Minimum

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER produces a distinctive performance profile in Minimum, a Third-Person Shooter released on 2014-06-25. The data shows a combination that is heavily constrained by the graphics card, particularly at higher resolutions and settings. This analysis breaks down the measured frame rates, the CPU and GPU roles, and how this specific pairing ranks among all tested combinations.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and clearly identifies the GPU as the primary limiting component. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 133.9 at 1920x1080 to 85.2 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 48.7 FPS, and then drops further to 44.8 at 3840x2160. This represents a 66.5% decrease in performance from 1080p to 4K at Low settings. The scaling pattern at High settings is similar, with averages of 83.8 at 1080p, 54.2 at 1440p, and 30.3 at 4K. The most dramatic collapse occurs at Ultra settings, where the average FPS plummets from 61.5 at 1080p to 43.2 at 1440p and finally to a nearly unplayable 19.4 at 4K.

These figures indicate that the GTX 1660 SUPER's rendering pipeline becomes saturated as pixel count increases. The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens significantly at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low (133.9 FPS) and Ultra (61.5 FPS) is 72.4 FPS. At 4K, that same gap shrinks to 25.4 FPS (44.8 vs 19.4), demonstrating that the GPU's compute and memory resources are exhausted by the resolution increase before the settings can further tax the system. The data suggests that at 4K, even dropping to Low settings cannot maintain a smooth 60 FPS experience, as the card is fundamentally outpaced by the pixel throughput required.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested combinations for Minimum, this CPU-GPU pairing achieves a combo rank of 1523 out of 1733 total combos. This places it in the lower 12th percentile of all tested configurations, indicating that the GTX 1660 SUPER holds back the otherwise high-end processor. The rank reflects the average FPS across all tested settings and resolutions, which are heavily weighted by the GPU's 4K performance.

The ranking is a direct consequence of the component pairing. The Ryzen 7 9800X3D is a top-tier CPU, but the GTX 1660 SUPER is a modest graphics card. The benchmark results show that this combination is not competitive with systems using more powerful GPUs, even if their CPUs are weaker. The data implies that the combo rank is dictated almost entirely by the GPU's capabilities, as the CPU has ample headroom to feed frames at every resolution and setting tested. This pairing is a classic example of a bottleneck, where the graphics card is the limiting factor in overall system performance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D is a high-end desktop processor from the 9000 series, built on the Zen 5 architecture and codenamed Granite Ridge. It features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.20 GHz. The CPU's cache configuration is substantial, consisting of 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and a large 96 MB of shared L3 cache. This large cache is a key feature for gaming performance, as it reduces the latency of frequently accessed data.

In Minimum, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. Given the game's 2014 release date, its engine is not likely to be heavily multi-threaded. The 9800X3D's single-threaded performance is exceptional, as evidenced by its 3DMark single-thread score of 1212 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4800. The benchmark data shows that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this pairing. At 1080p Low settings, the combo achieves 133.9 FPS, which is a high frame rate, but the CPU is capable of far more. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 10081 and the Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 34004 confirm that the CPU has massive parallel processing power.

The fact that the frame rate drops so significantly when moving from 1080p to 4K proves that the CPU is not the limiting factor. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rate would remain relatively constant across resolutions. Instead, the data shows a clear GPU-bound scenario. The 9800X3D's performance, which places it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, is effectively wasted in this configuration for Minimum, as the GTX 1660 SUPER cannot translate the CPU's power into higher frame rates at higher resolutions. The CPU's high clocks and large cache ensure it can maintain high minimum frame rates, but the average FPS is capped by the GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed look at the combo's performance across all settings. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers playable frame rates at most settings. The average FPS is 133.9 at Low, 102 at Medium, 83.8 at High, and 61.5 at Ultra. These numbers show that at 1080p, the GTX 1660 SUPER can handle the game's demands, providing a smooth experience even at Ultra settings, which stays above the 60 FPS threshold.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops noticeably. The average FPS at Low is 85.2, at Medium it is 65.1, at High it is 54.2, and at Ultra it falls to 43.2. At this resolution, the Ultra setting becomes less fluid, and High settings dip below 60 FPS. The 1440p results indicate that users seeking a stable 60 FPS experience would need to use Medium settings or lower.

At 3840x2160, the GTX 1660 SUPER struggles significantly. The average FPS at Low is 44.8, at Medium it is 35.9, at High it is 30.3, and at Ultra it drops to a very low 19.4. These results show that 4K gaming is not viable with this GPU in Minimum. Even at the lowest settings, the frame rate is below 45 FPS, and at higher settings, it becomes a stuttery presentation. The data across all resolutions shows a consistent pattern: the GPU's performance degrades linearly with pixel count, and the impact of settings is magnified at lower resolutions where the GPU is less saturated.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is based on the Turing architecture (TU116 chip) and fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It has 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1530 MHz and a boost clock of 1785 MHz. It is equipped with 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The card also features a pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s, with an FP32 performance of 5.027 TFLOPS.

The GPU's role in Minimum is to handle the rendering pipeline, including geometry processing, texturing, and pixel shading. The 6 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for this game, even at 4K, as the game's assets are likely not large enough to exceed it. The data shows that the GPU's compute performance is the primary limiter. The dramatic FPS drop at 4K (e.g., 44.8 FPS at Low) is a result of the GPU's limited shading and fill-rate capabilities being overwhelmed by the sheer number of pixels.

The GTX 1660 SUPER's performance is below average, placing it in the 55th percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 14286 is very close to its nearest rivals, including the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 and the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics, which show a deltaPct of -0.2 and -0.2, respectively. This indicates that the GTX 1660 SUPER is a mid-range card at the time of its release (2019-10-28) and is now considered end-of-life. The benchmark results in Minimum confirm this, as the card cannot maintain high frame rates at higher resolutions. The data indicates that the GPU is the definitive bottleneck in this combo, and its performance characteristics dictate the overall experience, limiting the system to 1080p gaming for a consistently smooth frame rate.