Minimum

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Minimum reveals a steep performance curve as resolution climbs from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At 1080p with Ultra settings, the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT delivers 84.5 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops that figure to 55.4 FPS, a 34% reduction. The jump to 3840x2160 yields 30.6 FPS, which is 64% below the 1080p result. This pattern indicates that the rendering load scales heavily with pixel count, as expected for a third-person shooter with detailed environments.

The Low preset tells a similar story but with higher absolute numbers. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 166.2 FPS, while 1440p Low reaches 105.6 FPS, and 4K Low settles at 59.5 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 36%, and from 1080p to 4K is 64%. These consistent scaling ratios suggest that the GPU is the primary limiting factor across all resolutions, since the CPU has enough headroom to feed the graphics card even at lower settings where frame rates exceed 160 FPS.

The Medium preset shows intermediate behavior: 129 FPS at 1080p, 84.6 FPS at 1440p, and 46 FPS at 4K. The High preset yields 109.2 FPS, 72.2 FPS, and 35.6 FPS respectively. Notably, the gap between 1440p and 4K widens as settings increase. At Low, the 4K-to-1440p ratio is 0.56; at Ultra, it is 0.55. This consistent ratio implies that the game's rendering pipeline scales uniformly with resolution, with no sudden bottleneck shift.

What the data suggests is that 4K gaming with this combination is only viable at Low settings, where the 59.5 FPS average approaches playability but still falls short of high-refresh standards. The 4K Ultra result of 30.6 FPS is below the threshold for smooth gameplay, indicating that the RX 5700 XT's 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are stretched thin at that resolution. The 1080p results, by contrast, show a combo that can handle even Ultra presets with playable frame rates, though not maxing out high-refresh monitors.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide clear guidance on which preset offers the best balance. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 109.2 FPS, which is 29% faster than Ultra's 84.5 FPS but only 18% slower than Medium's 129 FPS. The visual difference between High and Ultra in a 2014 title is often minimal, making High the sensible choice for 1080p gaming. Low at 1080p reaches 166.2 FPS, but this sacrifices too much visual fidelity for the marginal benefit of exceeding 144 Hz.

For 2560x1440, the Medium preset at 84.6 FPS stands out as the optimal setting. High at 72.2 FPS is playable, but Medium provides a 17% improvement while still maintaining the visual richness expected at this resolution. The Ultra preset at 55.4 FPS dips below the 60 FPS threshold, which many players consider the minimum for smooth third-person shooting. Low at 105.6 FPS is tempting for competitive play, but the graphical downgrade is substantial.

At 3840x2160, the only viable option is Low, which produces 59.5 FPS. Medium at 46 FPS and High at 35.6 FPS are both below playable thresholds, while Ultra at 30.6 FPS is essentially a slideshow. For 4K users, Low is the recommended preset, though the experience will still have noticeable visual compromises. The data indicates that this combo is best suited to 1080p High or 1440p Medium, where frame rates remain comfortably above 60 FPS without sacrificing too much detail.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is built on the RDNA 1.0 architecture with a 7 nm process from TSMC, containing 10,300 million transistors on a 251 mm² die. Its base clock runs at 1605 MHz, with a game clock of 1755 MHz and a boost clock of 1905 MHz. The memory operates at 1750 MHz, translating to 14 Gbps effective on an 8 GB GDDR6 bus with a 256-bit interface, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications position the card in the 68th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 24731.

The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile, which scores 24763 (0.1% higher), and the Intel Arc A350M at 24647 (0.3% lower). The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile trails by 0.6%, and the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 is 0.9% behind. These close margins suggest the RX 5700 XT is well-matched against these contemporaries, though the comparison is purely synthetic.

In Minimum, the GPU's role is decisive. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K directly mirrors the pixel count increase, indicating that the RX 5700 XT is the bottleneck at all resolutions. The card's 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units process the game's geometry and effects. The pixel rate of 121.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 304.8 GTexel/s provide the raw throughput needed for the game's visuals, but at 4K Ultra, these capabilities are exceeded, resulting in the 30.6 FPS figure.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for this 2014 title, as Minimum's texture requirements are modest by modern standards. However, the 448.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes a limiting factor at 4K, where the memory subsystem must feed more pixels per frame. The data shows that dropping from High to Low at 4K improves performance from 35.6 FPS to 59.5 FPS, a 67% gain, suggesting that memory bandwidth constraints are partially alleviated by reducing texture and shader complexity.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT combination ranks 1271 out of 1733 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the 27th percentile of all configurations. This rank reflects the GPU's mid-range positioning and the CPU's relatively recent release. The combo sits in the lower-middle tier of tested systems, meaning that a significant portion of other hardware combinations achieves higher frame rates in this game.

