Minimum

FAQ

Q: How does the Intel Core i9-14900K compare to its closest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i9-14900K posts an average benchmark score of 79,824, which places it 0.7% ahead of the Intel Core i9-14900KF and 0.7% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF. It trails the AMD EPYC 7413 by a razor-thin 0.3% margin, making the top of this performance tier effectively a statistical tie.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of the components in this test system?

A: The Intel Core i9-14900K carries a launch MSRP of $589. The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB has a launch MSRP of 299 USD.

Q: What kind of frame rates does this combination achieve at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the system ranges from 100.8 FPS on Ultra settings to 208.3 FPS on Low settings. Medium settings deliver 156.7 FPS, while High settings produce 136.6 FPS.

Q: How does the GPU's memory configuration affect performance?

A: The RX 9060 XT 8 GB uses 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding 322.3 GB/s of bandwidth. This configuration appears sufficient for the game's demands, as the GPU still delivers playable frame rates even at 4K Ultra with 33.3 FPS.

Q: Where does this combo rank among all tested configurations for this game?

A: The combination ranks 921st out of 1,733 tested combos, placing it in the 53rd percentile of all recorded configurations for Minimum.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor at higher resolutions?

A: The data indicates a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions. Frame rates drop from 208.3 FPS at 1080p Low to 75.1 FPS at 4K Low, a 63.9% reduction that aligns with the GPU's rendering workload scaling rather than CPU limitations.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT 8 GB is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 44 chip, manufactured on TSMC's 4 nm process. The GPU packs 29,700 million transistors into a 199 mm² die, achieving a transistor density of 149.2M per mm². Its 2,048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation units drive a pixel rate of 200.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 400.6 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput of 25.64 TFLOPS underpins the card's rasterization performance.

Clock behavior matters significantly for this game. The GPU's base clock sits at 1700 MHz, but the boost clock reaches 3130 MHz, with a game clock rated at 2530 MHz. This wide boost headroom means the card can aggressively scale performance under load, which explains the substantial FPS differences between settings presets. The memory runs at 2518 MHz, translating to 20.1 Gbps effective, feeding the 128-bit bus for 322.3 GB/s of bandwidth.

The 8 GB GDDR6 frame buffer is the defining constraint at higher resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces 33.3 FPS, which is barely playable. Dropping to 4K High improves the average to 45.6 FPS, while Medium reaches 55.9 FPS. Only at 4K Low does the card break past 60 FPS, hitting 75.1 FPS. This pattern suggests that texture and shading workloads at 4K overwhelm the 8 GB buffer and the 128-bit memory interface, causing steep performance penalties as settings increase.

The GPU's RDNA 4.0 architecture includes 32 ray accelerators, but this game's benchmark data does not show any ray tracing-specific results. The card supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, ensuring broad API compatibility. With a TDP of 150 W, the card uses a single 8-pin power connector and requires a 450 W suggested power supply. The PCIe 5.0 x16 interface provides ample bandwidth for data transfer, though the game's 2014 release date means it likely does not exploit PCIe 5.0 features.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K is a 24-core, 32-thread processor from the Core 14th Gen series, built on the Raptor Lake architecture with a 10 nm process. Its base clock of 3.20 GHz boosts up to 6.00 GHz, providing substantial single-thread headroom. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory across a dual-channel bus, and it includes UHD Graphics 770 integrated graphics, though the discrete GPU handles all rendering here.

Synthetic benchmarks illustrate the CPU's capabilities. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49,872 and single-core score of 7,040 indicate strong performance in both heavily threaded and lightly threaded workloads. Geekbench results show 20,370 multi-core and 3,064 single-core. PassMark tests reveal specific strengths: integer math scores 210,622, floating-point math scores 152,975, and data compression hits 792,694. The multi-thread score of 58,674 places the CPU in the 97th percentile of all processors.

