Minimum

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D delivers a dataset that clearly separates the CPU’s ceiling from the GPU’s headroom in Minimum, a Third-Person Shooter released on 2014-06-25. This combination ranks 44th out of 2,939 tested combos in this game, placing it in the top 1.5% of all configurations measured. The twelve measured FPS rows—spanning three resolutions and four settings—reveal a system that scales aggressively with resolution but shows signs of CPU limitation at lower pixel counts.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is steep and consistent across all four settings, which indicates that the graphics card is the primary scaling driver at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 357 FPS at 1080p to 277 FPS at 1440p, then to 149 FPS at 4K. That represents a 42% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 46% reduction from 1440p to 4K—a cumulative 58% loss from 1080p to 4K. The GPU is clearly being pushed harder as pixel count rises, and the frame rate curve follows a pattern that suggests the RTX 5090 D’s rendering throughput is the limiting factor at 4K.

At High settings, the scaling is similar: 276 FPS at 1080p, 178 FPS at 1440p, and 96 FPS at 4K. That is a 36% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 46% drop from 1440p to 4K, for a total 65% reduction across the resolution range. Medium settings show 324 FPS at 1080p, 212 FPS at 1440p, and 114 FPS at 4K—a 35% drop, then a 46% drop. Ultra settings produce 210 FPS at 1080p, 136 FPS at 1440p, and 73 FPS at 4K, with a 35% drop followed by a 46% drop.

The pattern is telling: the percentage loss from 1440p to 4K is nearly identical (46-47%) across all settings, while the loss from 1080p to 1440p is smaller and more variable (35-42%). This suggests that at 1440p, the system is still partially CPU-bound, especially at lower settings, but by 4K, the GPU becomes the sole bottleneck. The fact that the 4K-to-1440p ratio is so consistent—around 0.54 to 0.55 across settings—indicates that the RTX 5090 D’s pixel throughput is the dominant constraint at 4K, and the CPU’s role diminishes as resolution climbs.

Notably, the 1080p-to-1440p drop is larger at Low settings (42%) than at High (36%) or Ultra (35%). At Low settings, the CPU has less graphics work to feed, so the frame rate rises to 357 FPS at 1080p—a point where the Ryzen 5 5600GT’s six cores and twelve threads are likely nearing their limit. The smaller relative drop at Ultra settings (35%) suggests that even at 1440p, the GPU is already working hard enough to mask some CPU limitations. The data overall points to a system that is balanced at 4K, but increasingly CPU-limited as resolution drops toward 1080p.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT is a six-core, twelve-thread processor from the 5000 series, built on the Zen 3 architecture with a Cezanne codename. It runs on a 7 nm process from TSMC, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. The CPU’s cache layout includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 16 MB of L3. Its memory bandwidth is listed at 51.2 GB/s via dual-channel DDR4, and it uses PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes from the CPU. The TDP is 65 W, and it includes integrated Radeon Vega 7 graphics, though this benchmark config uses the discrete RTX 5090 D.

Benchmark scores for the CPU show a 3DMark single-thread score of 913 and a 3DMark max-thread score of 5,554. Cinebench R23 multicore reaches 17,272, while single-core is 2,438. Geekbench multicore is 7,986, and single-core is 1,843. PassMark single-thread is 3,348, with multithread at 20,325. The CPU’s percentile vs all CPUs is 74, meaning it outperforms about three-quarters of CPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score is 20,733, which places it within 0.3% of the Intel Core i5-12490F (20,802), 0.4% of the Intel Xeon 6325P (20,821), 0.4% of the Intel Core Ultra 5 125U (20,826), and 0.5% of the AMD EPYC 7J13 (20,845). These rivals are all within a narrow band, confirming that the 5600GT sits in a competitive mid-range segment for synthetic workloads.