This ranking is consistent with the measured FPS data. At 1080p Ultra, the combo produces 84.5 FPS, which is playable but not exceptional. The 4K results are below 60 FPS even at Low settings, which limits the combo to 1080p or 1440p gaming for smooth experiences. The rank of 1271 indicates that while this combo functions adequately, it does not stand out among the 1733 tested configurations.

The CPU's synthetic benchmark percentile of 82 places it well above the GPU's 68th percentile, suggesting that the processor has more headroom than the graphics card. This imbalance means that upgrading the GPU would yield larger performance gains in Minimum than upgrading the CPU. The combo rank reflects this GPU-limited nature, as the system's overall performance is constrained by the RX 5700 XT rather than the Ryzen 5 8400F.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F features 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Phoenix, manufactured on a 4 nm process by TSMC. It contains 25,000 million transistors on a 178 mm² die, with a base clock of 4.20 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 16 MB of shared L3. Memory support is DDR5 with dual-channel configuration, providing 83.2 GB/s of bandwidth.

The CPU's benchmark scores show strong single-thread and multi-thread performance. In Cinebench R23, it scores 2943 in single-core and 20851 in multi-core. The 3DMark tests reveal scaling from 951 in single-thread to 6165 in max threads, with 6091 in 16 threads. PassMark results include 3684 in single-thread and 24530 in multithread. The average benchmark score of 25064 places it in the 82nd percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X at 25057 (0% delta), AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 at 25099 (-0.1%), and AMD EPYC 9474F at 25103 (-0.2%).

In Minimum, the CPU's role is less critical than the GPU's. The frame rates at 1080p Low reach 166.2 FPS, which is well within the CPU's capability to feed the graphics card. The 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient for this game's threading model, which is typical of a 2014 release. The 4.70 GHz boost clock ensures responsive gameplay, and the 16 MB L3 cache reduces latency for frequently accessed game data.

The CPU's 82nd percentile ranking versus the GPU's 68th percentile indicates that the processor is not the limiting factor in this combo. At 1080p, where the GPU is less stressed, the CPU can maintain high frame rates, but the RX 5700 XT caps performance at 166.2 FPS even at Low settings. Upgrading to a faster GPU would allow the Ryzen 5 8400F to demonstrate its full potential, while keeping the current GPU would show minimal improvement with a faster CPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured frame rates span from 84.5 FPS at Ultra to 166.2 FPS at Low. The Medium preset yields 129 FPS, and High produces 109.2 FPS. This progression shows a 97% improvement from Ultra to Low, indicating that the GPU is heavily taxed at the highest settings even at 1080p. The 1080p results are all playable, with even Ultra exceeding 60 FPS, making this resolution the sweet spot for the combo.

At 2560x1440, the results drop significantly. Low produces 105.6 FPS, Medium 84.6 FPS, High 72.2 FPS, and Ultra 55.4 FPS. The Ultra result falls below 60 FPS, which is a key threshold for smooth gameplay in a third-person shooter. The spread from Low to Ultra is 48%, narrower than at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU becomes more uniformly the bottleneck as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the results are 59.5 FPS at Low, 46 FPS at Medium, 35.6 FPS at High, and 30.6 FPS at Ultra. Only Low achieves near-playable frame rates, and even that is borderline. The gap between Low and Ultra is 49%, similar to the 1440p spread, reinforcing the GPU-bound nature of the system at 4K. The 4K results indicate that this combo is not suited for 4K gaming beyond the lowest settings, and even then, the experience will have noticeable compromises in visual quality.

The complete dataset shows a consistent pattern: the combo delivers smooth performance at 1080p across all settings, acceptable performance at 1440p for Medium and below, and only marginal performance at 4K with Low settings. The data is measured, not estimated, providing reliable figures for these specific hardware components in Minimum.