Minimum

# Minimum — Intel Core i9-14900K + AMD Radeon RX 9060

The Intel Core i9-14900K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 produces a combination that ranks 1677th out of 2939 tested combos in Minimum, a 2014 Third-Person Shooter. This places the pairing in the lower-middle portion of the database, and the measured frame rates across resolutions and settings reveal a system that is consistently GPU-limited at higher quality presets, while the CPU’s 24 cores and 32 threads provide ample headroom for the game’s computational demands. The data shows a clear pattern: as resolution increases, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, and as settings drop, the CPU’s capability becomes more apparent.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep, and it tells a straightforward story about which component is doing the heavy lifting. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 120 FPS at 1920x1080 to 78 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 42 FPS at 3840x2160. That is a 65% reduction from 1080p to 4K at High settings. The scaling from 1440p to 4K alone shows a 46% drop, from 78 FPS to 42 FPS. These numbers indicate that the AMD Radeon RX 9060 is the limiting factor at higher resolutions; the pixel throughput required at 4K overwhelms the GPU’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and its 128-bit memory bus.

At Low settings, the same resolution scaling produces a different curve. The average FPS at 1080p Low is 187, dropping to 121 FPS at 1440p Low, and then to 65 FPS at 4K Low. The relative drop from 1080p to 1440p is 35%, and from 1440p to 4K is 46%. Interestingly, the 4K Low result (65 FPS) is higher than the 4K High result (42 FPS) by 55%, which suggests that the GPU’s shading units and texture units are being relieved of work when settings are lowered, allowing the card to push more frames even at the same resolution. The 1792 shading units and 112 texture mapping units on the RX 9060 are clearly not enough to sustain high frame rates at 4K with High or Ultra presets.

The Medium settings data provides the only min/max FPS values in the dataset, and these confirm the trend. At 4K Medium, the average is 50 FPS with a minimum of 42 and maximum of 57. At 1440p Medium, the average rises to 92 FPS with a minimum of 79 and maximum of 106. At 1080p Medium, the average reaches 143 FPS with a minimum of 122 and maximum of 165. The spread between min and max FPS grows slightly as resolution drops, from 15 FPS at 4K to 27 FPS at 1080p, indicating that the CPU is able to feed the GPU more consistently at lower resolutions, but the GPU’s frame time variance becomes more pronounced at 4K.

The resolution scaling pattern strongly suggests that this combo is GPU-bound in Minimum. The CPU’s 3.20 GHz base clock and 6.00 GHz boost clock, combined with 36 MB of shared L3 cache, are more than sufficient for a game from 2014. The fact that 1080p Low hits 187 FPS while 4K Ultra only manages 32 FPS demonstrates that the RX 9060’s 21.43 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the primary constraint at higher pixel counts.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 44 chip, fabricated on a 4 nm process by TSMC. The GPU has a base clock of 1700 MHz, a boost clock of 2990 MHz, and a game clock of 2400 MHz. The memory operates at 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective speed, across an 8 GB GDDR6 pool on a 128-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications place the card in the 59th percentile of all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 16014. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (average score 16129, deltaPct -0.7), the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862, deltaPct 1), the AMD Radeon RX 7700 (15852, deltaPct 1), and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15679, deltaPct 2.1).

In Minimum, the GPU’s role is decisive. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS of 32 is barely playable, while at 1080p Low, the 187 FPS average shows the card can stretch its legs when pixel count and shading complexity are reduced. The 64 ROPs on the RX 9060 provide a pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s, which explains why the 4K Medium result (50 FPS) is only 16% higher than the 4K High result (42 FPS) — the ROP throughput is a bottleneck at 4K regardless of moderate settings changes.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is a notable limitation in modern games, but Minimum is from 2014, so memory capacity is less of a concern here. What matters more is the memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s, which is moderate by current standards. At 4K, the texture and geometry data required per frame can strain this bandwidth, leading to the observed frame rate drops. The card’s 21.43 TFLOPS FP32 performance is also modest, and the benchmark results reflect that: the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 3322, Geekbench OpenCL is 88183, and Vulkan is 39476. Passmark G3D score is 17631, with DirectX 11 at 182 and DirectX 12 at 44.

