Minimum

This pairing of the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT delivers a surprisingly balanced experience in Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter. The data shows a system that can handle high refresh rates at 1080p and remains comfortably playable at 1440p, but it clearly hits a wall at 4K. The benchmark results indicate that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, while the CPU provides ample headroom for the game's demands.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates point to High as the sweet spot for this combo. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers an average of 110 FPS, which is a significant step up from the 80.3 FPS seen on Ultra. This 37% improvement in frame rate comes with only a modest visual trade-off, making High the most efficient choice for smooth, responsive gameplay. At 2560x1440, High still maintains a solid 72.6 FPS average, which is well within the range for a fluid experience on most displays.

For players prioritizing maximum frame rates, the Low preset at 1080p yields an impressive 166.1 FPS average, but the visual fidelity drop is substantial. The Medium preset offers a middle ground, hitting 130.2 FPS at 1080p and 85.6 FPS at 1440p, but the jump from Medium to High is only a 15% performance cost at 1080p (from 130.2 to 110 FPS) and a 15% cost at 1440p (from 85.6 to 72.6 FPS), making High the better investment for visual quality. Ultra is not recommended at any resolution; even at 1080p, it drops to 80.3 FPS, and at 4K, it falls to an unplayable 26.1 FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, is the deciding factor in this system's performance. Its memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s and boost clock of 1905 MHz are put to the test as resolution increases. The data shows the GPU's workload scaling directly with pixel count. At 1080p with High settings, the card manages 110 FPS average, but this drops by 34% to 72.6 FPS at 1440p, and then plummets by another 49% to 37.1 FPS at 4K. This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU that is maxing out its fillrate and memory bandwidth at higher resolutions.

The card's compute capabilities, rated at 9.754 TFLOPS FP32, are sufficient for this older title at mainstream resolutions. However, the 4K results reveal its limitations. The gap between Low (56.6 FPS) and High (37.1 FPS) at 4K is 34%, showing that even with reduced settings, the GPU struggles to maintain high frame rates at this resolution. The card's 68th percentile ranking against all GPUs, alongside its nearest rivals like the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile (0.1% faster) and Intel Arc A350M (0.3% slower), confirms its mid-range positioning in the current landscape.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly identifies the GPU as the bottleneck. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 110 at 1080p to 72.6 at 1440p, a 34% reduction for a 78% increase in pixel count. Going from 1440p to 4K, the frame rate drops to 37.1, a 49% reduction for a 125% increase in pixels. This non-linear scaling is a classic sign of a GPU hitting its memory bandwidth or shading throughput limits.

This behavior contrasts with what would be expected from a CPU-bound scenario. If the processor were the limiting factor, the frame rates at 1080p and 1440p would be much closer together. Instead, the performance degrades significantly with each resolution step, demonstrating that the Ryzen 5 9600X has ample processing headroom. The data for the Low preset reinforces this; at 1080p, it achieves 166.1 FPS, dropping to 110.7 FPS at 1440p and then to 56.6 FPS at 4K. The consistent pattern across all presets points to a GPU that is fully saturated at 4K.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system run Minimum at 4K with playable frame rates?*

A: No. The data shows that at 3840x2160, even the Low preset only achieves an average of 56.6 FPS, while the High and Ultra presets drop to 37.1 FPS and 26.1 FPS, respectively. These results are below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for a high-refresh-rate monitor?

A: At 1920x1080 with the High preset, the system averages 110 FPS. If you need even higher frame rates, the Low preset provides 166.1 FPS, but the visual compromise is significant.

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

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X has an average benchmark score of 28246. This puts it 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core i5-13490F and AMD Ryzen 5 230, and 0.4% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS.

Q: Is the GPU's 8 GB of memory sufficient for this game?

A: Yes. The benchmark data does not indicate any memory-related stuttering or performance anomalies. The primary limitation at higher resolutions appears to be raw compute and bandwidth, not memory capacity.

Q: How does the GPU's benchmark score compare to its closest competitors?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT has an average benchmark score of 24731. It is 0.1% slower than the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile, 0.3% faster than the Intel Arc A350M, and 0.6% faster than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile.

Q: What is the performance difference between the High and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: The High preset averages 72.6 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 55.3 FPS. This represents a 24% reduction in frame rate for the move from High to Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Ryzen 5 9600X and RX 5700 XT ranks 1269th out of 1733 combos for Minimum. This places it in the 27th percentile of all tested systems, meaning roughly 73% of other combinations deliver higher average frame rates in this game. This ranking is a direct consequence of the GPU's age and position in the market, as its 68th percentile ranking among all GPUs indicates it is a mid-tier performer.

The CPU, on the other hand, ranks in the 85th percentile among all CPUs, showing that it is a high-end processor that is not the limiting factor here. The disparity between the CPU's high percentile and the GPU's mid-range percentile explains the combo's overall ranking. The system is essentially a strong processor paired with a mid-range graphics card, and the game's performance is almost entirely dictated by the latter. The low ranking suggests that for this specific title, a more modern GPU would be needed to significantly improve the combo's standing.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 9000 series based on the Zen 5 architecture, provides more than enough processing power for Minimum. With a boost clock of 5.40 GHz and a substantial 32 MB of shared L3 cache, the CPU is not a constraint in the measured scenarios. This is evident from the resolution scaling; if the CPU were the bottleneck, frame rates would remain static when lowering resolution. Instead, they scale dramatically, confirming the GPU is the limiting factor.

Its synthetic benchmark scores are robust, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 25525 and a single-core score of 3603, placing it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs. The data shows it holds a slight edge over its nearest rivals in average benchmark score, being 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core i5-13490F. The processor's 65W TDP and support for DDR5 memory indicate a modern platform. In this game, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with enough data, and with 12 threads and high clock speeds, it does so without issue, ensuring that the frame rate is determined solely by the graphics card's capabilities at any given resolution and settings preset.