Minimum

# Minimum — Intel Core Ultra 7 155H + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080

This combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H mobile processor and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 graphics card delivers strong frame rates in Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter. The measured data covers four settings presets at three resolutions, providing a clear picture of how this pairing behaves under varying loads. The combo ranks 749th out of 2,939 tested combinations, placing it in the top quarter of all systems tested for this title.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a predictable GPU-bound scaling pattern, though the magnitude of the drop depends heavily on the settings preset. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 274 at 1920x1080 to 177 at 2560x1440, then to 95 at 3840x2160. That represents a 35% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a further 46% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The total drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low is 179 FPS, or roughly 65% of the starting performance.

At High settings, the same pattern holds but with lower absolute numbers. The system produces 176 FPS at 1080p, 114 FPS at 1440p, and 61 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are similar: 35% from 1080p to 1440p, then 46% from 1440p to 4K. This consistency suggests the RTX 5080 is the primary scaling factor across resolutions, with the CPU providing sufficient headroom even at 1080p.

Medium settings show a slightly different curve. At 1080p Medium, the average is 210 FPS, dropping to 135 FPS at 1440p and 73 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 36%, while the 1440p-to-4K drop is 46%. Ultra settings produce the lowest frame rates across the board: 134 FPS at 1080p, 87 FPS at 1440p, and 47 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p reduction is 35%, and the 1440p-to-4K reduction is 46%.

The uniform percentage drops across all four presets indicate that resolution scaling is almost entirely GPU-driven. The Core Ultra 7 155H, with its 16 cores and 22 threads, does not appear to bottleneck the RTX 5080 even at 1080p, where CPU overhead typically becomes more pronounced. The 274 FPS figure at 1080p Low suggests the CPU can feed the GPU well beyond the 240Hz range that most displays support. The limiting component in this system is clearly the graphics card, as evidenced by the consistent 46% performance penalty when moving from 1440p to 4K across every settings preset.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 749 out of 2,939 tested combinations places this system in the 74th percentile of all tested hardware pairings for Minimum. This means roughly three-quarters of tested combinations perform worse, while one-quarter perform better. Given that the RTX 5080 is a flagship-tier mobile GPU and the Core Ultra 7 155H is a mid-to-high-end mobile processor, this ranking reflects a system that is well above the median but not at the absolute top of the field.

The CPU's percentile ranking among all processors is 83, meaning it outperforms 83% of all CPUs in the database based on average benchmark scores. Its average benchmark score of 32,697 places it nearly exactly between several close rivals: the Intel Core i5-14600T scores 32,707 (a 0% delta), the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 scores 32,662 (0.1% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F scores 32,750 (-0.2% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H scores 32,812 (-0.4% delta). These deltas are minuscule, indicating that the Core Ultra 7 155H sits in a very tightly packed performance cluster where no single rival holds a meaningful advantage.

The GPU's percentile ranking is 87, with an average benchmark score of 56,083. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 8060S at 55,757 (0.6% delta), the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB at 55,698 (0.7% delta), the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X at 54,828 (2.3% delta), and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE at 57,367 (-2.2% delta). The RTX 5080 sits in the middle of this group, trailing the RX 9070 GRE by 2.2% but leading the Pro W5700X by 2.3%. This positioning suggests the GPU is competitive with its immediate peers but not decisively ahead.

In the context of Minimum, the combination's 749th-place ranking makes sense given the game's age and relatively modest system requirements. A 2014 title does not typically stress modern hardware as heavily as recent releases, so the absolute performance ceiling is less about raw GPU power and more about how well the drivers and engine scale with high refresh rates. The data shows the system is capable of very high frame rates at lower resolutions, which is where the ranking likely derives its position.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using a 5 nm process at TSMC. The chip, designated GB203, contains 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die, giving it a transistor density of 120.6 million per square millimeter. The GPU has 10,752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units. It also includes 84 ray tracing cores and 336 tensor cores.

Clock speeds are substantial: a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2617 MHz. The memory operates at 1875 MHz with 30 Gbps effective speed. The 16 GB of GDDR7 memory runs across a 256-bit bus, providing 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is more than sufficient for Minimum, a game from 2014 that would not have been designed with such high-bandwidth memory in mind. The pixel rate is 293.1 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 879.3 GTexel/s. FP32 performance is 56.28 TFLOPS, with FP16 also at 56.28 TFLOPS due to a 1:1 ratio.

The GPU's benchmark results show strong raw compute capability. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 8,637. Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan scores are 235,901 and 255,450, respectively. Passmark G3D score is 36,565, with a GPU compute score of 21,789. These numbers place the RTX 5080 in the 87th percentile of all GPUs, confirming its high-end positioning.

For Minimum specifically, the GPU's role is evident in the resolution scaling data. The consistent frame rate drops across resolutions indicate that the RTX 5080 is the bottleneck, but it is a very capable bottleneck that delivers playable frame rates even at 4K Ultra (47 FPS). The 16 GB VRAM is unlikely to be a limiting factor in this title, as the game's assets from 2014 would fit comfortably within even a fraction of that capacity. The GDDR7 memory bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s provides ample headroom for texture streaming and draw calls at high resolutions.

FAQ

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

A: At 2560x1440 with High settings, the system averages 114 FPS, which is above the 90 FPS threshold most players consider smooth. At 1920x1080, frame rates exceed 170 FPS across all settings, peaking at 274 FPS on Low. The 4K resolution is playable but drops below 60 FPS at Ultra settings (47 FPS average).

