Minimum

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 pairing delivers a high-refresh-rate experience in Minimum, a 2014 Third-Person Shooter. The data shows this combo ranks 107th out of 2939 tested combinations, placing it in the top 4% of all systems. The RTX 4090 provides massive raw throughput, but this older title’s engine and the CPU’s 8-core/16-thread Zen 5 architecture become the defining factors as resolutions drop.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo overkill for a game from 2014?

A: In terms of raw performance, yes. The RTX 4090 is an end-of-life flagship with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and a 1.01 TB/s bandwidth. At 1080p Low settings, the system hits 394 FPS average. However, the data shows that the CPU becomes a bottleneck at lower resolutions, as the FPS gains from 1440p to 1080p are much smaller than the gains from 4K to 1440p.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1440p gaming?

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset delivers 163 FPS average, while Ultra drops to 124 FPS. The Medium preset offers a balanced 194 FPS average with a minimum of 165 FPS. For a 144Hz monitor, Medium is the sweet spot, as it ensures you stay above the refresh rate in most scenes.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its direct rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F sits at the 94th percentile among all CPUs. Its average benchmark score of 69996 is 0.2% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX and 0.7% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. It is effectively tied with the Intel Core i7-14700KF, which scores 70163, a 0.2% difference.

Q: Is the RTX 4090's performance consistent with its specs?

A: The GPU holds the 88th percentile among all graphics cards. Its Passmark G3D score of 38194 is notable, but its nearest rivals in average score are professional workstation cards like the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (which is 2.5% slower) and the AMD Radeon PRO V710 (which is 2.9% faster). This indicates the 4090's gaming-specific drivers and architecture are not fully reflected in generic compute benchmarks.

Q: Will I see a big difference between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: Yes. At 1080p High, the average FPS is 253. At 4K High, it drops to 88 FPS. This represents a 65% reduction in frame rate. The 4K result is much lower than the 1440p High result of 163 FPS, showing that the GPU is fully saturated at the higher resolution.

Q: What are the physical requirements for this GPU?

A: The RTX 4090 is a triple-slot card measuring 304 mm in length, 137 mm in height, and 61 mm in width. It requires a 16-pin power connector and the manufacturer suggests an 850 W power supply. It outputs video via 1x HDMI 2.1 and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) on a 4 nm TSMC process. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU features 32 MB of shared L3 cache and 1 MB of L2 cache per core. It supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus, providing 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Minimum, the CPU's influence is most apparent at lower resolutions. The benchmark results show that the FPS scaling from 1440p to 1080p is less dramatic than from 4K to 1440p, which points to the CPU hitting its limits. For example, at Low settings, the 1440p average is 254 FPS, while 1080p is 394 FPS. While this is a 55% increase, it is less than the 85% increase seen when moving from 4K Low (137 FPS) to 1440p Low (254 FPS). This suggests the 9700F is still providing enough throughput to feed the 4090 at 1080p, but the game engine's single-threaded nature is starting to cap performance.

The CPU's Passmark single-thread score is 4691, which is a strong result. Its multithread score is 36470, placing it in the 94th percentile. This combination of high single-thread and multithread performance is ideal for a game that is likely optimized for fewer cores. The 8 cores and 16 threads ensure that background tasks and game logic do not interfere, but the high boost clock of 5.50 GHz is the key factor in maintaining high frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios. The data indicates that this CPU is a capable partner for the 4090, as it does not significantly hold back performance at 1440p and above, where the GPU is the primary bottleneck.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the flagship of the GeForce 40-series, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture (AD102 chip) using a 5 nm process. It has a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz. The memory subsystem is substantial: 24 GB of GDDR6X on a 384-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. The GPU contains 16384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs, with 128 RT cores and 512 Tensor cores.

The GPU's role in Minimum becomes dominant at higher resolutions. The transition from 1440p to 4K at any settings preset shows a significant performance drop, which is the classic signature of a GPU-bound scenario. For instance, at High settings, the average FPS falls from 163 at 1440p to 88 at 4K, a 46% decrease. This is a larger relative drop than the one seen from 1080p to 1440p, which goes from 253 to 163 FPS (a 36% decrease). This indicates that the 4090's pixel throughput, rated at 443.5 GPixel/s, is being fully utilized at 4K.

