Minimum

Minimum is a 2014 third-person shooter, and the benchmark results for the Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER show a system that is overwhelmingly capable of delivering high refresh rates across all tested settings. The data reveals a clear performance hierarchy where the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor only at the highest resolutions and visual presets. This analysis breaks down the measured frames per second to identify the optimal settings, contextualize the combo's standing among 1,733 tested configurations, and explain the scaling behavior from 1080p to 4K.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combo indicates that the Ultra preset provides the most balanced experience for users with high-refresh-rate monitors, though the choice depends heavily on resolution. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset still delivers an average of 174.3 FPS, which is sufficiently high for competitive play and well above the 144 Hz threshold. Moving down to High at this resolution yields 225.4 FPS, a substantial 29% increase over Ultra, while Medium reaches 270.4 FPS and Low tops out at 356 FPS. For 1080p users, High offers the best trade-off between visual fidelity and raw frame rate, as the jump from High to Medium only adds 45 FPS but reduces graphical quality noticeably.

At 2560x1440, the High preset becomes the recommended choice, delivering an average of 149.1 FPS. This is comfortably above 144 Hz, making it ideal for high-refresh-rate QHD monitors. The Ultra preset at this resolution drops to 114 FPS, which is still playable but sacrifices the smoothness that the High preset maintains. The Medium preset at 172.1 FPS offers a meaningful boost over High, but the visual difference between Medium and High in a third-person shooter often justifies the 23 FPS loss for the latter. For users prioritizing maximum frame rates at 1440p, Low delivers 229.4 FPS, but this comes at a significant visual cost.

For 4K (3840x2160), the High preset is the clear winner, producing an average of 80.6 FPS. This is above the 60 FPS standard for cinematic play and is a substantial improvement over the Ultra preset, which falls to 58.5 FPS. The Medium preset at 93 FPS is tempting, but the step down from High to Medium in texture and shadow quality is more noticeable at 4K. The Low preset at 123.9 FPS represents a 54% increase over High, but at 4K, the reduced detail level undermines the purpose of the resolution. Across all resolutions, the data shows that High is the sweet spot for this hardware combination, offering the best balance of visual quality and frame rate headroom.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 117th out of 1,733 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the top 6.8% of all configurations. This is an exceptionally strong result, reflecting the high-end nature of both components. The CPU itself sits in the 93rd percentile against all processors, while the GPU is in the 88th percentile against all graphics cards, indicating that the pairing benefits from two well-above-average parts working in concert.

The CPU's nearest rivals provide context for its contribution. The Intel Core i5-14600KF has an average benchmark score of 49,367, which is 0.4% higher than the Intel Core i5-14600K (49,166) and 0.6% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (49,062). It trails the AMD EPYC 4345P (49,595) by 0.5% and the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (48,698) by 1.4%. This clustering shows that the i5-14600KF is competitive with top-tier workstation and gaming CPUs, and in Minimum's gameplay, this CPU strength ensures that the GPU is rarely starved of data.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4080 SUPER's average benchmark score of 53,610 is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (53,489) and 0.4% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (53,414). It holds a more comfortable lead over the AMD Radeon RX 7700S (52,505) by 2.1% and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (52,086) by 2.9%. This GPU performance, combined with the CPU's high percentile ranking, explains why this combo achieves a top-7% rank. The rank of 117 out of 1,733 suggests that only a handful of more powerful and expensive configurations, likely featuring higher-tier CPUs or GPUs, outperform this setup.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is a critical component in this combo, and its specifications directly influence the measured FPS. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s. For a game released in 2014, this memory capacity is far beyond what is required, but it ensures that texture streaming and high-resolution assets are never bottlenecked. The GPU's 10,240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 112 raster operation pipelines process the game's geometry and effects with ease.

Clock speeds play a role in the performance scaling. The base clock is 2295 MHz, boosting to 2550 MHz, and the memory operates at an effective 23 Gbps. These high clocks, combined with the Ada Lovelace architecture's efficiency on a 5 nm process, allow the GPU to maintain high utilization even at lower resolutions. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 356 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's limit for this game. At 4K Ultra, the FPS drops to 58.5, indicating that the GPU's raw compute power (52.22 TFLOPS FP32) is being fully exercised.

The GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 181.7 FPS (356 vs 174.3), a 104% increase for the lower preset. At 4K, the same comparison yields a 65.4 FPS difference (123.9 vs 58.5), a 112% increase. This consistency suggests that the GPU is scaling its workload proportionally with resolution, but the absolute frame rates remain high. The RTX 4080 SUPER's pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s are more than sufficient for Minimum, which does not feature the demanding ray tracing or DLSS workloads of modern titles. Instead, the GPU's strength lies in raw rasterization performance, which directly benefits this game's traditional rendering pipeline.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS shows a clear progression across presets. Low yields 356 FPS, Medium drops to 270.4 FPS (24% lower), High produces 225.4 FPS (37% lower than Low), and Ultra delivers 174.3 FPS (51% lower than Low). The step from High to Ultra is the most significant relative drop, losing 51.1 FPS, which represents a 23% reduction. This indicates that the Ultra preset introduces effects that are disproportionately expensive at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the FPS figures are lower but still impressive. Low averages 229.4 FPS, Medium 172.1 FPS, High 149.1 FPS, and Ultra 114 FPS. The percentage drops from Low are 25% for Medium, 35% for High, and 50% for Ultra. Comparing 1440p to 1080p at the same preset, Low loses 35.5% of its FPS (356 to 229.4), Medium loses 36.3% (270.4 to 172.1), High loses 33.9% (225.4 to 149.1), and Ultra loses 34.6% (174.3 to 114). This consistent ~35% reduction across all presets indicates that the resolution scaling is directly tied to pixel count, which is a GPU-bound workload.

At 3840x2160, the FPS continues the downward trend. Low averages 123.9 FPS, Medium 93 FPS, High 80.6 FPS, and Ultra 58.5 FPS. From Low to Ultra, the drop is 52.8%. Comparing 4K to 1440p, Low loses 46% (229.4 to 123.9), Medium loses 46% (172.1 to 93), High loses 46% (149.1 to 80.6), and Ultra loses 48.7% (114 to 58.5). The near-uniform 46-48% loss from 1440p to 4K further confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor at these higher resolutions, as the pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K but the FPS does not scale linearly due to other bottlenecks.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS degradation from 1080p to 4K provides insight into which component is limiting performance. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440, the FPS drops by approximately 35% across all presets. This is slightly less than the 33% increase in pixel count (2.07 million to 3.69 million pixels), suggesting that the system is partially CPU-bound at 1080p, where the GPU has spare capacity.

From 1440p to 4K, the FPS drops by 46-48%, which is closer to the 44% increase in pixel count (3.69 million to 8.29 million pixels). This indicates that at 4K, the GPU is the dominant limiting factor, as the FPS scales almost proportionally with the pixel workload. The fact that the drop from 1080p to 1440p is slightly less than the pixel increase suggests that the CPU, with its 14 cores and 20 threads, is providing enough headroom at 1080p to keep the GPU fed, but the GPU's rendering capacity becomes the bottleneck as resolution climbs.

The data also reveals that the settings preset affects scaling. At Low, the 1080p to 4K drop is 65.2% (356 to 123.9), while at Ultra, the drop is 66.4% (174.3 to 58.5). This narrow range indicates that the resolution scaling is consistent regardless of preset, reinforcing that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints at 4K. For users targeting 4K, the High preset at 80.6 FPS represents the best balance, as it avoids the 27 FPS penalty of Ultra while maintaining visual quality. For those with 1080p or 1440p monitors, the system has ample headroom to run High or Ultra at high refresh rates, with Low only necessary for extreme frame rate chasing.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 4K gaming with this combo?

A: The High preset at 3840x2160 delivers an average of 80.6 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS standard. The Ultra preset drops to 58.5 FPS, while Medium offers 93 FPS but with reduced visual quality.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested configurations in Minimum?

A: It ranks 117th out of 1,733 tested combos, placing it in the top 6.8% of all configurations tested.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the main bottleneck at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the system achieves 356 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's limit. The FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p is around 35%, slightly less than the pixel increase, indicating the CPU is providing enough headroom at 1080p.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra at each resolution?

A: At 1080p, Low (356 FPS) is 181.7 FPS higher than Ultra (174.3 FPS). At 1440p, Low (229.4 FPS) is 115.4 FPS higher than Ultra (114 FPS). At 4K, Low (123.9 FPS) is 65.4 FPS higher than Ultra (58.5 FPS).

Q: How does the RTX 4080 SUPER compare to its nearest rival, the RX 6900 XT?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 53,610, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT's score of 53,489.

Q: Does the Ultra preset make sense for competitive play?

A: At 1080p, Ultra still delivers 174.3 FPS, which is above 144 Hz. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 114 FPS, which may be insufficient for high-refresh-rate competitive monitors, making High (149.1 FPS) a better choice.