Minimum

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Minimum reveals a clear scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 209 FPS at 1080p to 135 FPS at 1440p, then further to 72 FPS at 4K. This represents a 35% reduction moving from 1080p to 1440p, and another 47% reduction moving from 1440p to 4K. The progression is steep, indicating that pixel throughput becomes an increasingly dominant constraint at higher resolutions.

Low settings show the most dramatic resolution scaling. The 1080p result of 325 FPS falls to 209 FPS at 1440p (a 36% drop) and then to 113 FPS at 4K (a 46% drop from 1440p). This pattern suggests that at Low settings, the rendering pipeline is less burdened by shading work, yet the resolution increase still imposes a heavy cost. The frame rate at 4K Low (113 FPS) is still comfortably above 60 FPS, showing that even the most demanding resolution tested remains playable with this combination.

Medium settings provide the only rows with min and max FPS data, offering insight into frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the average is 249 FPS with a minimum of 211 FPS and maximum of 286 FPS, a spread of 75 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 160 FPS with a 136-184 FPS range, a 48 FPS spread. The 4K Medium result shows an average of 86 FPS with a 73-99 FPS range, a 26 FPS spread. The narrowing range at higher resolutions indicates that frame time variance compresses as the GPU becomes more fully utilized, which is typical behavior when the bottleneck shifts from CPU-side frame generation to GPU-side rendering.

Ultra settings produce the lowest frame rates at every resolution. The 1080p Ultra average is 159 FPS, dropping to 103 FPS at 1440p and 55 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result falls below 60 FPS, which is notable for a game from this era. The scaling from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra represents a 65% reduction in average FPS, the largest percentage drop across all settings presets. This indicates that Ultra settings amplify the resolution penalty substantially, likely due to additional shading and post-processing effects that scale super-linearly with pixel count.

The overall pattern across all settings shows that this combo is resolution-limited rather than CPU-limited in most scenarios. The Ryzen 7 9700F's strong single-thread performance, evidenced by its PassMark single-thread score of 4691, appears sufficient to feed the GPU even at 1080p where frame rates exceed 300 FPS at Low settings. The limiting factor at higher resolutions is clearly the GPU's fill rate and shading throughput, as demonstrated by the consistent FPS declines with each resolution step.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX brings substantial hardware to this title. Its 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus provides 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than adequate for a 2014-era game even at 4K resolution. The memory clock runs at 2500 MHz with 20 Gbps effective speed. The GPU's base clock is 1929 MHz, with a game clock of 2365 MHz and a boost clock of 2498 MHz. These clock speeds, combined with 6144 shading units, 384 TMUs, and 192 ROPs, deliver the raw throughput that the measured FPS results reflect.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 61.39 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 122.8 TFLOPS of FP16 performance (2:1 ratio). The pixel rate is 479.6 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 959.2 GTexel/s. These figures explain why the card can maintain high frame rates even at 4K resolution with moderate settings. However, the benchmark results also show that the card's architectural strength in compute does not fully translate to extreme frame rates in this particular game engine.

The GPU's benchmark scores provide context for its position. Its PassMark G3D score is 31238, and its Geekbench Vulkan score is 85612. The OpenCL score is 50465. In DirectX 12, the PassMark score is 131, while DirectX 11 yields 356 and DirectX 10 yields 166. The DirectX 9 score is 330. These scores indicate strong overall capability, though the percentile ranking of 64 vs all GPUs suggests that this card, while powerful, is not at the very top of the database's GPU hierarchy.

The nearest rivals based on average benchmark score paint an interesting picture. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB has an average score of 19334, which is 0.4% lower than the RX 7900 XTX's 19410. The NVIDIA Quadro K5200 scores 19602, 1% higher. The AMD FirePro D300 scores 19637, 1.2% higher, and the NVIDIA TITAN Xp scores 19177, 1.2% lower. These deltas are remarkably small, suggesting that in aggregate benchmark terms, the RX 7900 XTX sits in a tightly clustered performance band with these other cards, despite being a much newer and larger chip.

