Minimum

# Minimum: Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX + AMD Radeon RX 7900M

The benchmark data for Minimum reveals a system that excels at high-refresh 1080p and 1440p gaming, with a clear performance ceiling at 4K Ultra settings. This Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and AMD Radeon RX 7900M pairing ranks 1224th out of 2939 tested combinations, placing it in the upper-middle tier of the database. The measured frames per second across nine different resolution and settings combinations show a component relationship where the GPU becomes the dominant bottleneck as resolution increases.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data strongly suggests that Medium settings provide the most balanced experience across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 175 FPS average, which is a significant 56% improvement over High settings (147 FPS) while maintaining a 149 FPS minimum that keeps gameplay smooth. The jump from Medium to Low at 1080p yields 229 FPS, but the visual quality trade-off may not justify the 31% performance gain, especially when the Medium preset already exceeds typical high-refresh monitor capabilities.

At 2560x1440, Medium again stands out with 113 FPS average and a 96 FPS minimum. This represents a 19% improvement over High (95 FPS) and a 57% improvement over Ultra (72 FPS). The Low preset at 1440p reaches 147 FPS, but the Medium preset's combination of 113 FPS average and 96 FPS minimum suggests it can hold near-100 FPS even in demanding scenes, making it the sweet spot for competitive play without sacrificing visual fidelity.

For 4K gaming, the choice becomes more constrained. Medium at 3840x2160 produces 61 FPS average with a 52 FPS minimum, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced third-person shooting. The alternative is dropping to Low at 79 FPS, a 29% improvement that brings the experience closer to smooth territory. High at 4K yields only 51 FPS, and Ultra drops to 39 FPS, both of which are likely to feel sluggish in action sequences. The data indicates that 4K Medium is the recommended starting point, with Low as a fallback if frame pacing becomes an issue.

The optimal approach depends on the display's refresh rate. For 1080p and 1440p panels with 144Hz or higher refresh rates, Medium settings provide the best combination of visual quality and frame rate headroom. For 4K displays, players should accept Medium as the maximum viable preset, with Low reserved for situations where the 52 FPS minimum becomes problematic.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900M is the clear performance driver in this configuration, and its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 576.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory capacity is particularly relevant for Minimum, as the game's texture-heavy environments and effects can benefit from substantial VRAM allocation at higher resolutions. The 16 GB capacity ensures that VRAM limitations are unlikely to be the primary constraint even at 4K Ultra settings.

The GPU's clock behavior shows a base frequency of 1825 MHz with a boost of 2090 MHz, and the benchmark data suggests that the boost clock is being utilized effectively across all presets. The memory operates at 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective speed, contributing to the 576.0 GB/s bandwidth figure. The RDNA 3.0 architecture with 4608 shading units and 192 ROPs delivers a pixel rate of 401.3 GPixel/s, which becomes increasingly important as resolution scales upward.

The relationship between GPU capability and measured performance is evident in the scaling patterns. At 1080p Low, the system produces 229 FPS, indicating that the GPU has substantial headroom when pixel count is low. At 4K Ultra, performance drops to 39 FPS, a reduction of 83% from the 1080p Low figure. This dramatic scaling demonstrates that the RX 7900M's compute resources are being fully exercised at higher resolutions, while the CPU has sufficient capacity to feed frames at lower pixel counts.

The GPU's 38.52 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 601.9 GTexel/s texture rate provide the raw throughput needed for Minimum's visual effects. The 72 ray tracing cores are present, though the data does not specify how heavily the game uses them. The 180 W TDP indicates this is a high-power mobile solution designed for sustained performance, which aligns with the consistent frame rates observed across the measured presets.

FAQ

Q: What is the playable frame rate target for this combination at 4K?

A: The measured data shows that Medium settings at 3840x2160 produce 61 FPS average with a 52 FPS minimum, while Low settings yield 79 FPS. These are the only 4K presets that approach or exceed 60 FPS. High (51 FPS) and Ultra (39 FPS) both fall below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings?

