Minimum

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 combination delivers a highly playable experience in Minimum, a Third-Person Shooter released in 2014. The data shows a system that can comfortably handle high refresh rates at 1080p and 1440p, while still maintaining 60 FPS at 4K on High settings. This pairing leverages the 8-core, 16-thread Zen 5 processor with the 10 GB Ampere GPU to create a balanced platform, though the performance scaling across resolutions reveals where each component's influence is strongest.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data illustrates a clear and expected decline in performance as resolution increases, but the rate of that decline reveals the balance between the CPU and GPU. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 267 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 172 FPS, a 35.6% reduction. At 4K Low, the average falls to 93 FPS, which is a 45.9% drop from the 1440p figure and a 65.2% drop from the 1080p baseline. This steep scaling curve at Low settings indicates that the GPU is becoming the primary bottleneck as pixel count increases, while the CPU has ample headroom at lower resolutions.

The scaling behavior shifts when looking at High settings. At 1080p High, the system produces 171 FPS. At 1440p High, it drops to 110 FPS (a 35.7% decrease), and at 4K High, it falls to 60 FPS (a 45.5% decrease from 1440p). This pattern is nearly identical to the Low settings scaling, confirming that the RTX 3080's workload scales consistently with resolution regardless of the graphics preset. The fact that the percentage drops are so similar between Low and High settings suggests that the game is well-optimized and that the GPU's shading units, texture units, and ROPs are being utilized efficiently across the board.

The most demanding preset, Ultra, shows the harshest scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 131 FPS. This drops to 84 FPS at 1440p Ultra (a 35.9% reduction), and then to 45 FPS at 4K Ultra (a 46.4% reduction from 1440p). The 4K Ultra result is the only configuration where the system falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the baseline for smooth gameplay. This indicates that the Ultra preset, likely with its most intensive effects and draw distances, is too demanding for the RTX 3080's 10 GB frame buffer and 320-bit memory bus at 4K resolution.

What this scaling data suggests is that the limiting component shifts depending on the target resolution. At 1080p, the CPU's performance is likely the ceiling, as the FPS numbers are extremely high (267 FPS at Low) and the GPU is not fully saturated. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, as the FPS drops are substantial and consistent with the increased pixel workload. For those targeting 4K, the High preset at 60 FPS is the sweet spot, while 1440p Ultra at 84 FPS offers a good balance of visual fidelity and smoothness.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this specific CPU-GPU combination ranks 776 out of 2939 tested combos for Minimum. This places it in the top 26.4% of all tested systems, which is a strong result for a pairing of a 2025 CPU with a 2020 GPU. The rank indicates that while the combo is not at the very top of the charts, it outperforms the majority of systems that have been tested with this game, likely including many with older or lower-tier components.

The combo's rank is heavily influenced by the CPU's strong synthetic performance. The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F has an average benchmark score of 69996 and sits in the 94th percentile of all CPUs tested. Its nearest rivals in the PassMark database are the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (avg score 69875, 0.2% slower), the Intel Core i7-14700KF (avg score 70163, 0.2% faster), and the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (avg score 69515, 0.7% slower). These deltas are minuscule, meaning the 9700F is essentially performance-equivalent to these high-end desktop processors in general compute tasks.

However, the GPU's ranking is more moderate. The RTX 3080 has an average benchmark score of 23172 and sits in the 68th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA P106-100 (avg score 23249, 0.3% faster), the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 (avg score 23250, 0.3% faster), and the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (avg score 23273, 0.4% faster). These are not direct competitors in the same performance class; the fact that the RTX 3080 is ranked near these cards in synthetic benchmarks suggests that the average benchmark score does not fully capture its gaming performance, or that its end-of-life production status has led to driver updates that favor other metrics.

The combination of a top-tier CPU with a mid-to-high-tier GPU results in a system that ranks well but is not at the absolute frontier. The data shows that the CPU is capable of pushing the GPU to its limits at lower resolutions, but the GPU's overall performance ceiling determines the final FPS at higher resolutions. This is a classic pairing where the CPU has longevity, while the GPU is more likely to be the upgrade target for future titles.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a desktop processor from the 9000 series, built on the Zen 5 architecture with the Granite Ridge codename. It features 8 cores and 16 threads, a base clock of 3.80 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. The 65W TDP and unlocked multiplier make it a versatile part for various system configurations. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus, and its L3 cache is 32 MB shared across all cores.

In Minimum, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls, physics calculations, and game logic. The high boost clock of 5.50 GHz is particularly beneficial for this game, as it was released in 2014 and likely does not utilize the full thread count of modern processors. The single-threaded performance, as measured by the PassMark single-thread score of 4691, is strong and helps ensure that the game's main thread is not a bottleneck. The multi-threaded score of 36470 indicates that the CPU has substantial headroom for background tasks or streaming while gaming.

The data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the system achieves 267 FPS, which is a very high frame rate. This suggests that the CPU is capable of processing the game's simulation at a rate that exceeds what the GPU can render at higher resolutions. The fact that the FPS at 1080p Low is more than double the FPS at 4K Low (267 vs. 93) strongly implies that the CPU is not the limiting factor at 4K; instead, the GPU's rendering capabilities are the constraint. The CPU's PassMark physics score of 2122 and integer math score of 120788 are indicative of strong processing power that can handle the game's mechanics without issue.

