Minimum

The Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 combination delivers a broad performance envelope in Minimum, a Third-Person Shooter released on 2014-06-25. The data shows this pairing is capable of smooth high-refresh-rate play at 1080p and remains playable at 4K, with frame rates scaling predictably with resolution and settings. The combo ranks 989th out of 1733 tested combinations, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database’s measured results for this title.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combo achieves in Minimum?*

A: The peak measured average is 203.8 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This indicates a substantial headroom for competitive play or high-refresh-rate monitors at the lowest graphical preset.

Q: How does the frame rate change between 1080p and 1440p at High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 High, the average is 128 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 High drops this to 86.4 FPS, a reduction of roughly one-third. This scaling suggests a growing load on the GPU as resolution increases, but the result remains well above 60 FPS.

*Q: Is this combo capable of 4K60 in Minimum?*

A: No. At 3840x2160, the highest average frame rate is 69.4 FPS (Low settings). On Medium, it drops to 54.1 FPS, and on High it falls to 42.7 FPS. Ultra settings yield only 34.7 FPS, so 4K60 is not achievable with this configuration.

Q: What is the difference between the lowest and highest settings at 1080p?

A: Moving from Low (203.8 FPS) to Ultra (99.2 FPS) at 1920x1080 represents a performance drop of more than half. The Medium preset sits at 156.3 FPS, and High at 128 FPS, showing a consistent step-down in performance as graphical fidelity increases.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4060’s average benchmark score is 23181. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6600M, scores 23321, which is a 0.6% difference. The Intel Arc B580 is 0.7% faster, while the AMD Radeon 760M is 0.8% slower, placing the RTX 4060 in a tightly contested performance cluster.

Q: What is the CPU’s standing relative to other processors in the database?

A: The Intel Core i5-14600K has an average benchmark score of 49166 and sits in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, scores 49062, a difference of only 0.2%, indicating near-identical synthetic performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process. It features 3072 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 raster output pipelines, along with 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1830 MHz and boosts to 2460 MHz, with memory running at 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective). The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth, a specification that becomes relevant at higher resolutions.

In Minimum, the GPU’s role is evident from the frame rate scaling across settings. At 1920x1080, the difference between Low (203.8 FPS) and Ultra (99.2 FPS) is over 100 FPS, showing that the graphics card is heavily utilized when pixel shading and texture work increase. The GPU’s FP32 throughput of 15.11 TFLOPS and texture rate of 236.2 GTexel/s support these results, as the game’s third-person perspective requires consistent geometry and effects rendering. The pixel rate of 118.1 GPixel/s helps maintain fill rates at 1440p, where High settings still deliver 86.4 FPS.

The RTX 4060’s 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 23181, places it as a mid-range performer. Its nearest rival data shows a tight cluster: the Radeon RX 6600M is 0.6% faster, the GTX 780 Ti is 0.7% faster, and the Arc B580 is 0.7% slower. This suggests the GPU is well-matched to a game like Minimum, which does not appear to demand extreme memory bandwidth or ray tracing resources. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is not a limiting factor in the measured results, as even at 4K Ultra the frame rate is constrained by compute and fill rate rather than memory allocation.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS values reveal a clear pattern of resolution scaling that identifies the GPU as the primary bottleneck at higher settings. At 1920x1080 Low, the combo produces 203.8 FPS, which drops to 130.4 FPS at 2560x1440 Low, a 36% reduction. Moving to 3840x2160 Low yields 69.4 FPS, another 47% drop. This steep decline indicates that even at minimal settings, the GPU’s rendering throughput is the limiting factor as pixel count increases.

At High settings, the scaling is similar: 128 FPS at 1080p, 86.4 FPS at 1440p, and 42.7 FPS at 4K. The 4K result is less than half of the 1080p figure, which is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario where the RTX 4060’s 272.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 118.1 GPixel/s pixel rate are stretched by the 8.3 million pixels of 4K. The Ultra preset follows suit, with 99.2 FPS at 1080p, 63.1 FPS at 1440p, and 34.7 FPS at 4K. The consistent halving of frame rates from 1080p to 4K across all settings confirms that the CPU is not the bottleneck; a CPU-limited scenario would show less degradation at higher resolutions.

The data also shows that settings adjustments have a smaller impact at 4K than at 1080p. At 1080p, moving from Low to Ultra costs 104.6 FPS, while at 4K, the same settings change costs only 34.7 FPS. This compression indicates that at 4K, the GPU is saturated and additional graphical features have diminishing returns on frame rate. For users targeting 1440p, the Medium preset (102.2 FPS) offers a good balance, while 1080p users can comfortably run Ultra at 99.2 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-14600K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 combination holds the 989th rank out of 1733 tested combos in Minimum. This places it in the 57th percentile of all configurations, meaning roughly 57% of tested combos perform better in this specific game. The rank reflects the RTX 4060’s mid-range positioning rather than the CPU’s strength; the i5-14600K ranks in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU sits at the 66th percentile.

The combination’s ranking is influenced by the game’s age and optimization. With a release date of 2014-06-25, Minimum is a title that does not heavily stress modern multi-core processors. The CPU’s 14 cores and 20 threads are likely underutilized, leaving the GPU as the performance arbiter. This explains why a combo with a top-tier CPU and a mid-range GPU lands in the middle of the pack—the ranking is dominated by GPU performance. The i5-14600K’s nearest rival data, showing a 0.2% difference from the Ryzen 9 5950X, indicates that CPU choice has minimal impact on the overall combo rank in this title.

For context, the combo’s rank of 989 out of 1733 means it outperforms 744 other combinations. This is a solid result for a single-GPU setup, particularly given that the RTX 4060 is marked as end-of-life and has a modest 8 GB VRAM allocation. The measured FPS data confirms that the combo is not a top-tier performer, but it delivers playable frame rates at all tested resolutions, which is more than can be said for the bottom quartile of the database.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor from the Core 14th Gen series, built on Raptor Lake architecture and a 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. This configuration supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel mode, with PCIe Gen 5 connectivity.

In Minimum, the CPU’s role is largely to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The benchmark results show that the CPU is not a limiting factor: at 1080p Low, the combo reaches 203.8 FPS, which is well above typical refresh rates. The i5-14600K’s single-core performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 at 4642 points, ensures that the game’s main thread is not starved. Its multi-core score of 32881 in the same test provides ample headroom for background tasks or streaming.

The data suggests that the CPU’s 14 cores are more than sufficient for this title. The game, released in 2014, is unlikely to utilize more than a few threads, so the i5-14600K’s 20 threads are largely idle. This is reflected in the CPU’s nearest rival comparisons: the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, a 16-core processor, scores within 0.2% of the i5-14600K in average benchmark score. In a GPU-bound game like Minimum, this difference would be imperceptible. The CPU’s high boost clock of 5.30 GHz is the more relevant specification, as it ensures low latency on the primary game thread, which is critical for maintaining high frame rates at 1080p.