Minimum

The pairing of an Intel Core i5-11400F with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 creates an extreme bottleneck scenario in Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter. The benchmark data reveals a system where the GPU is vastly overqualified for the engine's demands, yet the CPU's six physical cores still manage to keep frame rates at playable levels across most configurations. At 1080p, the RTX 4090 is clearly starved for work, producing results that are more indicative of processor limits than graphics card potential. The measured frames per second across resolutions and presets tell a story of diminishing returns as pixel count rises, but also show where the CPU begins to surrender its grip on performance.

Resolution Scaling

The progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 demonstrates how Minimum shifts from a CPU-bound title at lower resolutions to a more balanced workload as pixel count increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 320.4 FPS, which is the absolute ceiling for this combination. Moving to 1440p Low drops that figure to 255.4 FPS, a reduction of exactly 65 frames, while 4K Low yields 136.4 FPS, less than half of the 1080p result. This scaling pattern indicates that the RTX 4090 is idling at 1080p, waiting on the i5-11400F to feed it draw calls.

The High preset tells a similar story but with a different slope. At 1080p High, the average is 254.7 FPS, which falls to 162.5 FPS at 1440p and then to 85.8 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 36%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is about 47%, showing that the GPU begins to take on more responsibility as resolution climbs. The Ultra preset follows the expected pattern: 192.4 FPS at 1080p, 123.3 FPS at 1440p, and 66.1 FPS at 4K.

The most telling metric is the gap between Low and Ultra at each resolution. At 1080p, that gap is 128 FPS (from 320.4 down to 192.4), while at 4K it shrinks to 70.3 FPS (from 136.4 down to 66.1). This compression of the preset range at higher resolutions confirms that the CPU bottleneck at 1080p is so severe that lowering graphics settings provides less headroom than it should. The data suggests that 1440p is the sweet spot for this pairing, where the RTX 4090 is sufficiently loaded to show meaningful differences between presets without dropping below 120 FPS on High.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 brings overwhelming hardware to this 2014 title, and its benchmarks reflect that dominance. With 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus delivering 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, the card never approaches memory capacity limits in Minimum. The 16384 shading units and 512 texture mapping units are gross overkill for an engine from that era, yet the card still posts an average benchmark score of 66473, placing it in the 91st percentile of all GPUs.

The RTX 4090's clock behavior is interesting in this context. Its base clock of 2235 MHz and boost clock of 2520 MHz are high for any GPU, but in Minimum at 1080p Low, the card is likely running at minimum power states because the CPU cannot feed it enough geometry. The measured 320.4 FPS at that setting is impressive, but it represents a fraction of what the card could theoretically produce if the processor were faster. The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database, such as the NVIDIA Tesla T4 with a delta of -0.4% and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 at -0.9%, are workstation cards that would perform differently in gaming workloads, yet their aggregate scores are comparable.

At 4K Ultra, the RTX 4090 finally gets a workout, producing 66.1 FPS. This result, while lower than the 1080p figures, still represents a playable experience for a single-player shooter. The card's 128 ray tracing cores and 512 tensor cores are irrelevant here, as Minimum predates ray tracing by several years, but the raw rasterization power of 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 is what drives these results. The GPU's 91st percentile ranking suggests that only a handful of other cards could match these numbers, and none would do so with the same headroom.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is the limiting factor in this configuration, and its specifications explain why. With 6 cores and 12 threads running at a base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost up to 4.40 GHz, this Rocket Lake processor is competent but not exceptional by modern standards. Its 12 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support at 51.2 GB/s are adequate for most games, but Minimum at 1080p Low demands more from the processor than it can deliver.

The CPU's benchmark scores show its position in the market. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14372 and single-core score of 2029 place it in the 75th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U with a delta of 0% and the Intel Core i7-1260P at -0.2%, both of which are mobile processors, indicating that this desktop chip trades blows with laptop parts in synthetic tests. The Passmark multithread score of 16908 and single-thread score of 2981 reinforce this mid-range positioning.

In Minimum, the CPU's limitations manifest most clearly at 1080p Low, where the 320.4 FPS result appears to be a hard ceiling. The fact that dropping from High to Low at 1080p only increases frame rate from 254.7 to 320.4 FPS, a 25.8% gain, suggests that the processor is the bottleneck even at High settings. The 3DMark scores, particularly the 16-thread result of 5619 and single-thread result of 868, indicate that the CPU's single-core performance is its weak point for gaming, and Minimum likely relies heavily on a few threads for game logic and physics.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Medium or High presets as the optimal choices for this hardware combination, depending on the target resolution. At 1080p, High settings deliver 254.7 FPS, which is already well beyond any display refresh rate, while Ultra drops to 192.4 FPS without providing a visually significant improvement in a game from 2014. The gap between Medium at 290.5 FPS and High at 254.7 FPS is 35.8 frames, but the visual quality difference likely justifies the High preset over Medium for most players.

At 1440p, High at 162.5 FPS is the recommended choice for high-refresh-rate monitors, as it stays above 144 FPS comfortably. Medium at 196.3 FPS offers more headroom but sacrifices some visual fidelity, while Ultra at 123.3 FPS remains playable but drops below the 144 FPS threshold that many gamers target. The 4K resolution is where the recommendation shifts to Medium at 103.7 FPS or Low at 136.4 FPS, as High at 85.8 FPS and Ultra at 66.1 FPS are less smooth for fast-paced third-person shooting.

The overall best experience per the measured rows is 1440p High, which balances the CPU bottleneck and GPU capability. It delivers 162.5 FPS, which is 27% higher than the 4K High result, while maintaining visual quality. For players with 4K displays, Low at 136.4 FPS provides the most fluid experience, though it requires accepting minimal graphics settings.

FAQ

Q: Why does the frame rate drop so much from 1080p to 4K?

A: The data shows a 136.4 FPS result at 4K Low versus 320.4 FPS at 1080p Low, a 57% reduction. This is because the RTX 4090 is underutilized at lower resolutions, where the i5-11400F becomes the bottleneck, and becomes more active as pixel count increases.

Q: Is the RTX 4090 worth using with this older CPU?

A: The benchmark results indicate that the CPU limits performance at 1080p, but at 1440p and 4K, the GPU's power becomes evident. The 4K Ultra result of 66.1 FPS shows that the card can still handle demanding settings, though its 91st percentile ranking among all GPUs is not fully utilized in this pairing.

Q: What is the best preset for competitive play?

A: Based on the measured rows, Low at 1440p produces 255.4 FPS, which is the highest frame rate among the 1440p options. At 1080p, Low at 320.4 FPS is the maximum achievable, though High at 254.7 FPS offers better visuals with a still-high frame rate.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic tests?

A: The i5-11400F has an average benchmark score of 17181, which is essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U at 17189 (delta 0%), the Intel Core i7-1260P at 17212 (delta -0.2%), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U at 17215 (delta -0.2%). The Intel Core i5-1240U trails slightly at 17141 (delta 0.2%).

Q: Does the GPU show any signs of VRAM limitation in this game?

A: No, the RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory with 1.01 TB/s bandwidth is far more than Minimum requires. The game's 2014 release date means it was designed for much smaller memory pools, so VRAM capacity is never a factor in these results.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 4K with Medium settings?

A: The measured data shows 103.7 FPS at 3840x2160 with Medium settings. This is a playable result, though it falls below the 136.4 FPS achieved with Low settings at the same resolution, indicating a 32.7 FPS penalty for the visual upgrade.