Minimum

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 lands at rank 776 out of 1,733 tested combos for Minimum, placing it in the 45th percentile of all system pairings. This is a mid-pack result that reflects a notable imbalance: the CPU is a top-tier part, while the GPU sits closer to the middle of the field. The data suggests the RTX 3070 is the limiting factor in most scenarios, as the 9800X3D’s benchmark scores are far ahead of what this GPU can feed at higher resolutions.

Looking at the CPU’s synthetic results, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D scores 34,004 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4,800 in single-core, with a PassMark multithread score of 40,009. Its average benchmark score of 37,780 places it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs. The nearest rivals are tightly clustered: the Intel Xeon 6353P (37,811, -0.1%), Intel Core Ultra 5 225 (37,831, -0.1%), Intel Core i9-13900HK (38,020, -0.6%), and Intel Core i5-13600KF (38,028, -0.7%). The 9800X3D trails these by mere fractions of a percent, meaning any performance differences in Minimum come down to the GPU, not the processor.

For the GPU, the RTX 3070’s PassMark G3D score of 22,214 and average benchmark score of 28,238 put it in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD FirePro S7150 (28,409, -0.6%), AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (27,985, 0.9%), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (27,956, 1%), and AMD Radeon R9 M295X (28,541, -1.1%). The RTX 3070 is within 1% of all these parts, indicating that the GPU is firmly in the mid-range tier for this title. The combination’s overall rank thus reflects a CPU that can easily outpace the GPU, with frame rates dictated by the graphics card’s capabilities.

FAQ

*Q: What is the combo's overall rank in Minimum?*

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 ranks 776th out of 1,733 tested combinations, placing it in the 45th percentile of all pairings.

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

A: The Ryzen 7 9800X3D’s average benchmark score of 37,780 is 0.1% behind the Intel Xeon 6353P and Intel Core Ultra 5 225, 0.6% behind the Intel Core i9-13900HK, and 0.7% behind the Intel Core i5-13600KF. The differences are negligible, so CPU performance is essentially tied with these parts.

Q: How does the GPU stack up against similar cards?

A: The RTX 3070’s average benchmark score of 28,238 is 0.6% behind the AMD FirePro S7150, 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, 1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, and 1.1% behind the AMD Radeon R9 M295X.

Q: What frame rates can be expected at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, average FPS ranges from 230.9 on Low settings to 110.9 on Ultra. Medium and High settings yield 178.8 and 149.8 FPS, respectively.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM cause issues at 4K?

A: The RTX 3070 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 256-bit bus and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth. At 3840x2160, average FPS drops to 38 on Ultra, which suggests the VRAM capacity and bandwidth are strained at the highest settings in this resolution.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this combination?

A: Benchmark results indicate the GPU is the limiting component. The CPU’s 90th percentile ranking and high multi-threaded scores far exceed the GPU’s 72nd percentile, and the frame rate scaling across resolutions shows the GPU holding back performance, especially at 4K.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA104 chip manufactured on an 8 nm process at Samsung. It features 5,888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster operation pipelines, along with 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1500 MHz and boosts to 1725 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The 8 GB GDDR6 memory is paired with a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Minimum, the GPU’s role is central to frame rate delivery, but its mid-range standing among GPUs is evident. The RTX 3070’s PassMark G3D score of 22,214 and direct X11 score of 182 indicate solid DirectX 11 performance, which is relevant for a 2014 title. However, the 8 GB VRAM becomes a constraint at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, where average FPS falls to 38. The memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s is sufficient for lower resolutions, but at 4K the data suggests the GPU’s memory subsystem and raw compute are stretched.

The GPU’s FP32 performance of 20.31 TFLOPS and texture rate of 317.4 GTexel/s are respectable, yet the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (38 FPS) shows the card struggling to maintain playable rates. At 1080p, the GPU is far less constrained, with Ultra settings still producing 110.9 FPS average. This pattern points to the RTX 3070 being the primary bottleneck when paired with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, as the CPU can easily supply frames but the GPU cannot render them fast enough at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for this combination covers three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 230.9 (Low), 178.8 (Medium), 149.8 (High), and 110.9 (Ultra). The spread from Low to Ultra is 120 FPS, showing a significant impact of settings on performance. The Low setting result of 230.9 FPS indicates the CPU can push well over 200 frames at 1080p, but the GPU begins to limit as settings increase.

At 2560x1440, the average FPS drops to 147.6 (Low), 114.9 (Medium), 95.5 (High), and 72.4 (Ultra). The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 75.2 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU’s load increases with resolution. The 1440p results are still playable even at Ultra, but the frame rate reduction from 1080p is substantial.

At 3840x2160, the average FPS falls further to 81.5 (Low), 62.9 (Medium), 53.3 (High), and 38 (Ultra). The Low setting at 4K produces 81.5 FPS, which is still smooth, but Ultra drops to 38 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for most gamers. The 4K data shows a clear GPU-bound scenario, with the RTX 3070 unable to maintain high frame rates at the maximum settings.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the limiting component in this combo. At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 230.9, which drops to 147.6 at 1440p Low (a 36% reduction) and 81.5 at 4K Low (a 65% reduction from 1080p). At Ultra settings, the scaling is even more pronounced: 110.9 FPS at 1080p, 72.4 at 1440p (a 35% drop), and 38 at 4K (a 66% drop from 1080p). This consistent pattern of roughly one-third reduction from 1080p to 1440p and another one-third from 1440p to 4K indicates that the GPU is almost entirely responsible for the performance ceiling.

The CPU’s high benchmark scores—such as 34,004 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 40,009 in PassMark multithread—suggest it can handle the game’s logic and draw calls without bottlenecking. If the CPU were the constraint, the FPS would remain relatively flat across resolutions, but the data shows a clear decline with increasing pixel count. The 4K Ultra result of 38 FPS is particularly telling, as it represents a 67% drop from the 1080p Ultra result of 110.9 FPS, a scaling that aligns with the GPU’s render load increasing by a factor of four.

The RTX 3070’s 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are likely contributors to the steep scaling at 4K, as the memory subsystem must handle larger textures and higher buffer sizes. The benchmark results indicate that the combo is well-balanced at 1080p, where the CPU can push the GPU to its limits, but at 1440p and especially 4K, the GPU becomes the definitive bottleneck. For users targeting high refresh rates, 1080p is the sweet spot; for 4K, the data suggests that only Low settings (81.5 FPS) approach playable levels, while Ultra is only viable at 1080p.