Minimum

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 a bottleneck for the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX in Minimum?

A: The data indicates this is a balanced pairing at most settings, but the CPU does limit the GPU at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 257.5 FPS, while at 1080p Ultra it drops to 156.8 FPS — a pattern showing the GPU is doing more work as settings rise, but the CPU still keeps frames high.

Q: How does the i5-9400 compare to its nearest rivals in general CPU performance?

A: The i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305, which is 0.2% above the Intel Core i3-10305 (2300) and the Intel Core i3-1125G4 (2299), and 0.4% above the Intel Xeon E-2134 (2295). It trails the Intel Core i7-8809G (2319) by 0.6%.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The RX 7900 XTX sits in the 85th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 44019. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro 580, scores 44195, which is 0.4% higher.

Q: Does the RX 7900 XTX have enough VRAM for this game?

A: Yes, with 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus delivering 960.0 GB/s bandwidth, the card has far more memory capacity and bandwidth than a 2014 third-person shooter requires at any resolution tested.

Q: What is the CPU's core and thread configuration?

A: The i5-9400 has 6 cores and 6 threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. It includes 9 MB of shared L3 cache and supports dual-channel DDR4 memory.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested CPU+GPU pairs in this game?

A: This specific combination ranks 310th out of 1733 tested combos, placing it in the top 18% of all configurations tested for Minimum.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the dominant component in this pairing, built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node from TSMC. Its 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus provides 960.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth — a figure that far exceeds the demands of a 2014 title like Minimum, which was designed for hardware from that era. The GPU's 6144 shading units, 384 TMUs, and 192 ROPs give it substantial raw throughput, with a pixel rate of 479.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 959.2 GTexel/s.

The card's clock behavior is relevant here: it has a base clock of 1929 MHz, a game clock of 2365 MHz, and a boost clock of 2498 MHz. The measured FPS data shows that the GPU responds predictably to settings changes. At 1440p, moving from Low (210.9 FPS) to Ultra (104.5 FPS) cuts performance roughly in half, which indicates the GPU is fully engaged as settings climb. At 4K, the spread is even wider — 111.3 FPS at Low versus 53.6 FPS at Ultra — confirming that the RX 7900 XTX is the primary driver of frame rate at higher resolutions.

The GPU's 96 ray tracing cores and DirectX 12 Ultimate support are not directly stressed by Minimum's older rendering pipeline, but the card's raw compute (61.39 TFLOPS FP32) ensures it handles the game's draw calls and post-processing effects without breaking a sweat. The 355 W TDP and dual-slot cooler suggest this is a high-power part, and the data reflects that: even at 4K Ultra, it maintains 53.6 FPS, which is playable for a third-person shooter.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear resolution scaling pattern that points to where the bottleneck shifts. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 257.5 FPS; at 1440p Low, it drops to 210.9 FPS; and at 4K Low, it falls to 111.3 FPS. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is about 18%, while the 1440p-to-4K drop is about 47% — a steeper decline that indicates the GPU becomes more limiting as pixel count grows.

At High settings, the pattern shifts. 1080p High yields 205.7 FPS, 1440p High produces 132.3 FPS (a 36% drop), and 4K High delivers 70.3 FPS (a 47% drop from 1440p). The larger drop from 1080p to 1440p at High settings compared to Low settings suggests the CPU is still contributing meaningfully at 1080p, but the GPU load grows disproportionately as resolution increases.

Ultra settings show the most extreme scaling: 1080p Ultra runs at 156.8 FPS, 1440p Ultra at 104.5 FPS (33% lower), and 4K Ultra at 53.6 FPS (49% lower). The consistent ~47-49% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates the RX 7900 XTX is the limiting factor at 4K regardless of quality preset. Conversely, the relatively small gaps between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings (257.5 vs 210.9 FPS) suggest the i5-9400's 6-thread design holds back the GPU slightly at lower resolutions, where frame rates exceed 200 FPS and CPU overhead becomes proportionally larger.

How This Combo Ranks

This configuration — Intel Core i5-9400 paired with AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX — ranks 310th out of 1733 tested combos in Minimum. That places it in the 82nd percentile of all tested configurations, meaning roughly 18% of combinations deliver higher average frame rates in this game. Given that the GPU sits in the 85th percentile of all GPUs while the CPU sits in the 50th percentile of all CPUs, the combo's rank reflects the CPU's average standing pulling down the GPU's high-end performance.

