Minimum

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers a commanding performance profile in Minimum, placing the combination in the 246th spot out of 3712 tested configurations. This places the pairing firmly in the top tier of systems, exhibiting a blend of high refresh rate capability and enough graphical headroom to handle demanding settings at higher resolutions. The measured data reveals a system that is rarely constrained, though the pattern of scaling between resolutions and settings provides insight into where the bottleneck lies under specific conditions.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial but not catastrophic, indicating a shift in the primary performance limiter. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces 356 FPS, which falls to 230 FPS at 1440p and further to 124 FPS at 4K. This represents a 65% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, a steep decline that suggests the CPU is being relieved of its duties as resolution increases, allowing the GPU to become the dominant constraint.

However, the scaling pattern changes dramatically when moving to higher graphical presets. At Ultra settings, the frame rate drops from 174 FPS at 1080p to 112 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 61 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra is 65%, similar to Low, but the absolute numbers tell a different story. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 182 FPS, while at 4K the same settings gap narrows to just 63 FPS. This compression of performance between settings at higher resolutions strongly indicates that the RTX 4080 is becoming the limiting component as pixel count increases.

The data suggests that at 1080p, the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 is capable of feeding the GPU enough data to reach very high frame rates, but the GPU itself becomes the wall when the resolution demands more pixel throughput. The 4K Medium result of 95 FPS with a minimum of 80 FPS shows that even at the highest resolution, the system maintains playable frame rates, but the gap between Low (124 FPS) and Ultra (61 FPS) at 4K demonstrates that the GPU's rendering workload is scaling significantly with preset quality. The RTX 4080's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth are likely being fully utilized at 4K, whereas the CPU's 14 cores and 14 threads provide ample processing power to avoid becoming a bottleneck at lower resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

Examining the measured rows, the Medium preset emerges as the most balanced choice across all resolutions, offering a significant jump in visual fidelity over Low without the steep performance penalty of Ultra. At 1440p, Medium delivers 176 FPS with a minimum of 149 FPS, which is 57% higher than the Ultra preset's 112 FPS. The frame time consistency, indicated by the 149 FPS minimum, suggests that Medium provides a smooth experience even during demanding scenes, whereas the Ultra preset's lack of reported minimums in the data makes its stability less certain.

At 4K, the Medium preset provides 95 FPS, which is a 56% improvement over Ultra's 61 FPS. This makes Medium the recommended choice for 4K gaming, as it keeps the frame rate well above the 60 FPS threshold while still offering enhanced graphical details compared to Low. The 1080p Medium result of 273 FPS with a 232 FPS minimum further reinforces this recommendation, as it offers a high refresh rate experience without the diminishing returns of the Ultra preset, which only achieves 174 FPS.

The High preset presents an interesting middle ground, but the data shows it offers less value than Medium. At 1440p, High produces 148 FPS, which is 16% lower than Medium. At 4K, High produces 79 FPS, which falls below the 80 FPS minimum observed in the Medium preset. This suggests that High may not provide a consistent frame rate at 4K, making Medium the safer choice for those prioritizing smoothness. For competitive play where maximum frame rates are desired, the Low preset at 1440p (230 FPS) or 1080p (356 FPS) is the clear winner, but for a balanced experience that maintains visual quality, Medium is the optimal setting across the board.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly correlate with the observed performance. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth, which is crucial for handling the texture and geometry data at 4K resolution. The fact that 4K Ultra drops to 61 FPS while 4K Low reaches 124 FPS indicates that the GPU's shading units (9728) and texture mapping units (304) are being taxed heavily by the higher preset's additional effects.

The clock speeds of the RTX 4080, with a base of 2205 MHz and a boost of 2505 MHz, are relatively high, and the data shows that these clocks are sufficient to drive frame rates well above 60 FPS at 4K when settings are moderated. The 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 performance provides the raw compute necessary for the game's rendering pipeline, and the 76 ray tracing cores may contribute to the performance difference between Medium and Ultra if the Ultra preset enables ray-traced effects. However, the data does not specify whether ray tracing is active, so this remains speculative.

The GPU's memory configuration is particularly relevant at 4K, where the 16 GB capacity prevents any potential VRAM overflow that could cause stuttering. The minimum frame rate of 80 FPS at 4K Medium suggests that the GPU maintains consistent memory access, avoiding the dips that can occur when VRAM is exhausted. The RTX 4080's position in the benchmark hierarchy, with a percentile of 86 against all GPUs, confirms its high-end status, and its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, shows only a 0.1% difference in average score, indicating that this GPU is operating at the top of its class.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average frame rate achievable at 1080p with this combo?

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 356 FPS, achieved with the Low preset at 1920x1080 resolution. The Medium preset at 1080p still delivers a very high 273 FPS, while the Ultra preset drops to 174 FPS.

Q: Is the system capable of smooth 4K gaming?

A: Yes, the data shows 4K Medium produces 95 FPS with a minimum of 80 FPS, which is above the standard 60 FPS target. The 4K High preset achieves 79 FPS, and even 4K Ultra maintains 61 FPS, though this is borderline for smoothness.

