Minimum

# Minimum with AMD Ryzen 7 3700X + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 combination sits at rank 1437 out of 1733 tested combos for Minimum, placing it in the 17th percentile of all pairings. This is a last-generation pairing that still delivers playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but struggles to maintain smooth performance at 4K. The GTX 1070, with its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory and 256-bit bus, remains a capable 1080p card, while the 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 3700X provides ample CPU headroom for this 2014 third-person shooter.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1080p gaming with this combo?

A: The data shows 141.3 FPS average at 1080p Low, 109.6 FPS at Medium, 92.4 FPS at High, and 65.8 FPS at Ultra. For competitive play, Low settings are ideal; for visual quality, High offers nearly triple-digit frame rates.

Q: Can this combo handle 1440p gaming?

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 1440p High, the average is 58.2 FPS, which is playable. Low settings reach 88.3 FPS, while Ultra drops to 47 FPS. The sweet spot is Medium at 71.1 FPS.

Q: Is 4K gaming viable with the GTX 1070 and Ryzen 7 3700X?

A: Barely. The best 4K result is 50.4 FPS at Low settings. Medium yields 37 FPS, High 33.6 FPS, and Ultra 26.9 FPS. Only Low settings approach smoothness, and even then it's borderline.

Q: How does the GTX 1070 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The GTX 1070's average benchmark score is 12331, placing it 0.7% above the Quadro K4200, 1.3% below the GTX 880M, 1.4% below the GTX 1650 SUPER, and 1.7% below the Tesla K20Xm. It ranks in the 51st percentile of all GPUs.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 3700X a bottleneck for the GTX 1070 in this game?

A: Benchmark evidence suggests no. The CPU's multi-thread score of 22458 in PassMark and single-thread score of 2656 provide more than enough processing power. The frame rate drops at higher resolutions and settings point to GPU limitation, not CPU.

Q: What does the combo's overall ranking indicate?

A: At rank 1437 of 1733, this pairing is in the lower 17% of all tested combinations. However, this reflects the age of the components, not necessarily poor performance in Minimum, which is an older title that doesn't stress modern hardware heavily.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is built on the Pascal architecture with a GP104 chip, fabricated on a 16 nm process at TSMC. It houses 7,200 million transistors on a 314 mm² die, with 1,920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs. The base clock runs at 1506 MHz with a boost clock of 1683 MHz. Memory operates at 2002 MHz (8 Gbps effective) across an 8 GB GDDR5 buffer with a 256-bit bus, yielding 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth.

For Minimum, the GPU is the dominant factor in frame rate scaling. At 1080p, the GTX 1070 delivers 141.3 FPS on Low settings, showing the card's raw fill rate (107.7 GPixel/s) and texture rate (202.0 GTexel/s) are more than sufficient for this game's geometry. The FP32 throughput of 6.463 TFLOPS handles the shader work easily. However, as resolution increases, the memory bandwidth becomes the limiting factor. The 256.3 GB/s bandwidth is adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K, the frame rate collapses, particularly at Ultra settings where the 26.9 FPS average indicates the GPU is fully saturated.

The GTX 1070's percentile ranking of 51 places it exactly at the median of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals show tight competition: 0.7% above the Quadro K4200, and 1.3-1.7% below the GTX 880M, GTX 1650 SUPER, and Tesla K20Xm. This suggests the GTX 1070 sits in a crowded performance band, and in Minimum, its 8 GB VRAM is never a constraint, as the game's demands are modest even at 4K Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Ryzen 7 3700X and GTX 1070 achieves rank 1437 out of 1733 tested combos in Minimum. This places the pairing in the 82.9th percentile from the bottom, meaning roughly 83% of tested combinations outperform it. This low ranking is primarily a function of the GPU's age; the GTX 1070 is end-of-life production status with a 2016 release date.

The CPU component of this combo is comparatively strong. The Ryzen 7 3700X holds an 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 28631. This is nearly identical to its nearest rivals: 0.1% below the Intel Core i5-12600, 0.1% below the Intel Core i5-12600H, 0.1% above the AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT, and 0.2% above the AMD EPYC 7203P. The CPU is not holding this combo back.

