Minimum

FAQ

Q: What is the Intel Core i5-14600K's average benchmark score, and how does it compare to its closest rivals?

A: The i5-14600K holds an average benchmark score of 49166, placing it in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs. It is nearly tied with the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, which scores 49062, a delta of just 0.2% in favor of the Intel chip. It trails the Intel Core i5-14600KF (49367) by 0.4% and the AMD EPYC 4345P (49595) by 0.9%, while leading the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (48698) by 1.0%.

Q: Does the Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB have any benchmark scores listed in the data?

A: No. The GPU's benchmark array is empty, and its average benchmark score is listed as 0. Its percentile versus all GPUs is 50, but this appears to be a placeholder rather than a measured result. The only performance data available for this GPU comes from the measured FPS rows in this specific game.

Q: What is the best frame rate achievable at 1920x1080 with this combo?

A: At 1080p, the lowest settings preset produces the highest average frame rate at 210.8 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 159.2 FPS, while High yields 134.3 FPS. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, producing an average of 103.3 FPS.

Q: How does the frame rate scale when moving from 1080p to 4K at High settings?

A: The average FPS at High settings drops from 134.3 at 1080p to 84.6 at 1440p, then to 49.1 at 2160p. This represents a significant decline, with the 4K figure being roughly one-third of the 1080p performance. The scaling suggests a growing GPU bottleneck at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested combinations for this game?

A: The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and the AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB ranks 892nd out of 1733 tested combos for "Minimum." This places it slightly below the median of the tested field.

Q: What is the difference in FPS between the Low and Ultra presets at 2560x1440?

A: At 1440p, the Low preset averages 136.3 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 68.6 FPS. This is a performance gap of 67.7 FPS, meaning the Ultra preset delivers roughly half the frame rate of the Low preset at this resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor built on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 give it substantial headroom for modern gaming workloads. In synthetic benchmarks, the chip posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32881 and a single-core score of 4642, indicating strong performance in both heavily threaded and lightly threaded scenarios.

For a third-person shooter released in 2014, the CPU's role is likely less about raw multi-core muscle and more about maintaining high single-thread throughput. The i5-14600K's single-core performance, reflected in a Geekbench single-core score of 2803, is more than sufficient to feed the GPU in most scenes. The data suggests this is not a CPU-limited scenario at 1080p: the frame rate scales down dramatically as resolution increases, which points to the GPU as the primary constraint at higher settings. However, at 1080p Low, the 210.8 FPS average suggests the CPU is capable of driving very high frame rates without becoming a bottleneck.

The processor's 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs reinforces that this is a high-end part. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, scores within 0.2%, meaning the i5-14600K is effectively performance-equivalent to a 16-core flagship from the previous generation in aggregate benchmarks. The PassMark multi-thread score of 38682 and integer math score of 125737 further indicate that the CPU has plenty of computational headroom. In this game, the 14 cores and 20 threads are likely underutilized, but the high boost clock of 5.30 GHz ensures that the few threads the game does use run at maximum speed.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 44 chip, fabricated on a 4 nm process by TSMC. It features a boost clock of 3130 MHz and a game clock of 2530 MHz, with 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 322.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with a pixel rate of 200.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 400.6 GTexel/s. Its FP32 performance is rated at 25.64 TFLOPS.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is a notable consideration for a modern GPU, especially at higher resolutions. While the data does not include VRAM usage metrics, the measured FPS drops suggest that 4K Ultra is a heavy load for this card. At 3840x2160 Ultra, the combo averages only 38 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold most gamers consider playable. The GPU's 128-bit memory bus and 322.3 GB/s bandwidth may be limiting factors at 4K, where large textures and high-resolution buffers demand more memory throughput.

At 1080p, the GPU performs admirably, with the Low preset hitting 210.8 FPS and even the Ultra preset maintaining 103.3 FPS. This indicates that at lower resolutions, the GPU has enough bandwidth and compute to keep up with the CPU. The shift to 1440p shows a moderate drop, while 4K reveals the card's limits. The GPU's percentile rank of 50 among all GPUs is unhelpful given the empty benchmark array, but the measured FPS data provides a clearer picture: this is a capable 1080p and 1440p card that struggles at 4K with high settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the Intel Core i5-14600K and AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB ranks 892nd out of 1733 tested combinations for "Minimum." This places it almost exactly in the middle of the pack, at roughly the 51st percentile of all tested combos. Given that the CPU ranks in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, the combo's middling overall rank suggests that the GPU is dragging the pair down relative to other tested systems.

