Minimum

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 delivers a playable experience in Minimum, but the data indicates that settings must be chosen carefully to balance visual fidelity with frame rate. Based on the measured FPS rows, the Medium preset at 1920x1080 provides the most balanced experience, yielding an average of 119 FPS with a minimum of 101 FPS. This keeps frame pacing consistently above the 100 FPS threshold while offering a substantial improvement over the Low preset's 155 FPS ceiling. For users prioritizing maximum smoothness, the Low preset at 1080p is the only configuration that comfortably exceeds 144 Hz, but it does so at the cost of visual quality. At 2560x1440, the Medium preset remains the sweet spot, averaging 77 FPS with a minimum of 65 FPS, which is adequate for most displays. At 3840x2160, no preset achieves a consistent 60 FPS; the Low preset comes closest with an average of 54 FPS, making it the only viable option for 4K gaming on this combo.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy across settings and resolutions. For the best experience, the Medium preset at 1920x1080 is the recommended starting point. It delivers an average of 119 FPS and a minimum of 101 FPS, ensuring that the experience remains fluid even during intense action sequences. The jump from Low to Medium costs roughly 36 FPS on average (from 155 to 119), but the visual improvements typically justify this trade-off. The High preset at 1080p matches the Medium preset's average of 100 FPS but lacks the recorded minimum FPS data, suggesting slightly less predictable frame delivery. The Ultra preset at 1080p drops to 76 FPS, which is still playable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset is again the recommended choice, with an average of 77 FPS and a minimum of 65 FPS. This resolution is where the RTX 2060 begins to show its limits; the High preset averages 64 FPS, which is borderline for 60 Hz displays, while the Ultra preset falls to 49 FPS. For 4K, the data shows that the Low preset is the only practical option, averaging 54 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K averages 41 FPS with a minimum of 35 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The Ultra preset at 4K averages just 26 FPS, making it effectively unplayable for competitive or fast-paced scenarios.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for a 144 Hz monitor at 1080p?

A: The Low preset at 1920x1080 is the only measured configuration that exceeds 144 FPS, with an average of 155 FPS. The Medium preset averages 119 FPS, which is below the 144 Hz refresh rate but still provides a smooth experience on most displays.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming?

A: Yes, but only with significant compromises. The Low preset at 3840x2160 averages 54 FPS, which is playable but not ideal. The Medium preset at 4K averages 41 FPS with a minimum of 35 FPS, indicating noticeable stuttering during heavy scenes.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: At the Medium preset, the average FPS drops from 119 at 1080p to 77 at 1440p, a reduction of approximately 35%. At the High preset, the average drops from 100 to 64 FPS, a 36% reduction.

Q: Is the Ultra preset ever worth using?

A: Only at 1080p, where it averages 76 FPS. At 1440p, the Ultra preset averages 49 FPS, and at 4K, it averages 26 FPS, both of which are too low for smooth gameplay.

Q: Does the RTX 2060's 6 GB VRAM become a bottleneck at higher resolutions?

A: The data does not explicitly isolate VRAM usage, but the significant FPS drops from 1080p to 4K suggest that the GPU's memory bandwidth and capacity are being stressed. The 4K Ultra preset, which likely has the highest texture demands, yields the lowest average FPS at 26.

Q: What is the minimum FPS I can expect on the Medium preset across resolutions?

A: The measured minimum FPS for the Medium preset is 101 at 1080p, 65 at 1440p, and 35 at 4K. These values indicate that frame pacing becomes progressively less consistent as resolution increases.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Raphael. It operates with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, paired with 32 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance, scoring 18,760 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 15,371 in Geekbench multi-core. Its single-thread performance is equally notable, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1,930 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2,525.

