Minimum

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti presents a clear picture for the 2014 title Minimum: the data shows a system that scales predictably with resolution, but the frame rate collapses are driven entirely by the graphics card's workload. This combination, while competitive in raw benchmark percentiles, exhibits a pronounced GPU-bound behavior at higher resolutions, making the CPU a secondary consideration in almost every measured scenario.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS values show a steep drop as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 106.4 FPS at 1080p to 71.7 FPS at 1440p, and then to 36.1 FPS at 4K. This represents a 66% reduction in average FPS moving from 1080p to 4K, a pattern that strongly indicates the GPU is the limiting component. The RTX 3060 Ti, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 256-bit bus width, is being saturated by the pixel count, and the CPU's 6 cores and 6 threads are not the bottleneck at these settings.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more revealing. The 1080p result of 170.1 FPS drops to 108.4 FPS at 1440p and then to 57.3 FPS at 4K. The fact that even the lowest preset cannot maintain a high frame rate at 4K confirms that the GPU is the sole limiting factor; the CPU has ample headroom, as evidenced by the 6-core configuration, but the graphics card is unable to keep pace with the render load. The gap between High and Low at 4K is 21.2 FPS, which is smaller in absolute terms than the gap at 1080p (63.7 FPS), further proving that the GPU is hitting a hard performance ceiling.

The data suggests that for a 60 FPS target, this combo is only viable at 1080p or 1440p with medium to high presets. At 4K, the system falls below 60 FPS on every measured setting, with Ultra producing a playable but low 27.7 FPS. This is not a CPU limitation; it is a raw GPU throughput issue, and the benchmark results are consistent with a card that sits in the 69th percentile of all GPUs, meaning it is capable but not top-tier for 4K gaming.

How This Combo Ranks

In the global database of tested combinations, this specific pairing ranks 1307 out of 1733 combos for Minimum. This position, roughly in the 75th percentile of all combos, is surprisingly low given the individual component benchmarks. The CPU itself has an average benchmark score of 2305 and sits at the 50th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU has an average score of 25120 and is at the 69th percentile. The combination of a mid-range CPU and a solidly upper-mid-range GPU should theoretically perform better, but the data indicates that the game's engine is not leveraging the hardware efficiently.

The nearest rivals for the CPU include the Intel Core i3-10305, which scores 2300 and is 0.2% behind, and the Intel Xeon E-2134, which scores 2295 and is 0.4% behind. These are all comparable processors, and none of them would change the outcome significantly. For the GPU, the nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon RX 6700M, which scores 25180 and is 0.2% ahead, and the AMD Radeon RX 6600, which scores 25235 and is 0.5% ahead. The performance delta between these cards is negligible, suggesting that swapping the GPU for a direct competitor would not alter the ranking in Minimum.

What is more telling is the discrepancy between the combo's rank and its individual parts. The 1307th rank out of 1733 combos means that many systems with weaker components on paper achieve higher frame rates in this game. This could be due to driver optimizations for other architectures or the game's age (released in 2014) favoring different hardware configurations. The data shows that this is not a balanced pairing for this title; the GPU is working hard, but the overall combo is ranked lower than expected, indicating a potential software-side bottleneck or a game design that does not scale well with modern high-core-count processors.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting a smooth 60 FPS experience, the data suggests that the Ultra preset is off the table at every resolution except 1080p, where it hits 82 FPS. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 52.1 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold, and at 4K it falls to a playable but suboptimal 27.7 FPS. The High preset is the best balance for 1440p, delivering 71.7 FPS, while at 1080p it provides a very comfortable 106.4 FPS. For 4K, even Low settings only reach 57.3 FPS, so the game is not realistically playable at a consistent 60 FPS on this hardware at that resolution.

The Medium preset offers a middle ground: 128.5 FPS at 1080p and 86.5 FPS at 1440p, but it drops to 45.1 FPS at 4K. Given these numbers, the recommended path is clear. For 1080p displays, High settings provide a high refresh rate experience without the harsh performance penalty of Ultra. For 1440p, High is again the sweet spot, offering a frame rate that exceeds most standard 60 Hz monitors. At 4K, the user must accept either a lower preset or a lower frame rate; the data shows that Low settings at 4K are the only way to stay above 50 FPS, but this sacrifices visual fidelity significantly.

