Minimum

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Minimum show a steep and consistent performance drop as resolution climbs from 1080p to 4K, a pattern that clearly identifies the GPU as the dominant limiting factor in this pairing. At 1080p High settings, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K and GeForce GTX 1080 Ti combination delivers 123.4 FPS average. Moving to 1440p High reduces that to 77.5 FPS, a 37.2% decline, and at 4K High the average falls to 44.7 FPS, which is 63.8% below the 1080p result. This scaling curve is characteristic of a pixel-bound workload where the graphics card's fill rate and memory bandwidth govern the outcome.

The Low preset shows the same trend with even larger absolute drops. At 1080p Low, the system produces 190 FPS, which drops to 125.1 FPS at 1440p and 65.7 FPS at 4K. The 4K Low figure is 65.4% lower than the 1080p Low figure, closely matching the percentage drop seen at High settings. This consistency across presets suggests that the rendering resolution, not the quality settings, is the primary driver of the performance penalty. The GTX 1080 Ti's 484.4 GB/s memory bandwidth and 139.2 GPixel/s pixel rate are the hardware attributes that scale directly with resolution demand, and the data reflects that constraint.

Medium settings follow the same pattern: 146.5 FPS at 1080p, 95.2 FPS at 1440p, and 49.8 FPS at 4K. The 4K Medium result is 66% lower than the 1080p Medium result. Ultra settings produce the lowest absolute numbers across all resolutions, with 96.7 FPS at 1080p, 62 FPS at 1440p, and 36.1 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra figure is 62.7% below the 1080p Ultra figure, again confirming that the resolution scaling penalty is roughly uniform regardless of preset. This uniformity indicates that the game's render paths at these settings do not fundamentally change the hardware bottleneck; they simply add or remove shading work on top of the same pixel throughput ceiling.

The interpolation between resolutions tells a clear story about component balance. At 1080p, the CPU's 20 cores and 20 threads are more than sufficient to feed the GPU, evidenced by the 190 FPS Low preset result. The 3.90 GHz base clock and 5.50 GHz boost clock on the Ultra 7 265K keep the pipeline fed even in less demanding scenes. But as resolution increases, the GPU's raw throughput limits the frame rate, and the CPU headroom becomes irrelevant. The 4K High result of 44.7 FPS is below the 60 FPS threshold commonly associated with smooth gameplay, while the 1440p High result of 77.5 FPS clears it with margin. This suggests that for this specific hardware combination, 1440p is the practical ceiling for high-refresh-rate play, while 4K is only viable at Low settings where 65.7 FPS is achievable.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of presets, and the optimal choice depends heavily on the target resolution and frame rate goal. At 1080p, every preset exceeds 96 FPS, meaning even Ultra at 96.7 FPS is playable, but the gap between Medium (146.5 FPS) and Ultra (96.7 FPS) is a 34% performance loss. The Low preset at 190 FPS offers the highest headroom for high-refresh-rate displays, but the visual quality trade-off is substantial. For a balanced experience at 1080p, Medium is the sweet spot, delivering 146.5 FPS, which is 51% higher than Ultra while still providing a significant quality improvement over Low.

At 1440p, the choice narrows. High settings produce 77.5 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS playability threshold, while Ultra drops to 62 FPS, close to that threshold but with less margin. Medium at 95.2 FPS provides the best comfort zone, offering 22.9% more performance than High and 53.5% more than Ultra. Low at 125.1 FPS is the only preset that approaches high-refresh-rate territory at 1440p, but the visual compromises are severe. For most users targeting 1440p, Medium is the recommended preset, as it maintains a smooth frame rate while preserving enough graphical fidelity for a third-person shooter where visibility matters.

At 4K, the situation is more constrained. Only Low settings achieve a playable average of 65.7 FPS. Medium drops to 49.8 FPS, High to 44.7 FPS, and Ultra to 36.1 FPS. The data shows that the GTX 1080 Ti, despite its 11 GB of GDDR5X memory and 352-bit bus, cannot sustain 60 FPS at 4K with any quality preset above Low. The 4K Low result is 31.9% higher than 4K Medium, but even that margin does not reach the 60 FPS standard. For 4K play, the recommendation is to accept Low settings for a marginally playable experience, or alternatively to drop to 1440p Medium for a much smoother result. The performance delta between 4K Low (65.7 FPS) and 1440p Medium (95.2 FPS) is 44.9%, which illustrates the significant cost of 4K rendering on this hardware.

Across all resolutions, Ultra consistently underperforms relative to its visual benefit. The largest gap is at 4K, where Ultra (36.1 FPS) is 45% slower than High (44.7 FPS) and 73% slower than Low (65.7 FPS). The pattern suggests that Ultra settings impose a disproportionate shading load on the Pascal architecture, likely due to its 3584 shading units operating at a 1481 MHz base and 1582 MHz boost clock. For any resolution, the data supports Medium or High as the best balance, with Ultra reserved for scenarios where frame rate targets are already comfortably met.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is the primary determinant of frame rates in Minimum, as demonstrated by the resolution scaling analysis. This GPU, built on the Pascal architecture with a GP102 chip at a 16 nm process node, brings 3584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 88 raster output units to the workload. The 11 GB of GDDR5X memory on a 352-bit bus provides 484.4 GB/s of bandwidth, which is the critical resource for high-resolution rendering. The measured frame rates at 4K Ultra (36.1 FPS) versus 4K Low (65.7 FPS) show an 82% performance swing purely from settings, indicating that the GPU's compute and memory subsystems are taxed heavily by the game's Ultra preset.