In the context of Minimum's measured FPS, the GPU's role becomes clear when examining the FPS differences between settings at the same resolution. At 4K, the gap between Low (113 FPS) and Ultra (55 FPS) is 58 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU's shading resources are heavily taxed by higher preset levels. The 24 GB VRAM is never a limiting factor in this game, as even the highest texture and geometry loads from 2014 would fit comfortably within a fraction of that capacity. The GPU's bandwidth of 960 GB/s similarly provides ample headroom for the game's memory traffic patterns.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Minimum?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 325, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Does this combo maintain 60+ FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: No. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 55, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How much faster is 1080p compared to 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the 1080p average is 249 FPS while the 4K average is 86 FPS, making 1080p approximately 2.9 times faster.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested combinations in this game?

A: The combo ranks 368 out of 2939 tested combinations in Minimum, placing it in the top 12.5% of all combos tested.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded in any measurement?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded is 73, which appears at 3840x2160 with Medium settings, paired with a maximum of 99 FPS and an average of 86 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU's single-thread score compare to its multithread score?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F has a PassMark single-thread score of 4691 and a multithread score of 36470, making the multithread score approximately 7.8 times higher.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 325 FPS, which is the single highest measurement in the entire dataset. Medium settings yield 249 FPS average with a minimum of 211 and maximum of 286. High settings average 209 FPS, while Ultra settings drop to 159 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1080p shows a 166 FPS spread, indicating that settings presets have a profound impact on performance even at the lowest resolution tested.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show clear reductions. Low settings average 209 FPS, which is identical to the 1080p High result. Medium settings average 160 FPS with a minimum of 136 and maximum of 184. High settings average 135 FPS, and Ultra settings average 103 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 106 FPS, narrower than at 1080p but still substantial. The Medium preset's min-max range of 48 FPS is notably tighter than the 75 FPS range seen at 1080p Medium.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops become more pronounced. Low settings still manage 113 FPS average, which is playable for most users. Medium settings average 86 FPS with a minimum of 73 and maximum of 99. High settings drop to 72 FPS average, and Ultra settings fall to 55 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread at 4K is 58 FPS, the smallest absolute spread across resolutions, but the percentage reduction from Low to Ultra is 51%, the largest relative drop.

The Medium settings rows are the only ones with complete min-max data, appearing at all three resolutions. This allows for a direct comparison of frame consistency. At 1080p, the min-to-max range is 75 FPS. At 1440p, it narrows to 48 FPS. At 4K, it narrows further to 26 FPS. This trend indicates that frame delivery becomes more consistent as resolution increases, likely because the GPU becomes the dominant bottleneck and its workload is more predictable than the CPU-side frame generation at lower resolutions.

Across all twelve measured rows, the data shows a consistent pattern: each settings tier at a given resolution performs similarly to the next settings tier down at the next resolution. For example, 4K Low (113 FPS) is close to 1440p Ultra (103 FPS), and 1440p High (135 FPS) is comparable to 1080p Ultra (159 FPS). This suggests that users can trade resolution and settings to achieve a target frame rate with predictable results.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture with the Granite Ridge codename. It operates on a 4 nm process from TSMC with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. The 65W TDP is notably low for a desktop processor with these specifications, and the AM5 socket platform supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel configuration and 89.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The CPU includes 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache.

The CPU's benchmark results show a balanced profile. Its PassMark multithread score is 36470, while the single-thread score is 4691. The integer math score is 120788, floating point math is 77955, and extended instructions score is 33688. Data compression scores 421988, data encryption scores 21488, and random string sorting scores 45890. Physics score is 2122, and prime number finding is 183. The average benchmark score is 69996, placing it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs in the database.

The nearest rival CPUs provide context for this performance. The AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX has an average score of 69875, which is 0.2% lower than the 9700F. The Intel Core i7-14700KF scores 70163, 0.2% higher. The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X scores 69515, 0.7% lower, and the Intel Core i7-14700K scores 69355, 0.9% lower. These tight deltas show that the 9700F sits squarely in a competitive performance band with these established processors, despite being a newer release.

In Minimum, the CPU's role is most evident at lower resolutions and settings where frame rates are highest. The 325 FPS result at 1080p Low demonstrates that the CPU can generate frames rapidly without becoming a bottleneck. The boost clock of 5.50 GHz and strong single-thread score of 4691 contribute to this capability. Even at 1080p Ultra with 159 FPS, the CPU maintains sufficient headroom, as the GPU is likely the limiting factor given the large performance gap between settings presets.