The measured FPS breakdown indicates that the step from High to Ultra is particularly costly. At 1080p, moving from High to Ultra drops the average from 106.4 to 82 FPS, a 24.4 FPS loss. At 1440p, the same step costs 19.6 FPS, and at 4K, it costs 8.4 FPS. Players should stick with High unless they have a high-refresh-rate 1080p monitor and are willing to accept a moderate frame rate dip for marginal visual gains.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset provides a full matrix of average FPS across four resolutions and four settings. At 1920x1080, the results are: Low 170.1 FPS, Medium 128.5 FPS, High 106.4 FPS, and Ultra 82 FPS. This shows a smooth degradation curve, with each preset step costing roughly 20-25 FPS. At 2560x1440, the numbers are: Low 108.4 FPS, Medium 86.5 FPS, High 71.7 FPS, and Ultra 52.1 FPS. The relative drop from Low to Ultra is 56.3 FPS, which is proportionally similar to the 1080p drop of 88.1 FPS, but the absolute values are lower.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 57.3 FPS, Medium 45.1 FPS, High 36.1 FPS, and Ultra 27.7 FPS. This is the only resolution where every setting fails to reach 60 FPS, and the jump from Low to Medium (12.2 FPS) is smaller than the jump from Medium to High (9 FPS), suggesting that the GPU is becoming memory-bandwidth limited. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth of the RTX 3060 Ti is likely the constraint here, as the 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient but the data throughput is not.

The pattern across all resolutions is consistent: Low settings provide roughly 60% more FPS than Ultra at 1080p, and the gap narrows as resolution increases. The system is never CPU-bound in any of these tests, as even the lowest FPS at 4K is far above what a 6-core Coffee Lake processor would bottleneck at, given its 4.10 GHz boost clock and 9 MB of shared L3 cache.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the measured results. With a base clock of 1410 MHz and a boost clock of 1665 MHz, the card operates on the Ampere architecture with 4864 shading units and 152 texture mapping units. The 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for 1080p and 1440p but struggles at 4K with high settings. The card's 16.20 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is a strong figure, but the data shows that it is not enough to maintain 60 FPS at 4K in this title.

The GPU's 69th percentile ranking among all GPUs and its average benchmark score of 25120 place it just behind the AMD Radeon RX 6700M (25180, 0.2% ahead) and the AMD Radeon RX 6600 (25235, 0.5% ahead). These rivals are all within a 0.7% margin, indicating that the card is solidly in its performance class. The measured FPS in Minimum reflects this: the card performs as expected for its tier, but the game's demands at 4K are simply beyond its capabilities. The 14 Gbps effective memory speed is fast, but the 8 GB capacity is not the issue; rather, the pixel fill rate and texture rate (133.2 GPixel/s and 253.1 GTexel/s) are the limiting factors at higher resolutions.

The card's power draw of 200 W and dual-slot design are standard for this class, and its PCIe 4.0 x16 interface provides ample bandwidth. However, the game's age means it does not utilize ray tracing cores (38 RT cores) or tensor cores (152) effectively, so those resources are largely idle. The data shows that the GPU is being used purely for rasterization, and its performance in this role is what determines the frame rates above.

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 holding back the RTX 3060 Ti in this game?

A: No. The measured FPS values show a GPU-bound system at all resolutions. The CPU has 6 cores and 6 threads with a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, which is sufficient for this title. The frame rate drops are consistent with GPU limitations, especially at 4K where even Low settings fail to hit 60 FPS.

*Q: Can this combo run Minimum at 4K with 60 FPS?*

A: No. The data shows that at 3840x2160, the highest measured average FPS is 57.3 on Low settings. High and Ultra presets drop to 36.1 and 27.7 FPS respectively. The RTX 3060 Ti does not have enough raw throughput for a stable 60 FPS experience at 4K in this game.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 1440p monitor?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 delivers 71.7 FPS, which is the highest setting that exceeds 60 FPS. Ultra drops to 52.1 FPS, so High is the recommended choice for smooth gameplay without the performance penalty of Ultra.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: It ranks 1307 out of 1733 combos for this game. This places it below the midpoint, despite the GPU being in the 69th percentile of all GPUs. The rank suggests that the game does not scale well with this specific hardware pairing.

Q: Is the 8 GB VRAM sufficient for this game?

A: Yes. The game has no issues with VRAM capacity. The limiting factor is the GPU's compute and memory bandwidth, not the 8 GB buffer. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is the bottleneck at 4K, where the frame rate drops significantly even at Low settings.

Q: How does the RTX 3060 Ti compare to its nearest rival in this game?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score is 25120, which is 0.2% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6700M and 0.5% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6600. These deltas are negligible, so in practice, swapping the card for a direct competitor would yield nearly identical frame rates in Minimum.