Minimum

The pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700F with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER presents a significant bottleneck scenario in Minimum. The processor, which holds a 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs, vastly outperforms the graphics card, which sits at only the 55th percentile. This disparity suggests that the GPU is the primary constraint across most settings, a hypothesis the FPS data largely confirms, though with some interesting exceptions at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy for the best experience. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 130.6 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this combo. This is a 28% improvement over the Medium preset’s 102 FPS, indicating that the GPU is still the limiting factor even at this resolution. For players with high refresh rate monitors, this is the only settings level that approaches the upper echelon of performance.

However, the sweet spot for a balanced experience appears to be the Medium preset. At 1080p, it delivers 102 FPS, which is still exceptionally smooth and represents a 24% drop from Low but a 24% increase over the High preset’s 82.2 FPS. The jump from Ultra to High is also substantial, with High being 28.6% faster. The data suggests that the Ultra preset is not viable for smooth gameplay, as it drops to 63.9 FPS at 1080p, which is below the 70 FPS threshold many consider optimal for a third-person shooter.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset becomes the only configuration that maintains a high frame rate, achieving 84 FPS. The Medium preset at 62.4 FPS is playable but represents a significant 25.7% reduction in performance. The High preset at 51.6 FPS is borderline, and Ultra at 39.5 FPS is not recommended for a responsive experience. For 4K, the data is less forgiving; even the Low preset only achieves 46 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS standard. Therefore, the best experience per the measured rows is the Low preset at 1080p, with Medium at 1080p being the recommended choice for those who prioritize visual fidelity over the absolute maximum frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The benchmark data places this specific combination at rank 1550 out of 1733 tested combos in Minimum. This places it in the bottom 10.6% of all configurations, which is a poor result for a game released in 2014. This low ranking is almost entirely attributable to the GPU’s performance ceiling. While the CPU is a top-tier part, the combo’s overall rank is dragged down by the GTX 1660 SUPER’s inability to push higher frame rates, particularly at higher resolutions and settings.

The ranking suggests that while the system is functional, it is not competitive with even mid-range modern pairings. The data implies that the i7-14700F is vastly underutilized in this scenario. The GPU’s 55th percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms that it is a below-average performer by today’s standards, and its pairing with a 94th percentile CPU creates a severe imbalance. The combo’s rank is a direct consequence of this bottleneck, where the CPU’s potential is left untapped.

GPU Role

The GPU’s specifications directly explain the FPS results. The GTX 1660 SUPER has 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. This memory configuration is a critical factor; at 4K resolution, the High preset’s average of 29.8 FPS suggests the card is overwhelmed by the pixel count and memory pressure. The boost clock of 1785 MHz and the FP32 performance of 5.027 TFLOPS are insufficient for the demands of Minimum at higher settings.

The data shows a clear pattern: as the settings increase from Low to Ultra, the FPS drops consistently. At 1080p, the drop from Low (130.6 FPS) to Ultra (63.9 FPS) is a 51% reduction. This indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck, as the CPU is more than capable of handling the increased draw calls and physics calculations. The 12 nm Turing architecture, while supporting DirectX 12 (12_1), is simply not powerful enough to maintain high frame rates at higher presets. The 6 GB VRAM is also likely a limiting factor at 4K, where the Ultra preset’s 24.1 FPS average suggests the card is running out of memory or fill rate.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data reveals a consistent scaling pattern across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the frame rates are: Low 130.6, Medium 102, High 82.2, and Ultra 63.9. This shows a steady decline of roughly 20-24% with each settings tier increase. The delta between Medium and High is the largest at 19.8 FPS, suggesting a significant jump in GPU workload.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. Low achieves 84 FPS, which is a 35.7% drop from the 1080p Low result. Medium drops to 62.4 FPS, High to 51.6 FPS, and Ultra to 39.5 FPS. The relative performance gap between settings narrows, but the absolute numbers become less playable. The step from Medium to High here is 10.8 FPS, a 17.3% reduction.

At 3840x2160, the performance collapses. Low is the only setting that remains above 30 FPS, at 46. Medium is at 32.8, High at 29.8, and Ultra at 24.1. The data shows that the GTX 1660 SUPER is not a 4K-capable card for this game, as even the lowest settings yield a sub-60 FPS experience. The difference between Low and Medium at 4K is 13.2 FPS, which is the largest absolute drop between any two settings at any resolution, indicating a massive increase in shader complexity.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this combo in Minimum?*

A: The highest measured average FPS is 130.6, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low settings preset.

*Q: Is this combo capable of 4K gaming in Minimum?*

A: The data shows it is not. At 3840x2160, even the Low preset only manages an average of 46 FPS, with Ultra falling to 24.1 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p on the Low preset?

A: The average FPS drops from 130.6 at 1080p to 84 at 1440p, representing a 35.7% decrease in performance.

Q: Which component is the bottleneck for this system?

A: The benchmark results indicate the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU has a 94th percentile ranking, while the GPU sits at the 55th percentile, and FPS scales heavily with resolution and settings, which is characteristic of a GPU bottleneck.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: The Low preset averages 84 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 39.5 FPS. This is a 53% reduction in performance.

Q: Does the GTX 1660 SUPER’s 6 GB VRAM limit performance?

A: At 4K, the Ultra preset’s 24.1 FPS and High preset’s 29.8 FPS suggest that the 6 GB VRAM, combined with the card’s compute power, is insufficient for high-detail 4K rendering.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture. Its high multi-threaded performance, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35443, is far beyond what Minimum requires. The game, released in 2014, is unlikely to utilize more than a few cores effectively. The CPU’s boost clock of 5.40 GHz and single-core Cinebench R23 score of 5003 ensure that it is not a limiting factor in any of the measured scenarios.

The data supports this conclusion. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar FPS across different resolutions. Instead, the FPS drops significantly as resolution increases, which is a classic sign of a GPU limit. The CPU’s role here is to feed the GPU with data, and it does so without issue. The fact that the combo ranks 1550th out of 1733 is not a reflection of the CPU’s capability but of the GPU’s inability to keep up. The processor is essentially idle, waiting for the GTX 1660 SUPER to finish its work.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly identifies the GPU as the limiting component. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 130.6 at 1080p to 84 at 1440p, a 35.7% decrease. Moving from 1440p to 4K, the FPS drops from 84 to 46, another 45.2% decrease. This non-linear scaling is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where the number of pixels being rendered has a disproportionate impact on performance.

The data implies that the CPU’s performance headroom is not being utilized. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain relatively flat as resolution increases, since the CPU workload (draw calls, physics) stays the same. Instead, the FPS drops by more than half from 1080p to 4K, from 130.6 to 46 on Low settings. This suggests that the GPU’s shading units, texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s, and pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s are being saturated. The 4K results, in particular, show that the GTX 1660 SUPER is not suited for this resolution in Minimum, as even the lowest settings fail to reach a comfortable frame rate.