Minimum

# Minimum with Intel Core Ultra 9 185H + AMD Radeon RX 7900M

The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900M delivers a robust gaming experience in Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter that remains demanding at higher settings. The measured data shows a system that handles 1080p with ease, remains playable at 1440p, and pushes into challenging territory at 4K. The combination ranks in the 1224th position out of 2939 tested combos, placing it in the upper half of all configurations, with the GPU clearly acting as the primary performance driver in most scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows reveal a clear hierarchy across the four presets: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 229 FPS, which is exceptionally high for a game from 2014. Medium drops to 175 FPS, High settles at 147 FPS, and Ultra falls to 112 FPS. All of these are comfortably above the typical 60 FPS threshold, meaning even the most demanding preset at 1080p is fully playable on this hardware.

At 2560x1440, the pattern continues but with narrower margins. Low produces 147 FPS, Medium hits 113 FPS, High reaches 95 FPS, and Ultra manages 72 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra at this resolution costs 23 FPS (from 95 to 72), which represents a 24% performance hit. For users prioritizing visual fidelity, Ultra at 1440p remains viable, but the data suggests that High offers a better balance—95 FPS is still well above the 60 FPS threshold while the visual difference between High and Ultra in a game from 2014 may be less pronounced than the FPS gap suggests.

The 4K results tell a different story. At 3840x2160, Low averages 79 FPS, Medium 61 FPS, High 51 FPS, and Ultra drops to 39 FPS. The Medium preset is the only 4K option that maintains an average above 60 FPS, and even it has a recorded minimum of 52 FPS, which could produce noticeable stutter in fast-paced combat sequences. High at 4K averages 51 FPS, which is playable but not smooth by modern standards. Ultra at 4K at 39 FPS is borderline unplayable for a third-person shooter that requires responsive aiming.

The best experience per the measured rows depends on resolution. For 1080p, High or Ultra both work well—High at 147 FPS provides headroom for demanding scenes, while Ultra at 112 FPS still clears the 60 FPS bar. For 1440p, High is the sweet spot at 95 FPS, offering a substantial improvement over Ultra's 72 FPS without sacrificing much visual quality. For 4K, Medium is the only preset that keeps the average above 60 FPS, making it the recommended choice despite the minimum dipping to 52 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core Ultra 9 185H and AMD Radeon RX 7900M achieves a rank of 1224 out of 2939 tested combos in Minimum. This places the system in approximately the 58th percentile of all configurations tested for this game, meaning it outperforms a majority of setups but is not in the top tier. The percentileVsAllGpus for the RX 7900M is 94, indicating the GPU sits in the top 6% of all graphics cards, while the CPU's percentileVsAllCpus is 85, placing it in the top 15% of processors.

The gap between the CPU and GPU percentiles suggests that the GPU is the stronger component in this pairing, but the combo rank reflects the overall system performance in this specific game. The game Minimum appears to be GPU-bound in most scenarios based on the FPS data, which means the high GPU percentile should drive the combo rank upward. However, the 1224th position out of 2939 combos indicates that other factors—potentially the mobile nature of both components or the specific demands of this game—prevent the system from reaching the top tier.

The CPU's nearest rivals provide context for its contribution. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 scores an average of 35719, which is a deltaPct of -0.1 compared to the Core Ultra 9 185H's 35670. The Intel Core 7 250H scores 35728, a deltaPct of -0.2. The AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 scores 35802, a deltaPct of -0.4, and the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X scores 35909, a deltaPct of -0.7. These are all within 1% of the Core Ultra 9 185H, indicating that the CPU is comparable to several desktop and mobile processors that might be paired with different GPUs in other tested combos.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900M is built on the Navi 31 chip with RDNA 3.0 architecture, manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. It contains 57,700 million transistors on a 529 mm² die, with a transistor density of 109.1M per mm². The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 576.0 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 2250 MHz, translating to 18 Gbps effective.

