Minimum

# Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Minimum across three resolutions reveals a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern, though with some notable deviations at the extremes. At 1080p, the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER delivers 329 FPS on Low settings. Moving to 1440p, that figure drops to 212 FPS, a reduction of 117 FPS or roughly 36%. At 4K, Low settings yield 114 FPS, which represents another 46% drop from the 1440p result. These proportional decreases indicate that the rendering load is scaling as expected with pixel count, and the GPU remains the primary throughput limiter even at the lowest quality preset.

When examining the High preset, the pattern shifts slightly. The 1080p result of 211 FPS falls to 136 FPS at 1440p (a 36% reduction), and then to 73 FPS at 4K (a 46% reduction from 1440p). The consistency between Low and High scaling percentages suggests that the game's rendering pipeline does not introduce a disproportionate CPU bottleneck as quality settings rise. This is further corroborated by the Medium preset, where 1080p produces 252 FPS, 1440p produces 162 FPS, and 4K produces 87 FPS — again maintaining the same approximate scaling ratios.

The Ultra preset tells a more constrained story. At 1080p, Ultra delivers 161 FPS, which is 51% lower than Low at the same resolution. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 104 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 56 FPS. The delta between 1080p and 1440p for Ultra is 35%, while the delta between 1440p and 4K is 46%. This pattern holds steady across all presets, which strongly implies that resolution scaling is purely a function of pixel throughput rather than any settings-dependent CPU interaction.

The limiting component in all cases is clearly the GPU. The 4K-to-1080p FPS ratio is remarkably consistent: Low delivers 2.89x more FPS at 1080p than at 4K, High delivers 2.89x, Medium delivers 2.90x, and Ultra delivers 2.88x. Such uniformity across quality presets is textbook GPU-bound behavior. The CPU, with its 10 cores and 10 threads, has ample headroom to feed the GPU at every resolution tested. The data indicates that players targeting 4K will see frame rates between 56 and 114 FPS depending on preset, while 1440p offers a much wider operational envelope from 104 to 212 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this CPU-GPU combo in Minimum?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 329, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is followed by 252 FPS at 1080p Medium and 212 FPS at 1440p Low.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER perform at 4K in this game?

A: At 3840x2160, the GPU delivers 114 FPS on Low settings, 87 FPS on Medium, 73 FPS on High, and 56 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset also reports a minimum FPS of 74 and a maximum of 101.

Q: Is there a significant difference between High and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: Yes. At 2560x1440, High produces 136 FPS while Ultra produces 104 FPS. This is a 32 FPS difference, or roughly 24%, which is substantial for a single preset tier increase.

Q: Which resolution offers the best balance of frame rate and visual quality based on the data?

A: Based strictly on measured results, 2560x1440 with High settings provides 136 FPS, which is comfortably above 120 FPS while maintaining higher quality than Medium or Low. The 1080p High preset reaches 211 FPS but at a lower resolution.

Q: Does the combo show any CPU limitation at 1080p?

A: The data does not indicate CPU limitation. At 1080p, the frame rates scale nearly identically across all presets, with Low at 329 FPS and Ultra at 161 FPS. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the gap between Low and Ultra would compress significantly.

Q: What is the lowest measured average FPS in the dataset?

A: The lowest average is 56 FPS, recorded at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This remains above 30 FPS but is the only configuration in the dataset that dips below 60 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using a 5 nm process at TSMC. The chip, designated AD103, contains 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die. Its memory subsystem consists of 16 GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus, providing 672.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The core operates at a base clock of 2340 MHz and a boost clock of 2610 MHz, with memory clocked at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). These specifications place the card at the 76th percentile among all GPUs in the benchmark database, with an average benchmark score of 31087.