Given that Minimum is a third-person shooter released in 2014, the game's engine is likely not designed to fully utilize 16 threads. However, the Ryzen 7 7700's high single-thread performance ensures that the game's primary game logic thread is well-served. The data shows that at 1080p with the Low preset, the combo achieves 155 FPS, which suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with sufficient frames at lower resolutions. The fact that the FPS drops significantly when moving to 4K—where the GPU becomes the limiting factor—indicates that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck in this configuration. The 3DMark scores further support this: the CPU scores 8,484 in 16-thread tests and 1,049 in single-thread tests, showing a balanced profile that can handle both lightly and heavily threaded workloads.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ranks 2,929th out of 3,712 tested combos in Minimum. This places it in the lower 21% of all tested configurations, which is consistent with the fact that the RTX 2060 is an older, end-of-life GPU. The CPU itself is quite capable, ranking in the 87th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40,081. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365, scores 40,048 with a delta of 0.1%, while the Intel Core 5 221E scores 40,144 with a delta of -0.2%. This indicates the Ryzen 7 7700 is well-matched in CPU performance to these alternatives.

However, the GPU's ranking is significantly lower. The RTX 2060 sits in the 58th percentile against all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 15,290. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 (15,283, 0% delta) and the AMD Radeon 680M (15,270, 0.1% delta). The relatively low combo rank is therefore dominated by the GPU's performance ceiling rather than the CPU's capabilities. In games where the CPU is the bottleneck, this combo would perform much better relative to others, but in Minimum, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, especially at higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear trend of performance degradation as resolution increases, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario. At the Medium preset, the average FPS drops from 119 at 1080p to 77 at 1440p, a 35% reduction. Moving from 1440p to 4K, the average FPS drops from 77 to 41, a further 47% reduction. This steep decline indicates that the RTX 2060's rendering capabilities are being taxed heavily at higher pixel counts.

At the Low preset, the scaling is similar but with higher absolute values: 155 FPS at 1080p, 100 FPS at 1440p, and 54 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 35% from 1080p to 1440p and 46% from 1440p to 4K. This consistent pattern across settings suggests that the GPU's fillrate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints. The RTX 2060 has a memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s and a pixel rate of 80.64 GPixel/s, which are modest by modern standards. The fact that the FPS does not scale linearly with the number of pixels (4K has 4x the pixels of 1080p, but the FPS does not drop to 25% of the 1080p value) suggests that the CPU is still providing some assistance, but the overall trend firmly points to the GPU as the limiting component at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are as follows: Low 155, Medium 119 (min 101, max 137), High 100, and Ultra 76. The 39 FPS gap between Low and Medium is the largest single-step drop, while the 24 FPS drop from Medium to High and the 24 FPS drop from High to Ultra are smaller but still significant. The minimum FPS for the Medium preset is 101, which provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are: Low 100, Medium 77 (min 65, max 88), High 64, and Ultra 49. The drop from Low to Medium is 23 FPS, from Medium to High is 13 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 15 FPS. The minimum FPS for the Medium preset is 65, which is just above the 60 FPS threshold, but the Ultra preset's 49 FPS average suggests it is not suitable for smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS values are: Low 54, Medium 41 (min 35, max 47), High 35, and Ultra 26. The drop from Low to Medium is 13 FPS, from Medium to High is 6 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 9 FPS. The minimum FPS of 35 for the Medium preset indicates significant frame dips, making even the Low preset (54 FPS average) the only reasonable choice for 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is based on the Turing architecture and features 1,920 shading units, 120 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs. It operates at a base clock of 1,365 MHz and a boost clock of 1,680 MHz, with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU also includes 30 RT cores and 240 Tensor cores, though these are unlikely to be utilized by a 2014 title like Minimum.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 2060 scores 14,111 in Passmark G3D and 65,846 in Geekbench Vulkan. These scores place it in the 58th percentile of all GPUs, showing it is a mid-range performer by modern standards. The GPU's FP32 performance is 6.451 TFLOPS, which is adequate for 1080p gaming but becomes strained at higher resolutions. The measured FPS data confirms this: at 1080p, the GPU can push over 100 FPS on most presets, but at 4K, it struggles to maintain 60 FPS even on Low settings. The 6 GB VRAM may also contribute to the steep performance drop at 4K Ultra, where texture memory demands are highest. Overall, the data shows that the RTX 2060 is the dominant bottleneck in this combo, particularly at resolutions above 1080p.