The GPU's base clock is 1825 MHz with a boost clock of 2090 MHz. The shading units number 4608, with 288 texture mapping units and 192 raster output pipelines. The ray tracing cores total 72. The pixel rate is 401.3 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 601.9 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 38.52 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 77.05 TFLOPS (2:1). The TDP is 180 W, and it uses a PCIe 4.0 x16 bus interface. The GPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

In Minimum, the GPU's memory capacity and bandwidth are likely significant factors. The 16 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for a game from 2014, even at 4K resolution with Ultra settings. The bandwidth of 576.0 GB/s ensures that texture streaming and high-resolution assets do not become bottlenecks. The boost clock of 2090 MHz, combined with the 4608 shading units, explains why the GPU can push 229 FPS at 1080p Low and still manage 147 FPS at 1440p Low.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its capabilities. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 4201. In Geekbench OpenCL, it scores 129499, and in Geekbench Vulkan, it scores 158760. The Vulkan score being higher than OpenCL suggests the GPU performs particularly well with Vulkan, which is relevant if Minimum supports that API. The GPU's percentileVsAllGpus of 94 places it in the top 6% of all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the AMD Radeon Pro VII (avgScore 97131, deltaPct 0.4), NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 (avgScore 101872, deltaPct -4.3), AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 (avgScore 92466, deltaPct 5.4), and NVIDIA RTX A4500 (avgScore 91671, deltaPct 6.3). The RX 7900M's avgBenchmarkScore of 97487 is closest to the Radeon Pro VII, trailing it by only 0.4%.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured FPS spans a wide range across settings. Low averages 229 FPS, which is the highest recorded value in the entire dataset. Medium averages 175 FPS with a minimum of 149 FPS and a maximum of 201 FPS. High averages 147 FPS, and Ultra averages 112 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a steady decline: 229 to 175 to 147 to 112. The drop from Medium to High is 28 FPS, while the drop from High to Ultra is 35 FPS, indicating that Ultra imposes a heavier penalty than the step from Medium to High.

At 2560x1440, the results scale down proportionally. Low averages 147 FPS, Medium averages 113 FPS with a minimum of 96 and a maximum of 130. High averages 95 FPS, and Ultra averages 72 FPS. The 1440p Low result of 147 FPS exactly matches the 1080p High result of 147 FPS, suggesting that the resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p has a similar performance cost to the settings increase from High to Ultra at 1080p. This pattern indicates that both resolution and settings place comparable demands on the GPU.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops significantly. Low averages 79 FPS, Medium averages 61 FPS with a minimum of 52 and a maximum of 70. High averages 51 FPS, and Ultra averages 39 FPS. The 4K Low result of 79 FPS is nearly identical to the 1440p High result of 95 FPS in terms of relative performance, showing that 4K is roughly twice as demanding as 1440p. The Ultra preset at 4K, at 39 FPS, is the only measured configuration that falls below 40 FPS, making it the least playable option in the dataset.

The Medium preset at each resolution has recorded minimum and maximum values, providing insight into frame time consistency. At 1080p, Medium ranges from 149 to 201 FPS, a spread of 52 FPS. At 1440p, Medium ranges from 96 to 130 FPS, a spread of 34 FPS. At 4K, Medium ranges from 52 to 70 FPS, a spread of 18 FPS. The decreasing spread at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU becomes more consistently loaded, with less variation in frame times as the workload increases.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best preset for 4K gaming in Minimum with this hardware?*

A: The Medium preset at 3840x2160 averages 61 FPS with a minimum of 52 FPS, making it the only 4K option that maintains an average above 60 FPS. High averages 51 FPS and Ultra averages 39 FPS, both of which fall below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in terms of average benchmark score?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H has an average benchmark score of 35670. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 scores 35719 (deltaPct -0.1), the Intel Core 7 250H scores 35728 (deltaPct -0.2), the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 scores 35802 (deltaPct -0.4), and the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X scores 35909 (deltaPct -0.7). All rivals are within 1% of the Core Ultra 9 185H.

Q: What is the FPS difference between 1080p Low and 4K Low?

A: At 1920x1080 Low, the average FPS is 229. At 3840x2160 Low, the average FPS drops to 79. This represents a 150 FPS reduction, or a 65% decrease, when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings.