The GPU, by contrast, sits at the 51st percentile, dragging the overall combo rank down. The GTX 1070's average benchmark score of 12331 is within 1.7% of all four nearest rivals, indicating a tight cluster. In Minimum, this translates to playable but not stellar performance at 1080p, and marginal performance at 4K. The combo ranking reflects that this pairing is better suited to older or less demanding titles, though it still manages respectable frame rates in this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Ryzen 7 3700X and GTX 1070 combination produces a wide spread of results across settings. Low settings yield 141.3 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Medium settings drop to 109.6 FPS, still excellent. High settings deliver 92.4 FPS, maintaining high refresh rate compatibility. Ultra settings fall to 65.8 FPS, which remains playable but shows the performance cost of maximum visual quality.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease proportionally. Low settings produce 88.3 FPS, a 37.5% drop from 1080p Low. Medium settings yield 71.1 FPS, a 35.1% reduction. High settings show 58.2 FPS, a 37.0% decrease. Ultra settings drop to 47 FPS, a 28.6% reduction from 1080p Ultra. The consistent 28-37% decrease across all settings indicates the GPU is the scaling bottleneck, as CPU load would not increase with resolution.

At 3840x2160, the performance becomes marginal. Low settings reach 50.4 FPS, which is borderline playable. Medium settings yield 37 FPS, High drops to 33.6 FPS, and Ultra falls to 26.9 FPS. The 4K results show a clear pattern: the GTX 1070 lacks the memory bandwidth and compute throughput to maintain smooth frame rates at this resolution, regardless of settings. The 4K Ultra result of 26.9 FPS is below the 30 FPS console standard, indicating this combo is not suited for 4K gaming in Minimum.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component clearly. At Low settings, the progression is 141.3 FPS at 1080p, 88.3 FPS at 1440p, and 50.4 FPS at 4K. This represents a 37.5% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 42.9% drop from 1440p to 4K. The relative consistency of these drops across settings—High settings show 92.4, 58.2, and 33.6 FPS respectively—indicates that pixel throughput is the dominant factor.

The scaling behavior points directly to the GTX 1070 as the limiting component. The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads at 3.60 GHz base and 4.40 GHz boost clocks provide ample processing for the frame rates observed. Even at 1080p Ultra with 65.8 FPS, the CPU is not stressed, as evidenced by the PassMark multi-thread score of 22458 and single-thread score of 2656. The 32 MB L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory at 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for this game's engine.

The GPU's 256.3 GB/s memory bandwidth is the critical constraint at higher resolutions. At 4K, the 8 GB VRAM buffer is not the issue—the game's texture demands are modest—but the bandwidth required to fill 8.3 million pixels per frame exceeds what the GTX 1070 can sustain. The result is the steep drop from 50.4 FPS at 4K Low to 26.9 FPS at 4K Ultra, a 46.6% reduction that reflects the GPU's fill rate limitations under increasing shader complexity.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X, part of the 3000 series built on Zen 2 architecture (codenamed Matisse), provides 8 cores and 16 threads with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Fabricated on TSMC's 7 nm process with 3,800 million transistors on a 74 mm² die, this CPU delivers strong multi-threaded performance. The 32 MB L3 cache and 64 KB L1 cache per core, along with 512 KB L2 per core, provide low-latency access to game data.

For Minimum, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU. The game's 2014 release date means it was designed for CPUs with far fewer cores, so the Ryzen 7 3700X's 8 cores and 16 threads are underutilized. The PassMark single-thread score of 2656 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2694 indicate strong per-core performance, which is what matters for this game's single-threaded engine. The multi-thread scores (Cinebench R23 multi-core: 19087, PassMark multi-thread: 22458) are irrelevant for a game that rarely uses more than a few threads.

The CPU's boost clock of 4.40 GHz ensures it can feed the GTX 1070 with enough draw calls and game logic updates. The data shows no evidence of CPU bottlenecking: at 1080p Low, the GPU produces 141.3 FPS, and the CPU keeps pace. The 85th percentile CPU ranking, compared to the GPU's 51st percentile, confirms the processor is the stronger component in this pairing. The Ryzen 7 3700X's 65 W TDP and AMD Socket AM4 compatibility make it a practical choice, but its performance headroom in Minimum is largely wasted—the GTX 1070 reaches its limits first at every resolution and settings combination tested.