Minimum

# Minimum with AMD Ryzen 5 9600X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 delivers a solid 1080p and 1440p experience in Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter. At 1080p, the combo averages 202 FPS on Low, 155 FPS on Medium, 130 FPS on High, and 99 FPS on Ultra, which means even the most demanding preset clears the 60 FPS threshold by a wide margin. Moving to 1440p, the averages sit at 130 FPS (Low), 100 FPS (Medium), 84 FPS (High), and 64 FPS (Ultra), showing that the RTX 4060 still has enough headroom for high-refresh gaming at this resolution. At 4K, however, the picture changes: only Low settings (70 FPS) and Medium (54 FPS) remain playable, while High drops to 45 FPS and Ultra falls to 34 FPS. The data indicates a balanced pairing where the CPU’s single-thread strength and the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM both contribute, but the GPU becomes the clear limiting factor at higher resolutions and quality presets.

Settings Recommendations

For 1080p gaming, the Ultra preset is the best choice for this combo. The measured average of 99 FPS on Ultra at 1920x1080 is well above the 60 FPS standard, and it delivers the highest visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness. If you prefer maximum frame rates, Low at 1080p produces 202 FPS, but that is overkill for most displays and sacrifices too much visual quality. Medium at 1080p (155 FPS) and High (130 FPS) are both strong options, but Ultra provides the best balance of image quality and performance for a 1080p monitor.

At 1440p, the High preset is the sweet spot. The 84 FPS average on High at 2560x1440 is comfortable for most gaming, and it looks noticeably better than Medium’s 100 FPS or Low’s 130 FPS. Ultra at 1440p drops to 64 FPS, which is still technically playable but sits close to the edge of what many would consider smooth, especially in a fast-paced third-person shooter. For a 1440p high-refresh monitor, High is the recommended preset; for a standard 60 Hz display, Ultra’s 64 FPS is acceptable, though you will see occasional dips below that threshold.

At 4K, the data shows that Low is the only preset that provides a consistently smooth experience, with a 70 FPS average at 3840x2160. Medium averages 54 FPS with a min of 46 FPS, which is playable but will feel stuttery in action scenes. High (45 FPS) and Ultra (34 FPS) are not recommended for 4K gaming on this combo, as they fall below the 60 FPS target and approach the 30 FPS console-like territory. If you own a 4K display, the practical advice is to stick with Low settings or consider lowering the resolution to 1440p, where the combo performs far better.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process node and carries 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding 272.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Its base clock is 1830 MHz with a boost clock of 2460 MHz, and it has 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores alongside 3072 shading units. The GPU’s 15.11 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is modest by modern standards, which the benchmark results reflect: the RTX 4060 scores 19545 in Passmark G3D and 95057 in Geekbench OpenCL, placing it at the 61st percentile among all GPUs.

In Minimum, the GPU’s role becomes more pronounced as resolution and settings increase. At 1080p Low, the FPS jumps to 202, which is nearly double the Ultra result at the same resolution (99 FPS), indicating that the GPU is not the bottleneck at low settings and high resolution is needed to stress it. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 103 FPS, while at 1440p it is 66 FPS, and at 4K it narrows to 36 FPS. This pattern suggests that the RTX 4060 has enough raw throughput to handle the game’s moderate demands, but its 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus start to limit performance when texture quality and resolution scale up. The fact that Ultra at 4K only manages 34 FPS, while Low at 4K hits 70 FPS, points to a GPU that is heavily taxed by high-quality settings at 4K, likely due to both compute load and memory bandwidth constraints.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 4060’s average benchmark score of 17639 is within 0.7% of the AMD Radeon Pro 460 (17509), 0.5% of the AMD Radeon Pro 560 (17551), and 0.3% of the AMD Radeon 780M (17588). It sits slightly above the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (17666) by 0.2%. This means the RTX 4060 is a mid-tier performer in absolute terms, but in Minimum, its 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, and the game’s age means it does not push the GPU’s compute capabilities to the limit. The GPU’s 48 ROPs and 96 TMUs are adequate for the game’s rendering needs, and the 118.1 GPixel/s pixel rate helps maintain decent fill rates at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear trend: the RTX 4060 is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, while the Ryzen 5 9600X has ample headroom. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 202 at 1080p to 130 at 1440p (a 36% reduction) and then to 70 at 4K (a 46% further reduction). At High settings, the numbers go from 130 at 1080p to 84 at 1440p (35% drop) and then to 45 at 4K (46% drop). This scaling pattern is typical of a GPU-bound scenario: the performance loss from 1080p to 1440p is relatively consistent across settings, but the 4K step shows a larger absolute drop because the GPU’s memory bandwidth and compute resources are overwhelmed.

