Minimum

The data for Minimum with the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 shows a pairing that scales cleanly across resolutions, with the GPU becoming the dominant constraint as pixel count rises. The CPU, with its 8 cores and 16 threads on Zen 4 architecture, delivers strong synthetic scores like a Cinebench R23 multi-core result of 29302, placing it in the 91st percentile of all CPUs. However, in this title, the measured frame rates reveal that the RTX 4060’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus are the primary factors determining performance at higher settings.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K produces a steep, predictable decline in average frame rates across all settings, indicating a GPU-bound workload at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the jump from 1920x1080 (200.5 FPS) to 2560x1440 (128 FPS) represents a 36% drop, and further scaling to 3840x2160 (71.8 FPS) cuts performance by an additional 44%. This pattern intensifies at Ultra settings, where the 1080p result of 96.4 FPS falls to 66 FPS at 1440p (a 32% reduction) and then to 36.4 FPS at 4K—a 45% loss from the 1440p figure. The scaling curve suggests that while the Ryzen 7 7700 has ample headroom for high refresh rates at 1080p, the RTX 4060’s 272.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 15.11 TFLOPS FP32 throughput become limiting factors as resolution increases.

The data shows a particularly sharp drop between 1440p and 4K at Medium settings, where the average FPS falls from 97.8 to 53.3, a 45% decrease. This nonlinear scaling hints at the 8 GB VRAM capacity being approached at 4K Medium, as the GPU must manage larger texture buffers. Conversely, the Low setting row shows the most linear scaling, with each resolution step costing roughly 40% performance, which aligns with a pure fill-rate limitation rather than a memory capacity issue. At 1080p, the 200.5 FPS Low result demonstrates that the CPU is not a bottleneck, as even the highest settings maintain over 96 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, the measured rows indicate that 1440p High (83.1 FPS) or 4K Medium (53.3 FPS) are the viable options. The 4K Medium result falls short of 60 FPS, so the recommended ceiling for smooth 4K play is Low settings, which delivers 71.8 FPS. At 1440p, the High preset offers a balanced experience with 83.1 FPS, while Ultra drops to 66 FPS—still playable but with diminishing returns for the visual uplift. The 1080p data shows that all settings exceed 96 FPS, making the choice purely about visual fidelity; Ultra at 96.4 FPS is the best experience for high-refresh displays, though Medium at 154.3 FPS provides a significant margin for 144 Hz monitors.

The Medium preset appears to be the sweet spot for 4K gaming on this combo, providing 53.3 FPS—just below the 60 FPS threshold but with better visual quality than Low’s 71.8 FPS. For competitive play at 1080p, Low’s 200.5 FPS offers the lowest latency, while High’s 132.6 FPS still exceeds 120 Hz requirements. The data suggests that the RTX 4060 cannot sustain Ultra at any resolution above 1080p, with 1440p Ultra (66 FPS) being the only sub-4K Ultra result above 60 FPS. Users with G-Sync displays might prefer 1440p Ultra for the visual benefits, accepting the 66 FPS average.

GPU Role

The RTX 4060’s specifications directly explain the observed performance deltas. With a boost clock of 2460 MHz and 3072 shading units, the GPU delivers a texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s, yet the 128-bit memory bus limits bandwidth to 272.0 GB/s—a figure that becomes critical at 4K. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is the most likely cause of the severe drop between 1440p and 4K at Medium settings (97.8 to 53.3 FPS), as the game’s texture data likely exceeds the available memory, forcing lower-resolution assets or causing cache thrashing. The GPU’s 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23181, places it slightly below rivals like the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23321, -0.6% delta) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (23338, -0.7% delta), but ahead of the Intel Arc B580 (23021, 0.7% delta).

The 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are present but appear underutilized in this 2014 title, as the game predates widespread ray tracing adoption. The GPU’s power envelope of 115 W TDP with a suggested 300 W PSU indicates a mid-range part that relies on efficiency rather than brute force. The measured results show that the GPU’s FP32 performance of 15.11 TFLOPS is sufficient for 1080p Ultra (96.4 FPS) but falls short at 4K Ultra (36.4 FPS), where the pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s becomes the limiting factor. The memory clock of 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective) is standard for GDDR6, but the narrow bus width means the GPU cannot feed its shaders fast enough at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers a wide spread: Low hits 200.5 FPS, Medium 154.3 FPS, High 132.6 FPS, and Ultra 96.4 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 104.1 FPS, showing a 52% performance penalty for max settings. At 2560x1440, the numbers compress: Low 128 FPS, Medium 97.8 FPS, High 83.1 FPS, and Ultra 66 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra delta shrinks to 62 FPS (a 48% penalty), indicating that the GPU is starting to cap the upper end. At 3840x2160, the results are 71.8 FPS (Low), 53.3 FPS (Medium), 44.5 FPS (High), and 36.4 FPS (Ultra). The penalty from Low to Ultra reaches 35.4 FPS (49%), but the absolute values are low enough that even Low struggles to maintain 72 FPS.

The 1440p High result of 83.1 FPS is notable because it is only 13.1 FPS lower than the 1080p High result of 132.6 FPS, indicating a 37% drop. This is consistent with the resolution’s pixel count increase of 78%, suggesting that the GPU is not purely fill-rate limited at this setting. The 4K Low result of 71.8 FPS versus 1440p Low’s 128 FPS shows a 44% drop, which aligns with the 4K pixel count being 2.25 times 1440p—the less-than-proportional drop hints at CPU involvement at low settings, where the Ryzen 7 7700’s single-thread performance (3dmark single-thread score of 1049) provides a baseline.

How This Combo Ranks

In the global ranking of tested combos for Minimum, this configuration sits at rank 997 out of 1733, placing it in the 57th percentile. This rank reflects the CPU’s strong 91st percentile standing, but the GPU’s more modest 66th percentile drags the overall position down. The CPU’s nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H (avg score 40431, +0.1% delta) and Intel Core i9-13905H (avg score 40712, -0.6% delta), indicating the Ryzen 7 7700 is competitive in processor-bound scenarios. However, the GPU’s rivals—the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23321, -0.6% delta) and Intel Arc B580 (23021, +0.7% delta)—show that the RTX 4060 is in a tight mid-range cluster, with no clear performance leader.

The rank of 997 suggests that roughly 42% of tested combinations outperform this pairing in Minimum, likely due to GPUs with larger memory buses or higher VRAM capacities. The combo’s position is not surprising given the game’s 2014 release date, which means it is more sensitive to raw pixel throughput than modern features like DLSS. The measured FPS data confirms that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where the CPU’s 8 cores and 32 MB L3 cache ensure consistent frame pacing. At 4K, the combo falls below 60 FPS for all settings except Low, making it a marginal choice for 4K displays. The data indicates that while the Ryzen 7 7700 provides excellent multi-threaded performance (PassMark multi-thread score of 34470), the RTX 4060’s 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit bus are the limiting factors in this title’s higher resolutions.