Minimum

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data for Minimum reveals a classic scaling curve that shifts from CPU-bound at 1080p to GPU-bound at 4K. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo of Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 produces 271.1 FPS. Dropping to 1440p Low yields 181.5 FPS, a 33% reduction. At 4K Low, the average falls to 95.6 FPS, another 47% drop from 1440p. This steep decline as resolution climbs indicates the GPU is becoming the primary constraint at higher pixel counts.

The pattern is consistent across all settings presets. High settings show 181.7 FPS at 1080p, 117.4 FPS at 1440p (a 35% decrease), and 63.4 FPS at 4K (a 46% decrease from 1440p). Medium settings follow suit: 212 FPS at 1080p, 140.2 FPS at 1440p, and 75.4 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings produce 138.3 FPS at 1080p, 87.8 FPS at 1440p, and 46.6 FPS at 4K.

The scaling between 1080p and 1440p is nearly identical across all presets — roughly 33-37% reductions — which suggests the CPU is still feeding frames adequately at 1440p. The 1440p to 4K transition shows slightly larger percentage drops, indicating the GPU's rendering workload is scaling superlinearly with pixel count. The RTX 4070's 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient to avoid memory bottlenecks, as evidenced by the smooth scaling pattern.

What is notable is that even at 4K Ultra, the combo maintains 46.6 FPS, which is playable for a third-person shooter from 2014. The game's age shows in how well this modern mid-range GPU handles it — the RTX 4070's 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is overkill for a title that released in 2014, yet the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are still able to keep up at lower resolutions. The data implies that for 1080p and 1440p gaming, the RTX 4070 is heavily underutilized, while the i5-10400F becomes the limiting factor at 1080p Low where frame rates exceed 270 FPS.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved by this combo in Minimum?*

A: The highest measured average FPS is 271.1, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 46.6, which is the lowest measured result across all resolution and settings combinations.

Q: Is the i5-10400F or the RTX 4070 more likely to bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the combo produces 271.1 FPS, a very high frame rate that suggests CPU limitations are starting to appear. The RTX 4070's raw compute (29.15 TFLOPS FP32) is far beyond what this frame rate requires, making the processor the likely constraint.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings yield 181.5 FPS while Ultra yields 87.8 FPS. This represents a 93.7 FPS difference, or roughly a 52% reduction in performance when moving from Low to Ultra.

Q: How does the RTX 4070's benchmark percentile compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 4070 sits at the 81st percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, has an average benchmark score 0.6% lower, while the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A is 1.9% lower.

Q: What is the combo's ranking among all tested combos in this game?

A: The combo ranks 418th out of 1,733 total combos tested in Minimum, placing it in the top 24% of all configurations.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 achieves a combo rank of 418 out of 1,733 tested combinations in Minimum. This places the pairing in the top 24.1% of all configurations, which is respectable for a mid-range CPU paired with an upper-mid-range GPU. The ranking reflects the game's 2014 release date and its modest hardware demands — modern components exceed what this title requires, but the combination still lands in the upper quartile.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 73 among all processors indicates it outperforms nearly three-quarters of CPUs in general benchmarks. Its average benchmark score of 14,168 places it within 0.4% of the AMD EPYC 7552 (14,115) and 1.1% behind the Intel Core i5-8500 (14,332). The GPU's 81st percentile ranking is similarly strong, with an average benchmark score of 37,283. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56, scores 37,507 (0.6% higher), while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile trails by 2.2% at 38,135.

The discrepancy between the component-level rankings (73rd and 81st percentiles) and the combo ranking (418th of 1,733) suggests that Minimum does not heavily stress either component. The game's engine, released in 2014, is unlikely to leverage the RTX 4070's Ada Lovelace architecture features like the 46 RT cores or 184 tensor cores. The measured FPS data supports this — even at 4K Ultra, the combo produces 46.6 FPS, which is playable but not exceptional, indicating the game's rendering pipeline is the limiting factor rather than the hardware.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers 12 distinct configurations: four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) across three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160). At 1080p, the results range from 271.1 FPS on Low to 138.3 FPS on Ultra. Medium produces 212 FPS, and High produces 181.7 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 132.8 FPS, indicating that Ultra settings incur a 49% performance penalty compared to Low.

At 1440p, the same pattern holds with reduced absolute numbers: Low yields 181.5 FPS, Medium 140.2 FPS, High 117.4 FPS, and Ultra 87.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 93.7 FPS, a 52% penalty. At 4K, the numbers compress further: Low produces 95.6 FPS, Medium 75.4 FPS, High 63.4 FPS, and Ultra 46.6 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra penalty at 4K is 49 FPS, or 51%.

