Minimum

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D achieves the top position in the benchmark database for Minimum, ranking 1st out of 2,939 tested combos. This is a decisive result — no other CPU-GPU combination in the database produces higher average frame rates in this title. The margin at the top is meaningful; the data shows this pairing is the reference point against which all other 2,938 configurations are measured.

The ranking is consistent with what the individual component benchmarks suggest. The RTX 5090 D sits in the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 77,712. Its nearest rivals in aggregate GPU benchmarks — the AMD Radeon RX 665M XT at 76,904 (1.1% slower), the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT at 78,940 (1.6% faster), and the NVIDIA Tesla P100 variants at 79,396 and 79,605 (2.1% and 2.4% faster respectively) — are all within a narrow band. This indicates the 5090 D's performance class is well established, though its specific strengths in Minimum's workload push it to the top of the game-specific chart.

On the CPU side, the Core i7-14700KF is in the 94th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 70,163. Its nearest rivals are tightly clustered: the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F at 69,996 (0.2% slower), the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX at 69,875 (0.4% slower), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X at 69,515 (0.9% slower), and the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K at 70,879 (1.0% faster). The fact that the i7-14700KF is within 1% of its closest competitors in synthetic benchmarks, yet the combo still claims the #1 game spot, suggests that the combination of this CPU and GPU is particularly well-suited to Minimum's engine.

The rank of 1 out of 2,939 is not a marginal victory. It reflects a substantial performance ceiling that other configurations, even those with comparable component-level scores, do not reach in this specific title. The measured FPS data corroborates this — at 1080p Ultra, the combo delivers 210 FPS, which is already beyond the refresh rate of most high-end displays. The combination's ability to maintain high frame rates even at 4K Ultra (73 FPS) further underscores its dominance in this game.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide clear guidance on which settings preset delivers the optimal experience for this combo in Minimum. The data covers four presets — Low, Medium, High, and Ultra — across three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160).

At 1080p, all presets are playable, but the differences are instructive. Low yields 430 FPS, Medium 329 FPS, High 276 FPS, and Ultra 210 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs about 23% performance, while the step from Medium to High costs another 16%, and High to Ultra costs 24%. For competitive play at 1080p, Low or Medium maximizes headroom, but the Ultra preset's 210 FPS average still exceeds the refresh rate of most monitors, making it a viable choice for those prioritizing visual fidelity.

At 1440p, the pattern shifts. Low delivers 277 FPS, Medium 212 FPS, High 178 FPS, and Ultra 136 FPS. The Ultra preset here remains above 120 FPS, which is the threshold for high-refresh-rate gaming. The data suggests that Medium or High at 1440p offers the best balance — Medium provides 212 FPS with tight frame pacing (min FPS of 180, max FPS of 244), while High drops to 178 FPS but still maintains smooth motion. For most users, Medium at 1440p is the sweet spot: it retains the visual improvements over Low while keeping frame rates well above 200.

At 4K, the choices narrow. Ultra drops to 73 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced third-person shooter action. High improves to 96 FPS, Medium to 114 FPS, and Low to 149 FPS. The recommended preset at 4K is High — the 96 FPS average is close to the 100 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for responsive aiming, and it offers significantly better visuals than Medium or Low. If frame rate is paramount, Medium at 114 FPS is the safer choice, but it comes at a visual cost that may be noticeable given the GPU's capabilities.

The overall best experience, considering both visual quality and frame rate, is High at 1440p. This preset delivers 178 FPS average, which is well above any competitive threshold, while High settings at 1440p provide a substantial visual upgrade over Medium or Low. For users with 144Hz or 165Hz displays, this combination ensures the display is fully utilized. At 4K, High is the recommended preset for the best balance — 96 FPS is achievable with this hardware, and it avoids the steep drop to Ultra's 73 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data reveals how the RTX 5090 D and Core i7-14700KF scale across resolutions, and the pattern indicates where the bottleneck shifts. At 1080p High, the combo produces 276 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, it drops to 178 FPS — a reduction of about 35%. At 4K High, it falls to 96 FPS, another 46% drop from 1440p.

