Minimum

# Minimum — Intel Core i5-14600KF + AMD Radeon RX 9060

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 produces a benchmark profile that is heavily dictated by resolution choice and graphics preset. Across the twelve measured configurations, average frame rates range from 32 FPS at 4K Ultra to 187 FPS at 1080p Low, indicating that this combo is capable of high refresh rates at lower resolutions but becomes constrained at 4K. The GPU sits at the 59th percentile among all tested graphics cards, while the CPU ranks in the 90th percentile, suggesting that the Radeon RX 9060 is the primary performance limiter in this pairing, particularly as resolution increases.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial across all settings, revealing a clear GPU-bound workload as pixel count rises. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 120 at 1920x1080 to 78 at 2560x1440 — a 35% reduction — and then to 42 at 3840x2160, which is another 46% drop from the 1440p figure. This steep decline indicates that the RX 9060's 8 GB frame buffer and 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth become increasingly stressed as resolution climbs.

The Low preset shows the same pattern but from a higher starting point: 187 FPS at 1080p, 121 FPS at 1440p, and 65 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 35% from 1080p to 1440p and 46% from 1440p to 4K, mirroring the High preset's scaling almost exactly. This consistency suggests that the limiting factor is raw pixel throughput rather than setting-specific effects, since the relative performance degradation remains nearly identical regardless of visual complexity.

Medium settings produce 143 FPS at 1080p, 92 FPS at 1440p, and 50 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 36%, while the 1440p-to-4K drop is 46%. Ultra settings follow the same trajectory: 92 FPS at 1080p, 59 FPS at 1440p, and 32 FPS at 4K, with drops of 36% and 46% respectively. The uniformity of these scaling ratios across all four presets strongly implies that the GPU's compute and memory resources are the bottleneck, not the CPU.

At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 95 FPS (187 vs 92), which is a 2.03x performance spread. At 1440p, that spread narrows to 62 FPS (121 vs 59), a 2.05x difference. At 4K, the spread is 33 FPS (65 vs 32), a 2.03x difference. The fact that the Low-to-Ultra ratio remains consistent at roughly 2x across all resolutions indicates that the game's settings scale linearly with GPU load, and the RX 9060 is the component responding to those changes.

Settings Recommendations

For users targeting 60 FPS as a playable baseline, the data shows that 4K requires Low settings to achieve 65 FPS average, since Medium dips to 50 FPS and High to 42 FPS. At 1440p, Medium delivers 92 FPS average with a minimum of 79 FPS, which comfortably exceeds 60 FPS, while High achieves 78 FPS. The 1440p Medium configuration appears to offer the best balance of fluidity and visual quality among the measured rows, as it provides a 17% margin over the 60 FPS threshold while still maintaining a minimum above 75 FPS.

At 1080p, all presets exceed 90 FPS, with High reaching 120 FPS and Medium hitting 143 FPS. For high-refresh-rate displays, the 1080p Medium setting at 143 FPS is the highest average that still includes measured minimum and maximum values (122 and 165 FPS respectively), suggesting stable frame pacing. The 1080p Low preset reaches 187 FPS but lacks min/max data, so its consistency is unverified; the Medium preset's documented 122 FPS minimum makes it the safer choice for competitive play.

The Ultra preset at any resolution does not provide proportional benefits according to the measured data. At 1080p, Ultra yields 92 FPS compared to Medium's 143 FPS — a 36% reduction — and at 1440p, Ultra drops to 59 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold that Medium comfortably exceeds. The 4K Ultra result of 32 FPS is the lowest measured value in the entire dataset, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay. Given that the High preset at 1440p (78 FPS) and Medium at 1440p (92 FPS) both outperform Ultra at 1080p in terms of resolution fidelity, the recommendation is to prioritize resolution over preset level.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060, built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 44 chip, features 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units. Its boost clock of 2990 MHz and game clock of 2400 MHz contribute to a pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 334.9 GTexel/s. The 8 GB GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is the likely constraint at 4K resolutions given the frame rate collapses observed.

The GPU's benchmark scores situate it among mid-range competitors. Its average benchmark score of 16014 places it within 0.7% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (16129), and 1% ahead of both the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862) and AMD Radeon RX 7700 (15852). The RX 9060's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3322 and PassMark G3D score of 17631 reflect its positioning, though the game-specific results in Minimum show that real-world performance can deviate from synthetic averages.

The measured FPS data confirms that the GPU is the limiting component in this pairing. At 1080p Low, the CPU has enough headroom to push 187 FPS, but the GPU cannot sustain that throughput at higher resolutions. The 4K Ultra result of 32 FPS represents a 83% reduction from the 1080p Low figure, a drop that aligns with the 4x pixel count increase from 1080p to 4K. The GPU's 59th percentile ranking among all graphics cards, combined with the CPU's 90th percentile ranking, reinforces that the RX 9060 determines the frame rate ceiling in Minimum.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the RX 9060 produces an average of 42 FPS on High settings, 65 FPS on Low, 50 FPS on Medium, and 32 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset is the only 4K configuration with complete min/max data, showing a range of 42 to 57 FPS, which indicates a 15 FPS variation. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 33 FPS, with Low being 2.03x faster than Ultra.

At 2560x1440, High settings average 78 FPS, Low averages 121 FPS, Medium averages 92 FPS, and Ultra averages 59 FPS. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 79 FPS and a maximum of 106 FPS, a 27 FPS spread that is larger than the 4K Medium spread, suggesting more frame time variance at the mid-range resolution. The Low-to-Ultra difference is 62 FPS, with Low achieving 2.05x the frame rate of Ultra.

