Minimum

# Minimum — Intel Core Ultra 5 245 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers a robust experience in Minimum, a third-person shooter from 2014. Across the measured matrix of three resolutions and four quality presets, the combination produces average frame rates from 47 FPS at 4K Ultra up to 278 FPS at 1080p Low. The data indicates a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while the CPU's strong single-thread performance becomes increasingly relevant at lower resolutions and lighter settings. The combo ranks 650th out of 2,939 tested configurations, placing it in the top quarter of all recorded combinations for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-limited scaling curve, though the magnitude of the drop varies significantly by preset. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 278 at 1920x1080 to 179 at 2560x1440 — a 35.6% reduction — and then to 97 at 3840x2160, a further 45.8% drop from the 1440p figure. This steep decline indicates that even at Low settings, the RTX 4070's rendering workload at 4K is substantial, and the GPU becomes the primary constraint.

At High settings, the scaling is similar but slightly less steep in relative terms: 179 FPS at 1080p, 115 FPS at 1440p (a 35.8% drop), and 62 FPS at 4K (a 46.1% drop from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage declines across Low and High presets suggests that resolution scaling is largely independent of the quality preset — the pixel count increase imposes a nearly uniform cost on the GPU's shading and rasterization pipelines.

The Medium preset, which is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum frame times, shows a similar trend: 213 FPS at 1080p, 137 FPS at 1440p (a 35.7% reduction), and 74 FPS at 4K (a 46.0% reduction from 1440p). The min/max ranges at each resolution also scale proportionally — at 1080p the range is 181–245 FPS, at 1440p it narrows to 117–158 FPS, and at 4K it tightens to 63–85 FPS. This compression of the frame time spread at higher resolutions is consistent with the GPU becoming the bottleneck, as the variance in CPU-bound frame production is masked by the longer GPU render times.

Ultra settings produce the lowest absolute numbers but the most interesting scaling behavior. The 4K Ultra result of 47 FPS is barely above the 30 FPS playability threshold, and the gap between 1080p Ultra (136 FPS) and 1440p Ultra (88 FPS) is a 35.3% drop — nearly identical to the other presets. However, the 4K Ultra figure of 47 FPS represents a 46.6% reduction from 1440p Ultra, which is the largest relative drop in the entire dataset. This suggests that Ultra settings add sufficient shading complexity that the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute throughput become even more strained at 4K.

The overall pattern indicates that the limiting component at 1080p and 1440p is primarily the GPU, but the CPU's 14 cores and 5.10 GHz boost clock are sufficient to feed the RTX 4070 at these resolutions. At 4K, the GPU is overwhelmingly the constraint, as evidenced by the 47–97 FPS range depending on preset — the CPU's workload does not increase with resolution, yet the frame rates drop by roughly half, confirming that the RTX 4070's 12 GB of GDDR6X memory and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are the determining factors at 3840x2160.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of performance across the four presets at each resolution, and the optimal choice depends heavily on the target display and desired frame rate consistency. At 1080p, all four presets are playable, with Low at 278 FPS, Medium at 213 FPS, High at 179 FPS, and Ultra at 136 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra costs 43 FPS (a 24.0% reduction), while the jump from Medium to High costs 34 FPS (a 16.0% reduction). For competitive play at 1080p, the Low preset's 278 FPS is the clear choice, but for a balance of visual quality and speed, Medium at 213 FPS with a recorded minimum of 181 FPS offers the most consistent frame delivery.

At 1440p, the situation becomes more nuanced. Low delivers 179 FPS, Medium 137 FPS, High 115 FPS, and Ultra 88 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 117 FPS and maximum of 158 FPS indicate a frame time distribution that remains above the 100 FPS threshold, making it the recommended choice for 1440p gaming if the user prioritizes smoothness. High at 115 FPS is also viable, but the 22 FPS difference between Medium and High represents a 16.1% performance penalty that may not justify the visual improvement in a fast-paced third-person shooter.

At 4K, only the Low preset (97 FPS) and Medium preset (74 FPS) maintain average frame rates above 60 FPS. High drops to 62 FPS, which is borderline for a 60 Hz display, and Ultra falls to 47 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target. The Medium preset at 4K has a minimum of 63 FPS and a maximum of 85 FPS, meaning it never dips below 60 FPS in the measured data — this makes it the only preset at 4K that can guarantee a smooth experience on a 60 Hz monitor. Low at 97 FPS is the better choice for 4K displays with higher refresh rates, but the visual degradation from Low settings may be noticeable.