The GPU's FP32 performance is 82.58 TFLOPS, which is substantial for compute-heavy tasks, but in gaming, the texture rate (1,290.2 GTexel/s) and memory bandwidth are more relevant. The 24 GB VRAM is far more than this 2014 title needs, but it ensures there are no memory capacity limitations at any resolution or setting. The benchmark scores reflect the GPU's power: a Passmark G3D score of 38194 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 271631. The data confirms that the RTX 4090 is the primary driver of performance at 4K, where the CPU's workload is offloaded to the GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is ranked 107th out of 2939 tested combos in Minimum. This places it in the top 3.6% of all systems, which is an elite standing. The ranking reflects that while there are more powerful combinations (likely with newer CPUs or multi-GPU setups), this pairing is exceptionally well-balanced for this game.

The high rank is driven by the 4090's dominance. The GPU's performance is so high that even with a mid-range CPU like the 9700F, the system outperforms the vast majority of other configurations. The CPU's 94th percentile ranking ensures it is not a weak link, but the GPU's 88th percentile ranking is more telling, as the 4090 is near the top of the GPU hierarchy. The combo rank of 107 suggests that the limiting factor is not the hardware but the game's engine, which cannot fully utilize the 4090's power at lower resolutions.

In context, the 9700F's nearest rivals (the Ryzen 9 7940HX and Core i7-14700KF) would likely produce similar results in this game, as their CPU benchmark scores are within 0.2% of each other. This means the 4090 is the differentiator. The data shows that this combo is not just about high numbers; it is about having a GPU that can brute-force through the game's demands at 4K, while the CPU maintains a high enough frame floor to avoid stutters.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data reveals a clear pattern of how the bottleneck shifts with resolution. At 1080p, the system is heavily CPU-bound. The average FPS at Low settings is 394, which is an extremely high number that suggests the game engine is the limiting factor. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings shows a drop from 394 to 254 FPS (a 36% decrease). This is a substantial drop, but it is less than the drop seen when moving from 1440p to 4K.

At 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting component. The 4K Low average is 137 FPS, which is a 46% decrease from the 1440p Low average of 254 FPS. This steeper decline indicates that the GPU's pixel processing capabilities are being maxed out. The same pattern holds for the High preset: 253 FPS at 1080p, 163 FPS at 1440p, and 88 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1440p to 4K (46%) is larger than from 1080p to 1440p (36%).

This scaling behavior is typical for a high-end GPU. The RTX 4090 has enough bandwidth and compute to handle 1440p easily, but 4K demands more from the ROPs and memory system. The data suggests that for a 240Hz monitor, 1080p is the target resolution, while for 144Hz, 1440p is the sweet spot. 4K gaming is possible, but the frame rates (67-137 FPS depending on settings) are more suited for a 60Hz or 120Hz display.

Measured FPS Breakdown

Here is the exact performance data for this combo in Minimum, broken down by resolution and settings.

1920x1080 (1080p)

At Low settings, the system achieves an average of 394 FPS. This is the highest frame rate recorded in the entire dataset. Medium settings yield an average of 301 FPS, with a minimum of 256 FPS and a maximum of 347 FPS. High settings drop the average to 253 FPS. Ultra settings produce 193 FPS average. The spread between Low and Ultra is 201 FPS, which shows the CPU is still able to push high frame rates even with more graphical load.

2560x1440 (1440p)

The 1440p results show a significant step down. Low settings average 254 FPS. Medium settings average 194 FPS, with a minimum of 165 and a maximum of 223. High settings average 163 FPS. Ultra settings average 124 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra here is 130 FPS. These numbers indicate that 1440p is the resolution where the balance between CPU and GPU is optimal, as the GPU is being utilized more heavily, but the CPU is still keeping up.

3840x2160 (4K)

At 4K, the GPU is the clear bottleneck. Low settings average 137 FPS. Medium settings average 105 FPS, with a minimum of 89 and a maximum of 120. High settings average 88 FPS. Ultra settings average 67 FPS. The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial across all settings. For example, High settings fall from 253 to 88 FPS, a 65% reduction. The data shows that Ultra settings at 4K are barely playable on a 60Hz monitor, while Medium settings are the minimum for a smooth experience.