*Q: Does the GPU support modern APIs relevant to Minimum?*

A: The AMD Radeon RX 7900M supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. Its Geekbench Vulkan score of 158760 is higher than its OpenCL score of 129499, indicating strong Vulkan performance.

Q: How does the combo rank compare to other tested configurations?

A: The combo ranks 1224th out of 2939 tested combos in Minimum. This places it in the upper half of all configurations, with the GPU's percentileVsAllGpus at 94 and the CPU's percentileVsAllCpus at 85.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for the Medium preset at each resolution?

A: At 1920x1080 Medium, the minimum FPS is 149. At 2560x1440 Medium, the minimum FPS is 96. At 3840x2160 Medium, the minimum FPS is 52.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H is a 16-core, 22-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 1, based on the Meteor Lake architecture on a 7 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz, with a TDP of 45 W. The cache hierarchy includes 112 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus with a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. It uses an Intel BGA 2049 socket and features integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 128 execution units.

The CPU's benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance. In Cinebench R23 multi-core, it scores 17984.5, while single-core scores 1810.5. In Cinebench R20, multi-core scores 10356 and single-core scores 1462. In Cinebench R15, multi-core scores 2801.5 and single-core scores 264.5. Geekbench results show a multi-core score of 11657 and single-core score of 1794. PassMark tests reveal strengths in integer math (98302), floating-point math (73270), and data compression (339489), while find prime numbers scores only 123.

In Minimum, the CPU's role is likely secondary to the GPU, given that the game is from 2014 and the measured FPS scales significantly with resolution and settings—a pattern typical of GPU-bound workloads. At 1080p Low, the 229 FPS average suggests the CPU can feed the GPU at high frame rates without becoming a bottleneck. The 22 threads provide ample headroom for background tasks and any game logic that requires multi-threading. The boost clock of 5.10 GHz ensures strong single-thread performance, which is important for games that rely on a primary game thread.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, while lower than the GPU's 576.0 GB/s, is sufficient for a game from 2014. The 24 MB of L3 cache helps reduce memory latency, which can be beneficial in scenarios where the CPU needs to quickly access frequently used game data. The CPU's percentileVsAllCpus of 85 indicates it outperforms 85% of all tested CPUs, meaning it is unlikely to be the limiting factor in most Minimum gameplay scenarios.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 229 at 1080p to 147 at 1440p to 79 at 4K. This represents a 36% decrease from 1080p to 1440p and a 46% decrease from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is not linear—the jump from 1440p to 4K is proportionally larger than the jump from 1080p to 1440p, reflecting the quadratic increase in pixel count.

At Medium settings, the averages are 175 FPS at 1080p, 113 FPS at 1440p, and 61 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 35% from 1080p to 1440p and 46% from 1440p to 4K. At High settings, the averages are 147 FPS at 1080p, 95 FPS at 1440p, and 51 FPS at 4K, with drops of 35% and 46% respectively. At Ultra settings, the averages are 112 FPS at 1080p, 72 FPS at 1440p, and 39 FPS at 4K, with drops of 36% and 46%.

The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings is striking. Regardless of whether the game runs at Low or Ultra, moving from 1080p to 1440p costs approximately 35% performance, and moving from 1440p to 4K costs approximately 46%. This uniformity suggests that the GPU is the limiting component across all resolutions, as a CPU bottleneck would manifest as inconsistent scaling—the FPS would plateau at lower resolutions when the CPU reaches its maximum throughput.

The fact that 1080p Low achieves 229 FPS, which is nearly four times the 4K Ultra result of 39 FPS, further confirms the GPU-bound nature of the workload. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the FPS to level off at a certain point regardless of resolution, but the data shows continuous degradation as pixel count increases. The GPU's 16 GB VRAM and 576.0 GB/s bandwidth are clearly being taxed at higher resolutions, particularly at 4K where the Ultra preset drops below 40 FPS, indicating that the GPU's compute resources, rather than its memory capacity, are the limiting factor.