In Minimum, the GPU's role is decisive. The measured FPS data shows a clear hierarchy where higher settings consistently reduce frame rates by roughly 20-30% per tier. At 4K Ultra, the card produces 56 FPS, which is the only sub-60 FPS result in the entire dataset. This suggests that the 16 GB frame buffer is not the limiting factor — even at 4K with Ultra settings, the card maintains playable frame rates without hitting memory capacity constraints. The 672.3 GB/s bandwidth appears sufficient for the game's needs, as the scaling from 1080p to 4K is pixel-bound rather than bandwidth-bound.

The 44.10 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 689.0 GTexel/s texture rate provide ample raw compute for a 2014 title, which was designed before modern rendering techniques became standard. The RTX 4070 Ti SUPER's Tensor cores (264) and RT cores (66) are largely underutilized in this game, as Minimum does not require ray tracing or AI-assisted upscaling to achieve high frame rates. The card's DirectX 12 Ultimate support is backward-compatible with the game's likely DirectX 11 or earlier rendering path.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the NVIDIA Quadro M5000 (0.4% lower average score), the NVIDIA GRID M60-1Q (0.4% lower), the NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell (1.4% lower), and the NVIDIA TITAN RTX (1.9% lower). These comparisons are based on synthetic benchmarks, but the in-game data shows the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER delivering frame rates that far exceed what these older or workstation-oriented cards could likely achieve in Minimum.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the dataset includes four presets. Low settings produce an average of 329 FPS. Medium settings yield 252 FPS, with a minimum of 214 and a maximum of 290. High settings deliver 211 FPS. Ultra settings produce 161 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a total reduction of 168 FPS, or 51%, across the four preset tiers.

At 2560x1440, Low settings average 212 FPS. Medium settings average 162 FPS, with a minimum of 138 and a maximum of 187. High settings average 136 FPS. Ultra settings average 104 FPS. The total reduction from Low to Ultra is 108 FPS, or 51%, which matches the percentage drop seen at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, Low settings average 114 FPS. Medium settings average 87 FPS, with a minimum of 74 and a maximum of 101. High settings average 73 FPS. Ultra settings average 56 FPS. The reduction from Low to Ultra is 58 FPS, or 51%, maintaining the same proportional relationship across all resolutions.

The Medium preset is the only one that reports minimum and maximum FPS values. At 1080p, the range spans 214 to 290 FPS, a 76 FPS spread. At 1440p, the range is 138 to 187 FPS, a 49 FPS spread. At 4K, the range is 74 to 101 FPS, a 27 FPS spread. The narrowing range at higher resolutions indicates that frame time variance decreases as the GPU becomes more fully utilized.

Comparing settings across resolutions, the 1080p High result (211 FPS) is nearly identical to the 1440p Low result (212 FPS). Similarly, the 1080p Ultra result (161 FPS) almost matches the 1440p Medium result (162 FPS). This suggests that the performance cost of moving from Low to High at a given resolution is roughly equivalent to the cost of moving from 1080p to 1440p at the same preset. The 4K Low result (114 FPS) falls between the 1440p High (136 FPS) and 1440p Ultra (104 FPS) results, indicating that resolution scaling has a slightly larger impact than quality scaling in this mid-range.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal preset depends heavily on the target display resolution and desired frame rate. For 1080p displays, all four presets deliver average frame rates above 160 FPS. The Ultra preset at 161 FPS is the only configuration that dips below 200 FPS, but it remains well above the threshold for high-refresh-rate gaming. Players with 144Hz or 165Hz monitors can safely enable Ultra at 1080p and still maintain frame rates that exceed the display's refresh rate. For those with 240Hz displays, the High preset at 211 FPS provides a closer match to the display's capability, while Medium at 252 FPS offers additional headroom.

For 1440p displays, the recommendation shifts. The Ultra preset at 104 FPS is suitable for 100Hz-class monitors but may feel constrained on 144Hz panels. The High preset at 136 FPS is the best overall choice for 144Hz displays, providing a comfortable margin above the refresh rate. The Medium preset at 162 FPS is preferable for 165Hz or higher refresh panels, while Low at 212 FPS is only necessary for 200Hz+ displays where absolute frame rate is prioritized over visual quality.

