Minimum

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Minimum shows a clear and predictable pattern as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop reveals important information about where the bottleneck lies. At 1080p with High settings, the combo of the Intel Core i5-14600K and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX produces 206.6 FPS. Moving to 1440p at the same settings drops that to 136.2 FPS, a reduction of roughly 34%. Pushing further to 4K at High settings yields 72.6 FPS, which is a 65% drop from the 1080p figure.

The pattern is consistent across all settings tiers. At Low settings, the frame rate falls from 321.3 FPS at 1080p to 209.8 FPS at 1440p, then to 111.3 FPS at 4K. At Ultra settings, the progression is 157 FPS at 1080p, 102.4 FPS at 1440p, and 55.9 FPS at 4K. The scaling factor between 1440p and 4K is consistently larger than between 1080p and 1440p, which aligns with the pixel count increase — 4K has roughly 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p, while 1440p has about 1.78 times the pixels of 1080p.

The data indicates that at 1080p, the system is not fully GPU-bound. The jump from 206.6 FPS at High to 321.3 FPS at Low suggests substantial headroom, meaning the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at very high frame rates. At 4K, the GPU becomes the clear limiting factor, as the frame rates compress into a narrower band across settings — the difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 55.4 FPS, compared to a 164.3 FPS spread at 1080p. This compression is the signature of a GPU-bound scenario where pixel throughput dominates the performance equation.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows show that Medium settings offer the most balanced experience across the board. At 1080p, Medium produces 248.3 FPS, which is 77.7 FPS above High and 91.3 FPS below Low. At 1440p, Medium delivers 157.2 FPS, comfortably above the 144 Hz refresh threshold that many displays target. At 4K, Medium maintains 87.1 FPS, which is 31.2 FPS higher than High and only 24.2 FPS below Low.

For users prioritizing frame rate stability, Low settings at 1440p provide 209.8 FPS, which is more than sufficient for competitive play. However, the visual quality penalty may not be worth the gain when Medium at the same resolution offers 157.2 FPS — still well above typical high-refresh display capabilities. At 4K, High settings yield 72.6 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced third-person shooting. Ultra at 4K drops to 55.9 FPS, which is likely below the comfort threshold for most players.

The optimal recommendation based on the data is Medium at 1440p for the best combination of fluidity and visual fidelity. For 4K users, Medium is the practical ceiling, as High drops below 75 FPS and Ultra falls under 60 FPS. At 1080p, even Ultra maintains 157 FPS, so players with 1080p displays can afford to max out settings without concern.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the dominant component in this pairing for Minimum. The GPU features 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus, yielding 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The 192 ROPs and 384 TMUs provide the pixel and texture throughput needed for high-resolution rendering. The boost clock of 2498 MHz and game clock of 2365 MHz support the high frame rates observed in the 1080p and 1440p measurements.

The GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. At 4K, the 57,700 million transistors on the 5 nm process are fully exercised, and the data shows the GPU is the binding constraint. The FP32 performance of 61.39 TFLOPS is substantial, yet the 4K Ultra result of 55.9 FPS indicates that the game's rendering workload at maximum settings exceeds what even this high-end card can sustain at 60 FPS.

The VRAM capacity of 24 GB is not a limiting factor in any of the measured scenarios. Even at 4K Ultra, the frame rate is governed by compute and memory bandwidth rather than capacity exhaustion. The 960.0 GB/s bandwidth is likely the more relevant specification for this title, as the consistent scaling between resolutions suggests memory bandwidth is adequate but not overabundant.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX ranks 243rd out of 1,733 tested combos in Minimum. This places the pairing in the top 14% of all configurations tested for this game. The percentile position reflects the strengths of both components — the GPU sits in the 85th percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU holds the 93rd percentile among all CPUs.

The ranking is notable because it shows that even with two high-performing components, the game's engine still places the combo outside the top 200 configurations. This suggests that Minimum's performance is heavily influenced by factors beyond raw component strength, such as driver optimization or specific engine characteristics. The 243rd position out of 1,733 is still a strong result — approximately 1,490 combos score worse — but it indicates room for improvement through software tuning.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti with an average score 2% higher, and the AMD Radeon Pro 580 with a score 0.4% lower. The CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X with a score 0.2% lower, and the Intel Core i5-14600KF with a score 0.4% higher. These close margins indicate that the combo's ranking is not the result of a single dominant component, but rather a balanced pairing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K brings 14 cores and 20 threads to the pairing, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache provide the data locality needed for game workloads. The CPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks shows strong single-thread capability with a Geekbench single-core score of 2803, and robust multi-thread performance with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32881.

In Minimum, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p, where the frame rates exceed 300 FPS at Low settings. At this level, the CPU must feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic updates faster than the GPU can render frames. The 321.3 FPS at 1080p Low demonstrates that the i5-14600K is capable of sustaining extremely high frame rates without becoming the bottleneck. The 5.30 GHz boost clock is likely instrumental in achieving this, as game logic often depends on single-thread performance.

As resolution increases, the CPU's influence diminishes. The data shows frame rates at 4K are consistently lower across all settings, indicating the GPU is now the limiting component. The CPU still needs to keep up with the GPU's output at 4K, but the gap between settings at 4K is smaller, suggesting the CPU has ample headroom. The 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms that this processor is well above the median for game performance, and the nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 4345P with a score 0.9% lower, indicating the i5-14600K sits in a tight competitive cluster.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full range of settings produces the following results: Low delivers 321.3 FPS, Medium achieves 248.3 FPS, High reaches 206.6 FPS, and Ultra attains 157 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 164.3 FPS, demonstrating significant headroom for players to trade visual quality for performance.

At 2560x1440, the measurements are: Low at 209.8 FPS, Medium at 157.2 FPS, High at 136.2 FPS, and Ultra at 102.4 FPS. The spread narrows to 107.4 FPS, showing the GPU beginning to assert greater influence. The Medium result at 1440p is nearly identical to the Ultra result at 1080p (157.2 vs. 157), suggesting that the resolution increase consumes the performance gained from dropping from Ultra to Medium settings.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low at 111.3 FPS, Medium at 87.1 FPS, High at 72.6 FPS, and Ultra at 55.9 FPS. The spread compresses further to 55.4 FPS, and only Low settings manage to stay above 100 FPS. The Ultra result at 4K falls below 60 FPS, which is a critical threshold for smooth gameplay in a third-person shooter where camera movement is constant.

The data across all twelve measured configurations shows a consistent hierarchy: Low always outperforms Medium, Medium outperforms High, and High outperforms Ultra. The relative gaps between settings are largest at 1080p and smallest at 4K, confirming the GPU-bound nature of high-resolution gameplay. The 4K Ultra result of 55.9 FPS is the only measured configuration below 60 FPS, making it the sole point where the combo fails to maintain console-level smoothness.