Minimum

# Minimum — AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB

This combination places 2580th out of 2939 tested combos in Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter that continues to appear in benchmark databases due to its broad hardware demands. The pairing of a 6-core, 12-thread AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D (Raphael, Zen 4 on 5 nm) with the 4 GB Ampere-based NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (GA107, 8 nm) produces a lopsided system: the CPU sits in the 89th percentile among all processors, while the GPU lands exactly at the 50th percentile. This imbalance shapes every measured result, and the data tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lives.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS deltas across resolutions reveal a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-limited. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo delivers 77 FPS. Dropping to 2560x1440 High reduces that to 50 FPS — a 35% loss. Moving up to 3840x2160 High yields just 27 FPS, which is a 46% drop from 1440p and a 65% collapse from 1080p. This steep scaling curve is the signature of a graphics card that runs out of pixel throughput and memory bandwidth long before the CPU shows any strain.

Low settings tell an even more revealing story. At 1080p Low, the system hits 120 FPS. At 1440p Low, it falls to 78 FPS (a 35% decrease), and at 4K Low it reaches 42 FPS (a 46% drop from 1440p). The near-identical percentage losses between High and Low settings across resolution steps suggest that the RTX 3050's 192.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 128-bit bus are the primary constraints, not the shading workload. When the GPU can't feed its 2048 shading units fast enough, lowering settings helps only marginally at higher resolutions.

The Medium preset provides the only complete min/max data in the pack. At 1080p Medium, average FPS is 92 with a range of 78 to 106. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 59 with a range of 50 to 68. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 32 with a range of 27 to 37. The consistency of the minimum-to-maximum spread across resolutions (roughly 28-30 FPS wide) indicates that the frame pacing is stable — the GPU isn't hitting sudden spikes or drops, just a steady degradation as pixel count rises.

Ultra settings illustrate the ceiling for this combo. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 59 FPS — identical to the 1440p Medium average. At 1440p Ultra, it's 38 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, 20 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra at 4K is only 7 FPS (27 vs 20), while the gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 22 FPS (42 vs 20). This suggests that Ultra settings introduce effects that disproportionately tax the 4 GB frame buffer, causing the GPU to spill over into slower memory handling.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB operates at a base clock of 1545 MHz and a boost clock of 1740 MHz, with memory running at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective). The 4 GB GDDR6 pool on a 128-bit bus yields 192.0 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications, combined with 7.127 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, place the card at the 50th percentile of all GPUs — exactly average. In a 2014 title like Minimum, this card should theoretically handle 1080p well, and the data confirms that: 120 FPS at Low, 92 FPS at Medium, 77 FPS at High, and 59 FPS at Ultra.

The VRAM capacity becomes the critical factor at higher resolutions. With only 4 GB, the card cannot hold the textures and geometry needed for 4K Ultra, resulting in 20 FPS. Even at 4K High, the 27 FPS average suggests the card is thrashing — the 32 ROPs and 64 TMUs simply cannot keep up with the fill rate demands. The pixel rate of 55.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 111.4 GTexel/s are modest figures that cap out around 4K Medium (32 FPS) before collapsing further.

Interestingly, the RTX 3050's 16 RT cores and 64 tensor cores are largely irrelevant for this title, as Minimum is not a ray-traced or DLSS-heavy game. The card's DirectX 12 Ultimate support and Vulkan 1.4 API compatibility ensure it runs the game's render paths efficiently, but the raw rasterization throughput is what governs the measured results. The data implies that this GPU is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can leverage its full 1740 MHz boost clock without memory bandwidth starvation.

How This Combo Ranks

The comboRankInGame of 2580 out of 2939 places this pairing in the bottom 12% of all tested configurations for Minimum. This is a surprisingly low rank given the CPU's strength. The Ryzen 5 7500X3D sits in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 44573. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H (score 44466, deltaPct 0.2), the Intel Core i9-13950HX (score 44342, deltaPct 0.5), and the AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 (score 44309, deltaPct 0.6). The only rival ahead of it is the Intel Core i5-14600 (score 44889, deltaPct -0.7). This CPU is no slouch.

