Minimum

Settings Recommendations

For Minimum, a third-person shooter from 2014, the measured data across four presets at three resolutions reveals a clear pattern: Medium is the optimal balance point for this AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 combination. At 1080p, Medium delivers 107.7 FPS average, which is 18% higher than High's 91.4 FPS while remaining 21% below Ultra's 65.9 FPS. The jump from Medium to High costs 16.3 FPS, while the jump from High to Ultra costs another 25.5 FPS — a far steeper penalty for marginal visual gains.

At 1440p, Medium holds 69.2 FPS, which remains comfortably playable, whereas High drops to 58.7 FPS and Ultra falls to 43.1 FPS. The 1080p results show Low at 136.8 FPS, but that preset sacrifices too much visual fidelity for a game where Medium already clears 100 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p (65.9 FPS) is playable but leaves no headroom for demanding scenes; at 1440p Ultra (43.1 FPS) and 4K Ultra (23.3 FPS), it becomes untenable.

The data indicates that Medium is the recommended preset for this combo. It provides the widest margin above 60 FPS at 1080p and 1440p while maintaining reasonable visual quality. For users prioritizing maximum smoothness, Low at 1440p (91.9 FPS) or 1080p (136.8 FPS) is viable, but Medium's combination of frame rate and fidelity makes it the sensible default. High is only advisable at 1080p, where 91.4 FPS still clears the 60 FPS threshold, but the 16 FPS drop from Medium suggests it is not worth the settings increase.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070, built on the Pascal architecture with a 16 nm process, provides the graphical foundation for this combo. Its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus delivers 256.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves adequate for Minimum's demands at the tested resolutions. The GPU's base clock of 1506 MHz and boost clock of 1683 MHz yield 6.463 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput, a figure that places it in the 51st percentile among all GPUs — essentially mid-pack.

The GTX 1070's nearest rivals bracket its performance tightly: it sits 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. This clustering suggests the GPU is not a performance outlier in either direction; it delivers exactly what its specifications imply. The 1070's average benchmark score of 12331 reflects its position as a capable 1080p-class card that struggles when pushed to higher resolutions.

In Minimum, the GPU's role becomes apparent in the scaling between presets. At 4K, the gap between Low (45.6 FPS) and Medium (38.1 FPS) is 7.5 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High (34 FPS) is only 4.1 FPS. This compression suggests the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, as even lowering settings cannot fully compensate for the pixel throughput demands. The GPU's 8 GB VRAM is not exhausted by this game, but its raw compute capacity — 1920 shading units and 64 ROPs — becomes the bottleneck at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance drop as resolution increases, consistent with a GPU-bound scenario at higher pixel counts. At 1080p High, the combo produces 91.4 FPS; at 1440p High, it drops to 58.7 FPS (a 35.8% reduction); at 4K High, it falls to 34 FPS (a further 42.1% reduction from 1440p). The cumulative drop from 1080p to 4K at High settings is 62.8% — from 91.4 to 34 FPS.

Low settings show a similar but slightly shallower curve: 136.8 FPS at 1080p, 91.9 FPS at 1440p (a 32.8% drop), and 45.6 FPS at 4K (a 50.4% drop from 1440p). This pattern indicates that even at the lowest settings, the 4K resolution overwhelms the GTX 1070's capabilities. Medium settings follow the same trajectory: 107.7 FPS at 1080p, 69.2 FPS at 1440p (35.7% drop), and 38.1 FPS at 4K (44.9% drop).

The 1080p-to-1440p scaling at all presets shows a roughly one-third performance loss, while the 1440p-to-4K scaling shows a more variable loss (42–50%), depending on settings. This nonlinearity suggests that at 4K, the GPU's pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth become increasingly dominant constraints. The CPU's contribution — an 8-core, 16-thread Zen 3 part with a 4.80 GHz boost clock — is unlikely to be the limiting factor at these resolutions, given that the frame rates scale inversely with pixel count rather than showing CPU-bound plateaus. The 5800XT's 3DMark 16-thread score of 7683 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 23794 indicate ample headroom for this 2014 title.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Minimum?

A: The data shows 1080p as the clear choice. At Medium settings, 1080p delivers 107.7 FPS, while 1440p drops to 69.2 FPS and 4K falls to 38.1 FPS. Only 1080p keeps all presets above 60 FPS.

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

A: The GTX 1070's average benchmark score of 12331 places it slightly above the Quadro K4200 (0.7% higher) and slightly below the GTX 880M (1.3% lower), GTX 1650 SUPER (1.4% lower), and Tesla K20Xm (1.7% lower). It sits at the 51st percentile of all GPUs.

Q: Does the Ryzen 7 5800XT bottleneck the GTX 1070 in this game?

A: The benchmark results do not indicate a CPU bottleneck. The 5800XT's 3DMark single-thread score of 959 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3359 show strong per-core performance, and the frame rates scale consistently with resolution, suggesting GPU-bound behavior at higher pixel counts.

Q: What is the performance delta between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, Low produces 136.8 FPS, Medium 107.7 FPS, High 91.4 FPS, and Ultra 65.9 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 70.9 FPS, representing a 51.8% reduction in frame rate from the lowest to the highest preset.

Q: Is the GTX 1070's 8 GB VRAM sufficient for Minimum at 4K?

A: The 8 GB GDDR5 memory with 256.3 GB/s bandwidth is not the primary constraint. The 4K results — 45.6 FPS on Low, 38.1 on Medium, 34 on High, and 23.3 on Ultra — indicate that compute and fill-rate limits, not VRAM capacity, determine performance.

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

A: The combo ranks 1459 out of 1733 tested combinations, placing it in the 15.8th percentile of all combos. This low ranking reflects the GTX 1070's mid-pack GPU position rather than the CPU's capability.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 combination ranks 1459 out of 1733 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the bottom 16% of all configurations. This ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU's position: the GTX 1070 sits at the 51st percentile among all GPUs, yet the combo's overall rank is far lower, suggesting that Minimum's workload favors higher-end graphics hardware more than the CPU's substantial capabilities.

The CPU itself is a strong performer — the 5800XT ranks at the 86th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 29774. Its nearest rivals cluster tightly: the Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE is 0.1% ahead, the Ryzen 7 6800HS is 0.3% behind, the Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 is 0.3% ahead, and the Ryzen 7 7840H is 0.3% behind. This tight grouping indicates the 5800XT delivers performance comparable to modern mobile and desktop parts, far exceeding what a 2014 title like Minimum requires.

The discrepancy between the CPU's high percentile (86th) and the combo's low rank (1459th of 1733) reveals that the GTX 1070 is the binding constraint. The GPU's 51st percentile ranking, combined with its age (released in 2016, now end-of-life), means this combo underperforms relative to modern pairings. The measured FPS data corroborates this: even at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 136.8 FPS, which is respectable, but at 4K Ultra it drops to 23.3 FPS — a 83% reduction from the best case.

The combo's rank suggests that while the CPU has substantial headroom for future GPU upgrades, the current pairing is balanced toward CPU-heavy workloads. In Minimum, the GPU-bound frame rates at 1440p and 4K demonstrate that the GTX 1070 cannot fully utilize the 5800XT's capabilities at higher resolutions. The 1080p results show a more balanced picture, where the combo delivers smooth gameplay across all presets, but the overall ranking reflects the hardware's limitations in more demanding scenarios. For users of this combo, the data indicates that 1080p Medium (107.7 FPS) or High (91.4 FPS) provides the best experience, while 1440p and 4K require dropping to Low or Medium settings to maintain playable frame rates.