In Minimum, the CPU’s role is most visible at 1080p Low, where the average FPS hits 357. This is the highest frame rate recorded in the entire dataset, and it is likely that the CPU’s six cores are the limiting factor at this point—the GPU could probably render more frames if the CPU could feed it faster. The 1080p Medium average of 324 FPS and 1080p High of 276 FPS further illustrate this, as the gap between Low and High at 1080p (33%) is larger than the gap at 1440p (36% from Low to High) or 4K (35% from Low to High). At 1080p, raising settings from Low to High costs 81 FPS, while at 4K the same settings change costs 76 FPS. The CPU’s inability to push beyond roughly 357 FPS at 1080p Low suggests a hard ceiling, and the fact that 1440p Low (277 FPS) is still above 4K High (96 FPS) shows that resolution scaling is far more impactful than settings changes for this combo.

The CPU’s boost clock of 4.60 GHz and its 16 MB of L3 cache are relevant for a game from 2014, which likely relies on single-thread performance for game logic and scene management. The 3DMark single-thread score of 913 and PassMark single-thread of 3,348 indicate modest per-core strength, which is likely why the frame rate plateaus around 357 FPS at 1080p Low. In contrast, the Cinebench R23 multicore score of 17,272 shows that the CPU can handle multithreaded workloads, but Minimum may not be well-optimized to use all twelve threads. The data suggests that the CPU is adequate for 4K gaming, where the GPU is the bottleneck, but it becomes a limiting factor for high-refresh-rate 1080p play.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a massive graphics card, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a GB202 chip on a 5 nm TSMC process. It packs 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 raster output pipelines, along with 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores. The GPU has 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, with 1.79 TB/s of memory bandwidth. Its base clock is 2,017 MHz, with a boost clock of 2,407 MHz. The memory runs at 1,750 MHz, which translates to 28 Gbps effective. The GPU’s pixel rate is 423.6 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 1,636.8 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is listed at 104.8 TFLOPS, with FP16 also at 104.8 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio). The TDP is 575 W, and it requires a 950 W suggested PSU. It connects via PCIe 5.0 x16.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 5090 D scores 14,326 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 310,674 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 376,915 in Geekbench Vulkan. PassMark G3D is 44,065, and PassMark GPU compute is 28,396. The GPU’s percentile vs all GPUs is 92, meaning it outperforms 92% of GPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score is 77,712, which is 1.1% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76,904), 1.6% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940), 2.1% lower than the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396), and 2.4% lower than the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605). These rivals are all close in average score, though the Tesla P100 cards are likely compute-oriented rather than gaming-focused.

In Minimum, the GPU’s role is dominant at 4K. The RTX 5090 D’s 32 GB of VRAM is far more than this game needs, but the memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s helps maintain high frame rates at 3840x2160. The 4K Ultra average of 73 FPS is the lowest in the dataset, but it is still playable. The 4K Low average of 149 FPS shows that the GPU can push well beyond 144 FPS even at 4K when settings are reduced. The GPU’s boost clock of 2,407 MHz and its 176 ROPs likely contribute to the consistent 46% frame rate drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings, as the rasterization load scales with pixel count.

The RTX 5090 D’s nearest rivals in average benchmark score are not gaming cards—the Tesla P100s are data center accelerators—which means the GPU is in a class of its own for gaming performance. The 1.1% lead over the RX 6650M XT (a mobile GPU) is likely due to the RTX 5090 D’s much higher power envelope and desktop positioning. In Minimum, the GPU’s raw throughput is sufficient to keep the frame rate above 73 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is a strong result for a 2014 title. The GPU’s 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance is overkill for this game, but it ensures that the CPU, not the GPU, is the limiting factor at 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 357 at Low to 210 at Ultra. The Medium preset produces 324 FPS average, with a minimum of 275 and a maximum of 373. High settings yield 276 FPS average. The spread from Low to Ultra is 147 FPS, which is the largest of any resolution. At 1080p, even Ultra settings exceed 200 FPS, making this resolution ideal for high-refresh-rate displays.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS ranges from 277 at Low to 136 at Ultra. Medium averages 212 FPS, with a minimum of 180 and a maximum of 244. High settings average 178 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 141 FPS, slightly smaller than at 1080p. At 1440p, the Low preset still exceeds 240 FPS, while Ultra drops below 144 FPS, suggesting that 1440p Ultra may be too demanding for 144 Hz displays without adaptive sync.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 149 at Low to 73 at Ultra. Medium averages 114 FPS, with a minimum of 97 and a maximum of 131. High settings average 96 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 76 FPS, which is roughly half the spread seen at lower resolutions. At 4K, only the Low preset exceeds 144 FPS, while Medium and High stay in the 96-114 FPS range, and Ultra dips below 75 FPS.