A: At Medium settings, the system delivers 175 FPS at 1920x1080 and 61 FPS at 3840x2160, representing a 65% reduction. At High settings, the drop is from 147 FPS to 51 FPS, a 65% decrease. At Ultra settings, performance falls from 112 FPS to 39 FPS, a 65% reduction. At Low settings, the decrease is from 229 FPS to 79 FPS, a 66% drop.

Q: Which preset provides the highest minimum frame rate at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 has a measured minimum of 96 FPS, which is the only 1440p row with a recorded minimum FPS value. This suggests Medium is the safest choice for maintaining smooth gameplay during intense action sequences.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the system achieves 229 FPS, and the CPU's 24 cores with a 5.40 GHz boost clock provide ample processing capacity. The GPU's 16 GB VRAM and high bandwidth are not fully utilized at this resolution, suggesting the GPU remains the primary bottleneck even at lower pixel counts, though both components have substantial headroom.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High in terms of frame rate cost?

A: At 1080p, Ultra produces 112 FPS versus High's 147 FPS, a 24% reduction. At 1440p, Ultra delivers 72 FPS versus High's 95 FPS, a 24% reduction. At 4K, Ultra yields 39 FPS versus High's 51 FPS, a 24% reduction. The consistent 24% cost across all resolutions indicates the preset scales uniformly with pixel count.

Q: What is the best resolution for competitive play with this hardware?

A: The 1920x1080 resolution with Medium settings offers 175 FPS average and a 149 FPS minimum, providing the best combination of high frame rates and visual quality. The Low preset at 1080p reaches 229 FPS but may compromise visibility of distant enemies.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system demonstrates its highest performance ceiling. The Low preset produces 229 FPS average, while Medium achieves 175 FPS with a minimum of 149 FPS and maximum of 201 FPS. High settings deliver 147 FPS, and Ultra rounds out the preset range at 112 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 117 FPS, representing a 51% performance range across the four presets.

The 2560x1440 results show expected scaling from the 1080p figures. Low produces 147 FPS, which matches the 1080p High result exactly, indicating that the resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly the same as moving from Low to High at 1080p. Medium delivers 113 FPS with a 96 FPS minimum and 130 FPS maximum. High reaches 95 FPS, and Ultra drops to 72 FPS. The range from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 75 FPS, a 51% spread that mirrors the 1080p pattern.

At 3840x2160, performance becomes more constrained. Low settings produce 79 FPS, Medium delivers 61 FPS with a 52 FPS minimum and 70 FPS maximum, High achieves 51 FPS, and Ultra falls to 39 FPS. The 40 FPS difference between Low and Ultra represents a 51% reduction, consistent with the other resolutions. Notably, the 4K Medium minimum of 52 FPS is the only sub-60 FPS minimum recorded in the entire dataset, highlighting the challenges of 4K gaming even on this capable hardware.

The consistency of the 51% performance range across all three resolutions suggests that the preset scaling is uniform and predictable. Each step from Low to Medium, Medium to High, and High to Ultra imposes a similar relative cost regardless of resolution. This uniformity indicates that the game's settings affect the GPU workload proportionally across pixel counts.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K provides insight into which component limits this configuration. At Medium settings, the system produces 175 FPS at 1080p, 113 FPS at 1440p, and 61 FPS at 4K. The step from 1080p to 1440p represents a 35% reduction, while the step from 1440p to 4K represents a 46% reduction. This accelerating decline indicates that the GPU is becoming progressively more saturated as pixel count increases.

The pixel count math supports this interpretation. 1440p contains 1.78 times the pixels of 1080p, yet the frame rate drops by only 35%, suggesting that the GPU has spare capacity at 1080p that absorbs some of the additional workload. Moving from 1440p to 4K increases pixel count by 2.25 times, and the 46% frame rate reduction shows that the GPU is now closer to its performance ceiling, with less headroom to absorb the increased demand.

