Minimum

# Minimum: AMD Ryzen 9 9900X + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER

This combination pairs AMD's 12-core Zen 5 flagship with NVIDIA's Turing-based GTX 1660 SUPER, a pairing that lands in the 1522nd position out of 1733 measured combos in Minimum. The benchmark data reveals a system where the GPU consistently governs frame rates, with the CPU's substantial headroom never becoming the limiting factor. Across twelve measured configurations spanning three resolutions and four quality presets, the GTX 1660 SUPER produces playable results at 1080p and 1440p, while 4K remains marginal even at reduced settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show a clear hierarchy: Low settings produce the highest average frame rates at every resolution, followed by Medium, High, and Ultra in descending order. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 133.2 FPS, which is 35.1 FPS higher than Medium's 98.1 and 51.5 FPS above High's 81.7. This spread indicates that the game's quality presets have a substantial impact on GPU workload, with the gap between Low and Ultra reaching 68.7 FPS at 1080p.

For players targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, the data suggests Medium at 1440p (66.1 FPS) and High at 1080p (81.7 FPS) both clear that threshold comfortably. The Ultra preset, however, only reaches 64.5 FPS at 1080p and drops to 42.7 FPS at 1440p, making it the least recommendable option relative to the performance cost. The Low preset at 4K produces 42.8 FPS, which is the only 4K configuration that approaches playability. Given the GTX 1660 SUPER's position in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, the most balanced experience comes from Medium at 1440p or High at 1080p, where the frame rates suggest consistent pacing without the steep penalty of Ultra settings.

GPU Role

The GTX 1660 SUPER brings 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock runs at 1530 MHz with a boost of 1785 MHz, and the TU116 chip contains 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output units. The GPU's compute capability is rated at 5.027 TFLOPS FP32, with pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s. These specifications place the card in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14286.

The measured frame rates in Minimum align with this mid-range positioning. The GPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (avg score 14314, delta -0.2%), Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics (14315, -0.2%), and AMD Radeon Vega 11 (14352, -0.5%), all of which sit within 0.5% of the GTX 1660 SUPER's average score. The 6 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for the resolution range tested, as the game's texture demands at 4K Ultra do not appear to cause memory-related stuttering — the 21.2 FPS result at that configuration is more attributable to raw compute limits than capacity exhaustion. The 14 Gbps effective memory speed helps maintain bandwidth at higher resolutions, yet the data shows a steep drop-off from 1440p to 4K that points to the GPU's compute ceiling rather than memory starvation.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression across resolutions shows a consistent pattern of diminishing returns as pixel count increases. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 (133.2 FPS) to 2560x1440 (85.3 FPS) represents a 36% reduction, while moving from 1440p to 3840x2160 (42.8 FPS) cuts performance by another 50%. This steep 4K penalty indicates that the GTX 1660 SUPER's 5.027 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput becomes the primary constraint at higher pixel densities.

The same scaling trend appears across all presets. High settings drop from 81.7 FPS at 1080p to 56.6 FPS at 1440p (a 30.7% reduction), then to 30.2 FPS at 4K (a 46.6% further reduction). Medium settings follow with 98.1, 66.1, and 37.2 FPS respectively. The Ultra preset shows the largest absolute drop: 64.5 FPS at 1080p, 42.7 FPS at 1440p, and 21.2 FPS at 4K. The consistent pattern — roughly 30-40% loss from 1080p to 1440p, then another 45-50% loss to 4K — suggests that the limiting component remains the GPU across all resolutions. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rate deltas between resolutions would compress at lower settings; instead, the proportional drops persist even at Low, confirming that the Ryzen 9 9900X's capabilities are not being taxed by this workload.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the benchmark rows show a complete ladder of performance. Low settings produce 133.2 FPS average, Medium reaches 98.1 FPS, High achieves 81.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 64.5 FPS. The spacing between presets is roughly 15-35 FPS, with the largest gap between Low and Medium (35.1 FPS) and the smallest between High and Ultra (17.2 FPS). This suggests that the Low-to-Medium transition carries the most significant visual uplift per frame cost.

