Minimum

# Minimum: AMD Ryzen 7 9700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 — Benchmark Analysis

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers a consistently strong experience in Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter. Across the twelve measured resolution and settings combinations, the combo never falls below 61 FPS average, with the highest result reaching 356 FPS. This places the pairing at rank 246 out of 3712 tested combinations, putting it in the top 6.6% of all evaluated systems for this title.

FAQ

Q: What is the best-performing settings preset at 1080p for this combo?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves the highest average FPS at 356, followed by Medium at 273, High at 229, and Ultra at 174. The Medium preset offers a 273 FPS average with a minimum of 232 and maximum of 313, providing a large frame-rate cushion over display refresh rates.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700X scores 37,943 in the average benchmark score, which is 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i9-14901E (37,911) and 0.1% ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (37,904). It leads the Intel Core 5 211E (37,829) by 0.3% and the AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P132 (37,804) by 0.4%.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 229 at 1920x1080 to 148 at 2560x1440 and further to 79 at 3840x2160. This represents a 65.5% reduction from 1080p to 4K.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 outperform its closest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080 has an average benchmark score of 54,247, which is 0.1% higher than the RTX 4080 SUPER (54,209). However, it trails the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54,828) by 1.1%, the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698) by 2.6%, and the AMD Radeon 8060S (55,757) by 2.7%.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded across all tested configurations?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded is 80, which occurs at 3840x2160 with Medium settings. The next lowest minimum is 149 at 2560x1440 Medium, and the highest minimum is 232 at 1920x1080 Medium. No other configurations list minimum FPS values.

Q: What is the combo's overall ranking for this game?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination ranks 246th out of 3,712 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the top 6.6% of all systems benchmarked.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 brings 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s. Memory clocks run at 1400 MHz with 22.4 Gbps effective speed. The GPU's base clock is 2205 MHz with a boost clock of 2505 MHz, and its 9728 shading units process geometry through 304 texture mapping units and 112 ROPs.

In Minimum, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution climbs. At 1080p, the Low preset produces 356 FPS, indicating the CPU has headroom to feed the GPU well beyond typical display capabilities. At 4K, the Ultra preset drops to 61 FPS, showing the GPU's rendering load becomes the primary constraint. The RTX 4080's 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 761.5 GTexel/s texture rate support the observed scaling, where each resolution step roughly halves the available frame rate at equivalent settings.

The GPU's 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores are present but are unlikely to be heavily exercised in a 2014 title that predates widespread ray tracing adoption. The 16 GB VRAM capacity far exceeds what Minimum requires at any resolution, so memory capacity is not a limiting factor in any measured configuration. The 280.6 GPixel/s pixel rate aligns with the 4K Ultra result of 61 FPS, suggesting the fill-rate demands at that setting push the GPU to its practical limit.

Settings Recommendations

The data shows a clear progression across presets at every resolution. At 3840x2160, the average FPS ranges from 124 (Low) to 95 (Medium) to 79 (High) to 61 (Ultra). The Medium preset at 4K offers the only complete FPS range data (80 minimum, 109 maximum), indicating a stable experience with a 29 FPS spread between minimum and maximum.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset achieves 230 FPS, Medium reaches 176, High hits 148, and Ultra drops to 112. The Medium preset here shows a 149 minimum and 202 maximum, a 53 FPS spread. At 1920x1080, the spread is similar: Low at 356, Medium at 273, High at 229, and Ultra at 174.

For the best experience balancing visual fidelity and frame rate, the High preset at 1440p is the strongest recommendation. It delivers 148 FPS average, which comfortably exceeds 120 Hz displays while maintaining higher visual quality than Medium. At 4K, the Medium preset (95 FPS average) provides a better playable experience than High (79 FPS) or Ultra (61 FPS), particularly since it is the only 4K configuration with documented minimum and maximum values, suggesting the test captured a full performance envelope. At 1080p, all presets exceed 170 FPS, so the choice depends entirely on visual preference — even Ultra at 174 FPS leaves substantial headroom.

