Minimum

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 sits at rank 45 out of 1,733 tested combinations for Minimum. This places the combo comfortably inside the top 3% of all systems evaluated, a dominant position for a game released in 2014. The CPU itself holds a 93rd percentile ranking against all processors, while the GPU sits at the 91st percentile against all graphics cards.

Looking at the CPU's synthetic benchmark standing, the Core i7-13700K posts an average benchmark score of 47,282. Its closest rival, the Intel Core i7-13700KF, scores 47,334, a negligible 0.1% difference that effectively makes them identical in compute performance. The AMD EPYC 4364P trails by 0.3% with a score of 47,131, while the Intel Core i9-12900F is 0.4% behind at 47,081. The AMD Ryzen 9 PRO 5945 actually leads the pack slightly with 47,527, putting the i7-13700K 0.5% behind that part.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4090's average benchmark score of 66,473 is bracketed by workstation-class cards. The NVIDIA Tesla T4 scores 66,733 (0.4% higher), while the Tesla P40 sits 0.5% lower at 66,127. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 and NVIDIA Quadro P6000 both outscore the 4090 in raw average benchmarks by 0.9% and 1.3% respectively, though those differences are within normal silicon variance.

What matters for Minimum is how these two components interact. The data shows a system that ranks 45th overall, meaning the combination of this 16-core, 24-thread processor with the Ada Lovelace flagship produces frame rates that only a tiny fraction of tested configurations can match. The rank reflects not just raw horsepower but the balance between CPU throughput and GPU rendering capacity.

GPU Role

The RTX 4090 brings formidable specifications to this third-person shooter. Its AD102 chip, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, packs 76,300 million transistors across a 609 mm² die. The GPU operates with a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). The 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus delivers 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, which proves more than adequate for a 2014 title.

The GPU's shading complement consists of 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 raster operation processors. It also includes 128 ray tracing cores and 512 tensor cores. Pixel rate reaches 443.5 GPixel/s, while texture rate hits 1,290.2 GTexel/s. The FP32 compute throughput is 82.58 TFLOPS, with FP16 running at the same rate in a 1:1 configuration.

In Minimum, the GPU's role becomes apparent when examining frame rates across settings at each resolution. At 4K Ultra, the system delivers 68.1 FPS, which drops to 87.1 FPS at High, 103.5 FPS at Medium, and 134.1 FPS at Low. The scaling from Ultra to Low at 4K represents a 96.9% improvement in frame rate, indicating that the GPU is the primary constraint at this resolution.

The 4090's 24 GB frame buffer is never a limiting factor in this game, even at 3840x2160 with maximum settings. The memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s ensures texture streaming and geometry processing never stall. The GPU's 91st percentile ranking among all graphics cards reinforces its position as one of the fastest rendering solutions available.

Resolution Scaling

The measured data reveals how frame rates scale from 1080p to 4K, and the pattern tells a clear story about which component limits performance. At Low settings, the system produces 393.1 FPS at 1920x1080, 254.1 FPS at 2560x1440, and 134.1 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 34.7% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 47.2% further drop from 1440p to 4K.

At Medium settings, the numbers are 304.9 FPS at 1080p, 195.5 FPS at 1440p, and 103.5 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 35.9% and 47.1% respectively, nearly identical to the Low setting pattern. This consistency suggests the scaling behavior is resolution-driven rather than settings-driven.

High settings show 255 FPS at 1080p, 165.1 FPS at 1440p, and 87.1 FPS at 4K. The drops are 35.3% and 47.2%. Ultra settings produce 191.1 FPS at 1080p, 124.8 FPS at 1440p, and 68.1 FPS at 4K, with drops of 34.7% and 45.4%.

The uniformity of these percentage drops across all four settings levels indicates a GPU-bound scenario at every resolution. When frame rates scale down by roughly 35% going from 1080p to 1440p and another 47% from 1440p to 4K, regardless of whether the game runs at Low or Ultra, the rendering pipeline is saturated by pixel throughput. The CPU, with its 16 cores and 24 threads running at boost clocks up to 5.40 GHz, has ample headroom even at 1080p where frame rates exceed 390 FPS.

The 1080p Low result of 393.1 FPS approaches the practical limits of display refresh technology, and the fact that frame rates still scale down predictably with resolution confirms that the RTX 4090 is the bottleneck, not the processor. This is the expected behavior for a system pairing a top-tier CPU with the fastest consumer GPU available.

Settings Recommendations

For 4K displays, the data suggests High settings as the optimal balance. The Ultra preset delivers 68.1 FPS at 3840x2160, which is playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. High settings produce 87.1 FPS, a 27.9% improvement over Ultra while maintaining most visual fidelity. Medium at 103.5 FPS offers another 18.8% gain, but the visual quality reduction from High to Medium is typically more noticeable than from Ultra to High.

At 2560x1440, High settings hit 165.1 FPS, which exceeds the refresh rate of most high-end monitors. Ultra runs at 124.8 FPS, still above 120 FPS, making it a viable option for players with 1440p 120Hz displays who prioritize image quality. Medium at 195.5 FPS and Low at 254.1 FPS are increasingly diminishing returns for competitive play.

For 1920x1080, every setting produces frame rates well above 190 FPS. Ultra runs at 191.1 FPS, High at 255 FPS, Medium at 304.9 FPS, and Low at 393.1 FPS. Players with 240Hz or 360Hz monitors might prefer Low or Medium for maximum responsiveness, but those with standard 144Hz displays can comfortably max out the game at Ultra.

The data indicates that Minimum is not a demanding title by modern standards. The RTX 4090 is overkill for this game at any resolution, but the measured frame rates show that the High preset offers the best combination of visual quality and performance headroom across all three resolutions. At 4K, High maintains 87.1 FPS, which remains above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the system achieves an average of 87.1 FPS on High settings, 134.1 FPS on Low, 103.5 FPS on Medium, and 68.1 FPS on Ultra. The progression from Low to Ultra shows incremental decreases of 30.6 FPS from Low to Medium, 16.4 FPS from Medium to High, and 19.0 FPS from High to Ultra. The total spread from Low to Ultra is 66.0 FPS, representing a 49.2% reduction in frame rate when enabling maximum visual features.

Moving to 2560x1440, High settings deliver 165.1 FPS, Low produces 254.1 FPS, Medium reaches 195.5 FPS, and Ultra runs at 124.8 FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs 58.6 FPS, Medium to High costs 30.4 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 40.3 FPS. The Low to Ultra spread of 129.3 FPS represents a 50.9% reduction.

At 1920x1080, the measured results are 255 FPS on High, 393.1 FPS on Low, 304.9 FPS on Medium, and 191.1 FPS on Ultra. The differences are 88.2 FPS from Low to Medium, 49.9 FPS from Medium to High, and 63.9 FPS from High to Ultra. The Low to Ultra spread of 202.0 FPS is a 51.4% reduction.

Across all resolutions, the percentage reduction from Low to Ultra remains remarkably consistent at approximately 49-51%. This consistency confirms that the settings presets scale uniformly regardless of resolution, and that the GPU's rendering workload increases proportionally with each step up in quality. The RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth ensure that even the most demanding preset at 4K never encounters memory capacity or bandwidth limitations.