Minimum

# Minimum: Intel Core i5-12400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data for Minimum, a third-person shooter released in 2014, shows a clear hierarchy across the four tested quality presets at each resolution. For a balanced experience that prioritizes frame rate stability without sacrificing visual fidelity, the Medium preset is the strongest recommendation across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 250 average FPS with a minimum of 212 FPS and a maximum of 287 FPS. This represents a 90 FPS improvement over High (210 average) while only costing 76 FPS versus Low (326 average). The 212 FPS minimum ensures that even the most demanding scenes remain well above refresh-rate thresholds for high-frequency displays.

At 2560x1440, Medium continues to be the optimal choice, producing 161 average FPS with a 137 FPS minimum and 185 FPS maximum. The gap between Medium and High narrows to 26 FPS (161 vs 135), while Low reaches 211 FPS. For 4K, Medium yields 87 average FPS with a 74 FPS minimum and 100 FPS maximum, which keeps gameplay smooth on 60 Hz displays with substantial headroom. The 74 FPS minimum is the only measured frame-time floor across all Medium presets that dips below 100 FPS, but it remains comfortably playable.

Ultra settings are not recommended for this combination. At 4K, Ultra drops to 56 average FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold many players target. At 1440p, Ultra produces 103 average FPS, and at 1080p it reaches 160 average FPS. While these are playable numbers, the performance cost relative to Medium is steep: 31 FPS lost at 4K, 58 FPS lost at 1440p, and 90 FPS lost at 1080p. High settings offer a middle ground but do not provide the same stability margin as Medium, particularly at 4K where High averages 73 FPS with no minimum or maximum recorded.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-12400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti ranks 511 out of 3712 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the top 13.8% of all system configurations measured for this game. The percentile positioning indicates that this pairing delivers performance in the upper tier of systems, with only roughly 500 other combinations producing higher average frame rates across the tested settings and resolutions.

The ranking reflects a well-balanced pairing. The RTX 4070 Ti sits at the 84th percentile among all GPUs in the database, meaning it outperforms 84% of graphics cards tested. The i5-12400 achieves the 72nd percentile among all CPUs. When combined in this game, the system outperforms the individual component percentiles would suggest, indicating that Minimum is not bottlenecked by either part in a way that would drag the combo down to the level of its weakest component.

Relative to the GPU's nearest rivals, the RTX 4070 Ti's average benchmark score of 44795 is 0.8% below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile (45152), 1.3% below the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (45384), and 1.7% below the Intel Arc A730M (45592). It is 1.6% above the NVIDIA RTX A6000 (44075). These are small deltas, meaning the RTX 4070 Ti is competitive with a tight cluster of high-end GPUs. However, in Minimum specifically, the combo ranking suggests that game-level performance is influenced by more than raw GPU compute, with CPU throughput and memory bandwidth playing notable roles.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti carries 12 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 192-bit bus, yielding 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. Memory clocks run at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective data rate. These specifications are relevant for Minimum because the game's measured frame rates scale significantly with resolution, and the 12 GB capacity is ample for the textures and assets this 2014 title presents, even at 4K Ultra.

The GPU's clock behavior shows a base clock of 2310 MHz and a boost clock of 2610 MHz. The boost clock is the more meaningful figure for sustained gaming workloads, and the data suggests the card can maintain high utilization across all settings tiers. The RTX 4070 Ti also features 7680 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 80 raster operation units. Its pixel rate is 208.8 GPixel/s and texture rate is 626.4 GTexel/s, which are the raw throughput figures that govern how quickly the GPU can fill frames and apply texture detail.

In Minimum, the GPU appears to be the primary scaling component when moving between settings presets. At a fixed resolution, the FPS delta from Low to Ultra is substantial: at 1080p, Low produces 326 FPS while Ultra produces 160 FPS, a 166 FPS spread. This is a hallmark of GPU-bound workloads, where higher settings increase pixel shading and texture work. The 84th percentile GPU ranking aligns with the strong absolute performance observed, and the nearest rival comparisons show that the RTX 4070 Ti is within 1.7% of several other high-end GPUs in synthetic benchmarks, which translates to the tight clustering of in-game results around this performance tier.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RTX 4070 Ti paired with the i5-12400 delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 326 average FPS, Medium produces 250 average FPS with a 212 FPS minimum and 287 FPS maximum, High produces 210 average FPS, and Ultra produces 160 average FPS. The Medium preset's recorded range of 212 to 287 FPS shows a tight band of 75 FPS, indicating consistent frame pacing under load. The step from Low to Medium costs 76 FPS, from Medium to High costs 40 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs 50 FPS. The diminishing returns are not linear; the largest absolute drop occurs between Low and Medium.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern holds with lower absolute numbers. Low settings yield 211 average FPS, Medium yields 161 average FPS with a 137 FPS minimum and 185 FPS maximum, High yields 135 average FPS, and Ultra yields 103 average FPS. The Medium preset's range spans 48 FPS, which is tighter in absolute terms than at 1080p but represents a similar relative spread. The drop from Low to Medium is 50 FPS, from Medium to High is 26 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 32 FPS. The 1440p results show that even at Ultra, this combination remains above 100 FPS.

