Minimum

# Minimum: Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT — Benchmark Analysis

The pairing of Intel's 24-core Core Ultra 9 290K Plus with AMD's Radeon RX 6600 XT produces a fascinating split personality in Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter that remains surprisingly demanding at higher settings. At 1080p the system delivers buttery frame rates that approach 200 FPS on low settings, yet at 4K Ultra it collapses to just 29 FPS average. This 6.9x swing across the resolution and settings matrix tells a clear story about which component governs performance at each configuration. The data shows a GPU-bound scenario at high resolutions and a CPU-bound one at lower resolutions, with the RX 6600 XT's 8 GB VRAM and RDNA 2.0 architecture acting as the primary bottleneck when pixel count climbs.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling behavior from 1080p to 4K reveals a textbook GPU-limited curve, but with some notable deviations that highlight the RX 6600 XT's memory and bandwidth constraints. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, average FPS drops from 109 to 70, a 35.8% reduction. Pushing further to 3840x2160 at High brings the average down to 38, another 45.7% drop from 1440p. The cumulative effect from 1080p to 4K at High settings is a 65.1% performance loss, which tracks closely with the pixel count increase of 4x — a sign that the GPU is doing essentially all the heavy lifting.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more dramatic. The system produces 170 FPS at 1080p, 110 FPS at 1440p, and only 59 FPS at 4K. That's a 35.3% drop moving to 1440p and another 46.4% drop moving to 4K. The 4K Low result of 59 FPS is particularly telling: even with minimal graphical load, the RX 6600 XT cannot maintain 60 FPS at 4K in this title, suggesting the 128-bit memory bus and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the 8.3 million pixels being pushed at that resolution.

Medium settings show the most consistent scaling pattern, with 130 FPS at 1080p, 84 FPS at 1440p, and 45 FPS at 4K. The min/max frametime data at Medium settings reveals growing variance at higher resolutions: the 1080p Medium run posts a 111-150 FPS range (39 FPS spread), while 1440p Medium drops to 71-97 FPS (26 FPS spread), and 4K Medium tightens to 38-52 FPS (14 FPS spread). This narrowing spread at 4K indicates the GPU is saturated and frame delivery becomes more consistent as it approaches its ceiling.

Ultra settings produce the most punishing results, with 83 FPS at 1080p, 54 FPS at 1440p, and just 29 FPS at 4K. The 1080p Ultra result of 83 FPS versus the 1080p Low result of 170 FPS shows a 51.2% performance penalty for maxing out settings, while the 4K Ultra result represents a 65.1% drop from the 4K Low figure. The resolution scaling at Ultra is close to linear with pixel count, confirming that the RX 6600 XT's compute resources are the limiting factor rather than any CPU bottleneck.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT sits at the 70th percentile of all GPUs in the benchmark database, with an average benchmark score of 24,442. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 (0.7% higher score), the Intel Arc A350M (0.8% lower score), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (0.8% higher score). Notably, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER is also within 1.1% of the RX 6600 XT's average score, though that card carries far more memory bandwidth in real-world terms.

In Minimum, the RX 6600 XT's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory proves adequate for 1080p and 1440p at all settings, but the 4K results suggest VRAM capacity or bandwidth becomes a limiting factor. The GPU's 128-bit memory bus delivers 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is modest by modern standards. The card's boost clock of 2589 MHz and game clock of 2359 MHz are relatively high, but the 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs at 165.7 GPixel/s pixel fill rate struggle when pixel count quadruples at 4K.

The GPU's RDNA 2.0 architecture includes 32 ray accelerators, though Minimum from 2014 predates ray tracing implementation. The card's DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4 API compatibility are far ahead of what this title requires. The FP32 throughput of 10.60 TFLOPS provides ample compute for a game of this era, yet the 4K Ultra result of 29 FPS indicates that memory bandwidth, not raw compute, is the constraining factor.

The RX 6600 XT's end-of-life production status and 2021 release date mean it targets a performance tier that's now several generations old. Its passmark G3D score of 16,461 places it in the mid-range, and the DirectX 12 passmark score of 61 is notably low, suggesting the card's driver optimization for modern APIs is subpar. In Minimum, which likely runs on older DirectX paths, the RX 6600 XT performs admirably at lower resolutions but hits a wall at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT ranks 2,064 out of 2,939 tested combos in Minimum, placing it in the 29.8th percentile of all configurations. That ranking is surprisingly low given the strong CPU performance, but it reflects the GPU's limitations at higher resolutions. The combo's rank is dragged down by the 4K results, where the RX 6600 XT cannot deliver playable frame rates at Ultra settings.

The ranking context becomes clearer when examining the CPU's overall standing. The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus sits at the 96th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 84,003. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (0.2% higher score), the AMD EPYC 4584PX (1.1% higher score), and the AMD EPYC 9135 (1.2% higher score). The AMD EPYC 7F72 trails by 1.3%. This places the CPU in elite territory, yet the combo's game-specific rank of 2,064 out of 2,939 shows that the GPU drags the overall experience down.