At 2560x1440, the same ordering persists but with compressed values. Low leads at 85.3 FPS, Medium follows at 66.1 FPS, High manages 56.6 FPS, and Ultra drops to 42.7 FPS. The gaps narrow slightly in absolute terms — 19.2 FPS between Low and Medium, 9.5 FPS between Medium and High, and 13.9 FPS between High and Ultra — indicating that the GPU's ceiling begins to flatten the preset curve at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, all configurations fall below 43 FPS. Low produces 42.8 FPS, Medium delivers 37.2 FPS, High reaches 30.2 FPS, and Ultra struggles to 21.2 FPS. The delta between Low and Medium shrinks to 5.6 FPS, while High-to-Ultra costs 9.0 FPS. No 4K preset achieves 60 FPS, and even Low falls 17.2 FPS short of that target. For this combination, 4K gaming in Minimum is only viable at Low settings, and even then, the frame rate hovers near the 30-40 FPS range that many players find acceptable only for slower-paced titles.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU-GPU combination in Minimum?*

A: The data shows 1920x1080 as the most favorable resolution, with all presets ranging from 64.5 FPS (Ultra) to 133.2 FPS (Low). At 2560x1440, only Low and Medium exceed 60 FPS, while 3840x2160 fails to reach 43 FPS even at Low settings.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Ultra averages 64.5 FPS versus High's 81.7 FPS, a difference of 17.2 FPS. This represents approximately a 21% reduction in frame rate for the quality increase, which may be a worthwhile trade for visual fidelity if the player tolerates sub-70 FPS.

Q: Does this GPU have enough VRAM for 4K in this game?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory. The measured 4K results show a maximum of 42.8 FPS at Low settings, but this limitation appears tied to compute performance rather than memory capacity, as the frame rates scale consistently with preset complexity.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 9900X compare to its closest rivals?

A: The 9900X has an average benchmark score of 54450, sitting in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. It trails the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D by 0.4% (54681 avg score), leads the Intel Core i7-14700F by 0.7% (54097), and falls behind the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K by 1.5% (55304) and the 245KF by 1.8% (55421).

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 56.6 FPS at 2560x1440 with High settings. This is below the 60 FPS threshold but remains playable, especially given that the minimum frame rate data was not captured in these measurements.

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

A: Benchmark results indicate the GPU is the limiting component. The Ryzen 9 9900X scores 46438 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 6555 in single-core, placing it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. The consistent frame rate scaling across resolutions and presets points to GPU-bound performance throughout.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X provides substantial computational headroom that goes largely unused in Minimum. This 12-core, 24-thread processor from the Zen 5 Granite Ridge architecture operates with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz. Its 64 MB of shared L3 cache, supplemented by 80 KB L1 and 1 MB L2 per core, delivers strong memory latency characteristics. The CPU's benchmark scores — 46438 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 6555 in single-core — place it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54450.

The nearestRivals data shows the 9900X performing within 1.8% of its closest competitors. The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D leads by 0.4% with a 54681 average score, while the Intel Core i7-14700F trails by 0.7% at 54097. The Intel Core Ultra 5 245K and 245KF outperform by 1.5% and 1.8% respectively. These margins are negligible in real-world gaming, and the 9900X's 12 cores and 24 threads are far beyond what Minimum — a 2014 third-person shooter — can utilize.

The game's measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU limitation. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 133.2 FPS, yet the frame rate scales predictably with resolution and preset changes, which would not occur if the CPU were constraining throughput. The 9900X's dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth and PCIe Gen 5 connectivity further ensure that data delivery to the GPU is not a bottleneck. In this pairing, the CPU's role is to stay out of the way, and the data confirms it does so across all twelve measured configurations.