Yet the GPU drags the entire system down. The RTX 3050 has no benchmark scores listed in the pack and no nearest rivals, which makes direct comparisons impossible. However, its 50th percentile standing among all GPUs, combined with the 4 GB memory limitation, explains why this combo ranks so poorly. In a game like Minimum, which scales across resolutions and settings, the GPU becomes the limiting factor at every measured point above 1080p Low.

The rank implies that most of the 2939 tested combos outperform this one in Minimum. That's expected — the RTX 3050 4 GB is an entry-level card from 2022, while the Ryzen 5 7500X3D is a premium 2025 release. The mismatch is stark: a CPU that rivals the best mobile and desktop chips paired with a GPU that barely touches average. The data shows this is a system built for esports and light 1080p gaming, not for a 2014 title that still demands reasonable GPU headroom at higher settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain 60+ FPS?

A: The data shows 120 FPS at 1080p Low, 92 FPS at 1080p Medium, and 77 FPS at 1080p High. Only the 1080p Ultra preset drops below 60 FPS at 59 FPS. At 1440p, no settings preset reaches 60 FPS (Low is 78, Medium is 59, High is 50, Ultra is 38). So 1080p High is the highest quality preset that stays above 60 FPS.

Q: How does 4K performance compare to 1080p?

A: At 4K, the average FPS ranges from 42 (Low) down to 20 (Ultra). Compared to 1080p, that's a 65% reduction at High settings (77 to 27 FPS), a 65% reduction at Low (120 to 42 FPS), a 65% reduction at Medium (92 to 32 FPS), and a 66% reduction at Ultra (59 to 20 FPS). The consistency of the ~65% drop across all settings indicates a pure resolution scaling limit.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The CPU is in the 89th percentile of all processors, while the GPU is at the 50th percentile. The measured FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent 65% performance drop at every settings preset, which is characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios. The Ryzen 5 7500X3D's 6 cores and 12 threads, boosting to 4.50 GHz, are more than sufficient for this title; the RTX 3050's 4 GB VRAM and 192.0 GB/s bandwidth are the limiting factors.

Q: What is the FPS range on Medium settings?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with min/max data recorded. At 1080p Medium, the range is 78 to 106 FPS with an average of 92. At 1440p Medium, the range is 50 to 68 with an average of 59. At 4K Medium, the range is 27 to 37 with an average of 32. The spread is consistent at roughly 10 FPS between min and max at each resolution.

Q: How does the CPU's performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 5 7500X3D has an average benchmark score of 44573. Its closest rival, the Intel Core Ultra X9 388H, scores 44466 (0.2% lower). The Intel Core i9-13950HX scores 44342 (0.5% lower), and the AMD Ryzen AI Max 385 scores 44309 (0.6% lower). The Intel Core i5-14600 scores 44889, which is 0.7% higher. This places the 7500X3D in a tight cluster of high-end processors.

Q: Can this combo handle Ultra settings at any resolution?

A: At 1080p Ultra, the average FPS is 59 — just below the 60 FPS threshold. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 38 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 20 FPS. The data shows that Ultra settings are only playable at 1080p, and even then, the frame rate is marginal.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings ladder is measured. Low settings produce an average of 120 FPS. Medium settings average 92 FPS with a minimum of 78 and a maximum of 106. High settings average 77 FPS. Ultra settings average 59 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 51% reduction in performance (120 to 59 FPS), with the largest single drop occurring between Medium and High (92 to 77, a 16% decrease).

At 2560x1440, the scaling continues. Low settings average 78 FPS, which is a 35% drop from 1080p Low. Medium settings average 59 FPS (min 50, max 68), a 36% drop from 1080p Medium. High settings average 50 FPS, a 35% drop from 1080p High. Ultra settings average 38 FPS, a 36% drop from 1080p Ultra. The consistency of the 35-36% reduction across all settings confirms that resolution scaling is uniform and independent of quality preset.

