Minimum

Minimum, the 2014 third-person shooter, presents an interesting stress case for modern high-end hardware. With the Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, the data reveals a title that is heavily influenced by both CPU and GPU depending on the resolution and preset selected. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS across all settings and resolutions, interpreting what the numbers mean for the overall experience and the specific roles of the processor and graphics card.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear hierarchy for optimizing the experience with this hardware combination. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 181 FPS. While this is a high frame rate, the High preset at 237 FPS offers a significant 56 FPS improvement. The Medium preset provides 283 FPS, and Low reaches 369 FPS. Given that the game is a fast-paced third-person shooter, the jump from Ultra to High is substantial, and the data suggests that High is the optimal balance for high refresh-rate displays at 1080p, as it maintains a very fluid experience.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. The Ultra preset averages 117 FPS, which is still very playable. However, the High preset jumps to 153 FPS, a 36 FPS gain. Medium offers 182 FPS, and Low provides 238 FPS. For a 1440p monitor with a 144Hz or 165Hz refresh rate, the High preset is the clear recommendation. It achieves frame rates that can fully utilize such displays, and the visual fidelity drop from Ultra is often negligible in a fast-paced game. The 153 FPS average is a more stable target than the 117 FPS of Ultra.

At 3840x2160 (4K), the GPU begins to show its limits. The Ultra preset averages 63 FPS, which is on the cusp of the 60 FPS standard for console-quality smoothness but leaves no headroom for dips. The High preset averages 82 FPS, providing a much more comfortable margin above 60 FPS. Medium yields 98 FPS, and Low reaches 128 FPS. For 4K gaming, the High preset is the best experience per the measured rows. It offers a frame rate that is well above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining a higher level of visual quality than Medium or Low. The 82 FPS average on High is a superior choice to the 63 FPS on Ultra, as it provides a smoother and more consistent experience.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Minimum at 4K with high refresh rates?

A: The data shows that at 3840x2160, the average FPS on the High preset is 82. This is well above 60 FPS and suitable for a 60Hz or even a 120Hz display, but it falls short of the 144 FPS or higher targets for the fastest high-refresh-rate monitors.

Q: How much of a performance penalty is the Ultra preset at 1440p?

A: Comparing the Ultra and High presets at 2560x1440, the average FPS drops from 153 to 117. This represents a 36 FPS reduction, or approximately a 23.5% decrease in performance when moving from High to Ultra settings.

Q: Is the game more CPU or GPU bound at 1080p?

A: The data suggests a strong CPU influence at 1920x1080. The jump from Low (369 FPS) to Ultra (181 FPS) shows a massive 188 FPS swing, indicating that at lower resolutions, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU frames at a very high rate, and the bottleneck shifts to the GPU as settings increase.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 128 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 63 FPS. This is a difference of 65 FPS, showing that the RTX 5080's workload increases dramatically with the higher settings, halving the frame rate.

Q: What kind of frame times can be expected on the Medium preset at 1080p?

A: The measured data for the Medium preset at 1920x1080 shows a minimum FPS of 240 and a maximum of 325, with an average of 283. This indicates a very consistent frame delivery with minimal variance.

Q: How does the system's ranking in this game compare to its overall performance?

A: The combo rank for this game is 209 out of 3712 tested combinations, placing it in the top 5.6% of all tested hardware pairings for Minimum, which aligns with the high absolute FPS numbers.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 plays a critical role, especially as resolution and settings increase. With 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth, the card has ample resources for this title. The data shows that at 4K, the GPU is the primary limiting factor. At 3840x2160, average frame rates scale from 128 FPS on Low to 63 FPS on Ultra. This 65 FPS drop demonstrates the significant increase in rendering load placed on the GPU at higher presets.

The RTX 5080's performance is also contextualized by its benchmark scores. Its passmark_g3d score is 36565, which is a strong result. Its average benchmark score of 56083 places it in the 87th percentile of all GPUs. When comparing to its nearest rivals, it is 0.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon 8060S and 0.7% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, but 2.2% behind the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE. The card's boost clock of 2617 MHz and its 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power are instrumental in achieving the high frame rates observed at 1440p and 1080p.

