Minimum

# Minimum — Intel Core i5-11400F + AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

This combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX delivers a wide spread of frame rates across the tested resolution and settings grid, ranging from 55 FPS at 4K Ultra to 318 FPS at 1080p Low. The data indicates a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions but shifts toward CPU limitations at 1080p, with the measured results showing a clear hierarchy of performance scaling as both resolution and quality settings change.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the classic signature of a GPU-limited configuration at higher resolutions, but with an interesting twist at the low preset. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 209 at 1920x1080 to 135 at 2560x1440, then further down to 72 at 3840x2160. That represents a 35% reduction when moving from 1080p to 1440p, and another 47% reduction when moving from 1440p to 4K. This steep, consistent decline indicates the RX 7900 XTX is the primary bottleneck — the GPU's workload roughly quadruples with each resolution step, and the measured frame rates scale in near-inverse proportion.

At Low settings, the pattern changes notably. The 1080p result is 318 FPS, which drops to 209 FPS at 1440p (a 34% reduction) and then to 113 FPS at 4K (a 46% reduction from 1440p). The fact that Low settings at 1080p reaches 318 FPS — the highest number in the entire dataset — suggests the CPU is beginning to impose a ceiling at this resolution. The i5-11400F's six cores and twelve threads with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz are likely limiting the frame rate when the GPU has relatively little work to do. This is corroborated by the smaller absolute gap between 1080p Low (318 FPS) and 1440p Low (209 FPS) compared to what a purely GPU-bound scenario would predict.

The Medium preset provides the most complete picture, as it is the only settings tier with min and max FPS recorded at every resolution. At 1080p Medium, the average is 249 FPS with a minimum of 211 and maximum of 286. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 160 FPS with min/max of 136/184. At 4K Medium, the average is 86 FPS with min/max of 73/99. The frame time consistency, as indicated by the spread between min and max, remains relatively stable across resolutions — roughly a 75 FPS spread at 1080p, 48 FPS at 1440p, and 26 FPS at 4K. This narrowing spread at higher resolutions is typical of a GPU that is becoming more uniformly saturated.

Ultra settings show the most dramatic scaling. The 1080p Ultra average of 159 FPS drops to 103 FPS at 1440p (a 35% reduction) and then to 55 FPS at 4K (a 47% reduction from 1440p). The 4K Ultra result of 55 FPS is the lowest in the entire dataset, indicating that this preset pushes the RX 7900 XTX to its limits at that resolution. The proportional scaling from 1080p to 1440p to 4K is remarkably consistent across High and Ultra presets, suggesting the GPU's compute and memory subsystems are the determining factor rather than any CPU-side constraint.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX brings substantial hardware to this game. Its 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus provides 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for the demands of Minimum even at 4K Ultra. The GPU's memory clock is listed at 2500 MHz with 20 Gbps effective, and the core runs at a base of 1929 MHz with a boost of 2498 MHz and a game clock of 2365 MHz. These clock figures are relevant because the measured frame rates suggest the GPU is operating well within its thermal and power envelope across all tested configurations.

The GPU's 6144 shading units, 384 texture mapping units, and 192 render output units give it a theoretical pixel rate of 479.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 959.2 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput of 61.39 TFLOPS is substantial, and the data indicates that Minimum is able to utilize this compute capacity effectively at higher resolutions. The fact that 4K High produces 72 FPS while 4K Medium produces 86 FPS (a 19% improvement) shows that the GPU has headroom when quality settings are reduced, but the 4K Ultra result of 55 FPS indicates that the most demanding settings consume all available resources.

The RX 7900 XTX's benchmark scores place it in the 64th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19410. Its nearest rivals in the synthetic benchmarks are the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB (scoring 19334, a 0.4% delta), the NVIDIA Quadro K5200 (19602, -1% delta), and the AMD FirePro D300 (19637, -1.2% delta). These comparisons are somewhat misleading in a gaming context, as the RX 7900 XTX's PassMark G3D score of 31238 and DirectX 12 score of 131 indicate strong modern API performance. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 85612 further confirms that the GPU excels in compute-heavy workloads, which aligns with the measured FPS results showing consistent scaling across resolution steps.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX ranks 579th out of 3712 tested combos in Minimum. This places the pairing in the top 15.6% of all configurations in the database, which is a strong showing for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The rank reflects the balanced nature of this pairing — the i5-11400F does not bottleneck the RX 7900 XTX severely at most settings, and the GPU's raw performance carries the combination to a respectable position.

The CPU itself sits in the 71st percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 17177. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7H12 (17120, 0.3% delta), the Intel Core i5-12450H (17239, -0.4% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G (17278, -0.6% delta). This clustering around the 17100-17280 range indicates that the i5-11400F is competitive with a variety of server and mobile parts in synthetic benchmarks, though its gaming performance is more directly tied to its single-thread capabilities.