The data shows that moving from Low to Medium costs roughly 20-22% performance at any resolution, while moving from Medium to High costs 14-16%, and High to Ultra costs 24-27%. The non-linear scaling suggests that Ultra settings introduce disproportionately heavy effects, likely including higher shadow quality and post-processing that stress the GPU's 64 ROPs and 184 TMUs more severely.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Core 10th Gen series, built on Intel's 14 nm Comet Lake architecture. Its base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz provide solid single-threaded performance, reflected in its 3DMark single-thread score of 688 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1,453. The CPU's 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 42.7 GB/s dual-channel DDR4 memory bandwidth are adequate for feeding the RTX 4070 in most scenarios.

In Minimum, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p Low settings, where the combo hits 271.1 FPS. This frame rate approaches the practical limit for many game engines, and the CPU's 6 cores may struggle to maintain physics and game logic updates beyond this point. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 4,748 and max-thread score of 4,735 show that the CPU's multithreaded capabilities scale well with its 12 threads, but the game's 2014 engine likely uses only a fraction of these threads.

The CPU's nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 7552, has an average benchmark score just 0.4% higher, while the Intel Core i5-8500 is 1.1% higher. These close margins indicate that the i5-10400F is competitive with slightly older or differently positioned processors. The CPU's 73rd percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it is a capable mid-range part, but the data from Minimum shows that it is not the primary bottleneck — the game's engine and the GPU's rendering workload dominate performance at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience at 1080p, the data suggests that Medium settings at 212 FPS provide an excellent balance between visual quality and frame rate. High settings at 181.7 FPS are also viable, offering better visuals while still maintaining frame rates above 180 FPS. Ultra at 138.3 FPS is smooth but offers diminishing returns given the modest visual improvements typical of this era of games.

At 1440p, High settings at 117.4 FPS hit the sweet spot for high-refresh-rate monitors. Medium at 140.2 FPS is even smoother, while Ultra at 87.8 FPS remains playable but approaches the threshold where frame pacing issues may become noticeable. Low settings at 181.5 FPS are only recommended for competitive play where maximum frame rate is paramount.

At 4K, the recommendation shifts to Medium settings at 75.4 FPS, which provides playable performance while maintaining reasonable visual fidelity. High at 63.4 FPS is acceptable for slower-paced gameplay, but Ultra at 46.6 FPS is below the 60 FPS threshold and should be avoided for smooth gameplay. Low at 95.6 FPS offers the best 4K frame rate but sacrifices visual quality significantly.

The data indicates that this combo is best utilized at 1440p with High or Medium settings, where it delivers frame rates between 117.4 and 140.2 FPS. For 1080p gaming, even Ultra settings exceed 138 FPS, making this resolution largely overkill for the hardware. The RTX 4070's 12 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for any settings in Minimum, as even 4K Ultra does not approach typical VRAM limits for this game.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, with 35,800 million transistors on a 294 mm² die. Its 5,888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs deliver 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The GPU's boost clock of 2,475 MHz and base clock of 1,920 MHz enable high sustained performance, while its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus provides 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Minimum, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution increases. At 1080p, the GPU is rarely the bottleneck — even Ultra settings produce 138.3 FPS, which is below the CPU's maximum frame delivery capability. At 1440p, the GPU begins to assert itself: the 87.8 FPS at Ultra represents a 37% drop from the 138.3 FPS at 1080p Ultra, consistent with the increased pixel workload. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, with all settings producing lower frame rates that scale predictably with resolution.

The GPU's benchmark percentile of 81 places it ahead of most GPUs, with its nearest rival the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 at 0.6% lower average score. The RTX 4070's predecessor, the GeForce 30 series, and successor, GeForce 50 series, bracket this card's positioning. The 200 W TDP and dual-slot design make it a manageable addition to most systems, and its 1x 16-pin power connector and 550 W suggested PSU indicate moderate power requirements.

The data from Minimum shows that the RTX 4070 is substantially overprovisioned for this game. Even at 4K Ultra, the GPU's 46.6 FPS is limited more by the game's rendering efficiency than by the hardware's capabilities. The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support and Vulkan 1.4 compatibility are largely unused by a 2014 title, which likely relies on older DirectX 11 paths. This explains why the GPU's massive compute resources do not translate into proportionally higher frame rates in this older game.