The data indicates that at 1080p and 1440p, the GPU is still heavily utilized, but the CPU is able to keep it well-fed. For instance, at 2560x1440 on High settings, the system achieves 153 FPS. This shows the RTX 5080 is capable of handling this resolution with ease. However, the 4K results, particularly the drop to 63 FPS on Ultra, show the boundaries of its performance envelope in this specific title. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is not a limiting factor in these tests, as the game is from 2014 and likely has modest VRAM requirements, allowing the GPU to focus on compute and rendering.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across all settings and resolutions. The most striking result is the 1920x1080 Low preset, which achieves an average of 369 FPS. This is the highest frame rate recorded in the dataset. The Medium preset at 1080p averages 283 FPS, with a minimum of 240 and a maximum of 325, showing excellent consistency. The High preset at 1080p averages 237 FPS, while the Ultra preset drops to 181 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down predictably. The Low preset averages 238 FPS, a significant number for 1440p. Medium averages 182 FPS with a min/max of 155/210. The High preset averages 153 FPS, and Ultra averages 117 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 1440p shows a steady decrease of roughly 40-50 FPS per step, indicating a balanced scaling of graphical load.

The 3840x2160 results show the most significant impact on performance. The Low preset averages 128 FPS, which is still very high for 4K. Medium averages 98 FPS with a min/max of 83/113. High averages 82 FPS, and the Ultra preset brings the system down to an average of 63 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is a 65 FPS difference, highlighting the heavy load of the Ultra preset on the RTX 5080. It is also worth remembering the 4K Medium preset is the only one with recorded min/max values besides 1080p and 1440p Medium, showing a spread of 30 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a clear and expected trend: performance decreases as resolution increases. At the Low preset, the average FPS drops from 369 at 1080p to 238 at 1440p, and finally to 128 at 4K. This represents a 35.5% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 46.2% drop from 1440p to 4K. The total drop from 1080p to 4K on Low is 65.3%. This scaling suggests that even at the lowest settings, the GPU is still a significant factor, as the increase in pixel count from 2.07 million to 8.29 million directly impacts the fill rate requirements.

The scaling is even more pronounced at the Ultra preset. Frame rates go from 181 at 1080p to 117 at 1440p, a 35.4% drop, and then to 63 at 4K, a 46.2% drop from 1440p. The overall drop from 1080p to 4K on Ultra is 65.2%. This consistent percentage drop across presets indicates that the performance scaling is primarily driven by the resolution, not the settings. The component limiting performance shifts from the CPU at lower resolutions to the GPU at higher resolutions.

The fact that the percentage drops are very similar between Low and Ultra presets points to a bottleneck that scales uniformly with pixel count. At 1080p, the CPU is likely the limiting factor, as it cannot issue draw calls fast enough to keep the GPU fully occupied, particularly when the GPU load is low (Low preset). As resolution increases, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, as its rendering capabilities are saturated by the sheer number of pixels. The 4K results, where even the Low preset only reaches 128 FPS, strongly suggest that the RTX 5080 is the primary bottleneck at this resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F plays a crucial role in ensuring the RTX 5080 can reach its full potential, particularly at 1080p. With 20 cores and 28 threads, and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, the CPU is a powerhouse. Its benchmark scores are impressive: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35122 and a single-core score of 4958. It also scores 41317 in Passmark's multithread test and 4257 in the single-thread test. The CPU's 33 MB of shared L3 cache is likely beneficial for game logic and asset streaming.

The data strongly indicates that at 1920x1080, the CPU is the primary limiting factor. The fact that the Low preset achieves 369 FPS, while the Ultra preset only achieves 181 FPS, shows that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with a massive number of frames at low settings. However, as the settings increase, the GPU's rendering load becomes the bottleneck. This is a classic sign of a CPU-bound scenario at lower resolutions. The 1080p results are exceptional, but they don't scale linearly with the GPU's power, suggesting the CPU is holding back the RTX 5080 from achieving even higher frame rates.

The CPU's performance is also contextualized by its ranking. It sits in the 91st percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 53620. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7900X, which it beats by 0.6%, and the AMD EPYC 7313P, which it leads by 0.8%. This places the i7-14700F in a very competitive tier. However, the 1080p data in Minimum shows that even a CPU of this caliber can become a bottleneck in an older, less demanding game. The drop from 369 FPS at Low to 237 FPS at High at 1080p is a 132 FPS difference, which is entirely due to the increased GPU load, not a lack of CPU power. The CPU's high single-thread performance is what allows it to reach these very high frame rates, but the ultimate ceiling at 1080p appears to be CPU-bound, as the Low preset's 369 FPS is the upper limit for this combo.