The rank of 892 out of 1733 means that 891 combos performed better and 841 performed worse. This is a crowded field, and the RX 9060 XT's position is the likely culprit. The CPU alone could easily pair with a more powerful GPU to produce a top-tier result, but with this GPU, the combo lands just below the median. This suggests that for this game, the GPU is the limiting factor in achieving higher frame rates, particularly at higher resolutions and settings.

The data implies that this combo is well-balanced for 1080p gaming, where the CPU and GPU work in harmony to produce high frame rates. However, at 4K, the GPU's limitations become apparent, and the combo's rank would likely improve if the resolution were the only variable. The fact that the CPU is not the bottleneck is evident from the resolution scaling, which shows a clear GPU-driven decline in performance.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the best experience depends on the target resolution and frame rate. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset offers a strong balance, averaging 159.2 FPS. This is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on modern monitors, and it is a significant improvement over the High preset's 134.3 FPS. The Ultra preset at 103.3 FPS is still playable but sacrifices performance for marginal visual gains.

At 2560x1440, the High preset averages 84.6 FPS, which is a good target for 60-75 Hz displays. The Medium preset at 105.6 FPS is also viable, offering a smoother experience with only a modest visual downgrade. The Low preset at 136.3 FPS is the best choice for competitive play, where frame rate trumps visual fidelity.

At 3840x2160, the situation is more constrained. The Low preset at 74 FPS is the only option that approaches smooth gameplay. The Medium preset at 57.2 FPS is borderline, while High (49.1 FPS) and Ultra (38 FPS) fall below acceptable thresholds for most players. For 4K, the Low preset is recommended if a 60+ FPS experience is desired.

The data shows a clear trend: the Ultra preset at any resolution delivers a frame rate roughly half of the Low preset's performance. For this game, Medium or High settings at 1080p or 1440p provide the best balance of visual quality and performance. At 4K, Low is the only sensible choice.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the frame rate ranges from 210.8 FPS on Low to 103.3 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset averages 159.2 FPS, and High averages 134.3 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 51.6 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 24.9 FPS. The step from High to Ultra costs 31.0 FPS, making Ultra the most expensive preset in terms of performance.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 136.3 FPS, which is a drop of 74.5 FPS from the 1080p Low figure. Medium averages 105.6 FPS, High averages 84.6 FPS, and Ultra averages 68.6 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1440p shows a total loss of 67.7 FPS, with each preset step costing between 16 and 30 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 74 FPS, Medium averages 57.2 FPS, High averages 49.1 FPS, and Ultra averages 38 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra is 36 FPS, with the largest single-step loss occurring between Low and Medium at 16.8 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the worst-performing configuration in the entire dataset, with an average of 38 FPS.

The data shows a consistent pattern: each resolution increase roughly halves the frame rate at a given preset, and each preset increase at a given resolution reduces the frame rate by 20-30%. The 1080p Low config is the only one that exceeds 200 FPS, while the 4K Ultra config is the only one below 40 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the limiting component. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 210.8 at 1080p to 136.3 at 1440p, a reduction of 35.3%, and then to 74 at 4K, a further reduction of 45.7%. This steep decline indicates that even at the lowest settings, the GPU is increasingly strained as pixel count grows.

At High settings, the scaling is similar: 134.3 FPS at 1080p, 84.6 at 1440p (a 37.0% drop), and 49.1 at 4K (a 42.0% drop). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that the GPU is the dominant bottleneck at all resolutions above 1080p. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the frame rate would remain relatively flat as resolution increases, since the CPU workload is largely independent of resolution.

The data shows that the i5-14600K is not the constraint in this system. At 1080p Low, the CPU can push the GPU to 210.8 FPS, but the GPU cannot maintain that pace at higher resolutions. The 4K Ultra figure of 38 FPS is particularly telling — it represents a 82.0% drop from the 1080p Low figure, which is a massive reduction that can only be attributed to GPU limitations.

The resolution scaling analysis suggests that for this game, the RX 9060 XT is best utilized at 1080p or 1440p. At 4K, the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus become significant constraints, and even the Low preset struggles to maintain 75 FPS. The CPU has ample headroom, as evidenced by its high benchmark scores, but the GPU's performance ceiling is reached well before the CPU's is.