Q: How does the RTX 5080 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The RTX 5080 has an average benchmark score of 56,083, which is 0.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon 8060S and 0.7% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB. It trails the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE by 2.2% but leads the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X by 2.3%.

Q: Is the Core Ultra 7 155H a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests no. At 1080p Low, the system produces 274 FPS, which is an extremely high frame rate that would require substantial CPU throughput. The processor's 16 cores, 22 threads, and boost clock of 4.80 GHz appear sufficient to keep the GPU fed at this resolution.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Medium and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium settings produce an average of 135 FPS, while Ultra produces 87 FPS. That is a difference of 48 FPS, or a 36% reduction in performance when moving from Medium to Ultra.

*Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems for Minimum?*

A: It ranks 749th out of 2,939 tested combinations, placing it in the top 25% of all tested systems. The CPU is in the 83rd percentile of all processors, and the GPU is in the 87th percentile of all GPUs.

Q: What are the minimum and maximum FPS values recorded at 1080p Medium?

A: At 1920x1080 Medium, the minimum FPS is 178 and the maximum is 241, with an average of 210 FPS. This indicates good frame time consistency, as the range between min and max is 63 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates cover four settings presets at three resolutions, with 12 total data points. At 1920x1080, the system achieves its highest performance. Low settings produce an average of 274 FPS. Medium settings average 210 FPS, with a minimum of 178 and maximum of 241. High settings average 176 FPS. Ultra settings produce 134 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 140 FPS, showing the significant impact of settings on this resolution.

At 2560x1440, performance drops noticeably but remains strong. Low settings average 177 FPS. Medium settings average 135 FPS, with a minimum of 115 and maximum of 156. High settings produce 114 FPS. Ultra settings average 87 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 90 FPS, a smaller absolute range than at 1080p but proportionally similar.

At 3840x2160, frame rates fall into more moderate territory. Low settings average 95 FPS. Medium settings average 73 FPS, with a minimum of 62 and maximum of 84. High settings produce 61 FPS. Ultra settings average 47 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is 48 FPS. The minimum recorded frame rate across all tests is 47 FPS at 4K Ultra, and the maximum is 274 FPS at 1080p Low.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 155H is a mobile processor from the Core Ultra Series 1, built on the Meteor Lake architecture using a 7 nm process at Intel. It has 16 cores and 22 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.80 GHz. The thermal design power is 28 W, which is modest for a processor with this core count. The cache hierarchy includes 112 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache.

Memory support includes DDR5 with dual-channel configuration, providing 89.6 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The processor uses the Intel BGA 2049 socket and supports PCIe Gen 5 with 8 lanes from the CPU. Integrated graphics are provided by the Arc Xe-LPG 128EU. The processor was released in December 2023 with a launch MSRP of $503.

Benchmark results for the CPU show strong multi-threaded performance. Cinebench R15 multicore scores 2,450, while single-core scores 255. Cinebench R20 multicore reaches 8,754, and single-core reaches 1,235. Cinebench R23 multicore scores 15,028, with single-core at 1,743. Passmark results include a multithread score of 24,873 and a single-thread score of 3,468. The passmark physics score is 1,727, and floating point math scores 63,703. Integer math reaches 86,870.

The CPU's average benchmark score is 32,697, placing it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are tightly clustered: the Intel Core i5-14600T scores 32,707 (0% delta), the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 scores 32,662 (0.1% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F scores 32,750 (-0.2% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H scores 32,812 (-0.4% delta).

In Minimum, the CPU's role is less demanding than the GPU's, given the game's age. The high frame rates at 1080p, particularly the 274 FPS at Low settings, indicate that the processor can handle the game's single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads without becoming a limiting factor. The 22 threads provide ample parallelism for any background tasks or game engine threads that require additional CPU resources.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the optimal settings preset depends on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1920x1080, all presets exceed 130 FPS, making even Ultra settings viable for high-refresh-rate displays. The Medium preset at 210 FPS offers a good balance between visual quality and performance, with a minimum of 178 FPS ensuring smooth gameplay even during demanding scenes. For players prioritizing maximum frame rates, Low at 274 FPS is the clear choice.

At 2560x1440, the High preset at 114 FPS is the recommended starting point, as it maintains a comfortable margin above 90 FPS while delivering improved visual fidelity over Medium. The Medium preset at 135 FPS provides additional headroom for players with 144Hz displays, and the minimum of 115 FPS ensures consistent performance. Ultra at 87 FPS is playable but may not suit players who prefer a strict 90 FPS or higher baseline.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates become more constrained. Low settings at 95 FPS provide the smoothest experience, while Medium at 73 FPS remains playable with a minimum of 62 FPS. High at 61 FPS is borderline, and Ultra at 47 FPS dips below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for comfortable gameplay. For 4K, the data suggests Medium is the highest preset that maintains a consistent experience, with Low being the safer choice for those who prioritize smoothness over visual detail.

Overall, the Medium preset offers the best balance across all three resolutions, providing 210 FPS at 1080p, 135 FPS at 1440p, and 73 FPS at 4K. The consistency of the minimum frame rates at Medium (178, 115, and 62 FPS respectively) indicates stable performance without significant frame time spikes. Players with high-refresh-rate displays at 1080p or 1440p should consider the High preset, which delivers 176 and 114 FPS respectively, while 4K players should stick with Medium or Low depending on their tolerance for frame rate fluctuations.