The ranking makes sense when you consider the measured FPS: at 1080p, the combo delivers 257.5 FPS at Low settings, which is far above the 144 Hz refresh rate most gamers target. Even at 4K Ultra, it maintains 53.6 FPS, which is playable but not high-refresh territory. The combo's rank would likely be higher if the CPU were stronger, as the 1080p results show the i5-9400 can't fully feed the RX 7900 XTX at lower resolutions — the 257.5 FPS ceiling at 1080p Low is impressive but still below what the GPU alone could achieve.

Compared to the GPU's nearest rivals, the RX 7900 XTX outperforms the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile by 0.8% in average benchmark score, and it trails the AMD Radeon Pro 580 by 0.4%. The CPU's nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-8809G, beats it by 0.6%, while the i5-9400 edges out the Core i3-10305 and Core i3-1125G4 by 0.2%. These small deltas suggest that neither component is dramatically better or worse than its immediate competition, yet the overall combo ranking benefits from the GPU's strength.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, built on Intel's 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, with 64 KB L1 cache per core, 256 KB L2 cache per core, and 9 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is dual-channel DDR4 with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth, and the CPU connects via PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes.

The CPU's benchmark scores place it in the 50th percentile of all CPUs, with an average score of 2305. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 7969 and single-core score is 1125; for comparison, its Cinebench R20 scores are 3346 (multi-core) and 472 (single-core). These numbers show a processor that was mid-range at its 2018 release and remains average today — adequate for gaming but not exceptional.

In Minimum, the CPU's role becomes visible in the resolution scaling data. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 257.5 FPS, but at 1080p Ultra it drops to 156.8 FPS — a 39% reduction. This suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU enough data to reach very high frame rates, but the GPU's workload increases with settings, pulling frame rates down. At 4K, the CPU matters less: 4K Low produces 111.3 FPS versus 4K Ultra's 53.6 FPS, a 52% drop that aligns with the GPU being the sole bottleneck.

The i5-9400's 6 threads are sufficient for Minimum's engine, which launched in 2014 when quad-core CPUs were standard. The boost clock of 4.10 GHz provides solid single-threaded performance, which matters for a third-person shooter's game logic and physics. However, the lack of hyper-threading means the CPU can't handle as many background tasks as a 12-thread processor, but for this specific game, the data shows no obvious CPU-related stutter or frame pacing issues — just a ceiling around 257 FPS at 1080p Low.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce 257.5 FPS, Medium produces 233.3 FPS, High produces 205.7 FPS, and Ultra produces 156.8 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra is a 39% reduction, indicating that the GPU is increasingly taxed by higher quality presets, yet even at Ultra the frame rate exceeds 144 Hz, making this resolution ideal for high-refresh monitors.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong but show more GPU sensitivity. Low settings run at 210.9 FPS, Medium at 156.8 FPS, High at 132.3 FPS, and Ultra at 104.5 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra widens to 50%, confirming that the GPU's workload scales significantly with settings at this resolution. The 1440p results are still well above 100 FPS at every preset, making this resolution viable for competitive play.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. Low settings produce 111.3 FPS, Medium produces 83.9 FPS, High produces 70.3 FPS, and Ultra produces 53.6 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 52%, and even the best-case 4K result (111.3 FPS) is only slightly above the 1440p Ultra figure. This pattern shows that 4K gaming with this combo is best suited to Medium or High settings if you want to stay above 60 FPS, while Low settings are needed for 100+ FPS at 4K.

Notably, the 1080p Medium result (233.3 FPS) is higher than the 1440p Low result (210.9 FPS), and the 1080p High result (205.7 FPS) is nearly identical to the 1440p Low result. This indicates that resolution has a larger impact on frame rate than settings quality in this game — dropping from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly as much performance as moving from Low to High at the same resolution. For players prioritizing frame rate, the data suggests lowering resolution first before reducing settings, since 1080p Ultra (156.8 FPS) beats 1440p High (132.3 FPS) and 4K Low (111.3 FPS).