Minimum

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers a commanding performance profile in Minimum, a 2014 Third-Person Shooter. Benchmark data across three resolutions and four quality presets indicates this combination is heavily GPU-bound at higher settings, while the 16-core, 32-thread processor ensures frame rates remain consistently high even at lower resolutions and quality levels. Measured average FPS spans from 61 frames per second at 4K Ultra to 356 FPS at 1080p Low, illustrating a wide performance envelope that scales predictably with graphical load.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a clear pattern of GPU limitation. At High settings, average FPS drops from 229 at 1080p to 148 at 1440p, a reduction of 35.4%, and further to 79 at 4K, which is a 46.6% drop from the 1440p figure. This steep decline at the 4K resolution indicates the render pipeline becomes the bottleneck, with the RTX 4080's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth being saturated by the increased pixel workload.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more dramatic in absolute terms. 1080p Low produces 356 FPS, while 1440p Low yields 230 FPS (a 35.4% reduction). The 4K Low result of 124 FPS is a 46.1% drop from the 1440p number. This pattern suggests that at lower quality presets, the CPU can feed frames fast enough to expose the GPU's raw pixel throughput limits. The 9950X3D's high single-thread performance, evidenced by its 3dmark_single_thread score of 1292 and passmark_single_thread score of 4737, keeps the pipeline fed, allowing the RTX 4080 to operate at its full capacity.

The Ultra preset scaling follows a similar curve but with lower absolute values. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 61, which is 35.1% lower than the 1440p Ultra result of 112 FPS. The 1440p Ultra figure itself is 35.6% lower than the 1080p Ultra value of 174 FPS. This consistent proportional drop across presets indicates that the game's engine scales resolution linearly, with the GPU being the primary limiting component at every resolution above 1080p.

The measured FPS deltas between 1440p and 4K are larger than those between 1080p and 1440p for all presets, which is typical of the pixel-count jump. The 4K resolution has 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p, and the data aligns with that geometric scaling, confirming a GPU-bound scenario.

Settings Recommendations

For a 144Hz display, the measured data indicates that 1440p Medium, with an average FPS of 176, is the sweet spot, providing a 17.6% headroom over the refresh rate while maintaining balanced visual quality. The 1440p High preset, averaging 148 FPS, is still above 144 FPS, but the Medium preset offers more comfortable margins for dips. The data shows 1440p Medium has a minimum FPS of 149 and a maximum of 202, ensuring no drops below the refresh rate.

For 60Hz gaming at 4K, the High preset averages 79 FPS, which is 31.7% above the 60 Hz target, offering a smooth experience with only minor dips possible. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to an average of 61 FPS, which is barely above the 60 Hz threshold, and with no minimum FPS data available, it is likely to dip below 60 FPS during intense scenes. The data strongly suggests that 4K Medium at 95 FPS is the optimal 4K choice, as it offers both visual quality and a 58.3% buffer over the 60 Hz target.

At 1080p, all presets exceed 170 FPS, making it suitable for high-refresh-rate monitors. The 1080p Ultra preset, at 174 FPS, is the only one that requires significant GPU resources, while the 1080p Low preset at 356 FPS is likely CPU-limited, given the 9950X3D's 128 MB L3 cache and high boost clock of 5.70 GHz. For esports scenarios where frame rate is paramount, 1080p Low is the performance leader, but the quality trade-off is substantial.

The game's engine appears to favor the Medium preset for a balance, as the delta from Low to Medium is smaller than from Medium to High. At 1440p, the Low to Medium increase is 230 to 176 FPS (a 23.5% drop), while Medium to High is 176 to 148 FPS (a 15.9% drop). This suggests the Medium preset offers the best visual fidelity per frame rate cost.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved by the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination at 4K?

A: The highest average FPS at 3840x2160 is 124 FPS, achieved at Low settings. The Medium preset reaches 95 FPS, High reaches 79 FPS, and Ultra drops to 61 FPS.

Q: Does the 1080p Low preset remain playable with high frame rates?

A: Yes, at 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combination produces an average FPS of 356, which is 2.9 times higher than the 4K Medium average. The 1080p Low preset is the highest frame rate recorded in the data.

Q: How does the 1440p Medium preset compare to the 1440p High preset in terms of frame rate?

A: The 1440p Medium preset averages 176 FPS, while the 1440p High preset averages 148 FPS. Medium is 18.9% faster than High, and it also has a measured minimum FPS of 149, which is higher than the average FPS of High.

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

A: At High settings, the 1080p average FPS is 229, and the 4K average FPS is 79. The 4K result is 65.5% lower than the 1080p result.

Q: Are there any frame rate minimums recorded for the 4K High and Ultra presets?

A: No, the data for 4K High and 4K Ultra have null values for minimum FPS. The only 4K preset with a minimum FPS is Medium, with a value of 80 FPS.

Q: How does the 1080p Ultra FPS compare to the 1440p Ultra FPS?