The CPU's role in this scaling can be inferred from the consistent percentage drops across settings. At Low settings, the drop from 1080p (229 FPS) to 1440p (147 FPS) is 36%, and to 4K (79 FPS) is 65% overall. At Ultra settings, the same transitions show a 36% drop to 1440p and a 65% drop to 4K. This consistency across all preset levels suggests that the CPU is not introducing variable bottlenecks at different settings, as its workload remains relatively constant while the GPU workload changes dramatically.

The data indicates that the AMD Radeon RX 7900M is the limiting component at all resolutions, but the degree of limitation increases with pixel count. At 1080p, the GPU has enough headroom to deliver 229 FPS at Low settings, suggesting that the CPU, with its 24 cores and 5.40 GHz boost clock, can supply frames faster than the GPU can render them. At 4K, the GPU's rendering capacity becomes the primary constraint, with even Low settings producing only 79 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX provides substantial processing power with 24 cores and 24 threads, a configuration that emphasizes parallel throughput over simultaneous multithreading. The CPU's base clock of 2.70 GHz and boost of 5.40 GHz, combined with 36 MB of shared L3 cache, gives it strong single-threaded and multi-threaded capabilities. The 3 nm process node and 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die indicate a modern, efficient design.

Synthetic benchmarks show this CPU's capabilities. In Cinebench R23, it scores 35,589 multi-core and 2,204 single-core. Geekbench results show 20,795 multi-core and 2,458 single-core. The PassMark multi-thread score of 55,759 and single-thread score of 4,713 place it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 67,469. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon w5-3525 (0.3% faster), AMD EPYC 4484PX (0.5% faster), and AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5955WX (0.6% faster), while the Intel Xeon 6515P is 0.7% slower.

In Minimum, the CPU's role appears to be supportive rather than limiting. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 229 FPS, and the CPU's single-thread performance of 4,713 in PassMark and 2,204 in Cinebench R23 suggests it can handle the game's physics and game logic at high frame rates. The 24 cores provide ample multi-threaded capacity for background tasks and any game threads, while the 5.40 GHz boost clock ensures responsive single-threaded performance.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s via dual-channel DDR5 support could theoretically become a constraint at very high frame rates, but the measured data does not indicate this. The consistent 51% performance range across resolutions and the uniform scaling patterns suggest that the CPU is not introducing bottlenecks that vary with settings or resolution. The 94th percentile ranking relative to all CPUs indicates this processor is well above average, and the data shows it complements the RX 7900M effectively.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and AMD Radeon RX 7900M ranks 1224th out of 2939 tested combinations in Minimum, placing it in the 58th percentile of all tested systems. This ranking reflects the balance between the CPU's 94th percentile standing and the GPU's 94th percentile standing among their respective components.

The GPU's nearest rivals provide context for its performance. The AMD Radeon Pro VII is 0.4% slower, while the NVIDIA Quadro RTX 6000 is 4.3% faster. The AMD Radeon Instinct MI60 is 5.4% slower, and the NVIDIA RTX A4500 is 6.3% slower. These comparisons suggest the RX 7900M sits in a competitive position among high-end GPUs, though the Quadro RTX 6000's 4.3% advantage indicates there are faster options available.

The CPU's nearest rivals show a tight cluster, with the top three rivals all within 0.6% of the Ultra 9 275HX's average benchmark score. This clustering suggests that the CPU's performance is well-established and that minor differences between these processors are unlikely to produce meaningful gameplay differences in Minimum. The 0.7% advantage over the Intel Xeon 6515P is similarly negligible.

The 1224th rank out of 2939 combos means that approximately 41.6% of tested systems perform better in this game. Given that both components rank in the 94th percentile individually, the combined ranking suggests that Minimum may be more demanding on the GPU than on the CPU, allowing systems with slightly slower CPUs but faster GPUs to outperform this configuration. The measured FPS data supports this interpretation, showing that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, while the CPU's substantial headroom at 1080p indicates it would not limit even faster GPUs. Players considering this combination should prioritize the GPU for Minimum performance, as the CPU provides ample processing power that is unlikely to become a limiting factor in this title.