For a 2014 third-person shooter like Minimum, the CPU's high single-thread performance is likely the more relevant asset. The game's age means it probably uses fewer threads, but the 6.00 GHz boost clock ensures that even single-threaded game logic runs without bottlenecking the GPU. The CPU's 125 W TDP and unlocked multiplier allow for overclocking, though the measured FPS data uses stock settings.

The nearest rival comparison shows the i9-14900K's standing. The AMD EPYC 7413 leads by 0.3% with an average score of 80,041, while the i9-14900KF trails by 0.7% at 79,245. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF and 265K score 79,240 and 79,102, respectively, both within 0.9% of the i9-14900K. This clustering indicates that no single CPU in this tier provides a decisive advantage for Minimum.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest performance. Low settings produce 208.3 FPS, which is more than double the 100.8 FPS seen at Ultra settings. Medium settings reach 156.7 FPS, while High settings manage 136.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 51.6 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 20.1 FPS. The step from High to Ultra costs 35.8 FPS, indicating that Ultra settings impose a significant rendering burden.

At 2560x1440, performance scales down predictably. Low settings yield 134.8 FPS, Medium hits 104.3 FPS, and High produces 86.3 FPS. Ultra settings drop to 64.7 FPS, which remains comfortably playable. The transition from Low to Medium costs 30.5 FPS, Medium to High costs 18.0 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 21.6 FPS. The 1440p results show a more linear degradation compared to 1080p, where the Ultra preset exacted a disproportionately large penalty.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles to maintain high frame rates. Low settings produce 75.1 FPS, which is still smooth. Medium settings drop to 55.9 FPS, High settings fall to 45.6 FPS, and Ultra settings bottom out at 33.3 FPS. The 4K results reveal that the GPU becomes the primary constraint, with each settings tier costing roughly 15-20 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration in the entire test matrix that falls below 40 FPS.

The data shows that the combo can handle 1440p High at 86.3 FPS, which is a strong result for a game from 2014. At 4K, users must compromise on settings to maintain playability. The 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus likely contribute to the steep 4K Ultra penalty, as the game may exceed the available frame buffer at that resolution and preset combination.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the bottleneck characteristics of this system. At Low settings, the system drops from 208.3 FPS at 1080p to 134.8 FPS at 1440p, a 35.3% reduction, and then to 75.1 FPS at 4K, a further 44.3% reduction from 1440p. This pattern is consistent with GPU-bound scaling, where pixel count increases directly impact rendering time.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is even more pronounced. The system produces 100.8 FPS at 1080p, 64.7 FPS at 1440p, and 33.3 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 35.8%, and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 48.5%. The increasing percentage losses at higher resolutions confirm that the GPU is the limiting component, as the CPU's workload does not scale with resolution in the same way.

The medium and high settings follow similar trends. At Medium, 1080p yields 156.7 FPS, 1440p yields 104.3 FPS, and 4K yields 55.9 FPS. At High, the numbers are 136.6 FPS, 86.3 FPS, and 45.6 FPS, respectively. The consistent degradation across all settings suggests that the RX 9060 XT's rendering throughput, rather than memory bandwidth or CPU performance, governs the results.

The 1080p-to-4K total reduction ranges from 63.9% at Low settings to 67.0% at Ultra settings. The narrow range of these percentages indicates that the GPU's performance ceiling is the binding constraint across all presets. If the CPU were limiting at lower resolutions, the 1080p results would show less scaling disparity between settings, as the CPU would cap frame rates regardless of GPU load. Instead, the 1080p Low result of 208.3 FPS shows the GPU can push well past 200 FPS, and the CPU keeps up without bottlenecking.

The practical implication is that users targeting 4K must use Low or Medium settings to stay in a playable range, while 1440p High offers a balanced experience at 86.3 FPS. The 1080p Ultra result of 100.8 FPS demonstrates that the system can deliver high refresh rates at the native resolution for esports-style play. The combo ranks 921st out of 1,733, placing it in the upper-middle tier of all tested configurations for Minimum.