Minimum

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 delivers a balanced 1080p and 1440p gaming experience in Minimum, a Third-Person Shooter released on 2014-06-25. Benchmark results show this combination ranks 1764 out of 2939 tested combos in this game, placing it in the upper-middle tier. The data reveals a system where the CPU provides strong single-threaded performance while the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus become the primary constraints at higher resolutions and quality settings. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS across resolutions and settings, the roles of each component, and how this combo stacks against others.

FAQ

*Q: What is the combo’s overall ranking in Minimum?*

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 combination ranks 1764 out of 2939 tested combos in this game, placing it in the 60th percentile of all tested systems.

Q: What average FPS does this combo achieve at 1080p with High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo delivers an average of 115 FPS, with Medium settings reaching 137 FPS and Low settings hitting 179 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU perform relative to its nearest rivals?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X has an average benchmark score of 29713, which is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE (29656), 0.5% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H (29868), and 0.6% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT (29879).

Q: What is the GPU’s VRAM capacity and how does it affect 4K performance?

A: The RTX 5050 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 320.0 GB/s bandwidth. At 3840x2160, Ultra settings drop to 30 FPS average, suggesting VRAM capacity and bandwidth limit performance at 4K.

Q: Does this combo achieve playable framerates at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160 with Low settings, the average FPS is 62, which is playable. However, High settings drop to 40 FPS, Medium to 48 FPS, and Ultra to 30 FPS, indicating 4K is only viable at Low settings.

Q: What is the GPU’s percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The RTX 5050 ranks in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 21035 across all tested workloads.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB207 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It houses 2560 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, along with 20 RT cores and 80 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2317 MHz and boosts to 2572 MHz, with memory running at 2500 MHz (20 Gbps effective). The 8 GB GDDR6 memory is paired with a 128-bit bus, yielding 320.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This configuration produces 13.17 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and a pixel rate of 82.30 GPixel/s.

In Minimum, the GPU’s role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution and settings scale up. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 179 FPS average, but this drops to 115 FPS at High and 88 FPS at Ultra. The trend continues at 1440p, where Low settings produce 116 FPS average, but Ultra falls to 57 FPS. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor: Low settings yield 62 FPS, Medium 48 FPS, High 40 FPS, and Ultra plummets to 30 FPS. The 8 GB VRAM capacity becomes a bottleneck at 4K Ultra, where the memory demands of the game exceed what the 128-bit bus can efficiently feed.

The RTX 5050’s benchmark scores reflect its mid-range positioning. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 2502, while Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan scores are 90334 and 89381 respectively. Passmark G3D scores 17326, with DirectX 11 at 150 and DirectX 12 at 66 (lower scores indicating faster rendering in Passmark’s test). The GPU’s average benchmark score of 21035 places it in the 66th percentile of all GPUs. Compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 5050 is 0.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (21153), 1% behind the AMD Radeon HD 8970M (21237), 1.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (20713), and 1.6% behind the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile (21379). These margins are small, indicating that the RTX 5050 sits in a tight performance cluster.

The GPU’s 130 W TDP and suggested 300 W PSU requirement are modest, and it connects via PCIe 5.0 x8. In Minimum, the data shows that the RTX 5050’s strengths lie in 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can push high framerates at medium-to-high settings. The 4K results are marginal, with only Low settings maintaining an average above 60 FPS. The VRAM size and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints at higher resolutions, as evidenced by the steep drop from 62 FPS at Low to 30 FPS at Ultra in 4K.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 9000 series, built on the Zen 5 architecture with the Granite Ridge codename. It operates on the AMD Socket AM5 platform, with a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. The CPU has a 65 W TDP and uses a 4 nm process at TSMC, with 8,315 million transistors on a 70.6 mm² die. Cache configuration includes 80 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3. Memory support is DDR5 with dual-channel configuration and 89.6 GB/s bandwidth, plus ECC support. The CPU provides PCIe Gen 5 with 24 lanes and includes Radeon Graphics integrated.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 9600X demonstrates strong single-threaded performance. It scores 1253 in 3DMark single-thread, 342 in Cinebench R15 single-core, and 2183.5 in Cinebench R23 single-core. Geekbench single-core reaches 2923, and Passmark single-thread scores 4570. Multi-threaded results show 7585 in 3DMark 16-thread, 7590 in max-threads, 2691 in Cinebench R15 multi-core, and 17528.5 in Cinebench R23 multi-core. Geekbench multi-core hits 14438, and Passmark multithread scores 30027. The CPU’s average benchmark score is 29713, placing it in the 81st percentile of all CPUs.

The 9600X’s nearest rivals are all close in performance. It is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE (29656), 0.5% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H (29868), 0.6% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT (29879), and 0.8% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS (29955). These deltas are minimal, meaning the 9600X performs nearly identically to these alternatives in general compute workloads.

In Minimum, the CPU’s role is most apparent at lower resolutions where the GPU is not fully saturated. At 1080p Low, the system hits 179 FPS average, which is a high framerate that requires solid single-threaded performance to maintain. The 9600X’s boost clock of 5.40 GHz and strong single-thread scores (2183.5 in Cinebench R23 single-core) help ensure the CPU does not bottleneck the GPU at these framerates. At 1080p Ultra, the average drops to 88 FPS, indicating the GPU becomes more involved, but the CPU still provides enough headroom to keep framerates stable.

The CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient for Minimum, a game from 2014 that likely does not scale heavily beyond a few threads. The 9600X’s 32 MB L3 cache and Zen 5 architecture provide low-latency access to game data, which is beneficial for maintaining consistent frametimes. The memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s is ample for this workload, and the dual-channel DDR5 support ensures the CPU can feed the GPU without delay.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 combination ranks 1764 out of 2939 tested combos in Minimum. This position places it in the 40th percentile from the top, meaning roughly 60% of tested combos perform better in this game. The ranking reflects a system that is capable but not exceptional, with the GPU being the more limiting component at higher settings.

The combo’s rank is influenced by the GPU’s 66th percentile standing among all GPUs, which is lower than the CPU’s 81st percentile. This mismatch suggests that in Minimum, the RTX 5050 holds back the overall performance relative to what the 9600X could support. At 1080p, the combo delivers 115 FPS average on High settings, which is solid for a third-person shooter. However, combos with stronger GPUs would likely achieve higher framerates at the same settings, pushing them higher in the rankings.

The 4K results are particularly telling for the ranking. With only 30 FPS average at Ultra settings, the combo falls behind systems with more powerful GPUs or more VRAM. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is a significant factor here, as Minimum at 4K Ultra likely requires more memory bandwidth than the 320.0 GB/s the RTX 5050 provides. This bottleneck reduces the combo’s competitiveness at high resolutions, contributing to its mid-pack ranking.

Compared to the CPU’s nearest rivals, the 9600X’s performance is nearly identical, so the GPU choice becomes the deciding factor in the combo’s rank. The RTX 5050’s nearest rivals include the RX 5600 XT, which is 1.6% slower on average, and the RTX A4000 Mobile, which is 1.6% faster. These small differences in GPU performance translate to minor FPS variations in Minimum, but they can affect the combo’s rank by a few positions in a large database of 2939 combos.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows how the combo scales from 1080p to 4K across four settings presets. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 179. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 116 FPS, a reduction of 63 FPS or 35%. At 4K Low, the average falls to 62 FPS, a further drop of 54 FPS or 47% from 1440p. This steep decline indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor as resolution increases, since the CPU’s performance does not change with resolution.

At High settings, the scaling is similar but less dramatic. 1080p High produces 115 FPS, 1440p High yields 74 FPS, and 4K High drops to 40 FPS. The percentage drops are 36% from 1080p to 1440p, and 46% from 1440p to 4K. Medium settings show 137 FPS at 1080p, 88 FPS at 1440p, and 48 FPS at 4K, representing drops of 36% and 45% respectively. Ultra settings are the most demanding: 88 FPS at 1080p, 57 FPS at 1440p, and 30 FPS at 4K, with drops of 35% and 47%.

The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that the GPU’s rendering workload scales predictably with resolution. The RTX 5050’s 8 GB VRAM and 320.0 GB/s bandwidth become increasingly strained as pixel count grows, leading to the observed FPS reductions. The CPU’s role is minimal in this scaling, as evidenced by the fact that even at 1080p Low (179 FPS), the system does not hit a CPU bottleneck that would cause framerate to plateau.

The data indicates that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming. At 1080p, all settings except Ultra maintain framerates above 115 FPS, which is smooth for a third-person shooter. At 1440p, Low and Medium settings provide 116 FPS and 88 FPS respectively, both playable, but High drops to 74 FPS and Ultra to 57 FPS, which may be less ideal for fast-paced gameplay. At 4K, only Low settings achieve an average above 60 FPS, making it a marginal resolution for this combo.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers the following average FPS across settings:

• Low: 179 FPS
• Medium: 137 FPS (min 117, max 158)
• High: 115 FPS
• Ultra: 88 FPS

The 1080p results show excellent performance for a 2014 game. Low settings nearly reach 180 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most monitors. Medium settings at 137 FPS provide a great balance of visual quality and speed, with a minimum of 117 FPS ensuring smooth gameplay. High settings at 115 FPS are still very playable, and even Ultra at 88 FPS is acceptable for most users. The gap between Low and Ultra is 91 FPS, indicating that the game’s settings have a significant impact on GPU load.

At 2560x1440, the results are as follows:

• Low: 116 FPS
• Medium: 88 FPS (min 75, max 102)
• High: 74 FPS
• Ultra: 57 FPS

1440p performance is solid but shows the GPU starting to struggle at higher settings. Low at 116 FPS is excellent, and Medium at 88 FPS with a minimum of 75 FPS is smooth. High at 74 FPS is playable, but Ultra at 57 FPS may result in occasional dips below 60 FPS, which could be noticeable in a fast-paced shooter. The drop from 1080p to 1440p averages about 35-38% across settings, consistent with the resolution scaling analysis.

At 3840x2160, the results are:

• Low: 62 FPS
• Medium: 48 FPS (min 41, max 55)
• High: 40 FPS
• Ultra: 30 FPS

4K performance is marginal. Low at 62 FPS is just above the 60 FPS threshold, making it the only playable setting at this resolution. Medium at 48 FPS is borderline, with a minimum of 41 FPS that could cause stutter in intense scenes. High at 40 FPS and Ultra at 30 FPS are not ideal for a third-person shooter, where smooth aiming is critical. The 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus are the likely culprits for this poor scaling, as the game’s texture and geometry demands at 4K exceed what the GPU can efficiently handle.

The measured FPS data confirms that this combo is optimized for 1080p and 1440p gaming. At 1080p, users can max out settings and still enjoy framerates above 88 FPS. At 1440p, Medium settings provide the best balance, with 88 FPS average and a 75 FPS minimum. For 4K, users should stick to Low settings to maintain an average above 60 FPS, but even then, the experience may not be fully smooth due to the GPU’s limitations. Overall, the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 combo is a capable mid-range system for Minimum, with clear strengths at lower resolutions and diminishing returns as resolution increases.