Minimum

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the Intel Arc B580 delivers a playable experience in Minimum, but the data shows a steep trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate. At 1080p, the combo ranges from 161.2 FPS on Low to 79.3 FPS on Ultra, while at 4K, the same spread narrows to between 58.4 FPS and 31 FPS. The benchmark results indicate that the most balanced experience is found on Medium settings at 1440p, where the average of 82.4 FPS keeps the game fluid without the sharp performance penalty seen at Ultra.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows show a clear hierarchy: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra, with each step up costing a significant chunk of performance. At 1080p, Low produces 161.2 FPS, Medium drops to 128.1 FPS, High falls to 107.1 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 79.3 FPS. For competitive play, Low at 1080p is the only setting that clears 160 FPS, making it the clear choice for high-refresh-rate monitors. However, the jump from Low to Medium at 1080p costs 33.1 FPS (a 20.5% reduction) and is the largest single-step penalty in the dataset, suggesting the Medium preset introduces a heavy workload spike.

At 1440p, the pattern shifts. Low delivers 107.8 FPS, Medium 82.4 FPS, High 71.1 FPS, and Ultra 50.7 FPS. The Medium preset here is the sweet spot: it stays above 60 FPS while offering a substantial visual upgrade over Low, and the 25.4 FPS gap between Medium and High is less punishing than the 1080p Medium-to-High drop of 21 FPS. At 4K, no settings row reaches 60 FPS; Low manages 58.4 FPS, Medium 41.7 FPS, High 36.4 FPS, and Ultra 31 FPS. The data suggests that 4K should be avoided unless the user accepts Low settings and tolerates sub-60 FPS averages.

The best experience per the measured rows is Medium at 1440p. It is the only preset/resolution combination that balances a 60+ FPS average (82.4) with a meaningful quality uplift over Low. Ultra at any resolution is a poor trade: it costs 49.8 FPS versus Low at 1080p, 57.1 FPS versus Low at 1440p, and 27.4 FPS versus Low at 4K, all for diminishing visual returns in a 2014 title. High settings are a middle ground, but the data shows they never beat Medium by a margin that justifies the frame loss: at 1080p, High is 21 FPS slower than Medium, and at 1440p, High is 11.3 FPS slower.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 brings 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, with a bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s. Its clocks are fixed at a base and boost of 2670 MHz, with memory running at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective). The GPU’s 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs feed a pixel rate of 213.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 427.2 GTexel/s. In this game, the GPU is the primary driver of frame rate differences across settings. The FP32 compute of 13.67 TFLOPS and FP16 of 27.34 TFLOPS (2:1) indicate strong raw throughput, but the measured data shows that the Arc B580 is not the bottleneck at 1080p Low, where 161.2 FPS suggests the CPU is keeping pace.

The 12 GB VRAM is never a limiting factor in Minimum, as the game’s 2014 release date and low-detail assets are unlikely to exceed even a fraction of that capacity. The memory clock of 2375 MHz and the 192-bit bus width provide ample bandwidth for the game’s geometry and textures. The GPU’s 20 ray tracing cores are irrelevant here, as Minimum has no RT workload, but the 80 ROPs ensure fill-rate headroom for the high frame rates seen at 1080p. The Arc B580’s TDP of 190 W and a suggested PSU of 450 W are not reflected in the FPS data, but they do frame the card as a power-hungry component relative to its performance in this title.

The GPU’s benchmark scores, such as PassMark G3D at 15748 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 at 3068, place it in the 66th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 760M (0.1% higher average score) and the NVIDIA P106-100 (0.3% higher), while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 scores 0.7% higher. This suggests the Arc B580 sits in a competitive mid-range tier, but in Minimum specifically, the measured FPS shows it delivers above-average results for the settings tested.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings. At High, the average falls from 107.1 FPS at 1080p to 71.1 FPS at 1440p (a 33.6% reduction) and then to 36.4 FPS at 4K (a 48.8% reduction from 1440p). At Low, the decline is from 161.2 FPS to 107.8 FPS (33.1% lower) and then to 58.4 FPS (45.8% lower). Medium follows the same curve: 128.1 FPS to 82.4 FPS (35.7% lower) to 41.7 FPS (49.4% lower). Ultra shows the largest relative drop: 79.3 FPS to 50.7 FPS (36.1% lower) to 31 FPS (38.9% lower from 1440p).

