Minimum

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 combination presents a stark contrast in capabilities, placing the system in the 3581st position out of 3712 tested combinations for Minimum. The data indicates a scenario where the graphics card is the definitive bottleneck, as the CPU's immense processing power cannot compensate for the GPU's limited 4 GB VRAM and modest compute resources. Benchmark results show that playable frame rates are only achievable at 1080p, with higher resolutions and settings pushing the system into unplayable territory.

FAQ

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

A: Based on the measured FPS data, 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the average frame rate remains above 60 FPS, hitting 81 FPS on Low settings. At 2560x1440, the highest average FPS is 52 on Low settings, while 3840x2160 averages drop to a maximum of 28 FPS.

Q: How does the GTX 1650 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GTX 1650's average benchmark score of 7472 places it just 0.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon HD 8850M (7447) and 0.4% ahead of the Intel UHD Graphics 750 (7441). It trails the Intel Arc A310 (7550) by 1%. This places the GPU in the 40th percentile of all GPUs.

Q: What is the CPU's performance percentile relative to all other processors?

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is in the 95th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 75779. This places it in a class far above the GPU, which only reaches the 40th percentile.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game's performance?

A: The GPU is the primary limiting factor. The CPU's nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755, score nearly identically (within 0.1%), yet the system fails to maintain high frame rates at 1440p and 4K, indicating the GPU's processing limits are hit long before the CPU's potential is reached.

Q: What is the expected frame rate drop from Low to Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the average frame rate drops from 81 FPS on Low settings to 40 FPS on Ultra settings. This represents a 41 FPS reduction, or roughly a 50% decrease in performance, when moving from the lowest to the highest visual preset.

Q: Does the CPU's 128 MB of L3 cache provide any measurable benefit in this specific game's benchmarks?

A: The CPU's large cache contributes to its strong synthetic scores, but the game's measured FPS does not reflect a significant benefit because the system is GPU-bound. The frame rates scale predictably with resolution and settings, a pattern consistent with graphics card limitations rather than CPU cache advantages.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 is a Turing-architecture card built on a 12 nm process at TSMC, featuring 896 shading units and 32 ROPs. Its memory subsystem consists of 4 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus, providing 128.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The card operates at a base clock of 1485 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, with memory running at 2001 MHz (8 Gbps effective).

In Minimum, the GPU's role is decisive. The game's performance is heavily constrained by the GTX 1650's capabilities. The 4 GB VRAM capacity is a critical limitation, particularly at 3840x2160 resolution where the average frame rate on High settings is 18 FPS. The data shows that even reducing to Low settings at 4K only yields 28 FPS, which is still far from a smooth experience. This suggests that the GPU's raw compute power, measured at 2.984 TFLOPS FP32, is insufficient for the demands of this game at higher resolutions.

The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 7880, placing it in the 40th percentile, confirms its entry-level positioning. Its DirectX 12 benchmark score of 35 is notably low, indicating weak performance in modern API workloads. The card's nearest rivals, the AMD Radeon R7 350 (7425) and Intel UHD Graphics 750 (7441), perform within a narrow band of 0.6%, but none of these are capable of delivering high-refresh-rate gaming at 1440p or above in this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of settings for this hardware combination. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 81 FPS, which is the only configuration in the entire dataset that exceeds 60 FPS. This makes Low the only truly playable preset for responsive gameplay.

The Medium preset at 1080p averages 62 FPS, with a minimum of 53 FPS and a maximum of 72 FPS. This remains a viable option for players who prioritize visual fidelity over a strict 60 FPS target, as the average stays above the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset at 1080p drops to 52 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target and may introduce noticeable stutter.

For 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 52 FPS, making it borderline playable but not ideal. The Medium preset at this resolution averages 40 FPS, which falls into the bounds of playable but compromised territory. All Ultra presets across every resolution produce average frame rates below 40 FPS, making them unsuitable for a smooth experience.

The optimal configuration is 1080p with the Low preset for maximum frame rate, or 1080p with the Medium preset for a balanced experience that still maintains an average above 60 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The FPS measurements reveal a consistent pattern across all resolution and settings combinations. At 1920x1080, the results show a clear progression: Low settings produce 81 FPS average, Medium produces 62 FPS (with a range of 53 to 72 FPS), High produces 52 FPS, and Ultra produces 40 FPS. This 41 FPS spread between Low and Ultra demonstrates the significant impact of graphical settings on this GPU.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease substantially. Low settings average 52 FPS, Medium averages 40 FPS (ranging from 34 to 46 FPS), High averages 34 FPS, and Ultra averages 26 FPS. The step from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings represents a drop from 81 to 52 FPS, a 29 FPS reduction.

At 3840x2160, the performance becomes marginal across all settings. Low averages 28 FPS, Medium averages 22 FPS (with a range of 18 to 25 FPS), High averages 18 FPS, and Ultra averages 14 FPS. None of these 4K configurations reach the 30 FPS threshold typically considered the minimum for playability.

The Medium settings are the only preset where minimum and maximum FPS values were recorded for each resolution. At 1080p, the range is 53 to 72 FPS; at 1440p, it is 34 to 46 FPS; and at 4K, it is 18 to 25 FPS. This data indicates that the frame time variance scales with resolution, becoming more pronounced at higher pixel counts.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 81 FPS at 1080p to 52 FPS at 1440p (a 36% reduction) and further to 28 FPS at 4K (a 65% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern is characteristic of a graphics card that is overwhelmed by the increasing pixel count.

At Medium settings, the progression is 62 FPS at 1080p, 40 FPS at 1440p, and 22 FPS at 4K. The High settings show 52 FPS at 1080p, 34 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings are the most demanding, dropping from 40 FPS at 1080p to 26 FPS at 1440p and 14 FPS at 4K.

The consistency of these drops across all settings points to the GPU's memory bandwidth (128.1 GB/s) and compute throughput as the limiting factors. The 4 GB VRAM is likely exhausted at 4K, forcing the card to manage textures inefficiently, which explains why even Low settings cannot break 30 FPS at that resolution. The CPU, with its 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth and 16 cores, is not the constraining component in this pipeline, as the frame rates scale uniformly with GPU workload.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), manufactured on TSMC's 4 nm process. It features a base clock of 4.30 GHz and a boost clock of 5.70 GHz, with a substantial 128 MB of L3 cache. The CPU's synthetic benchmarks are exceptional: it scores 42018 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2259 in single-core, with a PassMark multi-thread score of 70255.

In the context of Minimum, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU efficiently, but the data shows that the GPU is the constraining element. The CPU's 95th percentile ranking and its average benchmark score of 75779, which is within 0.1% of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 9755, indicate that it provides more than enough processing power for this game.

The game's frame rates do not improve with the CPU's headroom. At 1080p Low, the 81 FPS average is likely near the GPU's maximum output, not the CPU's limit. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see less dramatic FPS drops when increasing resolution, as the CPU workload would remain constant while the GPU workload increases. Instead, the substantial drops at 4K confirm that the GTX 1650 is the primary limiting factor, making the 9950X3D's capabilities largely untapped in this specific configuration.