Minimum

Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter, presents an interesting test for a modern hardware pairing like the Intel Core i5-9400 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER. The measured FPS data reveals a configuration that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, yet the CPU still establishes a performance ceiling at 1080p. This analysis breaks down the measured results, exploring how the six-core processor and the high-end Ada Lovelace GPU interact across various presets and resolutions to define the gaming experience.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides a clear hierarchy for in-game settings, with the optimal choice heavily dependent on the target resolution. The data shows a consistent pattern where the "Low" preset delivers the highest frame rates, while "Ultra" provides the lowest, with "Medium" and "High" falling in between.

For 1080p gaming, the "High" preset stands out as the best balance, delivering an average of 199 FPS. This is a dramatic leap from the 152 FPS average at "Ultra" settings, representing a substantial performance gain for a visual quality step that is often marginal in a game from this era. The "Medium" preset offers a staggering 234 FPS average, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors, but the 199 FPS at "High" is already well beyond the 144Hz threshold, making it the superior choice for image quality without sacrificing smoothness.

At 1440p, the "High" preset again proves to be the sweet spot, with an average of 128 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS standard and even sufficient for 120Hz displays. The "Ultra" preset drops to 98 FPS average, which is still playable but requires a compromise on frame rate for the highest visual fidelity. The "Medium" preset at 153 FPS is an option for those prioritizing frame rates, but the "High" preset's 128 FPS average is a strong middle ground that likely offers a more visually complete experience.

The 4K resolution tells a different story, as the demands on the GPU become severe. The "High" preset yields a 69 FPS average, which is just playable on a standard 60Hz monitor. The "Medium" preset provides an 82 FPS average with a minimum of 70 FPS, making it the recommended choice for a smoother 4K experience, as it maintains a more consistent frame time than the "High" preset. "Ultra" at 4K drops to 53 FPS, which is below the ideal 60 FPS target and should generally be avoided. The "Low" preset at 4K achieves 108 FPS, but this is a poor trade-off for the significant visual downgrade.

The data implies a simple rule: for high refresh rate gaming at 1080p or 1440p, the "High" preset offers the best experience, while for 4K, the "Medium" preset is the most sensible choice to balance visual quality and playable frame rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor from the Coffee Lake family, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. It is a mature design, and its benchmark results, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 6629 and a single-core score of 935, place it in the 47th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals, like the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 and AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500, have nearly identical average benchmark scores, indicating that this processor is a solid, if not exceptional, performer for its generation.

In the context of Minimum, the CPU's role is primarily to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. At 1080p, the CPU becomes a more significant factor. The FPS averages at 1080p range from 258 (Low) to 152 (Ultra). The difference between the Low and Ultra presets suggests a workload that scales with settings, but the high frame rates overall suggest the i5-9400 is not severely bottlenecked, even at the lower presets where frame rates are highest. The 258 FPS average at 1080p Low reflects the CPU's capability to handle high instruction throughput in this older title.

However, the data also shows the CPU's limitation. The 1080p High preset yields 199 FPS, while the 1440p High preset yields 128 FPS. This significant drop with a 1.78x increase in pixel count indicates a shift in the bottleneck from a more balanced load to a heavily GPU-bound one. The i5-9400's 6 threads, while sufficient for this game, are not the primary driver of performance beyond the 200 FPS mark. The processor's 9 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support likely provide adequate bandwidth for the game's data, but the data suggests that frame rates will not scale much higher than 258 FPS in this title, regardless of the GPU's power.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is the clear performance centerpiece of this pairing. Based on the Ada Lovelace architecture and built on a 5 nm process, it features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. Its GPU is a powerhouse, with 7168 shading units and a boost clock of 2475 MHz, enabling a peak FP32 throughput of 35.48 TFLOPS. The GPU's benchmark scores confirm its high-end status, with a Passmark G3D score of 29995 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 205624, placing it in the 83rd percentile of all GPUs.

The GPU's role in Minimum becomes increasingly dominant as resolution increases. At 1080p, the GPU is somewhat held back by the CPU, but it still delivers exceptional results, with a 234 FPS average on Medium settings. The true test lies at higher resolutions. At 1440p, the GPU's rendering power is more fully utilized, with the Ultra preset still achieving 98 FPS, a very playable frame rate. The 12 GB of VRAM is more than sufficient for this game, even at 4K with Ultra settings, so memory capacity is not a limiting factor.

The most telling data is at 4K. The RTX 4070 SUPER manages a 108 FPS average on Low settings, but this drops to 53 FPS on Ultra. This demonstrates a heavy dependence on the GPU's fill rate and shading power. The drop from 69 FPS at High to 53 FPS at Ultra at 4K is a 23% performance penalty, which is a substantial cost for the final tier of visual effects. The GPU is clearly the limiting component at 4K, as the CPU's role diminishes. The data shows a GPU that is powerful enough to deliver a high-refresh-rate experience at 1440p and a solid 60 FPS experience at 4K on Medium settings, but it is not so powerful that it can trivialize the most demanding settings at the highest resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER achieves a combo rank of 728 out of 3712 tested combinations in Minimum. This places the pairing in the top 20% of all tested systems, which is a strong showing. However, the rank also implies a certain imbalance.