The data also shows that the gap between settings narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 103 FPS (202 vs 99), but at 4K, that gap shrinks to 36 FPS (70 vs 34). This indicates that at 1080p, the CPU can feed the GPU enough frames to make settings matter significantly, but at 4K, the GPU is so saturated that even lowering settings from Ultra to Low only recovers 36 FPS. The limiting component at 4K is clearly the GPU, as the Ryzen 5 9600X’s 6 cores and 12 threads are unlikely to be the constraint in a 2014 title at any resolution.

For 1440p, the scaling is more moderate. The 130 FPS at Low and 64 FPS at Ultra show a 66 FPS spread, which suggests the GPU is still the dominant factor but has enough headroom to allow settings to influence performance. The 4K results, especially the 34 FPS at Ultra and 45 FPS at High, are below the 60 FPS threshold that most gamers target, confirming that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K reserved for Low or Medium settings only.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this pairing of AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 ranks 2000 out of 3712 combos for Minimum. This places it in the 54th percentile of all tested configurations, meaning it outperforms slightly more than half of the combos tested in this game. The rank of 2000 is a mid-pack result, which is consistent with the hardware’s specifications: the CPU is a strong 6-core Zen 5 part, but the GPU is a mid-range 40-series card that is not designed for high-end 4K gaming.

The combo’s ranking is influenced by both components. The Ryzen 5 9600X’s average benchmark score of 29713 puts it at the 81st percentile among all CPUs, which is a strong showing. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT (avg score 29879, 0.6% higher), the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS (29955, 0.8% higher), and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE (29656, 0.2% lower). This means the CPU is competitive with 8-core parts from previous generations, which helps the combo in CPU-bound scenarios like 1080p Low. However, the RTX 4060’s 61st percentile ranking (average score 17639) drags the overall combo down in GPU-heavy situations, such as 4K Ultra.

The combination rank of 2000 out of 3712 suggests that while this setup is capable, there are many faster combos in the database, likely with higher-end GPUs. The data indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor in Minimum — if you paired the Ryzen 5 9600X with a stronger GPU, the combo rank would improve significantly. Conversely, the RTX 4060 is the weaker link, and the 4K results confirm that this GPU is better suited to 1080p and 1440p gaming.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 9000 series, based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) and built on a 4 nm process node by TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU’s cache configuration includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration with a memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, and it has 24 PCIe Gen 5 lanes. The integrated Radeon Graphics iGPU is present but not used in this test configuration.

In Minimum, the CPU’s role is best understood through its benchmark scores. The Ryzen 5 9600X achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 17528.5 and a single-core score of 2183.5, which are strong numbers for a 6-core part. Its Geekbench scores are 14438 (multicore) and 2923 (single-core), and its Passmark multithread score is 30027 with a single-thread score of 4570. These results place it at the 81st percentile among all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 29713 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals, all of which are 8-core or higher parts. The delta percentages are tiny: 0.2% below the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE, 0.5% above the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H, and 0.6% above the AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT.

For Minimum, the CPU’s high single-thread performance is valuable, as the game was released in 2014 and likely does not scale perfectly across many cores. The 1253 single-thread score in 3DMark and the 2183.5 Cinebench R23 single-core score indicate that the Ryzen 5 9600X can feed the RTX 4060 enough data to achieve the high frame rates seen at 1080p Low (202 FPS) and 1440p Low (130 FPS). At these settings, the GPU is not the bottleneck, and the CPU’s 5.40 GHz boost clock and 6 cores are sufficient to maintain high frame rates. However, at 4K Ultra (34 FPS), the CPU is clearly not the limiting factor — the GPU is. The data shows that the CPU’s performance is more than adequate for this game, and the combo’s mid-pack rank is primarily due to the GPU’s limitations.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 1440p gaming with this combo?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 delivers an average of 84 FPS, which is the best balance of visual quality and smoothness. Ultra at 1440p drops to 64 FPS, which is still playable but leaves less headroom for dips.

*Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Minimum?*

A: At 4K, only Low settings (70 FPS) and Medium (54 FPS) are playable. High (45 FPS) and Ultra (34 FPS) fall below the 60 FPS threshold, so 4K is only recommended with Low or Medium settings.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 4060’s average benchmark score is 17639, which is 0.2% below the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (17666), 0.3% above the AMD Radeon 780M (17588), and 0.5% above the AMD Radeon Pro 560 (17551). It is effectively a mid-tier GPU.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 9600X a bottleneck in this game?

A: No. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 29713 places it at the 81st percentile, and its nearest rivals are all within 0.8% in score. In Minimum, the CPU is not the limiting factor; the GPU is, especially at higher resolutions and settings.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p Ultra?

A: At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the combo averages 99 FPS. This is above the 60 FPS standard and provides a smooth experience, though not as high as the 130 FPS at High or 155 FPS at Medium.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: It ranks 2000 out of 3712 combos for Minimum, placing it in the 54th percentile. This is a mid-pack result, reflecting the GPU’s mid-tier performance while the CPU is a strong contributor.