Minimum

The Intel Core i5-12400 and AMD Radeon RX 570 combination produces a clear performance hierarchy in Minimum, a Third-Person Shooter from 2014. The measured data shows a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics card at higher resolutions, while the CPU demonstrates enough headroom to drive high frame rates at 1080p when the GPU load is reduced. The benchmark results indicate a pairing that is serviceable for 1080p gaming but struggles to maintain playable frame rates as pixel count increases.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, revealing the RX 570 as the primary bottleneck. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 83.7 FPS at 1920x1080 to 51 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of 32.7 FPS. Moving to 3840x2160, the average plunges to 29.4 FPS, which is roughly a 65% decrease from the 1080p result. This scaling pattern is typical of a GPU-bound scenario where the Polaris 20 chip simply runs out of fillrate and memory bandwidth.

The High preset tells a similar story, with averages of 51.9 FPS at 1080p, 35.6 FPS at 1440p, and 20.8 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset is the most punishing, starting at 41.1 FPS at 1080p and collapsing to 13.8 FPS at 4K. The consistency of these drops—roughly 45% to 50% reduction when stepping from 1080p to 1440p, and another 40% to 45% going to 4K—indicates that the rendering pipeline is saturated. The data implies that the CPU is not the limiting factor here; if it were, the scaling between resolutions would be far less dramatic.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570’s specifications directly explain the observed frame rates. With 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, the card has a bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. This is a modest figure by modern standards, and Minimum’s texture-heavy scenes at 4K likely exceed this capacity. The core clocks of 1168 MHz base and 1244 MHz boost, paired with 2048 shading units, produce a theoretical FP32 performance of 5.095 TFLOPS. This is adequate for 1080p but insufficient for the 8.3 million pixels of 4K.

The GPU’s percentile ranking of 74 among all GPUs places it in the upper-midrange of the database, yet the measured results show it struggling. The nearest rivals listed include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, which are within 0.2% to 0.8% in average benchmark score. This suggests that the RX 570’s synthetic benchmark performance is competitive with those newer cards, but the measured FPS in this title tells a different story. The 4K Ultra result of 13.8 FPS is borderline unplayable, confirming that the GPU’s 32 ROPs and 128 TMUs are not enough for high-fidelity rendering at that resolution.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear picture of which preset offers the best experience for this combo. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers 63.8 FPS average, which is a solid playable frame rate for a third-person shooter. The Low preset achieves 83.7 FPS, offering the smoothest experience, but the visual quality trade-off is significant. The High preset at 51.9 FPS is acceptable but close to the edge of what most players would consider smooth, while Ultra at 41.1 FPS introduces noticeable stutter in fast-paced scenes.

For 2560x1440, the situation changes. The Low preset averages 51 FPS, which is playable, but Medium drops to 40.7 FPS and High falls to 35.6 FPS. These numbers suggest that 1440p is only viable at Low settings for this pairing. At 3840x2160, every preset fails to reach 30 FPS except Low, which averages 29.4 FPS. The data indicates that 4K is not a realistic target for this combo, even at the lowest settings. The recommended configuration is 1080p Medium, as it balances the 63.8 FPS average against the visual fidelity improvements over Low.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU-GPU combo in Minimum?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 is the only resolution where all presets exceed 40 FPS average. At 2560x1440, only Low settings reach above 50 FPS, and at 3840x2160, no preset averages above 30 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 1080p?

A: The Ultra preset averages 41.1 FPS, which is 10.8 FPS lower than High’s 51.9 FPS. This 20% performance penalty is significant for what is likely a marginal visual gain.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 4K?

A: The resolution scaling indicates the GPU is the bottleneck. The frame rate drops by roughly 65% from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, which is a GPU-bound pattern. The CPU’s performance is consistent across resolutions.

Q: Can this combo handle 1440p gaming?

A: Only at Low settings, which averages 51 FPS. Medium drops to 40.7 FPS and High to 35.6 FPS, both below the 60 FPS target that most players prefer.

Q: What setting provides the highest frame rate at 1080p?

A: The Low preset averages 83.7 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. This is 19.9 FPS higher than Medium and 31.8 FPS higher than High.

Q: How does the RX 570 compare to its nearest rivals in this game?

A: The GPU’s average benchmark score is within 0.8% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile and 0.2% of the RTX 5060. However, these synthetic scores do not translate to playable 4K performance in Minimum, as the measured results show.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400 and AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 1634 out of 1733 tested combos in Minimum. This places it in the bottom 6% of all configurations, which is a poor showing for a system with a CPU that ranks in the 77th percentile. The disparity between the CPU’s strong benchmark position and the combo’s low rank highlights the GPU’s drag on overall performance. The i5-12400 has an average benchmark score of 19850, putting it just 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-9700 and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Core i5-11600K. Yet, the RX 570’s 74th percentile GPU score is insufficient to leverage that CPU power in this title.

The rank suggests that many other tested combos, likely with more balanced pairings, achieve better frame rates. The data implies that the RX 570 is the weak link, and this combo would benefit significantly from a GPU upgrade. However, the CPU’s headroom means that such an upgrade would likely yield substantial FPS gains without introducing a new bottleneck.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 provides a strong foundation for this system. With 6 cores and 12 threads, it has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. The 18 MB of shared L3 cache and support for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory give it flexibility, though the measured data does not specify which memory type was used. The CPU’s benchmark scores are robust: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15935 and a single-core score of 2249, with a Passmark multithread score of 18747.

In Minimum, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and physics calculations. The fact that frame rates drop so dramatically with resolution increases indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 83.7 FPS, which is a strong result that shows the CPU can handle high frame rates. The CPU’s 77th percentile ranking versus all CPUs and its proximity to rivals like the Intel Core i7-8700 (within 0.2%) suggest that it is more than capable for this game. The bottleneck is clearly the GPU, as the CPU has ample headroom to push higher frame rates if the graphics card could keep up.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset for this combo shows a clear gradient across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the averages are 83.7 FPS for Low, 63.8 FPS for Medium, 51.9 FPS for High, and 41.1 FPS for Ultra. These figures represent the most playable range for this system. The spread from Low to Ultra is 42.6 FPS, which is a wide margin that gives players options depending on their preference for smoothness versus visual quality.

At 2560x1440, the averages drop to 51 FPS for Low, 40.7 FPS for Medium, 35.6 FPS for High, and 27.3 FPS for Ultra. The Ultra preset falls below the 30 FPS threshold, making it unsuitable for consistent play. At 3840x2160, the averages are 29.4 FPS for Low, 21.7 FPS for Medium, 20.8 FPS for High, and 13.8 FPS for Ultra. None of these 4K results reach 30 FPS, confirming that this resolution is not viable for this combo. The data reveals that the RX 570’s 4 GB memory capacity and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are simply inadequate for 4K rendering, even in a 2014 title. The i5-12400’s performance remains consistent, but the GPU’s limitations define the overall experience.