This pattern reveals that the limiting component shifts with resolution. At 1080p, the CPU (Intel Core i5-9400 with 6 cores and 6 threads, base clock 2.90 GHz, boost 4.10 GHz) can feed the GPU enough data to sustain high frame rates, but the scaling from 1080p to 1440p is not linear—it’s a 30-37% drop for roughly a 1.78x increase in pixel count. This indicates the GPU is becoming the constraint at 1440p, and the 4K results confirm that the Arc B580 cannot maintain playable averages above 60 FPS at any setting. The gap between 1080p Low (161.2 FPS) and 1440p Low (107.8 FPS) is 53.4 FPS, which is larger than the gap between 1440p Low and 4K Low (49.4 FPS), suggesting diminishing returns as the GPU saturates.

The data also shows that the CPU’s performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 multicore at 7969 and singlecore at 1125, places it in the 50th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i3-10305 (0.2% higher average score) and the Intel Core i3-1125G4 (0.2% higher), which means the i5-9400 is not a high-end part. In Minimum, the 1080p results—particularly the 161.2 FPS on Low—suggest the CPU can handle the game’s single-threaded load, but the 4K results are purely GPU-bound, with no setting row exceeding 58.4 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 + Intel Arc B580 combo ranks 1328th out of 1733 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the 23rd percentile of all configurations. This rank reflects the CPU’s mid-tier standing—its avgBenchmarkScore of 2305 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals (Intel Core i3-10305 at 2300, Intel Core i3-1125G4 at 2299, Intel Xeon E-2134 at 2295, and Intel Core i7-8809G at 2319)—and the GPU’s 66th percentile placement. The combo’s rank is dragged down by the CPU, which has a percentileVsAllCpus of 50, meaning half of all CPUs outperform it.

The measured FPS data, however, shows that this rank does not tell the full story for Minimum. At 1080p Medium, the combo hits 128.1 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play. At 1440p Medium, 82.4 FPS remains strong. The rank of 1328 suggests that many combos achieve higher frame rates, but the data in this page shows that the i5-9400 + Arc B580 is not a weak pairing for this specific title. The GPU’s nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, has a 0.7% higher average benchmark score, but in Minimum the Arc B580’s 12 GB VRAM and 456.0 GB/s bandwidth likely give it an edge at higher resolutions where texture load increases.

The combo’s rank is also influenced by the CPU’s 6-thread limit. The i5-9400 has no hyper-threading, which can hinder performance in multi-threaded modern titles, but Minimum’s 2014 engine does not heavily leverage more than a few cores. The data shows that the CPU’s single-core performance (Cinebench R23 singlecore at 1125) is sufficient to drive 161.2 FPS at 1080p Low, proving that the combo’s rank is not a reflection of a severe bottleneck in this game.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for 60+ FPS at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 delivers an average of 82.4 FPS, which is the only 1440p setting above 80 FPS. High drops to 71.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 50.7 FPS, so Medium is the recommended balance.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K at all?

A: Yes, but only on Low settings, where the average is 58.4 FPS. Medium at 4K drops to 41.7 FPS, High to 36.4 FPS, and Ultra to 31 FPS, so 4K playable is limited to Low.

Q: How does the Arc B580 compare to the RTX 4060?

A: In average benchmark scores, the RTX 4060 is 0.7% higher. The Arc B580 has 12 GB VRAM versus the RTX 4060’s unspecified size, but the measured FPS in Minimum shows no direct comparison data.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 a bottleneck?

A: The CPU’s 50th percentile rank and Cinebench R23 multicore score of 7969 indicate mid-tier performance. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 161.2 FPS, showing the CPU can keep up, but the 4K results are GPU-bound.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: Low averages 161.2 FPS, while Ultra averages 79.3 FPS, a difference of 81.9 FPS. The jump from Medium (128.1 FPS) to High (107.1 FPS) is a 21 FPS loss, and High to Ultra is a 27.8 FPS loss.

*Q: Does the 12 GB VRAM matter for Minimum?*

A: The 12 GB GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus with 456.0 GB/s bandwidth is more than sufficient for a 2014 game. The data shows no VRAM-related stutters, as the FPS drops are consistent with setting changes, not memory capacity limits.