Compared to its nearest rivals in the database, the RX 9060 sits within 1% of the RTX 3060 Ti and R9 370X in average benchmark score. In actual Minimum performance, the measured FPS at 1080p High (120) and 1440p High (78) indicate that the card is delivering frame rates consistent with its mid-range position. The deltaPct values show that the RX 9060 is slightly behind the RTX 3060 Ti (-0.7%) and slightly ahead of the R9 370X (+1%) in synthetic benchmarks, but the real-world game results are what matter for this analysis.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i9-14900K and AMD Radeon RX 9060 ranks 1677th out of 2939 tested combos in Minimum. This places it in the 57th percentile of all combos, meaning roughly 43% of tested systems perform better in this game. The rank is heavily influenced by the GPU, as the CPU is a top-tier part with a 95th percentile ranking among all CPUs. The i9-14900K has an average benchmark score of 79097, placing it just behind the Intel Core i9-14900KF (79371, deltaPct -0.3) and Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus (79574, deltaPct -0.6), but ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 (77740, deltaPct 1.7) and slightly behind the AMD EPYC 7413 (80041, deltaPct -1.2).

The combo’s rank of 1677 suggests that while the CPU is excellent, the GPU drags the overall performance down in Minimum. The game’s frame rates at 4K Ultra (32 FPS) and 4K High (42 FPS) are below the 60 FPS threshold that most builders target, and even at 1440p Ultra (59 FPS), the system barely misses 60 FPS. At 1080p, the combo performs well, with all settings except Ultra (92 FPS) exceeding 120 FPS. The data indicates that this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming or 1440p with lower settings, and that the GPU is the component holding back the system’s overall rank.

When comparing the CPU’s nearest rivals, the i9-14900K’s performance in synthetic benchmarks is within 1.7% of several other high-end parts, but these differences are unlikely to matter in Minimum given the GPU bottleneck. The 24 cores and 32 threads, along with the 6.00 GHz boost clock, provide far more computational headroom than a 2014 shooter requires. The combo rank is therefore a reflection of the GPU’s mid-range position (59th percentile) rather than any CPU deficiency.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The dataset provides measured FPS for three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra), with Medium settings including min and max FPS values.

At 1920x1080, the results are as follows:

• Low: 187 FPS average
• Medium: 143 FPS average (min 122, max 165)
• High: 120 FPS average
• Ultra: 92 FPS average

The 1080p results show a clear progression: dropping from Low to Medium costs 44 FPS (24%), Medium to High costs 23 FPS (16%), and High to Ultra costs 28 FPS (23%). The system is capable of high refresh rate gaming at 1080p on all settings, with even Ultra maintaining 92 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the results are:

• Low: 121 FPS average
• Medium: 92 FPS average (min 79, max 106)
• High: 78 FPS average
• Ultra: 59 FPS average

The 1440p results show a steeper drop from Low to Medium (24%), but the relative penalty for High and Ultra settings is more pronounced. The jump from Medium to High costs 14 FPS (15%), and High to Ultra costs 19 FPS (24%). Ultra at 1440p barely misses 60 FPS, which is a common target for smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the results are:

• Low: 65 FPS average
• Medium: 50 FPS average (min 42, max 57)
• High: 42 FPS average
• Ultra: 32 FPS average

The 4K results are the most telling. Even at Low settings, the system only manages 65 FPS, and Ultra dips to 32 FPS, which is below console-level smoothness. The difference between Low and Medium is 15 FPS (23%), Medium to High is 8 FPS (16%), and High to Ultra is 10 FPS (24%). The min FPS at 4K Medium (42) matches the average FPS at 4K High, indicating that the GPU’s frame time consistency degrades significantly at this resolution.

