharper textures without the extra load of Ultra. Ultra at 136 FPS is still playable, but the 51 FPS drop from Medium suggests that the visual gains do not justify the performance cost for most gamers. Low at 206 FPS is the choice for esports-style play, where frame rate trumps fidelity.

At 1080p, the data supports High or Medium for most users. High at 204 FPS provides excellent smoothness, while Medium at 217 FPS (min 184) offers slightly higher averages with a measured minimum that exceeds the Ultra average of 184 FPS. Low at 239 FPS is the maximum frame rate option, but the CPU may cap this in certain scenes; the lack of min/max data for Low means users should expect some variance. Ultra at 184 FPS is the weakest choice, as it delivers the same average as Medium’s minimum while adding visual effects that are less impactful at 1080p.

Across all resolutions, the data consistently shows that the Medium preset provides the most stable frame delivery, as it is the only preset with min/max measurements at every resolution. The 4K Medium minimum of 97 FPS and 1440p Medium minimum of 159 FPS are both strong indicators of consistent pacing. For users with variable refresh rate displays, Medium is recommended. For those prioritizing maximum visual quality, High at 4K (96 FPS) or Ultra at 1440p (136 FPS) are the only viable options that remain above 60 FPS. The 1080p Ultra result of 184 FPS is acceptable but not recommended, as it sacrifices 55 FPS versus Low with minimal visual improvement on most monitors.