Minimum

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivers a decisive performance curve in Minimum, with the data showing a clear transition from CPU-bound territory at 1080p to GPU-bound behavior at 4K. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 356.7 FPS, a figure that drops by 36% to 230.6 FPS at 2560x1440, and then by another 47% to 122.1 FPS at 3840x2160. This steep descent across resolutions indicates that the RTX 4080 SUPER is being progressively saturated, while the i7-12700K’s 12 cores and 20 threads are ample enough to keep feeding frames at lower resolutions. The scaling pattern is even more pronounced at Ultra settings, where the average frame rate falls from 175.1 FPS at 1080p to 113 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 61.7 FPS at 4K—a 65% total reduction from the lowest to highest resolution. The fact that the 4K Ultra result drops below 62 FPS suggests that the GPU’s rendering load, not the CPU, is the limiting factor in this configuration, as the frame rate collapses in lockstep with pixel count.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data for this combo in Minimum reveals a predictable but telling pattern: the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows as resolution increases, confirming that the GPU becomes the bottleneck at higher pixel densities. At 1080p, the spread between Low (356.7 FPS) and Ultra (175.1 FPS) is a massive 181.6 FPS, demonstrating that the CPU can easily push frame rates beyond what the GPU can render at lower settings. This spread compresses to 117.6 FPS at 1440p (230.6 vs 113) and further to 60.4 FPS at 4K (122.1 vs 61.7). The diminishing delta between settings at 4K is the classic signature of a GPU-limited scenario, where the RTX 4080 SUPER’s raw throughput—reflected in its 52.22 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 736.3 GB/s memory bandwidth—is the primary constraint. Conversely, at 1080p Low, the 356.7 FPS result indicates that the i7-12700K’s single-thread performance, which scores 1043 in 3DMark single-thread and 4128 in Cinebench R23 single-core, is sufficient to avoid capping the frame rate. The data shows that the transition from CPU-bound to GPU-bound occurs somewhere between 1080p and 1440p, as the 1440p High result of 148.8 FPS still falls well short of the 1080p Low figure, implying the GPU is already struggling to keep pace with the CPU’s output at that resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this CPU-GPU pairing ranks 111th out of 1733 combos for Minimum, placing it in the top 6.4% of all configurations. This percentile ranking underscores that the i7-12700K and RTX 4080 SUPER combination is exceptionally well-balanced for this title, even though it is not at the absolute apex of the leaderboard. The CPU itself sits in the 89th percentile against all processors, with an average benchmark score of 35684, while the GPU occupies the 88th percentile with an average score of 53610. When compared to the CPU’s nearest rivals, the i7-12700K trails the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 by a razor-thin 0.3% (35802 vs 35684) and the Intel Core i5-14500HX by 0.7% (35940 vs 35684), but it edges out the Intel Core i7-13700T by 0.6% (35468 vs 35684) and the Intel Core i7-13800H by 0.8% (35416 vs 35684). These sub-1% deltas indicate that the processor is essentially tied with its immediate competition in synthetic benchmarks, meaning the rank of 111 is more attributable to the GPU’s strength than any CPU advantage. For the GPU, the RTX 4080 SUPER leads the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT by 0.2% (53610 vs 53489) and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M by 0.4% (53610 vs 53414), while outpacing the AMD Radeon RX 7700S by 2.1% (53610 vs 52505) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti by 2.9% (53610 vs 52086). The data suggests that the combo’s high rank is driven by the GPU’s near-top-tier standing, with the CPU providing sufficient support without becoming a liability.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this combo in Minimum?*

A: The highest recorded average is 356.7 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: How does the CPU’s synthetic benchmark score compare to its closest rival?

A: The Intel Core i7-12700K’s average benchmark score of 35684 is 0.3% lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (35802), but 0.6% higher than the Intel Core i7-13700T (35468).

Q: At what resolution and settings does the frame rate drop below 60 FPS?

A: The only configuration that falls short of 60 FPS is 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, which averages 61.7 FPS—just above the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: What is the GPU’s percentile ranking compared to all tested GPUs?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks in the 88th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53610.

Q: How much faster is the 1080p Low result compared to the 4K Ultra result?

A: The 1080p Low average of 356.7 FPS is 5.78 times higher than the 4K Ultra average of 61.7 FPS, representing a 295 FPS difference.

Q: What is the combo’s overall rank out of the total tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 111th out of 1733 tested combinations, placing it in the top 6.4% of all configurations for Minimum.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 356.7 FPS at Low, 272.7 FPS at Medium, 226.7 FPS at High, and 175.1 FPS at Ultra. This represents a 51% reduction from Low to Ultra, which is the largest relative drop across all resolutions, confirming that the CPU is not a limiting factor at 1080p. Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 230.6 FPS at Low, 174.8 FPS at Medium, 148.8 FPS at High, and 113 FPS at Ultra. The 1440p Low result is 35% lower than the 1080p Low figure, showing the GPU’s load increasing significantly. At 3840x2160, the numbers fall to 122.1 FPS at Low, 91.5 FPS at Medium, 78.3 FPS at High, and 61.7 FPS at Ultra. The 4K Ultra result is the only configuration that approaches the 60 FPS baseline, while the 4K Low figure of 122.1 FPS is still more than double that threshold. The data shows a consistent pattern where each settings tier at a given resolution is roughly 15-25% slower than the tier below it, with the exception of the Low-to-Medium jump at 1080p, which is 84 FPS, and the High-to-Ultra jump at 4K, which is only 16.6 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions and settings reinforces the conclusion that the RTX 4080 SUPER is the primary performance arbiter, particularly at 4K.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K’s contribution to Minimum’s performance is best understood through its core configuration and clock speeds. With 12 cores and 20 threads, operating at a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, the Alder Lake-S architecture provides substantial headroom for the game’s threading demands. The CPU’s 3DMark multi-thread score of 9979 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29241 indicate strong parallel performance, while the single-thread score of 1043 in 3DMark and 4128 in Cinebench R23 show that single-core performance is equally robust. In Minimum, a third-person shooter from 2014, the game’s engine is unlikely to scale perfectly across all 20 threads, making the boost clock of 5.00 GHz more relevant than the raw core count. The data supports this interpretation: at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 356.7 FPS, which is likely near the engine’s frame rate ceiling, as the GPU is rendering a relatively small number of pixels. The 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide low-latency access to game data, helping to maintain high minimum frame rates even in complex scenes. The CPU’s 89th percentile ranking among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 35684, places it just 0.3% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 and 0.6% ahead of the Intel Core i7-13700T, confirming that it is a top-tier processor for this workload. However, the fact that the 4K Ultra result drops to 61.7 FPS—a 65% reduction from the 1080p Low figure—demonstrates that the CPU’s role diminishes as resolution increases, with the GPU’s 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 256-bit bus width becoming the decisive factors.