How This Combo Ranks

With a combo rank of 246 out of 3,712 tested systems, this pairing sits in the 93.4th percentile of all combinations evaluated in Minimum. This places it well within the upper echelon of systems, though not at the absolute top — there are 245 combinations that achieve higher performance in this title.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 86 (vs. all CPUs) and the GPU's percentile of 86 (vs. all GPUs) are both strong individually, and combined they produce a system that ranks higher than either component's individual percentile would suggest. This indicates the pairing is well-balanced for this game, with neither component substantially bottlenecking the other in the mid-range of settings.

The nearest CPU rivals — the Intel Core i9-14901E and AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, both within 0.1% of the 9700X's average score — would likely produce near-identical results when paired with the same GPU. The GPU's closest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, is also within 0.1% in average score, meaning systems with that card would deliver essentially equivalent frame rates in Minimum.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component at each stage. At High settings, the progression is 229 FPS (1080p) → 148 FPS (1440p) → 79 FPS (4K). The 1080p to 1440p drop is 35.4%, while the 1440p to 4K drop is 46.6%. This accelerating decline indicates the GPU becomes progressively more dominant as pixel count increases.

At Low settings, the scaling is 356 → 230 → 124 FPS. The 1080p to 1440p drop is 35.4%, nearly identical to High settings, but the 1440p to 4K drop is 46.1%. The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests the GPU's fill-rate and bandwidth constraints scale predictably with resolution, regardless of the visual preset.

The Medium preset shows the most complete data: 273 → 176 → 95 FPS. The minimum FPS values (232, 149, 80) scale similarly to the averages, maintaining a consistent ratio of approximately 85% of average at each resolution. This suggests the limiting component is the GPU across all resolutions, as the CPU's frame production capability (evidenced by the 356 FPS Low result at 1080p) far exceeds what the GPU can deliver at higher pixel counts.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are: Low 356, Medium 273 (minimum 232, maximum 313), High 229, and Ultra 174. The Medium preset's complete range indicates a stable 81 FPS spread between minimum and maximum. All presets at this resolution exceed 170 FPS, meaning the CPU is capable of sustaining high frame delivery even at Ultra settings.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS values are: Low 230, Medium 176 (minimum 149, maximum 202), High 148, and Ultra 112. The Medium preset shows a 53 FPS spread. The step from 1080p to 1440p reduces performance by approximately 35% across all presets, a consistent scaling factor that suggests the GPU's pixel throughput is the primary constraint.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS values are: Low 124, Medium 95 (minimum 80, maximum 109), High 79, and Ultra 61. The Medium preset's 29 FPS spread is the tightest of any resolution, indicating that at 4K the frame delivery becomes more consistent even though absolute performance drops. The Ultra preset at 61 FPS is the only configuration that approaches the 60 FPS threshold, while all other 4K presets remain comfortably above it.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X features 8 cores and 16 threads with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Built on TSMC's 4 nm process with Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), it has 80 KB L1 cache per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 32 MB shared L3 cache. Its 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth provide the platform foundation for the RTX 4080.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 20,485 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,211 in single-core, with a Geekbench multi-core of 17,906 and single-core of 3,023. The 3DMark results show scaling from 1,280 (single-thread) to 9,824 (16-thread), indicating strong multi-threading efficiency that benefits games like Minimum which can utilize multiple cores.

The CPU's role in Minimum is evident from the 1080p results: at Low settings, the system produces 356 FPS, which is far beyond what most displays can show, indicating the CPU is not a bottleneck at this resolution. Even at Ultra settings (174 FPS), the CPU maintains sufficient frame delivery. The 86th percentile ranking versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37,943, places it just above the Intel Core i9-14901E and AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, confirming its position as a high-end processor for gaming workloads. The 3dmark_max_threads score of 9,771 closely tracks the 16-thread score of 9,824, showing that the CPU's performance scales well with the thread counts typical of modern game engines.