This scaling curve is telling. The transition from 1080p to 1440p is a 1.78x increase in pixel count, and the FPS drops by 35%. The transition from 1440p to 4K is a 2.25x increase in pixels, and the FPS drops by 46%. These are not linear relationships — the FPS loss is proportionally less than the pixel count increase, which suggests the GPU has enough headroom to absorb the additional load without being fully saturated at lower resolutions.

At 1080p Low, the combo hits 430 FPS. This is exceptionally high and indicates that at lower settings, the CPU is likely the limiting factor. The i7-14700KF's 20 cores and 28 threads are substantial, but even a top-tier CPU has a frame-rate ceiling in any game. The fact that 1080p Low reaches 430 FPS while 1080p Ultra drops to 210 FPS shows that the GPU is still the primary driver of performance differences at this resolution, but the CPU's maximum frame delivery capacity is being approached at Low settings.

The drop from 1080p to 4K at the same settings is more revealing. At Low settings, 1080p yields 430 FPS and 4K yields 149 FPS — a 65% reduction. At Ultra settings, 1080p yields 210 FPS and 4K yields 73 FPS — a 65% reduction as well. This consistency suggests that the GPU is the dominant constraint across all settings, with the CPU providing enough headroom to not become the bottleneck until frame rates approach 400+ FPS.

The data indicates that the RTX 5090 D's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 512-bit bus provide sufficient bandwidth for 4K textures, as the FPS drop from 1440p to 4K is not catastrophic. The 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth is clearly adequate for Minimum's asset streaming at 4K. The scaling behavior confirms that this combo is GPU-limited at 4K and CPU-limited only at extreme frame rates (above 400 FPS) at 1080p Low.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset for this combo is as follows:

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 149 FPS average
• Medium: 114 FPS average, with a minimum of 97 FPS and maximum of 131 FPS
• High: 96 FPS average
• Ultra: 73 FPS average

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 277 FPS average
• Medium: 212 FPS average, with a minimum of 180 FPS and maximum of 244 FPS
• High: 178 FPS average
• Ultra: 136 FPS average

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 430 FPS average
• Medium: 329 FPS average, with a minimum of 280 FPS and maximum of 379 FPS
• High: 276 FPS average
• Ultra: 210 FPS average

The Medium preset is the only one with min/max data recorded, which provides insight into frame pacing. At 4K Medium, the 97 FPS minimum and 131 FPS maximum indicate a 34 FPS spread — about 30% variance from the 114 FPS average. This is a relatively tight distribution, suggesting consistent frame delivery. At 1440p Medium, the 180 FPS minimum and 244 FPS maximum show a 64 FPS spread around the 212 FPS average, which is also a 30% variance. At 1080p Medium, the 280 FPS minimum and 379 FPS maximum show a 99 FPS spread around the 329 FPS average — again, a 30% variance. This consistent 30% variance across resolutions suggests the frame delivery pattern is stable, with the game engine and hardware combination producing predictable performance characteristics.

The scaling between settings at each resolution is consistent. At 1080p, moving from Low to Medium costs 101 FPS (23.5%), Medium to High costs 53 FPS (16.1%), and High to Ultra costs 66 FPS (23.9%). At 1440p, the drops are 65 FPS (23.5%), 34 FPS (16.0%), and 42 FPS (23.6%) respectively. At 4K, the drops are 35 FPS (23.5%), 18 FPS (15.8%), and 23 FPS (24.0%). The near-identical percentage drops across resolutions indicate that the relative cost of each settings tier is resolution-independent — the game's rendering pipeline applies the same proportional load increase regardless of pixel count.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, with a die size of 750 mm² containing 92,200 million transistors. The GPU has 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of memory bandwidth. Its base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and memory runs at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). The shading unit count is 21,760, with 680 TMUs and 176 ROPs. It features 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores, producing 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 104.8 TFLOPS of FP16 compute (1:1 ratio).

These specifications explain the 4K performance in Minimum. At 4K Ultra, the combo delivers 73 FPS — a playable but not exceptional result. The GPU's raw compute power (104.8 TFLOPS) is clearly being utilized, but the Ultra preset's additional effects (likely including ray tracing or advanced post-processing, given the RT core count of 170) present a significant load. The drop from High to Ultra at 4K is 23 FPS (from 96 to 73), a 24% reduction that indicates Ultra is particularly demanding.