For 4K displays, the options are more limited. The Ultra preset at 56 FPS is playable but below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for smooth gameplay. The High preset at 73 FPS provides a more comfortable margin above 60 FPS and is the recommended choice for 60Hz 4K displays. The Medium preset at 87 FPS offers additional headroom for displays with variable refresh rates, while Low at 114 FPS is the only 4K configuration that approaches high-refresh-rate territory.

The data suggests that the High preset represents the best quality-to-performance ratio across all three resolutions. At 1080p High, the 211 FPS result is more than double the 4K Ultra result, while at 4K High, the 73 FPS result remains playable. The Medium preset's reported minimum FPS values — 214, 138, and 74 at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K respectively — all remain above 60 FPS, making it a safe choice for users who prioritize frame time consistency.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process at TSMC. It operates with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is limited to DDR5 on a dual-channel bus, providing 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Minimum, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU based on the resolution scaling analysis. The consistent 51% reduction in frame rates from Low to Ultra at every resolution indicates that the CPU is not becoming a bottleneck as settings increase. If the CPU were limiting performance, the frame rate gap between Low and Ultra would narrow at higher resolutions, as the GPU would be less capable of hiding CPU stalls. Instead, the identical percentage reductions across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K point to a purely GPU-bound scenario.

The CPU's benchmark results place it at the 85th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36938. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (matching score, 0% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (0.2% lower), the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (0.4% lower), and the Intel Core i9-12900T (0.5% lower). These rivals are all within 0.5% of the Core Ultra 5 225's average score, indicating that the CPU's performance level is well-established in this range.

The 10-core, 10-thread configuration is unusual in that it lacks hyperthreading, meaning each core handles exactly one thread. This is sufficient for Minimum, which is a 2014 title that likely utilizes only a few threads for game logic and rendering commands. The 3.30 GHz base clock and 4.90 GHz boost clock provide strong single-thread performance, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3655. The PassMark single-thread score of 4412 further confirms that the CPU's per-core performance is more than adequate for the game's CPU demands.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s is unlikely to be a limiting factor in Minimum, as the game's data set is small by modern standards. The 20 MB of L3 cache provides ample room for the game's working set, and the 3 nm process ensures that power delivery is not a concern even at peak boost clocks.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested CPU-GPU combinations for Minimum, this pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER ranks 300th out of 2939 tested combos. This places it in the top 10.2% of all tested configurations, which is a strong result for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The rank of 300 out of 2939 indicates that the vast majority of tested combos — 2639 of them — produce lower frame rates in this game.

The combo's ranking is influenced by both components, but the GPU likely carries more weight in this particular title. The RTX 4070 Ti SUPER's percentile rank of 76 among all GPUs is lower than the CPU's percentile rank of 85, but the game's GPU-bound nature means that the graphics card's performance is the dominant factor in determining overall frame rates. The CPU's high percentile rank ensures that it does not drag down the combo's performance, even at 1080p where CPU overhead is typically highest.

Comparing the combo's rank to the individual component rankings provides context. The GPU's average benchmark score of 31087 places it in the 76th percentile, while the CPU's average score of 36938 places it in the 85th percentile. The combo's top 10.2% rank in Minimum suggests that the game is particularly well-suited to this hardware pairing, possibly due to the game's age and the GPU's raw rasterization throughput being more than sufficient for the workload.

The rank of 300 means that 299 other combos achieve higher average FPS in Minimum. Given that the RTX 4070 Ti SUPER is an end-of-life product with a successor already released, it is likely that many of the higher-ranked combos include newer GPUs from the GeForce 50 series or competing high-end cards. However, the data shows that this combo still outperforms the overwhelming majority of tested configurations, making it a capable choice for Minimum even with the GPU's production status marked as end-of-life.