The GPU's clock behavior matters in this context. With a base clock of 1481 MHz and a boost clock of 1582 MHz, the GTX 1080 Ti operates within a narrow frequency window. The 11.34 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is substantial for a 2017-era card, but Minimum's rendering demands at 4K Ultra push the card to its limits. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2231 and the Passmark G3D score of 18600 place this GPU in the 61st percentile of all GPUs, which is modest by modern standards. The nearest rival data shows the GTX 1080 Ti sits within 1.1% of the NVIDIA TITAN Xp and is essentially tied with the GTX 780 in average score, indicating that its performance class is well established.

The GPU's memory capacity of 11 GB is rarely a constraint at the tested resolutions, as the game's texture and geometry demands at 4K High do not appear to exceed this capacity. However, the bandwidth of 484.4 GB/s is clearly insufficient for 4K Ultra, where the average frame rate drops to 36.1 FPS. The pixel rate of 139.2 GPixel/s is the theoretical ceiling for fill-rate-bound workloads, and the 4K resolution requires 8.3 million pixels per frame. The data suggests that the GTX 1080 Ti can handle 1440p High (77.5 FPS) comfortably but begins to struggle at 4K, where the pixel count quadruples relative to 1080p.

The GPU's API support includes DirectX 12 (12_1), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, which are all modern enough for Minimum's engine. The Passmark DirectX 11 score of 151 and DirectX 12 score of 66 indicate that the card performs better under DX11, which may explain some of the settings-related performance variations. The 250 W TDP and 600 W suggested PSU are not directly relevant to the measured frame rates, but they define the card's power envelope. The GTX 1080 Ti's end-of-life production status means that its performance characteristics are fixed, and the benchmark data reflects a mature driver stack.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest playable frame rate at 1080p?

A: The Low preset achieves 190 FPS at 1080p, which is the highest measured average. Medium reaches 146.5 FPS, High reaches 123.4 FPS, and Ultra reaches 96.7 FPS.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Minimum?

A: Only at Low settings, where the average frame rate is 65.7 FPS. Medium drops to 49.8 FPS, High to 44.7 FPS, and Ultra to 36.1 FPS, all below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the GTX 1080 Ti compare to its closest rivals?

A: The GTX 1080 Ti's average benchmark score of 19402 is within 0.1% of the AMD Radeon Pro 560X (19426) and within 0.6% of the NVIDIA Tesla K40m (19519). It is 1.1% faster than the NVIDIA TITAN Xp (19184).

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

A: Medium produces 95.2 FPS, while Ultra produces 62 FPS. The difference is 33.2 FPS, representing a 53.5% performance advantage for Medium over Ultra.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution?

A: No. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K's 20 cores and 20 threads, with a 5.50 GHz boost clock, are sufficient to feed the GPU at all tested resolutions. The frame rate drops consistently with resolution, indicating a GPU-bound scenario.

Q: How does the 4K Low result compare to the 1080p Ultra result?

A: 4K Low averages 65.7 FPS, while 1080p Ultra averages 96.7 FPS. The 1080p Ultra result is 47.2% higher, showing that resolution has a larger impact than quality settings on this hardware.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K plays a supporting role in this pairing, as the benchmark data consistently shows GPU-limited performance. The CPU's 20 cores and 20 threads, based on the Arrow Lake architecture at a 3 nm process node, provide ample parallel processing capability. The 3.90 GHz base clock and 5.50 GHz boost clock ensure that single-threaded and lightly-threaded workloads are handled with high frequency, which is important for game logic and draw call submission. The 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache reduce memory latency, and the 102.4 GB/s dual-channel DDR5 memory bandwidth is sufficient for game data streaming.

The CPU's benchmark scores reinforce its capability. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 50009 and single-core score of 7060 place this processor in the 97th percentile of all CPUs. The Passmark single-thread score of 4904 and multithread score of 58838 indicate strong performance in both domains. The nearest rival data shows the Ultra 7 265K is within 0.2% of the Core Ultra 7 265KF and the Core i9-14900KF, and 0.9% behind the Core i9-14900K. These margins are negligible, confirming that the CPU is not a limiting factor in Minimum.

The measured frame rates support this conclusion. At 1080p Low, the system produces 190 FPS, which is a high enough frame rate that any CPU bottleneck would likely manifest as frame pacing issues or stalls. The fact that the frame rate scales smoothly with resolution (190 FPS at 1080p, 125.1 FPS at 1440p, 65.7 FPS at 4K) indicates that the GPU's render output is the constraint. The CPU's 20 threads are more than adequate for Minimum's engine, which was released in 2014 and likely uses fewer than 8 threads for its core game logic.

The CPU's integrated graphics, Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU, are not used in this configuration, but their presence does not affect the discrete GPU performance. The 125 W TDP and Intel Socket 1851 platform are relevant for system design, but not for the measured FPS. The CPU's memory support for DDR5 and ECC memory provides a modern foundation, though the game's memory demands are modest. The 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die represent a highly efficient design, but the benchmark data shows that the CPU's role in this game is to stay out of the way of the GPU, which it does successfully. The 1025th rank out of 1733 combos in this game indicates that the pairing is mid-pack, which is consistent with the GPU's 61st percentile standing relative to the CPU's 97th percentile.