At 1920x1080, High settings average 120 FPS, Low averages 187 FPS, Medium averages 143 FPS, and Ultra averages 92 FPS. The Medium preset's min/max values are 122 and 165 FPS, a 43 FPS range that is the widest among all Medium configurations. This larger variance at 1080p could indicate CPU involvement or driver overhead, though the average remains high. The Low preset's 187 FPS is the highest measured value in the entire dataset, while Ultra's 92 FPS is still above the 60 FPS threshold.

Comparing across resolutions at the same preset, the scaling is consistent: High drops from 120 to 78 to 42 FPS (1080p to 1440p to 4K), Low drops from 187 to 121 to 65 FPS, Medium drops from 143 to 92 to 50 FPS, and Ultra drops from 92 to 59 to 32 FPS. Each step down in resolution roughly corresponds to a 35-46% frame rate increase, with the smaller percentage gains occurring at lower resolutions where the GPU is less saturated.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and AMD Radeon RX 9060 ranks 2179 out of 3712 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the 41st percentile of all system pairings. This rank reflects the GPU's mid-tier positioning, as the CPU's individual 90th percentile ranking is not enough to boost the combo significantly when the graphics card sits at the 59th percentile.

The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks provide context for the combo's standing. The RX 9060's average score of 16014 is 0.7% below the RTX 3060 Ti's 16129, yet the RX 9060 is 1% ahead of both the R9 370X and RX 7700. This narrow spread — a 2.1% difference between the RX 9060 and the Radeon Pro W5500 (15679) — indicates that the GPU's performance class is tightly clustered, and the combo rank of 2179 likely reflects that competitive middle ground.

The CPU's nearest rivals show a similarly tight grouping. The i5-14600KF's average benchmark score of 49394 is 0.3% above the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49228) and 0.4% above the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49196), while being 0.8% above the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (48995). The only rival with a higher score is the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 at 49796, which is 0.8% ahead. This CPU performance headroom, however, does not translate into a high combo rank because the game's frame rates are constrained by the GPU, as evidenced by the resolution scaling patterns.

In the context of all 3712 combos, the 2179th rank means that roughly 59% of tested systems achieve higher frame rates in Minimum. This is consistent with the GPU's 59th percentile, suggesting that the combo's ranking is almost entirely determined by the graphics card's position in the performance hierarchy rather than any CPU limitation.

FAQ

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

A: The highest measured average is 187 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The next highest is 143 FPS at 1080p Medium, followed by 120 FPS at 1080p High.

Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K resolution?

A: Only with Low settings, which produces an average of 65 FPS. Medium drops to 50 FPS, High to 42 FPS, and Ultra to 32 FPS, all below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the RX 9060 compare to the RTX 3060 Ti in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RX 9060's average benchmark score is 16014, which is 0.7% lower than the RTX 3060 Ti's 16129. The two GPUs are effectively tied in average performance according to the data.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank among tested systems in Minimum?

A: The combo ranks 2179 out of 3712 total combinations, placing it in the lower-middle portion of all tested systems. This rank aligns closely with the GPU's 59th percentile position.

Q: Which settings provide the largest frame rate jump?

A: At 1080p, moving from Ultra (92 FPS) to High (120 FPS) provides a 28 FPS increase, while moving from High to Medium (143 FPS) adds 23 FPS. The largest single increase is from High to Low at 1440p, which jumps from 78 to 121 FPS, a 43 FPS gain.

Q: Does the CPU limit performance at any resolution?

A: The data does not indicate CPU limitation. The i5-14600KF has 14 cores and 20 threads with a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, and the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K follows GPU-bound patterns consistently across all settings, with no evidence of a CPU ceiling.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF, part of the Core 14th Gen series built on the Raptor Lake architecture, provides 14 cores and 20 threads with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache support high single-thread performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4594 and Geekbench single-core score of 2445. The CPU's 90th percentile ranking among all processors indicates substantial headroom for demanding workloads.

In Minimum, the CPU's influence on measured FPS is minimal because the frame rates scale almost entirely with GPU load. The consistent 35-46% frame rate drops when moving from 1080p to 1440p to 4K across all settings would not occur if the CPU were the bottleneck; a CPU-bound scenario would show flat or rising FPS as resolution increases. The fact that 1080p Low achieves 187 FPS while 4K Ultra achieves 32 FPS — a 5.8x difference — confirms that the GPU's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors.

The CPU's synthetic performance scores place it among strong competitors. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32544 and PassMark multithread score of 38697 demonstrate ample processing power, while its single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core 4594, PassMark single-thread 4273) ensures that per-core workloads are handled efficiently. The 125 W TDP and dual-channel memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 provide the memory bandwidth necessary to feed the GPU, though the measured results show no signs of memory starvation.

At 1080p Low, the 187 FPS result suggests that the CPU can handle high frame rates, but the GPU's 8 GB frame buffer and 128-bit memory bus become the constraint as resolution increases. The CPU's 24 MB L3 cache and 10 nm process node are irrelevant to the frame rate drops observed, reinforcing that the RX 9060 is the component to upgrade for better 4K performance. The combo's rank of 2179 out of 3712, despite the CPU's top-decile positioning, is a direct consequence of the GPU's mid-pack performance in this title.