Minimum

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers a broad spread of frame rates across Minimum’s four presets, with the measured data showing that 1080p and 1440p gameplay can push well past 200 FPS, while 4K remains firmly in high-refresh territory. This combination of a 6-core, 12-thread Zen 3 processor and a flagship Blackwell GPU produces results that are heavily resolution-dependent, and the choice of settings matters more at higher pixel counts than at lower ones.

Settings Recommendations

For this specific combo, the benchmark results point to High as the best overall experience at 2560x1440, where the average of 166.4 FPS comfortably exceeds the refresh rate of most high-end monitors while still delivering the visual fidelity that a 32 GB GPU is designed to handle. Dropping to Medium at 1440p yields 201.9 FPS, a 21.3% improvement over High, but the visual trade-off is not always worth it when the High preset already clears the 144 Hz threshold. At 1920x1080, High produces 263.5 FPS, which is so far beyond typical display capabilities that the extra frames from Medium (313.8 FPS) or Low (345.6 FPS) provide no practical benefit for most users.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes. Ultra drops to 67.6 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a fast-paced third-person shooter, while High sits at 92.2 FPS and Medium at 107.8 FPS. The data suggests that High at 4K is the sweet spot for this pairing, as it maintains a frame rate above 90 FPS while keeping the GPU’s 32 GB memory buffer and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth meaningfully engaged. Low at 4K hits 142.3 FPS, but the visual compromise at that resolution undermines the point of running 4K in the first place. For competitive play at 1080p, Low’s 345.6 FPS is the maximum available, but the gap between Low and High is only 82.1 FPS — a 23.8% difference that most players will not notice on a 240 Hz panel.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 5600 brings 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, built on the Zen 3 architecture using a 7 nm process. Its single-thread performance, as measured by the 3dmark single-thread score of 882 and the cinebench R23 single-core score of 2584, is adequate for a 2014-era shooter like Minimum, which does not exhibit the heavy multi-threading demands of modern AAA titles. The processor’s 32 MB shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support (51.2 GB/s bandwidth) are more than sufficient for this game’s engine, and the data supports that conclusion: at 1080p, the CPU is not the limiting factor, as frame rates scale cleanly from Low to Ultra with only a 142.6 FPS spread between the two extremes.

The Ryzen 5 5600’s multi-threaded capabilities, reflected in a cinebench R23 multicore score of 18309 and a passmark multithread score of 21541, place it in the 79th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals in aggregate benchmark score include the Intel Xeon D-1746TER (0.6% higher) and the AMD EPYC 9554P (0.6% lower), but these are server-class parts with very different clock characteristics. For Minimum, the CPU’s role is primarily about maintaining a consistent frame delivery rather than pushing raw throughput, and the measured FPS at 1080p — where the CPU has the most influence relative to the GPU — shows no signs of bottlenecking. The 3dmark 16-thread score of 5641 and 8-thread score of 4798 confirm that the 5600 can handle the game’s thread scheduling without issue, even when the RTX 5090 is pushing 345.6 FPS at Low settings.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090 is the dominant component in this pairing, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus delivers 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, and the boost clock of 2407 MHz (with a 2017 MHz base) provides the raw compute headroom that drives the high frame rates observed in the data. The GPU’s passmark G3D score of 39650 and 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 14411 place it in the 94th percentile of all GPUs, though its nearest rivals in aggregate score are oddly close — the RTX 5090 D is just 0.1% ahead, and the RTX 5050 Mobile is 0.2% ahead, which suggests the benchmark database groups these parts tightly despite their vastly different specifications.

In Minimum, the GPU’s role scales directly with resolution. At 1080p, the RTX 5090 is barely stretched, producing 345.6 FPS at Low and 202.4 FPS at Ultra — a 70.7% drop from Low to Ultra that reflects the increased shader and texture work. At 4K, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck: Ultra’s 67.6 FPS is 80.4% lower than 1080p Low, and the 92.2 FPS at High shows that even with a 32 GB frame buffer, the game’s higher presets impose a substantial cost. The FP32 throughput of 104.8 TFLOPS and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s are more than enough to handle Minimum’s geometry and effects, but the data indicates that the game’s Ultra preset at 4K requires more than even this flagship can deliver at a smooth 90+ FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 5 5600 and RTX 5090 ranks 30th out of 1,733 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the top 1.7% of all configurations. This rank is driven almost entirely by the GPU’s raw power, as the CPU’s 79th percentile standing is far below the GPU’s 94th percentile. The data suggests that pairing a mid-range 2022 processor with a 2025 flagship GPU creates an imbalance in most scenarios, but Minimum’s modest CPU demands allow this combo to land near the top of the charts. The 3dmark max-thread score of 5659 for the CPU and the passmark GPU compute score of 26756 for the GPU show that both components contribute, but the frame rates at 4K (92.2 FPS at High) are only 22.4% lower than the 1080p High result (263.5 FPS), which indicates that the GPU is still doing the heavy lifting even when the resolution scales up.

Compared to other combos in the database, this pairing’s rank of 30 suggests that most of the 29 configurations ahead of it likely feature higher-end CPUs, such as those with more cores or higher boost clocks. The Ryzen 5 5600’s 6-core, 12-thread layout is the weakest link; its cinebench R20 multicore score of 7689 and passmark physics score of 1285 are respectable for gaming, but they lag behind what a top-tier combo would use. Nevertheless, for Minimum specifically, the rank is strong because the game’s 2014 release date means its engine does not exploit the latest CPU features, leaving the RTX 5090 to dominate the frame rate calculations.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern: as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, the average frame rate drops significantly across all presets. At High settings, the progression is 263.5 FPS at 1080p, 166.4 FPS at 1440p, and 92.2 FPS at 4K — a 65.0% reduction from 1080p to 4K. For Low settings, the drop is steeper in absolute terms: 345.6 FPS at 1080p falls to 264.9 FPS at 1440p and then to 142.3 FPS at 4K, a 58.8% decrease from 1080p to 4K. Medium follows a similar trajectory, with 313.8 FPS at 1080p, 201.9 FPS at 1440p, and 107.8 FPS at 4K — a 65.6% drop. Ultra is the most punishing, dropping from 202.4 FPS at 1080p to 127.2 FPS at 1440p and 67.6 FPS at 4K, a 66.6% reduction.

These scaling patterns indicate that the GPU is the primary limiting component at higher resolutions. The RTX 5090’s 32 GB memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are not the constraint — rather, the sheer pixel count at 4K (3840x2160, roughly 8.3 million pixels) requires more shader work per frame, and the data shows that the GPU’s compute resources (104.8 TFLOPS FP32) are being taxed proportionally. The CPU’s influence is visible in the 1080p results, where the difference between Low (345.6 FPS) and Ultra (202.4 FPS) is 143.2 FPS, but this gap narrows to 74.7 FPS at 4K (142.3 FPS Low vs. 67.6 FPS Ultra). This narrowing confirms that at 4K, the GPU’s rendering workload dominates, while at 1080p, the CPU can still keep up with the GPU’s output, allowing the frame rate to scale more freely with settings changes. The 1440p results sit in the middle, with a 137.7 FPS spread between Low (264.9 FPS) and Ultra (127.2 FPS), indicating a balanced load where both components contribute meaningfully to the final frame rate.