The GPU's 64th percentile ranking among all GPUs is notably lower than the CPU's 71st percentile, which is an unusual inversion. This suggests that the RX 7900 XTX, despite its high-end positioning, faces stiff competition from newer and more specialized parts in the aggregate benchmark data. However, in Minimum specifically, the combo's 579th place ranking out of 3712 indicates that the pairing performs better than the individual percentile rankings might suggest, likely because the game benefits from the GPU's large memory pool and high bandwidth.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results span from 159 FPS at Ultra to 318 FPS at Low. The High preset produces 209 FPS, and the Medium preset produces 249 FPS with a minimum of 211 and maximum of 286. The progression from Low to Medium to High to Ultra shows a consistent step-down of roughly 40-70 FPS per tier, with the largest single drop occurring between Medium and Ultra (90 FPS). This suggests that the Ultra preset introduces particularly demanding effects that disproportionately impact the frame rate at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the results are 103 FPS at Ultra, 135 FPS at High, 160 FPS at Medium (with min/max of 136/184), and 209 FPS at Low. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is nearly uniform across all presets, with each tier losing approximately 34-36% of its frame rate. The Medium preset's minimum of 136 FPS is notably close to the High preset's average of 135 FPS, indicating that the performance gap between these two settings narrows at higher resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the results compress further: 55 FPS at Ultra, 72 FPS at High, 86 FPS at Medium (with min/max of 73/99), and 113 FPS at Low. The 4K results show the smallest absolute differences between presets, with only an 18 FPS gap between Low and Medium, a 14 FPS gap between Medium and High, and a 17 FPS gap between High and Ultra. This compression at 4K indicates that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor across all settings, and the relative impact of quality settings diminishes as resolution increases.

Settings Recommendations

For users targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, the data shows that 4K Ultra is the only configuration that falls below this threshold, with an average of 55 FPS. Dropping to 4K High provides a significant improvement to 72 FPS, which represents a 31% increase over Ultra while still maintaining high visual quality. This makes 4K High the recommended choice for users with 4K displays who want to stay above 60 FPS without sacrificing too much visual fidelity.

At 1440p, all four presets exceed 100 FPS, with even the most demanding Ultra preset producing 103 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p delivers 160 FPS with a minimum of 136 FPS, which provides a comfortable margin above 144 Hz refresh rates. For users with high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors, the High preset at 135 FPS is also viable, though the Medium preset's tighter frame time consistency (min 136, max 184) makes it the safer choice for competitive play.

At 1080p, the High preset produces 209 FPS and the Medium preset produces 249 FPS, both of which are well above any mainstream refresh rate. The Low preset's 318 FPS is likely unnecessary for most users, as the visual quality trade-off is substantial. The Ultra preset at 159 FPS still provides an excellent experience on 144 Hz displays, making it the best choice for users who prioritize visual fidelity at 1080p. The data suggests that Medium or High at 1080p offers the best balance, as the 40 FPS difference between these two settings is less impactful than the visual quality difference.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Minimum at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but only at Medium or High settings. The measured results show 86 FPS at 4K Medium and 72 FPS at 4K High, both above the 60 FPS threshold. The 4K Ultra preset produces 55 FPS, which falls below this mark.

Q: What is the highest frame rate this combination can achieve?

A: The highest measured average is 318 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At 1440p Low, the average drops to 209 FPS, and at 4K Low, it drops to 113 FPS.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-11400F a bottleneck for the RX 7900 XTX in this game?

A: At 1080p Low, the evidence suggests some CPU limitation, as the frame rate of 318 FPS is likely constrained by the processor's six cores and twelve threads. At higher resolutions and settings, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, as indicated by the consistent scaling patterns.

Q: How does the 24 GB VRAM on the RX 7900 XTX affect performance in Minimum?

A: The 24 GB of GDDR6 memory with 960.0 GB/s bandwidth ensures that memory capacity is never a constraint at any tested resolution or setting. The consistent frame rate scaling across 4K presets suggests the GPU is compute-bound rather than memory-bound.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 144 Hz 1440p display?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 produces 160 FPS with a minimum of 136 FPS, which is the only 1440p configuration that maintains an average above 144 FPS. The High preset at 135 FPS falls slightly short of this target.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested configurations?

A: The combination ranks 579th out of 3712 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the top 15.6% of all configurations. This rank reflects the strong GPU performance offset by the mid-range CPU's limitations at lower resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a six-core, twelve-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, built on a 14 nm process node. Its base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz, combined with 12 MB of shared L3 cache, provide the computational foundation for this combo. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s over a dual-channel DDR4 interface is notably lower than the GPU's 960.0 GB/s, which is typical for a mid-range desktop processor paired with a high-end graphics card.

The CPU's benchmark results show a single-thread 3DMark score of 868 and a multi-thread score of 5652, with the passmark single-thread score at 2981 and multithread at 16908. The Cinebench R23 scores of 2024 single-core and 14340 multi-core indicate that the i5-11400F provides adequate compute for gaming workloads, though its six cores are fewer than many modern competitors. In Minimum, the CPU's role becomes most apparent at 1080p Low, where the 318 FPS result suggests the frame rate is approaching the processor's practical limit.

The CPU's 71st percentile ranking among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 17177, places it slightly above the GPU's 64th percentile. This is an unusual configuration where the CPU is relatively stronger than the GPU in synthetic benchmarks, yet the gaming results show the GPU as the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The nearest CPU rivals — the AMD EPYC 7H12, Intel Core i5-12450H, and AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G — all score within 0.6% of the i5-11400F, indicating that the processor is well-positioned within its performance class.

The 65 W TDP and Intel Socket 1200 compatibility make this an accessible processor for a wide range of systems, though the end-of-life production status suggests it is being phased out. The launch MSRP of $157 reflects its mid-range positioning at release. In the context of Minimum specifically, the i5-11400F provides enough single-thread performance to avoid severe bottlenecks at most settings, but the 1080p Low result of 318 FPS indicates that users seeking maximum frame rates at low resolutions may benefit from a more powerful processor.