A: The 1080p Ultra preset averages 174 FPS, while the 1440p Ultra preset averages 112 FPS. The 1080p result is 55.4% higher than the 1440p result.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combination delivers a wide range of performance. Low settings produce an average of 356 FPS, the highest score in the dataset. Medium yields an average of 273 FPS with a minimum of 232 and a maximum of 313 FPS. High settings produce an average of 229 FPS, while Ultra averages 174 FPS. The scaling from Low to Medium is a 23.3% decrease, from Medium to High a 16.1% decrease, and from High to Ultra a 24.0% decrease.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates scale downward. Low averages 230 FPS, which is 35.4% below the 1080p Low score. Medium averages 176 FPS with a minimum of 149 and a maximum of 202, and High averages 148 FPS. Ultra drops to 112 FPS. The 1440p Medium result is 35.5% lower than the 1080p Medium, while the 1440p Ultra is 35.6% lower than the 1080p Ultra.

At 3840x2160, the performance envelope tightens. Low averages 124 FPS, Medium averages 95 FPS with a minimum of 80 and a maximum of 109, High averages 79 FPS, and Ultra averages 61 FPS. The 4K Low score is 46.1% lower than 1440p Low, and the 4K Ultra score is 45.5% lower than 1440p Ultra.

The data shows that the average FPS decreases consistently with each resolution step, with a 1440p to 4K drop of between 45% and 46% across all presets. The 1080p to 1440p drop is between 35% and 36%. This pattern holds across the entire settings range, indicating a stable scaling behavior.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 (AD103 chip, Ada Lovelace architecture) is the primary driver of the frame rate at higher resolutions. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory with a 256-bit bus width provides a 716.8 GB/s memory bandwidth, which is crucial for 4K textures. The GPU has 9728 shading units, 304 TMUs, and 112 ROPs, and its boost clock of 2505 MHz, with a base of 2205 MHz.

The GPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks is strong, with a 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6567 and a passmark G3D score of 34457. The passmark GPU compute score (20671) and DirectX 12 score (132) are lower, but the DirectX 11 score is 314. This indicates that the GPU is efficient in the older API workloads that Minimum likely uses, given its 2014 release.

The RTX 4080's 48.74 TFLOPS FP32 compute power is more than sufficient for this title, even at 4K Ultra, where it averages 61 FPS. The GPU's pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s align with the measured scaling. The 8 GB of VRAM (though the card has 16 GB) is not a constraint at any settings, as the game's textures are likely modest by modern standards.

The GPU's nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, is only 0.1% faster on average, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X is 1.1% slower. This shows the RTX 4080 is well-positioned for this title, delivering near-top-tier performance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge). It has a base clock of 4.30 GHz and a boost clock of 5.70 GHz, with a 128 MB L3 cache. The CPU's performance in synthetic tests is excellent: it scores 42018 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 2259 in single-core. In 3DMark, it scores 17184 with max threads and 1292 in single thread.

The CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations. At 1080p Low, where the GPU's load is minimal, the CPU's high single-thread performance (passmark single thread 4737) allows the GPU to reach 356 FPS. The CPU is not the bottleneck at any settings, as the frame rates scale linearly with GPU load.

The 9950X3D's large 128 MB L3 cache and high boost clock help maintain consistent frame rates even in CPU-intensive moments. The 3dmark_8_threads score of 9259 suggests that the game can utilize multiple cores, but the 3dmark_2_threads score of 2549 and 4_threads 4963 indicate that a few fast cores are more important. The CPU's percentile rank of 95 among all CPUs places it in the top tier, and it is within 0.4% of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285, showing the performance is competitive.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s and dual-channel DDR5 support are sufficient for the game, and the CPU's multi-threaded performance (cinebench r23 multicore 42018) ensures that even if the game has multithreaded physics, the CPU will not limit the frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination ranks 246th out of 3712 tested combos in Minimum. This places it in the top 6.6% of all tested combinations, which is an above-average ranking for a high-end pairing.

The rank of 246 means there are 245 configurations that produce higher frame rates, likely with more powerful GPUs or higher CPU overclocks. However, the 9950X3D's CPU ranking is 95th percentile among all CPUs, and the RTX 4080's 86th percentile among GPUs, so the pairing is well-balanced.

The combo's rank is influenced by the game's 2014 release date, which has lower requirements than modern titles. The 9950X3D's single-thread performance is key, as the game likely benefits from higher frequencies. The boost clock of 5.70 GHz and the single-thread score of 1292 in 3DMark are strong indicators of this. The CPU's 3dmark_4_threads score of 4963, and the 3dmark_8_threads score of 9259, show that the game might use up to 8 cores, but the 9950X3D's 16 cores provide a significant buffer.

The combination's rank within the tested combos is expected for a high-end but not top-tier GPU in a 2014 title. The RTX 4080 is an end-of-life product, but it still delivers the 61 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is a playable frame rate. The 246th rank is a solid result, and the data shows that the system is not limited by the CPU or GPU at most settings, but rather by the game engine's utilization of the hardware.