Q: How does the CPU's core count affect performance in this game?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 has 14 cores and 14 threads. The fact that 1080p Low reaches 356 FPS indicates the CPU is capable of high throughput, but the significant frame rate drop at 4K suggests the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the performance difference between Medium and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset delivers 176 FPS, while Ultra produces 112 FPS. This represents a 36% reduction in performance when moving from Medium to Ultra, making Medium the more efficient choice for high refresh rate displays.

Q: Does the RTX 4080's memory bandwidth play a role in the 4K results?

A: The 716.8 GB/s bandwidth is likely a factor in the 4K performance. The consistent minimum frame rate of 80 FPS at 4K Medium suggests the GPU is able to feed its memory efficiently, avoiding drops that could occur with insufficient bandwidth.

Q: How does this combo rank relative to other tested configurations?

A: The combination ranks 246th out of 3712 tested combos, placing it in the top 6.6% of all configurations tested for this game.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 246 out of 3712 tested configurations places it in the upper echelon of systems, but the data suggests that there is still headroom for improvement. The GPU's percentile of 86 against all GPUs and the CPU's percentile of 89 against all CPUs indicate that both components are well above average, yet the combination is not at the very top of the rankings. This suggests that other configurations with more powerful CPUs or GPUs may achieve higher frame rates, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU becomes more relevant.

The RTX 4080's nearest rivals show that it is closely matched with the RTX 4080 SUPER, which has a 0.1% higher average score. This indicates that the GPU is performing as expected for its class. The CPU's nearest rivals, including the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 and Intel Core i9-13900HX, show deltas of 0.1% or less, confirming that the Ultra 5 235 is a competitive mid-range processor. The top 245 combos ahead of this pairing likely feature higher-end GPUs such as the RTX 4090 or more powerful CPUs, but the measured data shows that this combo is capable of delivering excellent performance in Minimum across all resolutions.

The rank of 246 is particularly impressive given that the game was released in 2014, and the hardware is modern. The combination's ability to push 4K Medium to 95 FPS suggests that it would be even more dominant in older titles, but within the context of this benchmark, it stands as a strong performer. The data implies that for users with high refresh rate 1440p monitors or 4K displays, this combo offers a compelling balance of CPU and GPU power.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 features 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The CPU's 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 cache per core provide ample memory locality for game data. The benchmark results show that the CPU is not the limiting factor in Minimum at higher resolutions, as evidenced by the fact that 4K Low (124 FPS) is significantly lower than 1080p Low (356 FPS), indicating the GPU is the primary constraint.

However, at 1080p with Low settings, the CPU's processing power is fully utilized to feed the GPU. The 356 FPS result reflects the CPU's single-thread performance, which is reflected in its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2085. The multi-core score of 14769 in Cinebench R23 shows that the CPU can handle multi-threaded workloads, but the fact that the game's frame rate scales more with resolution than with settings suggests that the engine may not be heavily multi-threaded.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and 3 nm process node from TSMC indicate that it is power-efficient, which is beneficial for sustained gaming sessions. The architecture, Arrow Lake-S, represents Intel's latest design, and the CPU's performance in the data confirms that it is a capable gaming processor. The nearest rivals, including the AMD EPYC 4364P and EPYC 7303, show that the Ultra 5 235 is competitive with server-class processors in average score, though these are not typical gaming comparisons.

The data suggests that the CPU's role is to provide a high enough frame rate ceiling at lower resolutions to avoid bottlenecking the GPU. At 1080p, the CPU is the limiting factor, as evidenced by the 356 FPS cap at Low settings. At 1440p and above, the GPU takes over as the primary constraint, allowing the CPU to operate with headroom. This is a healthy balance for a gaming system, as it allows for maximum performance at lower resolutions while maintaining smooth frame rates at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. The Low preset achieves 356 FPS, while Medium produces 273 FPS with a minimum of 232 FPS and a maximum of 313 FPS. The High preset reaches 229 FPS, and Ultra drops to 174 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 182 FPS, indicating that the GPU's rendering load scales significantly with preset quality.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show the expected decline. Low produces 230 FPS, Medium delivers 176 FPS with a minimum of 149 FPS and a maximum of 202 FPS, High reaches 148 FPS, and Ultra achieves 112 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 118 FPS, showing that the resolution increase has compressed the performance difference between presets.

At 3840x2160, the system still delivers playable frame rates. Low produces 124 FPS, Medium delivers 95 FPS with a minimum of 80 FPS and a maximum of 109 FPS, High reaches 79 FPS, and Ultra achieves 61 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is just 63 FPS, which is the smallest of the three resolutions. This confirms that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K, as the preset choice has less impact on performance than at lower resolutions.

The Medium preset is the only setting for which minimum and maximum frame rates are reported across all three resolutions. At 1080p, the minimum is 232 FPS, at 1440p it is 149 FPS, and at 4K it is 80 FPS. These minimums are consistently above 60 FPS, indicating that the Medium preset provides a stable experience across all resolutions. The frame rate deltas between resolutions at Medium are 97 FPS from 1080p to 1440p and 81 FPS from 1440p to 4K, showing a fairly linear scaling with pixel count.