Given that the RTX 4070 SUPER is a top-tier GPU (83rd percentile) and the i5-9400 is a mid-range processor (47th percentile), the combo rank of 728 suggests that the CPU is holding the system back from its full potential. The GPU is capable of much higher frame rates, as evidenced by the 1080p results, but the CPU's limitations prevent it from reaching the absolute top tier of performance. A pairing with a more modern, higher-core-count CPU would likely rank higher.

The data indicates that the combo is well-balanced for high-resolution gaming, where the GPU is the primary bottleneck. The 1440p and 4K results are excellent and represent a strong user experience. However, for competitive 1080p gaming at ultra-high refresh rates (240Hz+), the i5-9400 is a limiting factor, preventing the system from fully exploiting the RTX 4070 SUPER's power. The rank of 728 reflects this reality: it is a high-performing combo, but its potential is capped by the processor in certain scenarios. The system is a "4K-capable" or "high-refresh 1440p" machine, rather than an "esports 1080p" machine.

FAQ

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

A: The "Medium" preset is the recommended choice for 4K, as it delivers an average FPS of 82 with a minimum of 70 FPS. This provides a smoother experience than the "High" preset (69 FPS average) and is significantly better than "Ultra" (53 FPS average).

Q: Can this system achieve 144 FPS at 1440p?

A: Yes, the data shows that at 1440p on the "Medium" preset, the combo achieves an average of 153 FPS, which meets the 144Hz target. The "High" preset, at 128 FPS average, falls just short of this mark.

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

A: The CPU is the primary limiting factor at 1080p. This is indicated by the high frame rates (e.g., 199 FPS on High) that are well below what the RTX 4070 SUPER is capable of, and the fact that the FPS scales down significantly as resolution increases, shifting the load to the GPU.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 SUPER perform relative to its closest rivals?

A: The RTX 4070 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 43223. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 24 GB, has a score of 43262, making the RTX 4070 SUPER only 0.1% slower. It is also 1% slower than the GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile, which has a score of 43667.

Q: What is the maximum FPS recorded for this combo?

A: The highest average FPS recorded in the measured data is 258 at 1920x1080 resolution on the "Low" settings preset.

Q: Should I use the "Ultra" preset at 1080p?

A: The "Ultra" preset at 1080p delivers an average FPS of 152. While this is still a very playable frame rate, the "High" preset offers a 47 FPS advantage (199 FPS average) for a likely minimal visual difference, making "High" the more sensible choice.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive look at the combo's performance across a matrix of resolutions and presets.

At 1920x1080, the frame rates are consistently high. The "Low" preset achieves an average of 258 FPS. Moving up to "Medium", the average is 234 FPS, with a minimum of 199 FPS and a maximum of 270 FPS. The "High" preset yields an average of 199 FPS, and the "Ultra" preset drops to an average of 152 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain impressive. The "Low" preset produces an average of 200 FPS. The "Medium" preset shows an average of 153 FPS, with a minimum of 130 FPS and a maximum of 176 FPS. The "High" preset delivers an average of 128 FPS, and the "Ultra" preset provides an average of 98 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is heavily taxed. The "Low" preset averages 108 FPS. The "Medium" preset delivers an average of 82 FPS, with a minimum of 70 FPS and a maximum of 95 FPS. The "High" preset achieves an average of 69 FPS, and the "Ultra" preset is the most demanding, with an average of just 53 FPS.

These numbers paint a clear picture of a system that is powerful enough for high-refresh 1440p and playable 4K, with 1080p performance being limited by the processor.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K reveals the shifting bottleneck and the scaling characteristics of this hardware combination. The analysis uses the "High" and "Medium" presets as reference points.

For the "High" preset, the average FPS goes from 199 at 1080p, to 128 at 1440p, and finally to 69 at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is a 35.7% decrease, and the drop from 1440p to 4K is a further 46.1% decrease. This scaling is steeper than the pixel count increase (1.78x for 1440p and 2.25x for 4K from 1440p), which is expected as the GPU's shading and fill-rate demands grow super-linearly with resolution due to increased fragment work.

The data strongly suggests that the system is CPU-bound at 1080p. The fact that the GPU is capable of much higher frame rates at lower resolutions is masked by the CPU's limit. As resolution increases, the bottleneck shifts to the GPU, and the frame rate drops become more directly proportional to the GPU's workload. The 1080p to 1440p drop is significant, but the 1440p to 4K drop is even more severe, highlighting the immense load 4K places on the RTX 4070 SUPER.

This scaling behavior implies that the CPU's performance ceiling is around 199-258 FPS in this game. For users with a 60Hz 4K monitor, the system is well-suited, but for those with a 144Hz 1440p monitor, the "Medium" preset is required to fully saturate the display. The 4K results, particularly the 53 FPS on Ultra, indicate that the GPU is the limiting factor at this resolution, and the only way to improve performance would be to lower settings, as the CPU is no longer a constraint.