Minimum

# FAQ

Q: What is the overall performance ranking of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination in Minimum?

A: This combo ranks 126th out of 3,712 tested combinations, placing it in the top 3.4% of all recorded configurations for this game. The high rank is driven primarily by the GPU's exceptional compute capabilities, though the CPU's 77th percentile standing among all processors ensures it does not bottleneck the graphics card at most settings.

Q: How does the RTX 4090 compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4090's average benchmark score of 60,347 places it statistically even with the Intel Arc Pro A60, which scores 60,326 (a 0% delta). It sits 0.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 (60,140) and 2.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO V710 (58,657), while trailing the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M by 2.5% (61,896). These margins are negligible in real-world gaming, where the RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth dominate.

Q: What is the highest average framerate achievable at 1080p with this hardware?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo delivers 394 FPS average — the fastest recorded result across all tested configurations. Even at Ultra settings, the system maintains 193 FPS average, which is well above the refresh rate of most high-end monitors.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 8400F compare to its nearest rivals in CPU benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 5 8400F's average benchmark score of 25,005 is within 0.4% of all four closest competitors. It sits 0.2% above the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F (24,964), 0.3% above the Intel Core i7-11850H (24,935), 0.4% above the Intel Core i7-13620H (24,911), and 0.4% below the AMD EPYC 9474F (25,103). This indicates the 8400F delivers performance squarely in the mid-range desktop and high-end mobile territory.

Q: What memory bandwidth does the RTX 4090 provide, and how does that affect Minimum?

A: The RTX 4090 offers 1.01 TB/s of memory bandwidth across a 384-bit bus with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory running at 21 Gbps effective. This massive bandwidth is critical for Minimum's high-resolution textures and particle effects, as evidenced by the relatively small framerate penalty when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 8400F's single-thread performance sufficient for Minimum's engine?

A: Yes. The CPU scores 2,943 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 951 in 3DMark single-thread tests. These results, combined with a 4.70 GHz boost clock on Zen 4 architecture, ensure that Minimum's main game thread is not the limiting factor, even at 1080p Low where the GPU is producing nearly 400 FPS.

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GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the undisputed performance driver in this configuration for Minimum. Its Ada Lovelace architecture, built on TSMC's 5 nm process with 76,300 million transistors, delivers 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture fill rate. These specifications translate directly into the framerates observed across all tested resolutions and settings.

The GPU's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. This is the single most important specification for Minimum, a game that loads large texture sets and complex geometry. At 4K Ultra, the system averages 67 FPS, which indicates the GPU is processing massive amounts of data per frame. The memory subsystem's 21 Gbps effective speed ensures that texture streaming and high-resolution assets do not cause hitches, even when the framerate dips to its recorded minimum of 89 FPS at 4K Medium.

Clock behavior also plays a role. The RTX 4090's base clock of 2235 MHz boosts to 2520 MHz under load, and the GPU maintains these frequencies consistently across all tests. The 443.5 GPixel/s pixel rate is particularly relevant for Minimum's post-processing effects and shadow rendering, which are heavily pixel-bound at higher resolutions.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 4090's 88th percentile standing among all GPUs (with an average benchmark score of 60,347) confirms it is at the top of the performance hierarchy. The nearest competitor, the Intel Arc Pro A60, matches the average score but lacks the RTX 4090's raw memory bandwidth and shading unit count (16,384 vs. the Arc's significantly lower count). In Minimum specifically, the RTX 4090's 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores, though not directly exercised by this game's traditional rendering pipeline, contribute to the overall compute headroom that keeps framerates high even at 4K.

The GPU's 450 W TDP and triple-slot cooler design are notable, but the performance data shows the power envelope is justified. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 394 FPS, which is nearly double the 193 FPS at Ultra — a scaling pattern that suggests the GPU is fully utilized at all settings, with the CPU providing adequate instruction throughput.

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Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1920x1080, every preset delivers playable framerates, but the best balance of visual quality and performance is High at 253 FPS average. This provides a 31% improvement over Ultra (193 FPS) while retaining most visual fidelity. The 1080p Medium preset (301 FPS) is suitable for competitive play where maximum framerate matters more than shadows and reflections.

At 2560x1440, the High preset at 163 FPS is the recommended choice for most users. It offers a 31% framerate increase over Ultra (124 FPS) while maintaining the visual enhancements that matter most at this resolution. The Medium preset (194 FPS) is better suited for high-refresh-rate monitors (165 Hz or above), as it stays above the 165 FPS minimum threshold recorded during testing. The 1440p Low preset (254 FPS) is unnecessarily fast for most displays and sacrifices too much visual quality.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset at 105 FPS is the clear winner. This is the only 4K preset that maintains a consistent framerate above 60 FPS (with a recorded minimum of 89 FPS and maximum of 120 FPS). The High preset at 88 FPS is acceptable for 60 Hz displays, but the Medium preset provides a 19% framerate improvement with minimal visual degradation at this pixel density. The Ultra preset at 67 FPS is only suitable for 60 Hz panels, and the Low preset at 137 FPS is counterproductive — it removes too many visual details that are otherwise hidden by the high resolution.

In summary, High at 1080p, High at 1440p, and Medium at 4K provide the best measured experience for this hardware combination. These settings avoid the diminishing returns of Ultra while maximizing the smoothness that the RTX 4090's compute power enables.

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Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080 (Full HD):

• Low: 394 FPS average — the highest recorded framerate in the entire dataset, indicating the CPU is feeding the GPU at its maximum capability.
• Medium: 301 FPS average, with a minimum of 256 FPS and maximum of 347 FPS. The 45 FPS spread between min and max shows some scene complexity variation.
• High: 253 FPS average — a 24% reduction from Medium, still far above any practical refresh rate limit.
• Ultra: 193 FPS average — a 51% reduction from Low, demonstrating that Ultra settings impose a substantial shading and texture load.