The 32 GB VRAM capacity is relevant for Minimum at 4K. With modern texture sizes, the 4K Ultra preset could potentially exceed 16 GB of VRAM usage, and the 5090 D's 32 GB ensures no memory capacity bottleneck. The 1.79 TB/s bandwidth ensures that texture streaming at 4K does not stall the rendering pipeline — the FPS data showing a smooth 96 FPS at 4K High supports this. At 4K Low, the 149 FPS result shows that even when the GPU is not heavily loaded by effects, it still delivers strong performance, though the CPU begins to become a factor at these higher frame rates.

The GPU's benchmark scores provide context. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 14,326 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 376,915 place it in the top tier. The PassMark G3D score of 44,065 and GPU Compute score of 28,396 confirm strong general-purpose compute performance. The GPU's 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs means it outperforms 92% of the database, which aligns with its game-specific performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700KF is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture (Raptor Lake-R codename) on a 10 nm process. Its base clock is 3.40 GHz with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB L1 per core, 2 MB L2 per core, and 33 MB shared L3. It supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration, with ECC support. The CPU connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes.

In Minimum, the CPU's role is most evident at high frame rates. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 430 FPS — this is near the practical ceiling for most game engines, and the CPU's 28 threads and 5.6 GHz boost clock are what enable this. The PassMark multithread score of 52,425 and single-thread score of 4,480 indicate strong both multi-core and single-core performance. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 44,167 and single-core score of 6,235 further confirm this.

The CPU's impact on the game's results is more subtle at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the FPS difference between Low (430 FPS) and Ultra (210 FPS) is 220 FPS — this large spread suggests the GPU is the primary bottleneck at Ultra, while the CPU becomes more relevant at Low. The fact that 1080p Low reaches 430 FPS (which is above the refresh rate of virtually all displays) indicates the CPU is not limiting the experience at any playable setting.

At 1440p and 4K, the CPU's role diminishes as the GPU takes over the workload. The consistent 30% frame variance at Medium settings across all resolutions suggests the CPU is not introducing frame pacing issues — the min FPS values (97 at 4K, 180 at 1440p, 280 at 1080p) are all high enough to prevent stutter.

The CPU's benchmark rivals provide context. The i7-14700KF's average benchmark score of 70,163 is nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69,996, 0.2% slower) and AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69,875, 0.4% slower). The AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69,515) is 0.9% slower, while the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (70,879) is 1.0% faster. These marginal differences in synthetic benchmarks do not translate to meaningful in-game differences at the frame rates observed, where the GPU dominates.

FAQ

Q: What is the combo's overall rank in Minimum?

A: This combo ranks 1st out of 2,939 tested combinations, making it the top-performing configuration in the database for this game.

Q: What frame rate does this combo achieve at 4K Ultra?

A: At 3840x2160 resolution with Ultra settings, the combo delivers an average of 73 FPS. This is playable but not ideal for competitive play, making High settings (96 FPS) the recommended preset at 4K.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at 1080p Low?

A: At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 430 FPS. This high frame rate suggests the CPU's 28 threads and 5.6 GHz boost clock are near their limit, as the GPU is lightly loaded at Low settings. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 4,480 supports its capability to drive high frame rates.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 D's memory configuration affect 4K performance?

A: The GPU's 32 GB GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth ensures that 4K textures and assets do not cause memory bottlenecks. The 4K High result of 96 FPS indicates the memory subsystem is sufficient for Minimum's requirements.

Q: What is the frame variance at Medium settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the minimum FPS is 280 and maximum is 379 around the 329 FPS average — a 30% variance. At 1440p Medium, the range is 180 to 244 around 212 FPS, also a 30% variance. At 4K Medium, the range is 97 to 131 around 114 FPS, again a 30% variance. This consistent variance indicates stable frame delivery.

Q: How does this combo compare to the nearest CPU rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core i7-14700KF has an average benchmark score of 70,163, which is 1.0% lower than the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K (70,879) but 0.2% to 0.9% higher than the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (69,996), AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69,875), and AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69,515). These differences are negligible in game performance, where the combo still ranks #1.