Comparing the same settings across resolutions, the 1080p to 1440p drop at Low is 66 FPS (35%), while the 1440p to 4K drop at Low is 56 FPS (46%). At High, the 1080p to 1440p drop is 42 FPS (35%), and the 1440p to 4K drop is 36 FPS (46%). At Ultra, the 1080p to 1440p drop is 33 FPS (36%), and the 1440p to 4K drop is 27 FPS (46%). The consistent 46% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates that the GPU’s pixel processing capabilities are the limiting factor.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K is a 24-core, 32-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture (Raptor Lake-R refresh), with a base clock of 3.20 GHz and a boost clock of 6.00 GHz. It has 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 2 MB of L2 cache per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and it uses PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes for CPU-only devices. The 125 W TDP (with a 257 mm² die size on a 10 nm Intel process) places it as a high-power desktop part, and its multiplier is unlocked for overclocking.

In Minimum, the CPU’s role is largely supportive. The game was released in 2014, and its computational demands are modest by modern standards. The i9-14900K’s single-thread performance is exceptional — Cinebench R23 single-core score is 2262.5, Geekbench single-core is 2655, and Passmark single-thread is 4697. Multi-threaded scores are equally impressive: Cinebench R23 multi-core is 39399.5, Geekbench multi-core is 21697, and Passmark multi-thread is 58674. These scores place the CPU in the 95th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79097.

The data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in Minimum. At 1080p Low, the system hits 187 FPS, which is likely near the game’s engine limit or the GPU’s rendering ceiling at that settings level. The CPU’s 6.00 GHz boost clock ensures that even single-threaded game logic runs at maximum speed, and the 32 threads provide more than enough parallel processing for any background tasks or game engine threads.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the i9-14900K is within 1.7% of the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 and within 1.2% of the AMD EPYC 7413 in average benchmark score. These differences are negligible for gaming, and the CPU’s role in Minimum is to avoid limiting the GPU. The measured FPS at 1080p Ultra (92) and 1440p Ultra (59) show that the CPU can feed the GPU enough frames even at high settings, but the GPU’s limitations at 4K prevent the CPU from being fully utilized.

The CPU’s 36 MB of L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache help with game data locality, but for a 2014 title, these specifications are far beyond what is necessary. The integrated UHD Graphics 770 is present but not used in this configuration, as the discrete RX 9060 handles all rendering. The CPU’s 10 nm process and 125 W TDP mean it runs hot under load, but the benchmark data shows that thermal throttling is not affecting performance in this game, given the high FPS at lower resolutions.

FAQ

*Q: Is this combo capable of 60 FPS at 1440p in Minimum?*

A: At 1440p Ultra, the average FPS is 59, just below the 60 FPS target. At 1440p High, the average is 78 FPS, and at 1440p Medium, it is 92 FPS. So, you can achieve 60 FPS at 1440p with High settings or lower, but Ultra settings will fall just short.

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Minimum?*

A: The data shows the strongest performance at 1920x1080, where all settings exceed 90 FPS. At 1080p Low, the average is 187 FPS; Medium is 143 FPS; High is 120 FPS; and Ultra is 92 FPS. For a smooth experience, 1080p is the recommended resolution for this GPU.

Q: How does the RX 9060 compare to its nearest rivals in the database?

A: The RX 9060 has an average benchmark score of 16014, placing it in the 59th percentile of GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, scores 16129 (deltaPct -0.7), meaning the RTX 3060 Ti is slightly faster. The AMD Radeon R9 370X scores 15862 (deltaPct 1), making the RX 9060 1% faster.

*Q: Does the i9-14900K CPU bottleneck the RX 9060 in Minimum?*

A: No. The CPU’s 24 cores, 32 threads, and 6.00 GHz boost clock provide far more performance than a 2014 game requires. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (187) and 1080p Medium (143) indicate that the GPU is the limiting component, not the CPU.

Q: What frame rates can be expected at 4K with this combo?

A: At 4K, the average FPS ranges from 32 (Ultra) to 65 (Low). Medium settings produce 50 FPS (min 42, max 57), and High settings produce 42 FPS. None of these reach 60 FPS, so 4K gaming in Minimum would require Low settings for the best playability.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: The combo ranks 1677th out of 2939 tested combinations in Minimum. This places it in the lower-middle range, primarily due to the GPU’s mid-range performance (59th percentile) rather than the CPU, which ranks in the 95th percentile of all CPUs.