2560x1440 (Quad HD):

• Low: 254 FPS average — a 36% drop from 1080p Low, showing the GPU is now pixel-bound.
• Medium: 194 FPS average, with a minimum of 165 FPS and maximum of 223 FPS. The 58 FPS range is the widest of any tested setting.
• High: 163 FPS average — a 36% drop from 1080p High, consistent with the resolution scaling.
• Ultra: 124 FPS average — a 36% drop from 1080p Ultra, again showing linear scaling with pixel count.

3840x2160 (4K UHD):

• Low: 137 FPS average — a 46% drop from 1080p Low, indicating the GPU is now heavily pixel-limited.
• Medium: 105 FPS average, with a minimum of 89 FPS and maximum of 120 FPS. The 31 FPS range is the tightest of all Medium presets.
• High: 88 FPS average — a 45% drop from 1080p High.
• Ultra: 67 FPS average — a 65% drop from 1080p Ultra, the largest percentage reduction across all settings.

The data reveals that the RTX 4090 maintains a consistent performance hierarchy across settings: Low > Medium > High > Ultra at every resolution. The gap between Low and Ultra widens with resolution, from 51% at 1080p to 65% at 4K, suggesting that Ultra settings disproportionately tax the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth at higher pixel counts.

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Resolution Scaling

The framerate drop from 1080p to 4K follows a clear pattern that identifies the GPU as the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, while the CPU becomes more relevant at lower resolutions.

At Low settings, the scaling from 1080p (394 FPS) to 1440p (254 FPS) is a 36% reduction, and from 1440p to 4K (137 FPS) is a 46% reduction. The total 1080p-to-4K drop is 65%. This steep curve indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU's pixel processing and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors — the CPU can still feed frames at 394 FPS, but the GPU cannot maintain that rate when pixel count quadruples.

At Medium settings, the scaling is 36% from 1080p (301 FPS) to 1440p (194 FPS), and 46% from 1440p to 4K (105 FPS). The total drop is 65%, identical to Low. This consistency suggests that Medium settings add a fixed per-pixel cost that scales linearly with resolution.

At High settings, the 1080p-to-1440p drop is 36% (253 to 163 FPS), and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 46% (163 to 88 FPS). The total is 65% again. This uniformity across Low, Medium, and High is remarkable — it indicates that the RTX 4090's rendering pipeline scales predictably with pixel count, and the added cost of higher settings is a constant per-pixel overhead.

At Ultra settings, the scaling changes: 1080p-to-1440p is 36% (193 to 124 FPS), and 1440p-to-4K is 46% (124 to 67 FPS). The total drop is 65%. Despite the lowest absolute framerates, the percentage scaling remains identical to the other presets. This demonstrates that the RTX 4090 is not hitting any memory or compute ceiling even at 4K Ultra — the consistent 65% drop across all settings points to a purely pixel-bound workload.

The limiting component is clearly the GPU at all resolutions above 1080p. At 1080p Low (394 FPS), the CPU's 6-core/12-thread configuration with a 4.70 GHz boost clock is likely approaching its instruction-issue limit, as evidenced by the fact that 1440p Low (254 FPS) is only 36% lower despite a 78% increase in pixel count. This indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is partially constraining the system, while at 1440p and 4K, the GPU's pixel throughput is the sole determinant.

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CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F plays a supporting but essential role in this configuration. Its 6 cores and 12 threads, based on the Zen 4 (Phoenix) architecture on TSMC's 4 nm process, provide the instruction throughput necessary to keep the RTX 4090 fed at high framerates.

The CPU's boost clock of 4.70 GHz (base 4.20 GHz) is the key specification for Minimum, a game that relies heavily on a few main threads for game logic and physics. The 8400F's single-thread performance is strong, as shown by its 2,943 score in Cinebench R23 single-core and 951 in 3DMark single-thread. These scores place it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25,005.

The CPU's nearest rivals confirm its positioning: the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F scores 24,964 (0.2% lower), the Intel Core i7-11850H scores 24,935 (0.3% lower), and the Intel Core i7-13620H scores 24,911 (0.4% lower). Only the AMD EPYC 9474F, a server-class chip, edges it out by 0.4% (25,103). This tight grouping indicates that the 8400F offers mid-range desktop CPU performance that is more than adequate for Minimum's engine demands.

The CPU's cache hierarchy — 64 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 16 MB shared L3 — provides sufficient data locality for game code. The 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth over dual-channel DDR5 ensures that texture and geometry data can be fed to the GPU without stalling. The 4 nm process node keeps power consumption at 65 W TDP, which means thermal throttling is unlikely during extended gaming sessions.

In the measured FPS data, the CPU's influence is most apparent at 1080p Low. The 394 FPS average requires the CPU to issue draw calls and update game state at a rate of roughly 6.6 frames per millisecond. The 8400F's 12 threads handle this load effectively, as evidenced by the fact that 1440p Low (254 FPS) drops by only 36% despite a 78% pixel increase — the CPU is no longer the bottleneck at higher resolutions.

The 3DMark multi-thread scores further contextualize the CPU's capability: 1,874 for 2 threads, 3,563 for 4 threads, 5,275 for 8 threads, and 6,165 for 12 threads. The scaling from 2 to 8 threads (a 182% increase) shows that Minimum can utilize multiple cores when needed, though the single-thread score of 951 remains the most critical for this game's main loop.

Overall, the Ryzen 5 8400F is a perfectly matched companion for the RTX 4090 in Minimum — it provides enough single-thread speed for high-FPS scenarios and enough multi-thread throughput for background tasks, without ever becoming the primary limiting factor at standard gaming resolutions.