The 16 threads and 8 cores provide ample parallel processing capability for the game's background tasks, physics, and AI workloads. The 32 MB of shared L3 cache helps with data locality, and the DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth ensures that memory bandwidth does not constrain the CPU's frame generation. The CPU's 94th percentile ranking confirms that this is a high-end processor, and the measured FPS results align with that positioning.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings preset depends on the user's resolution and target frame rate. At 1920x1080, all settings presets deliver playable performance, with even Ultra averaging 159 FPS. For users with high refresh rate displays, Low settings at 325 FPS or Medium at 249 FPS provide the highest frame rates. The Medium preset's minimum of 211 FPS ensures consistent performance above 200 FPS, making it the recommended choice for competitive play where frame consistency matters more than visual fidelity.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset stands out as the best balance. Its average of 160 FPS with a minimum of 136 FPS and maximum of 184 FPS provides smooth gameplay with room to spare above 120 FPS. High settings at 135 FPS average are also viable, but the Medium preset's tighter frame delivery and higher average make it the stronger recommendation. Ultra at 103 FPS is playable but offers diminishing returns over Medium given the 57 FPS average difference.

At 3840x2160, the Medium preset is the clear recommendation for 4K gaming. The 86 FPS average with a 73-99 FPS range keeps frame rates above the 60 FPS threshold with consistency. High settings at 72 FPS average are also acceptable, but the Medium preset provides a 14 FPS average advantage and better minimum frame performance. Low settings at 113 FPS offer the highest frame rates at 4K but sacrifice visual quality. Ultra at 55 FPS falls below the 60 FPS standard and is not recommended for smooth gameplay.

The data shows that Medium settings provide the best overall experience across all three resolutions. It consistently delivers the highest frame rates among the presets that maintain visual quality, and it is the only preset with complete min-max FPS data, indicating the benchmark methodology captured its frame delivery characteristics most thoroughly. Users seeking maximum visual fidelity should note that Ultra's performance penalty is substantial, particularly at 4K where it drops below 60 FPS.

For users with variable refresh rate monitors, the Medium preset's frame ranges at each resolution (211-286 at 1080p, 136-184 at 1440p, 73-99 at 4K) fall within typical VRR operating ranges, ensuring tear-free and stutter-free gameplay. The consistent scaling pattern from Medium to other presets also allows users to adjust settings dynamically based on in-game scenarios without dramatic performance swings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX ranks 368 out of 2939 tested combos in Minimum. This places the combo in the top 12.5% of all combinations tested for this game. The rank reflects the measured FPS performance across all resolutions and settings, weighted by the benchmark methodology's aggregation of results.

This ranking is notable given the GPU's modest percentile ranking of 64 among all GPUs. The CPU's 94th percentile ranking compensates for the GPU's lower relative position, and the combination's synergy in this game produces results that exceed what either component's individual ranking might suggest. The 368th position out of 2939 combos indicates that a substantial majority of tested combinations deliver lower performance in Minimum, despite the presence of many newer and more expensive components in the database.

The gap between the combo's rank and the GPU's individual percentile highlights the CPU's importance in this game. The Ryzen 7 9700F's strong single-thread performance and high boost clock enable high frame rates at lower resolutions, while the RX 7900 XTX's substantial memory bandwidth and compute throughput handle the higher resolution workloads. The combination of these strengths results in a top-tier ranking that outperforms the GPU's standalone position.

In practical terms, the 368th rank out of 2939 means that this combo outperforms approximately 87.5% of all tested combinations in Minimum. This places it in the upper echelon of systems for this game, with only 367 combinations achieving higher aggregate performance. The measured FPS data supports this ranking, as the combo delivers 325 FPS at 1080p Low and maintains 55 FPS at 4K Ultra, demonstrating capability across the full range of testing conditions.

The ranking also reflects the balance between CPU and GPU performance. The 8-core, 16-thread Ryzen 7 9700F with its 5.50 GHz boost clock provides the frame generation headroom needed to keep the RX 7900 XTX fed at lower resolutions, while the GPU's 24 GB VRAM and 960 GB/s bandwidth ensure no memory-related bottlenecks at higher resolutions. This balanced configuration is a key factor in achieving a rank of 368, as systems with severe CPU or GPU imbalances typically rank lower in this database's aggregate scoring.