The data suggests that the Medium preset provides the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate consistency across all three resolutions. At 1080p, it delivers 213 FPS with a tight 181–245 FPS range; at 1440p, 137 FPS with 117–158 FPS; and at 4K, 74 FPS with 63–85 FPS. No other preset maintains this level of consistency relative to the resolution's performance ceiling. Ultra, while visually superior, incurs a 36–37% performance penalty compared to High at every resolution, which is a substantial cost for incremental visual gains in a title from this era.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD104 chip, is the dominant component in this configuration for Minimum. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus provides 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for the game's texture and geometry data at all tested resolutions. The GPU's base clock of 1920 MHz and boost clock of 2475 MHz deliver a theoretical FP32 throughput of 29.15 TFLOPS, and the 64 ROPs and 184 TMUs handle rasterization and texture filtering respectively.

The benchmark data shows that the RTX 4070's performance in Minimum is characterized by a steep drop as resolution increases, with the 4K Ultra result of 47 FPS being the weakest data point. This aligns with the GPU's passmark G3D score of 26,927 and its 81st percentile ranking among all GPUs — a strong overall performer, but one that is challenged by 4K Ultra workloads in this title. The GPU's 158.4 GPixel/s pixel rate becomes the limiting factor at 4K, where the 8.3 million pixels per frame (3840x2160) require more pixel processing than the 64 ROPs can sustain at high quality settings.

The memory subsystem plays a critical role at higher resolutions. The 12 GB VRAM capacity is never likely to be exhausted at 4K in a 2014 title, but the 504.2 GB/s bandwidth is the more relevant constraint. The transition from 1440p to 4K at each preset shows a consistent 46% performance drop, which is nearly identical to the ratio of pixel counts (8.3M vs 3.7M, a 2.25x increase). This near-linear scaling indicates that the GPU's memory bandwidth and pixel throughput are the binding constraints at 4K, rather than any CPU-side limitation.

The GPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the NVIDIA Tesla P4 (0.1% slower), AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (0.4% slower), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (1.3% faster). The RTX 4070's average benchmark score of 37,648 places it just above these competitors, and its performance in Minimum reflects this mid-range positioning — it is capable of high refresh rate gaming at 1080p and 1440p, but 4K Ultra is beyond its comfortable envelope.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 + RTX 4070 combination ranks 650th out of 2,939 tested combos for Minimum, placing it in the 77.9th percentile of all recorded configurations. This is a strong result, indicating that the pairing is well-matched for this title's requirements. The rank is particularly notable given the age of the game — many newer and more expensive combinations may not have been optimized for this 2014 release, while this pairing leverages the CPU's high single-thread performance and the GPU's robust rasterization capabilities.

The combo's rank of 650 out of 2,939 means that 2,289 other configurations performed worse, while 649 performed better. Given that the RTX 4070 is an end-of-life product and the Core Ultra 5 245 is a current-generation desktop CPU, this ranking reflects a balanced system that avoids significant bottlenecks. The CPU's percentile against all CPUs is 90th, while the GPU's percentile is 81st — the CPU is relatively stronger than the GPU in this pairing, which means the GPU is likely the limiting factor in most scenarios, as confirmed by the resolution scaling analysis.

Compared to the CPU's nearest rivals, the Core Ultra 5 245 has an average benchmark score of 48,995, which is 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G and 0.5% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 7900, but 0.6% higher than the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H and 0.8% higher than the Intel Core i5-14600K. These small deltas indicate that the CPU is competitive with its peers, and any performance differences in Minimum would be minimal at typical gaming resolutions. The combo rank of 650 suggests that the overall system performance is slightly better than the component averages would imply, likely due to the game's modest CPU requirements.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245, with 14 cores and 14 threads, operates at a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample data locality for game logic and physics calculations. The CPU's single-thread performance, as measured by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,648, is particularly relevant for Minimum, which likely relies on a single main thread for game simulation. The multi-core score of 32,924 in Cinebench R23 indicates strong overall throughput, but in gaming scenarios, the single-thread result is the more critical metric.