The discrepancy between CPU percentile (96th) and combo rank (29.8th percentile) highlights a fundamental imbalance. In CPU-bound scenarios at 1080p Low, the system posts 170 FPS, which is respectable but not exceptional for a top-tier CPU. The fact that the RX 6600 XT's 70th GPU percentile is far below the CPU's 96th percentile explains why the combo ranks so poorly overall — the GPU becomes the limiting factor before the CPU's full potential is realized.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its strongest performance across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 170 FPS, Medium settings average 130 FPS with a range of 111-150 FPS, High settings average 109 FPS, and Ultra settings average 83 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs 23.5% performance, while Medium to High costs 16.2%, and High to Ultra costs 23.9%.

The 2560x1440 results show a clear step down. Low settings average 110 FPS, Medium settings average 84 FPS with a range of 71-97 FPS, High settings average 70 FPS, and Ultra settings average 54 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at each settings tier is consistent: Low drops 35.3%, Medium drops 35.4%, High drops 35.8%, and Ultra drops 34.9%. This uniformity suggests the GPU is handling the extra pixels in a linear fashion without any memory or cache-related discontinuities.

At 3840x2160, the performance becomes marginal. Low settings average 59 FPS, just shy of the 60 FPS target. Medium settings average 45 FPS with a range of 38-52 FPS, High settings average 38 FPS, and Ultra settings average 29 FPS. The 4K results show the most significant settings sensitivity: moving from Low to Ultra at 4K costs 50.8% performance, compared to 51.2% at 1080p and 50.9% at 1440p. The consistency of this settings penalty across resolutions indicates that the RX 6600 XT's shading units and TMUs are the bottleneck, not the memory subsystem.

The 4K Medium min/max data of 38-52 FPS is notable for its narrow 14 FPS spread, suggesting that once the GPU is fully saturated, frame pacing becomes more stable. In contrast, the 1080p Medium range of 111-150 FPS shows a 39 FPS spread, indicating more variance at lower resolutions where CPU and GPU interplay creates less predictable frame delivery.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus brings 24 cores and 24 threads to the table, a configuration that's far beyond what Minimum from 2014 can utilize. The CPU's base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.80 GHz provide substantial single-thread performance, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7,303. The multi-core Cinebench R23 score of 51,731 further demonstrates the CPU's overwhelming capability.

In Minimum, the CPU's role is minimal at high resolutions but becomes more relevant at 1080p Low, where the 170 FPS result approaches the limits of what the game engine can produce. The CPU's 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample data locality for a game of this era. The 115.2 GB/s dual-channel DDR5 memory bandwidth is more than sufficient for the game's modest memory requirements.

The CPU's passmark scores reinforce its top-tier status: a multithread score of 60,860 and a single-thread score of 4,823 place it among the fastest processors available. The data compression score of 698,346 and floating point math score of 214,760 indicate exceptional computational throughput, though Minimum's workload is unlikely to stress these capabilities. The 17,800 million transistors on a 3 nm TSMC process with a 243 mm² die size represent modern manufacturing, yet the game's 2014 engine simply cannot leverage this hardware.

The Core Ultra 9 290K Plus's nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, scores 0.2% higher on average, a negligible difference. The AMD EPYC 4584PX and EPYC 9135 score 1.1% and 1.2% higher respectively, while the EPYC 7F72 scores 1.3% lower. These are all server-class processors, underscoring the 290K Plus's position at the top of the desktop CPU hierarchy. In Minimum, the CPU's 96th percentile ranking is effectively wasted because the RX 6600 XT cannot deliver frame rates high enough to expose any CPU bottleneck.

FAQ

*Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Minimum?*

A: The highest average FPS is 170, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The system also posts 130 FPS at 1080p Medium, 109 FPS at 1080p High, and 83 FPS at 1080p Ultra.

*Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K in Minimum?*

A: No. At 3840x2160, the best result is 59 FPS average on Low settings, which falls just short of 60 FPS. Medium settings average 45 FPS, High settings average 38 FPS, and Ultra settings average 29 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 6600 XT compare to its nearest GPU rivals in benchmark scores?

A: The RX 6600 XT has an average benchmark score of 24,442, which is 0.7% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630, 0.8% higher than the Intel Arc A350M, 0.8% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti, and 1.1% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER.

*Q: What is the combo's ranking among all tested configurations in Minimum?*

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT ranks 2,064 out of 2,939 tested combos, placing it in the lower third of all configurations tested for this game.

Q: How much performance is lost when going from 1080p to 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 109 at 1920x1080 to 70 at 2560x1440, then to 38 at 3840x2160. This represents a 35.8% loss from 1080p to 1440p and an additional 45.7% loss from 1440p to 4K, for a cumulative 65.1% reduction.

Q: What is the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus's CPU percentile ranking?

A: The CPU sits at the 96th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 84,003. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, scores 0.2% higher, while the AMD EPYC 4584PX scores 1.1% higher and the AMD EPYC 9135 scores 1.2% higher.