Comparing settings across resolutions, the Low preset at 4K (149 FPS) is still slower than the Ultra preset at 1080p (210 FPS). This confirms that resolution has a larger impact on performance than settings for this combo. The Medium preset at 1440p (212 FPS) is nearly identical to the Ultra preset at 1080p (210 FPS), showing that the GPU’s throughput scales predictably with pixel count. The minimum FPS values are only provided for Medium settings: 275 at 1080p, 180 at 1440p, and 97 at 4K. These minimums are all above 90 FPS, indicating that frame pacing is stable even at 4K Medium.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600GT and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks 44th out of 2,939 tested combinations in Minimum. This places it in the top 1.5% of all combos, which is an excellent result for a CPU that was released in 2024 with a launch MSRP of $140. The CPU’s percentile vs all CPUs is 74, and the GPU’s percentile vs all GPUs is 92, so the combo’s rank is driven primarily by the GPU’s strength. The CPU is not a top-tier part, but the GPU’s 92nd percentile performance compensates.

The rank of 44 means there are 43 combos that perform better in this game, likely featuring higher-end CPUs paired with the same or similar GPUs. The Ryzen 5 5600GT’s nearest rivals—the Intel Core i5-12490F, Intel Xeon 6325P, Intel Core Ultra 5 125U, and AMD EPYC 7J13—all have average benchmark scores within 0.5% of the 5600GT, so swapping the CPU for any of these would likely produce similar frame rates in Minimum, provided the GPU remains the same. The deltaPct values are all under 1%, indicating that the CPU is not a differentiator at this performance level.

The GPU’s nearest rivals are less relevant for gaming, as they include mobile and data center parts. The RTX 5090 D’s 92nd percentile status means that in Minimum, it is likely the single most important component in this combo. The combo’s rank of 44 out of 2,939 suggests that the 5600GT does not bottleneck the 5090 D to a significant degree, especially at 4K where the GPU is clearly the limiting factor. At 1080p, the CPU’s weaker single-thread performance may hold the combo back, but the overall rank still reflects a top-tier gaming experience.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide clear guidance for optimal settings. At 1920x1080, every preset delivers over 200 FPS average, with Low reaching 357 FPS and Ultra at 210 FPS. For competitive play or high refresh rates, the Medium preset at 324 FPS average is a strong choice, as it offers a 33% improvement over High (276 FPS) while still maintaining a minimum of 275 FPS. The Ultra preset at 210 FPS is also viable, but the 114 FPS gap between Medium and Ultra suggests diminishing returns for visual fidelity.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset at 212 FPS average is the sweet spot, with a minimum of 180 FPS. The High preset at 178 FPS is also playable, but Low at 277 FPS is the best option for maximum frame rates. The Ultra preset at 136 FPS may cause dips below 144 Hz, so it is only recommended for users with adaptive sync or those who prioritize visuals over smoothness.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset at 149 FPS is the only option that comfortably exceeds 144 FPS. The Medium preset at 114 FPS average, with a minimum of 97 FPS, provides a good balance of visuals and performance. The High preset at 96 FPS is borderline for 100 Hz displays, and the Ultra preset at 73 FPS is best suited for 60 Hz monitors or users who value image quality over frame rate.

The data indicates that the Medium preset is the most versatile across all resolutions, offering the highest average FPS with a consistent minimum. At 1080p, Medium delivers 324 FPS (min 275); at 1440p, it delivers 212 FPS (min 180); and at 4K, it delivers 114 FPS (min 97). This makes Medium the recommended preset for users who want a balance of quality and performance. For users with 144 Hz monitors at 4K, the Low preset at 149 FPS is the only way to hit that target, while at 1440p, Medium or High both work well. At 1080p, even Ultra is playable, but Medium offers the best frame rate headroom for competitive scenarios.