Minimum

The Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT delivers a smooth experience in Minimum across most settings, but the data suggests that the Ultra preset is the only one that falls below playable thresholds at higher resolutions. For the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate, the High preset is the clear recommendation. At 1080p, High produces 131.1 FPS, which is 28% higher than Ultra’s 102.2 FPS while still offering a substantial upgrade over Medium’s 157.7 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra narrows at higher resolutions, but the 4K Ultra result of 36.6 FPS is the only measured point below 40 FPS, making High the most consistent choice across the board.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data clearly indicates that the High preset is the sweet spot for this combination. At 1920x1080, High delivers 131.1 FPS, which is more than sufficient for a third-person shooter, while dropping to Low only raises this to 202.5 FPS—a marginal gain of 54% for a significant visual downgrade. Medium sits between them at 157.7 FPS, but the step from Medium to High costs only 26.6 FPS, which is a reasonable trade for better image quality.

At 2560x1440, High remains strong at 83.4 FPS, keeping the experience comfortably above 60 FPS. Medium at 103.8 FPS and Low at 131.9 FPS offer headroom for higher refresh-rate monitors, but neither provides the visual polish of High. The Ultra preset, however, drops to 61.6 FPS at 1440p, which is still playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. At 3840x2160, High falls to 43.9 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold many players target, but it remains the only preset above 40 FPS other than Medium’s 54.6 FPS and Low’s 68.4 FPS.

For players prioritizing a locked 60 FPS experience, Medium at 4K (54.6 FPS) or High at 1440p (83.4 FPS) are the safest bets. If visual quality is paramount and the player can tolerate occasional dips, High at 1440p is the recommended compromise. Ultra should be avoided at 4K, as the 36.6 FPS result indicates the GPU is overextended.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT is the primary driver of performance in Minimum, as evidenced by the scaling across resolutions. The GPU’s 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for a game released in 2014. The core clock runs at a base of 2321 MHz with a boost of 2581 MHz, and the game clock is rated at 2424 MHz. These clocks are high for the RDNA 2.0 architecture, and the 2560 shading units handle the game’s DirectX 12 workload efficiently.

The GPU’s 40 ray accelerators and 64 ROPs are more than sufficient for Minimum’s rendering requirements, as the game does not heavily utilize ray tracing. The 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the theoretical peak, and the measured results show that the GPU is not bottlenecked at 1080p Low (202.5 FPS) but begins to show strain at 4K Ultra (36.6 FPS). The 16 Gbps effective memory speed and 165.2 GPixel/s pixel rate are consistent with the observed frame rates, indicating that memory bandwidth is not a limiting factor even at 4K.

The GPU’s percentile rank of 77 places it above most other cards, and its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6800, is only 0.7% faster in average benchmark score. This suggests the 6700 XT is well-positioned for this title, though the 4K Ultra result shows that the 12 GB frame buffer is not the constraint—the raw compute power is.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 60 FPS at 1440p?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 produces 83.4 FPS, which is well above 60 FPS. Medium produces 103.8 FPS, and Low produces 131.9 FPS, but High offers the best visual quality while staying comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming?

A: Yes, but with compromises. At 3840x2160, the Low preset achieves 68.4 FPS, Medium achieves 54.6 FPS, and High achieves 43.9 FPS. Ultra drops to 36.6 FPS, which is below the playable threshold for most users. For a consistent 60 FPS experience, Low is the only viable preset at 4K.

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

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 131.1 at 1080p to 83.4 at 1440p and then to 43.9 at 4K. This represents a 33% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 47% drop from 1440p to 4K, indicating the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions.

Q: Is the Ultra preset worth using at any resolution?

A: Ultra yields 102.2 FPS at 1080p, which is playable, but High provides 131.1 FPS—a 28% improvement. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 61.6 FPS, which is still playable but marginal. At 4K, Ultra’s 36.6 FPS is not recommended. High is the better choice in most scenarios.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its rivals in this context?

A: The Intel Core i5-12400F has an average benchmark score of 19221, which is 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-8700K and 1.3% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7773X. Its percentile rank of 77 indicates it is not the bottleneck in this system, as the frame rates scale with GPU load.

Q: Does the 12 GB VRAM limit performance at 4K?

A: The data does not show VRAM capacity as a limiting factor. The 4K High result of 43.9 FPS is consistent with the GPU’s compute capability rather than memory exhaustion, as the RX 6700 XT’s 384.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for the game’s textures.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of presets is playable. Low produces 202.5 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire dataset. Medium steps down to 157.7 FPS, a 22% reduction from Low. High delivers 131.1 FPS, which is 17% lower than Medium. Ultra drops to 102.2 FPS, a 22% reduction from High. The spread from Low to Ultra is 100.3 FPS, showing that the GPU has significant headroom at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, performance scales predictably. Low achieves 131.9 FPS, which is 65% of the 1080p Low result. Medium produces 103.8 FPS, a 21% drop from Low. High reaches 83.4 FPS, a 20% drop from Medium. Ultra falls to 61.6 FPS, a 26% drop from High. The 1440p results show a consistent pattern of diminishing returns as settings increase, with Ultra being the only preset below 80 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly stressed. Low yields 68.4 FPS, which is 52% of the 1080p Low result. Medium produces 54.6 FPS, a 20% drop from Low. High reaches 43.9 FPS, a 20% drop from Medium. Ultra drops to 36.6 FPS, a 17% drop from High. The 4K results show that even Low is only marginally above 60 FPS, and all presets suffer from the increased pixel count.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this configuration. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 (202.5 FPS) to 2560x1440 (131.9 FPS) represents a 34.8% drop, and the further drop to 3840x2160 (68.4 FPS) is another 48.1% reduction. This scaling is steeper than the pixel count increase would suggest, indicating that the GPU’s compute resources are saturated.

At High settings, the drops are similar: 1080p (131.1 FPS) to 1440p (83.4 FPS) is a 36.4% reduction, and 1440p to 4K (43.9 FPS) is a 47.4% reduction. The consistency of these percentage drops across presets suggests that the limiting factor is the GPU’s raw throughput rather than memory bandwidth or CPU performance.

The CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, has a passmark multithread score of 19433 and a single-thread score of 3481, which places it in the 77th percentile. Given that the frame rates scale almost linearly with resolution, the i5-12400F is not the bottleneck. If the CPU were limiting, the 1080p results would show a plateau, but the 202.5 FPS Low result demonstrates that the GPU can still push high frame rates at lower resolutions. The data confirms that the RX 6700 XT is the performance arbiter in this system, and players seeking higher 4K frame rates would need to reduce settings to Low or accept the 43.9 FPS High result.