For a game like Minimum, the 8-core/16-thread configuration is more than sufficient. The high clock speeds are likely more important than the core count for achieving high FPS, as older titles often scale poorly with many cores. The 32 MB L3 cache helps with data locality, reducing latency for frequently accessed game assets. Overall, the CPU provides a solid foundation that will not hold back the GPU in most scenarios, except possibly at ultra-low resolutions where the CPU's frame generation limit is reached.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive look at the system's performance across a matrix of resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the system excels. On Low settings, it averages 267 FPS. Medium settings yield an average of 204 FPS, with a minimum of 174 and a maximum of 235 FPS. High settings produce 171 FPS, and Ultra settings, the most demanding, still manage an average of 131 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the system is capable of driving high-refresh-rate monitors (144Hz or 165Hz) even with Ultra settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains strong. Low settings average 172 FPS, Medium settings average 132 FPS (with a min of 112 and max of 151), High settings average 110 FPS, and Ultra settings average 84 FPS. These results show that 1440p is the sweet spot for this combo, as even the Ultra preset exceeds the 60 FPS threshold by a significant margin, and the High preset is well-suited for 144Hz displays. The minimum FPS of 112 at Medium settings suggests that frame pacing is consistent, with no major stutters.

At 3840x2160 (4K), the system begins to show its limits. Low settings average 93 FPS, which is playable. Medium settings average 71 FPS, with a minimum of 60 and a maximum of 82. High settings average exactly 60 FPS, which is the minimum acceptable for many players. However, Ultra settings drop to an average of 45 FPS, which is below the smoothness threshold. The data shows that for 4K gaming with this setup, sticking to High or Medium settings is recommended, as the Ultra preset will result in noticeable frame drops and a less fluid experience.

The Medium settings data is the only set that includes minimum and maximum FPS values. At 1080p Medium, the range is 174-235 FPS, a spread of 61 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the range is 112-151 FPS, a spread of 39 FPS. At 4K Medium, the range is 60-82 FPS, a spread of 22 FPS. This shrinking spread as resolution increases is typical, as the GPU becomes more consistently loaded and the frame time variance is reduced. The minimum FPS values are all above 60, even at 4K, which indicates that the system maintains a playable frame rate in the worst-case scenarios for these settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is based on the Ampere architecture and the GA102 chip, manufactured on an 8nm process by Samsung. It features 8704 shading units, 272 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs. The GPU has 68 RT cores and 272 tensor cores, which support DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4 APIs. The memory subsystem consists of 10 GB of GDDR6X on a 320-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 760.3 GB/s. The core clocks are 1440 MHz base and 1710 MHz boost, with a memory clock of 1188 MHz (19 Gbps effective).

In Minimum, the GPU's role is to handle the rasterization of the game's third-person environments and character models. The game's release in 2014 means it does not require ray tracing or advanced AI features; therefore, the RT and tensor cores are largely unused. The GPU's raw rasterization power, as measured by the PassMark G3D score of 25086, is what drives the FPS. The 10 GB of VRAM is ample for this title, as even at 4K Ultra, the frame buffer is unlikely to be completely saturated.

The GPU's performance in this game is strong, but it is the limiting factor at higher resolutions. The data shows that the FPS drops significantly when moving from 1440p to 4K, regardless of the settings preset. This is a direct result of the GPU having to render four times as many pixels. The 320-bit memory bus and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for 4K textures, but the sheer pixel count overwhelms the GPU's compute units.

The GPU's PassMark DirectX 12 score of 100 is notably low, but this is likely a quirk of the benchmark, as the DirectX 11 score of 207 is more representative of its performance in older titles like Minimum. The GPU's 29.77 TFLOPS FP32 performance is substantial, but the game's engine is likely not optimized to take full advantage of this compute power. The texture rate of 465.1 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 164.2 GPixel/s are the key metrics for this game, as it relies on traditional texture fill and pixel shading. These rates are high enough to deliver the observed FPS numbers, but they are ultimately the ceiling that prevents higher performance at 4K.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system run Minimum at 4K 60 FPS?*

A: Yes, at 4K with High settings, the system achieves an average of 60 FPS exactly. At Medium settings, it averages 71 FPS with a minimum of 60 FPS. However, at Ultra settings, the average drops to 45 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target.

Q: What is the best resolution for high refresh rate gaming with this combo?

A: At 1080p, the system averages 171 FPS on High settings and 131 FPS on Ultra. At 1440p, it averages 110 FPS on High and 84 FPS on Ultra. For a 144Hz monitor, 1080p Ultra or 1440p High will provide the best experience.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 9700F compare to its closest CPU rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F has an average benchmark score of 69996. It is 0.2% faster than the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (score 69875) and 0.7% faster than the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (score 69515). It is 0.2% slower than the Intel Core i7-14700KF (score 70163) and 0.9% faster than the Intel Core i7-14700K (score 69355).

Q: Is the RTX 3080 the bottleneck in this system?

A: The data indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K resolution. The FPS drops significantly from 1440p to 4K (e.g., from 110 to 60 at High settings), suggesting the GPU cannot keep up with the increased pixel workload. At 1080p, the CPU is more likely to be the constraint, as FPS reaches 267 at Low settings.

Q: What settings should I use for 1440p gaming?

A: For a smooth 144Hz experience, High settings (110 FPS) are recommended. For a higher visual quality with still-smooth gameplay, Ultra settings (84 FPS) are viable, especially on a 75Hz or 100Hz monitor. Medium settings (132 FPS) offer a good balance for competitive play.

*Q: How does this combo rank overall for Minimum?*

A: This specific CPU-GPU combination ranks 776 out of 2939 tested combos, placing it in the top 26.4% of all systems tested for this game. This is a strong result, indicating it outperforms the majority of other configurations in the database.