Minimum

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 ranks 571st out of 1,733 tested combinations in Minimum, placing it comfortably within the top third of all systems evaluated. This positioning reflects a balanced pairing where neither component bottlenecks the other to an extreme degree, though the data reveals distinct scaling behaviors across resolutions and settings that favor the CPU at lower loads and the GPU at higher ones.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 571 out of 1,733 places it in the 67th percentile of all tested configurations. This is a solid mid-to-upper tier result for a game released in 2014, indicating that modern high-end hardware is more than sufficient for the title’s demands. The ranking is driven by the combination’s ability to push very high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p while still maintaining playable performance at 4K. The system sits well above average, but the sheer number of competing combinations—many of which feature even newer or more specialized components—keeps it from breaking into the top tier. Notably, the CPU alone sits in the 93rd percentile among all processors, while the GPU is in the 79th percentile, suggesting that the processor contributes more to the overall ranking than the graphics card does.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 brings 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, yielding 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock reaches 2520 MHz, with a game clock of 2070 MHz and a base clock of 1330 MHz. The card’s RDNA 4.0 architecture, built on a 4 nm process with 53,900 million transistors, delivers 36.13 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. In Minimum, the GPU’s ample VRAM is not a limiting factor—even at 4K Ultra, the memory footprint stays well within capacity. The card’s benchmark scores show a PassMark G3D result of 25,381 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 6,290, placing it in the 79th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA A2 (0.2% faster), NVIDIA Quadro GV100 (0.3% slower), AMD Radeon HD 7970 (0.7% slower), and AMD Radeon PRO W6400 (0.8% slower). The RX 9070’s performance in this game is characterized by steep drops as settings rise: at 4K, moving from Low to Ultra cuts frame rates by over half, indicating that the GPU is the primary driver of performance at that resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a 16-core, 24-thread Raptor Lake-S processor with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. Its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 30 MB of shared L3. In synthetic benchmarks, the chip scores 39,000 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 5,505 in single-core, with a PassMark multi-thread score of 45,887 and a single-thread score of 4,333. The CPU sits in the 93rd percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 47,282. Its nearest rivals are remarkably close: the Intel Core i7-13700KF is 0.1% faster, the AMD EPYC 4364P is 0.3% slower, the Intel Core i9-12900F is 0.4% slower, and the AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 5945 is 0.5% faster. In Minimum, the CPU’s high single-thread performance is critical for achieving extreme frame rates at 1080p, where the system hits over 265 FPS on Low settings. The 16-core configuration ensures that even background tasks or poorly optimized game threads do not create stutter, though the title itself is unlikely to utilize all 24 threads. The CPU’s role becomes less dominant as resolution increases, with the GPU taking over as the bottleneck at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers outstanding results across all settings. On Low, the average frame rate reaches 265.1 FPS, dropping to 201.7 FPS on Medium and 167.9 FPS on High. Even at Ultra, the system maintains 129.3 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most standard monitors. The scaling from Low to Ultra represents a 51.2% reduction in frame rate, indicating that the CPU can feed the GPU efficiently at lower settings while the GPU becomes increasingly taxed as visual fidelity rises.

Moving to 2560x1440, frame rates remain high but the gap between settings widens. Low settings produce 171.5 FPS, Medium yields 128.1 FPS, High delivers 110.6 FPS, and Ultra drops to 82.6 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra is 51.8%, nearly identical to the 1080p scaling. This suggests that at 1440p, the system is still largely CPU-bound at lower settings, with the GPU beginning to assert its influence at High and Ultra.

At 3840x2160, the GPU clearly dominates performance. Low settings produce 90.3 FPS, Medium drops to 69.6 FPS, High falls to 59 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 42 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra is 53.5%, but the absolute numbers tell a different story: even the best-case 4K result is barely over 90 FPS, while the worst-case dips below 60 FPS. This resolution is where the RX 9070’s 79th percentile ranking becomes evident, as the card struggles to maintain high frame rates under maximum load. The 4K Ultra result of 42 FPS is the only sub-60 FPS figure across the entire dataset, marking it as the single point where the combination fails to deliver a smooth experience.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate degradation from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and consistent across settings. At Low, the drop from 265.1 FPS to 90.3 FPS represents a 65.9% reduction. At Medium, the fall from 201.7 FPS to 69.6 FPS is a 65.5% decrease. High sees a drop from 167.9 FPS to 59 FPS, a 64.9% reduction, and Ultra falls from 129.3 FPS to 42 FPS, a 67.5% decline. These percentages are remarkably uniform, suggesting that the scaling is driven by pixel count rather than any specific architectural bottleneck.

The limiting component shifts clearly with resolution. At 1080p, the CPU’s high single-thread score of 5,505 in Cinebench R23 allows it to push frame rates beyond 200 FPS on most settings, meaning the GPU is not fully saturated. Evidence of this is the 51.2% drop from Low to Ultra at 1080p—if the GPU were the sole limiter, the drop would be more severe. At 1440p, the system finds a balance where both components contribute, with frame rates still exceeding 80 FPS even at Ultra. At 4K, the GPU becomes the definitive bottleneck. The RX 9070’s 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth and 16 GB of VRAM are sufficient, but its compute throughput of 36.13 TFLOPS is not enough to maintain high frame rates at 4K Ultra, where it produces just 42 FPS.

The data indicates that this combination is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it delivers excellent performance across all settings. At 4K, it remains playable at Low and Medium, acceptable at High with variable refresh, and borderline at Ultra. The CPU’s 93rd percentile ranking ensures it will not hold back the GPU at lower resolutions, while the GPU’s 79th percentile ranking means it is the weaker link in the pairing, particularly at higher resolutions. For a game released in 2014, this system provides a wide performance envelope, with the primary trade-off being resolution versus visual fidelity.