The CPU's role in Minimum is evident from the frame rate behavior at 1080p Low, where the system reaches 278 FPS. At this resolution and setting, the GPU is relatively underutilized, and the CPU's ability to feed the render pipeline becomes the determining factor. The 5.10 GHz boost clock ensures that the game's primary thread can complete its work quickly, while the 14 cores handle background tasks and secondary threads without contention. The benchmark data shows that the CPU's performance is not a bottleneck until the GPU is fully saturated, which occurs at 4K or at high presets at lower resolutions.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s, delivered through dual-channel DDR5, is sufficient for the game's data streaming requirements. The 17,800 million transistors on a 3 nm TSMC process node provide high energy efficiency, with a 65 W TDP that keeps thermals manageable even during sustained gaming sessions. The CPU's 90th percentile ranking among all CPUs reflects its strong absolute performance, and its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-14600K, is only 0.8% slower in average benchmark scores — indicating that the Ultra 5 245 is a competitive choice for gaming workloads.

At 1080p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 136 FPS, which is still well above the CPU's minimum frame delivery threshold. The fact that the frame rate scales nearly linearly with resolution at each preset suggests that the CPU is never the primary bottleneck in this configuration. However, the 278 FPS result at 1080p Low provides a ceiling for what the CPU can sustain — if the GPU were more powerful, the CPU might become the limiting factor at this resolution. As configured, the balance is such that the CPU has headroom, and the GPU is the performance gate.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are as follows: Low produces 278 FPS, Medium produces 213 FPS with a minimum of 181 FPS and a maximum of 245 FPS, High produces 179 FPS, and Ultra produces 136 FPS. The Medium preset at 1080p is the only configuration in the entire dataset with recorded min/max values, showing a 64 FPS spread between the lowest and highest frame rates. This spread is proportionally smaller than at higher resolutions, indicating more consistent frame delivery at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates drop to 179 FPS for Low, 137 FPS for Medium (with a minimum of 117 FPS and a maximum of 158 FPS), 115 FPS for High, and 88 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset's min/max range of 41 FPS is narrower than at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU's increased workload at 1440p smooths out the frame time variance. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 91 FPS, which is a 50.8% reduction from Low to Ultra.

At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are 97 FPS for Low, 74 FPS for Medium (with a minimum of 63 FPS and a maximum of 85 FPS), 62 FPS for High, and 47 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset at 4K maintains a minimum of 63 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold, but the maximum of 85 FPS indicates that the GPU cannot sustain frame rates much higher than that. The 4K Ultra result of 47 FPS is the only measured data point below 50 FPS, confirming that Ultra settings at 4K are not viable for smooth gameplay with this combination.

The complete dataset reveals a consistent pattern: the difference between Low and Ultra averages approximately 50% at every resolution, with 1080p showing a 142 FPS difference (278 vs 136), 1440p showing a 91 FPS difference (179 vs 88), and 4K showing a 50 FPS difference (97 vs 47). This uniform relative scaling indicates that the quality presets impose a similar proportional cost on the GPU regardless of resolution, which is characteristic of a well-optimized renderer.

FAQ

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

A: Based on the measured data, 2560x1440 with the Medium preset provides 137 FPS average with a minimum of 117 FPS, making it the highest resolution where all presets maintain frame rates above 88 FPS. At 4K, only Low (97 FPS) and Medium (74 FPS) exceed 60 FPS, so 1440p offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance headroom.

Q: Is the RTX 4070 sufficient for 4K gaming in this title?

A: The data shows that at 4K, the RTX 4070 achieves 97 FPS on Low, 74 FPS on Medium, 62 FPS on High, and 47 FPS on Ultra. Medium is the only preset that maintains a minimum above 60 FPS (63 FPS), so 4K is playable but only with reduced settings — Ultra is not recommended as it falls to 47 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in overall benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 has an average benchmark score of 48,995, which is 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49,196) and 0.5% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49,228), but 0.6% higher than the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (48,698) and 0.8% higher than the Intel Core i5-14600K (48,618).

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p with High settings?

A: The measured average is 179 FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings. This is significantly higher than the 136 FPS achieved at Ultra, making High a strong choice for 1080p displays with refresh rates up to 165 Hz.

Q: Does the GPU have enough VRAM for this game at 4K?

A: The RTX 4070 has 12 GB of GDDR6X memory with 504.2 GB/s bandwidth. The measured 4K results, ranging from 47 to 97 FPS depending on preset, indicate that memory capacity is not a limitation in this 2014 title; the GPU's compute throughput and pixel rate are the constraining factors.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to all tested configurations?

A: This combination ranks 650th out of 2,939 tested combos for Minimum, placing it in the top 22% of all recorded systems. This rank is consistent with the component performance: the CPU is at the 90th percentile and the GPU at the 81st percentile among all respective components.