Minimum

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the Intel Arc B370 produces a strictly playable experience only at the lowest settings and resolution in Minimum, with benchmark data showing a steep performance cliff as visual fidelity increases. This combination ranks near the bottom of all tested configurations, indicating that the integrated-class GPU is the primary constraint across all measured scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combination reveals a clear pattern: the Intel Arc B370 cannot sustain fluid frame rates at higher presets, making Low settings the only viable option for consistent gameplay. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves an average of 85 FPS, which is the single highest score recorded for this combo and represents a 30 FPS improvement over the next-best preset at the same resolution. This margin is substantial enough to recommend Low as the default choice for any user prioritizing smoothness over visual detail.

At 2560x1440 with Low settings, the average drops to 55 FPS, which remains technically playable but begins to show the GPU's limitations. The Medium preset at 1080p delivers 65 FPS average, but the frame time variance is notable—the minimum recorded is 56 FPS while the maximum reaches 75 FPS, indicating occasional stutter that could affect aim in a third-person shooter. The High preset at 1080p falls to 55 FPS average, which is identical to the Low preset at 1440p, suggesting that resolution scaling and settings scaling impose similar performance costs on this hardware.

The Ultra preset is effectively unusable across all resolutions. At 1080p, Ultra yields only 42 FPS average; at 1440p, it drops to 27 FPS; and at 4K, it collapses to 15 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K produces a 23 FPS average with a minimum of 19 FPS, confirming that even mid-tier settings are beyond this GPU's capability at higher resolutions. For the best balance of visual quality and performance, the data suggests that users should either accept Low settings at 1080p for maximum fluidity or drop to 720p-class resolutions (not measured) if higher presets are desired—though no such data exists in the pack to confirm this.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this CPU-GPU combination?

A: The maximum recorded average FPS is 85, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is the only configuration in the measured data that exceeds 60 FPS, making it the performance ceiling for this combo.

*Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Minimum?*

A: No. At 3840x2160, even the Low preset only reaches 30 FPS average, while Medium drops to 23 FPS and Ultra falls to 15 FPS. These results indicate that 4K gaming is not viable with this hardware, regardless of settings.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p at the same settings?

A: At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 85 at 1080p to 55 at 1440p, a reduction of 30 FPS (approximately 35%). At High settings, the drop is from 55 FPS to 35 FPS, a 20 FPS loss. The scaling is consistent across presets, reinforcing that the GPU is the limiting factor.

Q: Is the Medium preset at 1080p a good compromise?

A: The Medium preset at 1080p averages 65 FPS, but the minimum frame rate of 56 FPS suggests potential dips below 60 FPS during intense scenes. Given that Low at 1080p averages 85 FPS with no recorded minimum data, the Medium preset is only advisable if the visual upgrade is worth occasional frame drops.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 2703rd out of 2939 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 8% of all systems. This low ranking is consistent with the GPU's performance percentile of 5, indicating that the Arc B370 is among the weakest graphics solutions in the database.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance more?

A: The data strongly indicates the GPU is the bottleneck. The Intel Core i5-11400F has a 71st percentile ranking among all CPUs, while the Arc B370 sits at the 5th percentile among GPUs. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are more than adequate for a 2014 title, but the GPU's 1280 shading units and 20 ROPs cannot keep pace at higher settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F provides 6 physical cores and 12 threads, operating with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This Rocket Lake architecture chip features a 12 MB shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus, delivering a theoretical bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. For a game released in 2014, these specifications are more than sufficient to feed even a powerful discrete GPU, but the Arc B370's modest capabilities mean the CPU rarely becomes the limiting factor.

Synthetic benchmarks confirm the CPU's strength relative to its GPU partner. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14,340 and single-core score of 2,024 indicate strong processing power, while the 3DMark 16-thread score of 5,619 shows respectable multi-threaded performance. The PassMark multi-thread score of 16,908 and single-thread score of 2,981 place this processor well above average, with a percentile ranking of 71 against all CPUs. In the context of Minimum, a third-person shooter from 2014, the CPU's 6 cores are likely underutilized, as most titles of that era relied on 2-4 threads for primary game logic.

The nearest rival comparisons reinforce this assessment. The Intel Core i5-11400F's average benchmark score of 17,177 is within 0.6% of the AMD EPYC 7H12 (17,120) and within 0.4% of the Intel Core i5-12450H (17,239). This clustering indicates that the CPU's performance is consistent with mid-range processors, and any frame rate limitations in Minimum cannot be attributed to the processor. The data shows that the GPU's 25 W TDP and integrated graphics design (IGP) are the fundamental constraints, with the CPU waiting idly for the Arc B370 to render frames.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-11400F and Intel Arc B370 ranks 2703rd out of 2939 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the 8th percentile of all configurations. This ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU's weak performance profile, as the CPU alone would likely rank much higher when paired with a capable graphics card. The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1,184 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals—the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1,186, 0.2% faster) and ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1,190, 0.5% faster)—underscoring that the Arc B370 performs at a level comparable to graphics cards from over a decade ago.