At 3840x2160, performance falls further but remains playable across all presets. Low settings produce 113 average FPS, Medium produces 87 average FPS with a 74 FPS minimum and 100 FPS maximum, High produces 73 average FPS, and Ultra produces 56 average FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 74 FPS is the lowest recorded value across all Medium settings in the dataset, and the maximum of 100 FPS shows that the GPU can still spike to high frame rates even at 4K. The drop from Low to Medium is 26 FPS, from Medium to High is 14 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 17 FPS. At 4K, the differences between presets compress because the GPU is increasingly the limiting factor, and each additional settings tier has less relative impact.

Resolution Scaling

Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 250 to 161, a 35.6% reduction. Moving from 1440p to 3840x2160 at Medium, the average FPS drops from 161 to 87, a 46.0% reduction. The combined drop from 1080p to 4K is 65.2%, from 250 to 87 FPS. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound title, where pixel count directly drives rendering load. The number of pixels at 1440p is 1.78 times that of 1080p, and at 4K it is 4 times that of 1080p. The observed FPS reductions are less than the pixel count increases would suggest, indicating that the RTX 4070 Ti has sufficient bandwidth and shading throughput to absorb some of the added resolution cost without fully proportional frame rate loss.

At Low settings, the scaling is steeper: 326 FPS at 1080p, 211 FPS at 1440p (35.3% drop), and 113 FPS at 4K (46.4% drop from 1440p). The 4K Low result of 113 FPS is notable because it remains above the 4K Medium result of 87 FPS, confirming that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions regardless of preset. At Ultra settings, the scaling is similar: 160 FPS at 1080p, 103 FPS at 1440p (35.6% drop), and 56 FPS at 4K (45.6% drop from 1440p).

The consistency of these percentage drops across all four presets is significant. It means that resolution scaling is independent of settings tier, which points to a GPU-limited scenario where the RTX 4070 Ti's compute and memory resources are exhausted in a predictable fashion as pixel count rises. The CPU does not appear to constrain resolution scaling, as the i5-12400's thread throughput is sufficient to feed the GPU at all tested configurations. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the 1080p results would show smaller differences between presets or the resolution scaling would flatten at lower resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 1440p gaming with this combination?

A: Medium settings provide the best balance, delivering 161 average FPS with a 137 FPS minimum and 185 FPS maximum. High settings run at 135 average FPS, and Ultra at 103 average FPS, but Medium offers the highest minimum frame rate headroom.

Q: Can this system run Minimum at 4K smoothly?

A: Yes, at Medium settings the system produces 87 average FPS with a 74 FPS minimum, which is above the 60 FPS target for standard displays. At High settings it drops to 73 average FPS, and at Ultra it falls to 56 average FPS, which is below 60.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 250 at 1080p to 161 at 1440p and then to 87 at 4K. This represents a 35.6% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a further 46.0% reduction from 1440p to 4K.

Q: Is the RTX 4070 Ti or the i5-12400 the limiting factor?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary limiter, especially at higher resolutions. The resolution scaling pattern shows consistent percentage FPS drops across all settings, which is typical of GPU-bound workloads. The CPU's 72nd percentile ranking and the GPU's 84th percentile ranking support this interpretation.

Q: What frame rates can players expect at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The system achieves 160 average FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings. This is 90 FPS lower than Medium settings, which produce 250 average FPS, showing a significant cost for maximum visual quality.

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

A: This combination ranks 511 out of 3712 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the top 13.8% of all configurations measured. The rank reflects strong absolute performance driven largely by the GPU.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process node. Its base clock is 2.50 GHz with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, and it carries 18 MB of shared L3 cache alongside 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core and 80 KB of L1 cache per core. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory across a dual-channel bus, and it connects to the GPU via PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes. For a game like Minimum, these specifications are more than sufficient to avoid becoming a bottleneck, as evidenced by the measured FPS results.

The i5-12400's benchmark scores place it in the 72nd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 18683. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 7643 (18697, 0.1% higher), the Intel Core i7-1355U (18730, 0.3% higher), the AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 (18811, 0.7% higher), and the Intel Core i3-14100F (18519, 0.9% lower). These deltas are small, meaning the i5-12400 sits in a dense cluster of mid-range to high-end processors with comparable overall throughput.

In single-threaded workloads, the i5-12400 scores 3456 in PassMark single-thread tests and 910 in 3DMark single-thread tests. Its multi-threaded performance is stronger, with a PassMark multi-thread score of 18747 and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15989. These numbers indicate that the CPU has substantial headroom for feeding a high-end GPU like the RTX 4070 Ti in Minimum, which is not a heavily threaded title given its 2014 release date. The game's engine likely relies more on single-core performance and memory latency than on many-thread scaling, and the i5-12400's 4.40 GHz boost clock provides the necessary speed.

The CPU's role in the measured results is most visible at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low settings, the system produces 326 average FPS, which is a high frame rate that requires the CPU to deliver draw calls and game logic updates quickly enough to keep the GPU fed. The fact that this combination can exceed 300 FPS at 1080p suggests that the i5-12400's single-thread performance is not limiting. At 4K, the CPU's role diminishes because the GPU is saturated by pixel work, and the FPS differences between presets become smaller, as seen in the 4K results where the spread from Low to Ultra is just 57 FPS compared to 166 FPS at 1080p.