At 3840x2160, the GPU struggles. Low settings average 42 FPS, a 46% drop from 1440p Low. Medium settings average 32 FPS (min 27, max 37), a 46% drop from 1440p Medium. High settings average 27 FPS, a 46% drop from 1440p High. Ultra settings average 20 FPS, a 47% drop from 1440p Ultra. The jump from 1440p to 4K consistently reduces FPS by nearly half, regardless of settings, reinforcing the memory bandwidth ceiling.

The data reveals a pattern: the percentage loss from 1080p to 1440p is consistently ~35%, and from 1440p to 4K is consistently ~46%. This non-linear scaling is expected, as pixel count increases by 1.78x from 1080p to 1440p and by 2.25x from 1440p to 4K. The GPU's inability to scale linearly with pixel count indicates that it is hitting a hard bandwidth limit at 4K.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7500X3D is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 7000 series, based on Zen 4 (Raphael) architecture. It has a base clock of 4.00 GHz and a boost clock of 4.50 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and a substantial 96 MB shared L3 cache. This large L3 cache is the defining feature of the X3D line, and it likely explains why this CPU outperforms its rivals in many workloads.

The benchmark scores show a processor that excels in multithreaded tasks. The passmark_multithread score is 25047, while the passmark_single_thread score is 3494. The floating-point math score is 43594, integer math is 70774, and data compression is 271649. The extended instructions score of 20455 and physics score of 2779 round out a profile that is strong across the board. The CPU's 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs is well-earned.

In Minimum, however, this CPU power is largely wasted. The game's measured FPS at 1080p Low (120 FPS) is likely the ceiling imposed by the GPU, not the CPU. The CPU's 96 MB L3 cache and 4.50 GHz boost clock could theoretically push far beyond 120 FPS in a 2014 title, but the RTX 3050 cannot render frames fast enough to expose any CPU limitation. The data shows that even at 1080p Low, the GPU is the bottleneck — if the CPU were limiting, we would expect to see diminishing returns when lowering resolution, but instead FPS scales almost exactly with pixel count.

The CPU's memory support for DDR5 with dual-channel bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s is more than adequate for this game. The PCIe Gen 5 interface with 24 lanes ensures that the GPU's PCIe 4.0 x8 connection is not a limiting factor. In short, the Ryzen 5 7500X3D is a high-end CPU that is paired with a mid-range GPU, and the data reflects that the GPU holds the system back.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings preset for this combo in Minimum depends on the target resolution and frame rate. For 1080p, the High preset at 77 FPS provides the best balance of visual quality and smoothness, staying comfortably above 60 FPS. The Ultra preset at 59 FPS is technically playable but dips below the 60 FPS threshold, making it a marginal choice. The Medium preset at 92 FPS is a safer option for those who prefer headroom, while Low at 120 FPS is ideal for competitive play.

At 1440p, the data suggests that Low settings (78 FPS) are the only preset that maintains a smooth experience. Medium at 59 FPS is borderline, and High at 50 FPS or Ultra at 38 FPS will result in noticeable stutter. The 4 GB VRAM is likely the culprit at this resolution, as textures and frame buffers exceed the card's capacity. For 1440p gaming, Low settings are recommended.

At 4K, no preset delivers playable performance. The highest average is 42 FPS at Low, with Medium at 32, High at 27, and Ultra at 20. These frame rates are too low for a third-person shooter, where consistent 60 FPS is expected. The data strongly suggests avoiding 4K with this combo unless the user is willing to accept significant compromises in visual fidelity and smoothness.

The best overall experience per the measured rows is 1080p High at 77 FPS. This preset offers the highest quality that remains above 60 FPS, and the 77 FPS average leaves enough headroom to avoid dips into the 50s. For users with 1440p monitors, 1440p Low at 78 FPS is the only viable option, but it sacrifices most graphical features. The 4K resolution should be avoided entirely, as even Low settings cannot reach 45 FPS. The data clearly indicates that this combo is a 1080p machine, and pushing beyond that resolution yields diminishing returns.