The disparity between CPU and GPU performance is stark. The CPU's average benchmark score of 17,177 places it in the 71st percentile, while the GPU's average score of 1,184 places it in the 5th percentile. This 66-percentage-point gap illustrates a severe bottleneck where the GPU is incapable of translating the CPU's processing power into playable frame rates. In practical terms, the combo rank of 2703 suggests that users would need to pair the i5-11400F with a graphics solution at least 10-15 times more powerful (in benchmark terms) to achieve a mid-tier ranking.

The measured FPS data supports this characterization. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 85 FPS, which is respectable for a 2014 game, but the drop to 42 FPS at 1080p Ultra represents a 50% performance penalty for enabling higher settings. This sensitivity to settings is typical of GPU-bound scenarios, further confirming that the Arc B370's 1280 shading units and 40 texture mapping units are insufficient for anything beyond low-fidelity rendering. The combo rank of 2703 out of 2939 means that 92% of tested systems outperform this configuration, making it a poor choice for even modest gaming demands.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data reveals a predictable but severe degradation as pixel count increases, with the GPU bottleneck becoming more pronounced at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 85 at 1080p to 55 at 1440p (a 35% reduction) and then to 30 at 4K (a 65% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU that is already operating near its limits at 1080p, as the additional pixel workload at 1440p and 4K overwhelms the 20 ROPs and 48.00 GPixel/s pixel fill rate.

The High settings show a similar trajectory: 55 FPS at 1080p, 35 FPS at 1440p, and 19 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are consistent—36% from 1080p to 1440p and 65% from 1080p to 4K—which suggests that the GPU's fill rate and shading capacity scale linearly with resolution, as expected for a compute-bound scenario. The Medium settings, which have the most complete data, show 65 FPS at 1080p (min 56, max 75), 42 FPS at 1440p (min 36, max 48), and 23 FPS at 4K (min 19, max 26). The frame time variance increases at lower resolutions, with the 1080p Medium range of 56-75 FPS indicating more consistent performance than the 4K Medium range of 19-26 FPS.

The resolution scaling analysis points to the GPU as the sole limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see diminishing FPS differences between 1080p and 1440p as the GPU became less utilized, but the data shows proportional drops across all resolutions. The 6.144 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 96.00 GTexel/s texture rate of the Arc B370 are simply insufficient for 4K rendering, as evidenced by the fact that even Low settings at 4K (30 FPS) barely reach playable thresholds. For this combo, 1080p is the only resolution where the GPU can maintain acceptable frame rates, and even then, only at Low or Medium settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete FPS data for the Intel Core i5-11400F and Intel Arc B370 combination across all measured resolutions and settings is as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 85 FPS average (no min/max recorded)
• Medium: 65 FPS average, 56 FPS minimum, 75 FPS maximum
• High: 55 FPS average (no min/max recorded)
• Ultra: 42 FPS average (no min/max recorded)

2560x1440:

• Low: 55 FPS average (no min/max recorded)
• Medium: 42 FPS average, 36 FPS minimum, 48 FPS maximum
• High: 35 FPS average (no min/max recorded)
• Ultra: 27 FPS average (no min/max recorded)

3840x2160:

• Low: 30 FPS average (no min/max recorded)
• Medium: 23 FPS average, 19 FPS minimum, 26 FPS maximum
• High: 19 FPS average (no min/max recorded)
• Ultra: 15 FPS average (no min/max recorded)

At 1080p, the jump from Low to Medium costs 20 FPS (from 85 to 65), while the jump from Medium to High costs another 10 FPS (from 65 to 55). The Ultra preset incurs a further 13 FPS penalty, landing at 42 FPS. This progression shows that each settings tier imposes a roughly 15-20% performance cost, which is typical for a game of Minimum's era but becomes critical when starting from a low baseline.

At 1440p, the same settings progression yields 55, 42, 35, and 27 FPS for Low, Medium, High, and Ultra respectively. The Medium preset's minimum of 36 FPS is notable, as it indicates that even the average of 42 FPS is not stable during demanding scenes. The 4K results are uniformly poor, with only the Low preset reaching 30 FPS average, which is marginally playable but far from smooth. The Ultra preset at 4K produces 15 FPS average, making it effectively a slideshow.

The data reveals that this combo is only suitable for 1080p gaming at Low or Medium settings, with 1440p requiring Low settings for acceptable performance. The 4K results are universally below 30 FPS, confirming that the Arc B370's integrated-class design (25 W TDP, system-shared memory) is fundamentally mismatched with the CPU's mid-range capabilities. Users seeking higher resolutions or settings would need to consider a different GPU, as the current pairing offers no headroom for visual quality improvements.