Minimum

# Minimum — Intel Core Ultra X7 368H + AMD Radeon 880M

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra X7 368H and AMD Radeon 880M produces a playable but constrained experience in Minimum, a 2014 third-person shooter. At 1080p with Low settings the pair averages 79 FPS, but the frame rate collapses to 14 FPS at 4K Ultra, revealing a system where the integrated GPU is the dominant limiting factor. The combo ranks 2866th out of 2939 tested configurations in this title, placing it in the bottom 2.5% of all tested systems, which is consistent with the Radeon 880M's 43rd percentile standing among all GPUs.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a steep and consistent performance decline as resolution increases, which is a textbook signature of GPU-bound rendering. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings drops the average frame rate from 51 FPS to 33 FPS, a reduction of 18 FPS or roughly 35%. The subsequent jump to 3840x2160 at High settings further reduces the average to 18 FPS, meaning the 4K result is less than one-quarter of the 1080p figure. This scaling pattern is far steeper than what would be expected if the CPU were the primary constraint, since resolution increases place additional pixel-fill and shading demands squarely on the GPU.

At Low settings the same resolution progression shows 79 FPS at 1080p, 51 FPS at 1440p, and 28 FPS at 4K. The relative drop from 1080p to 4K at Low is 51 FPS, a 65% reduction, while at High settings the absolute drop is 33 FPS from 51 to 18. The fact that even the lowest settings cannot sustain 30 FPS at 4K strongly indicates that the Radeon 880M's raw throughput—measured at 4.454 TFLOPS FP32—is insufficient for 4K rendering in this title regardless of the graphical preset. The GPU's 16 ROPs and 48 TMUs are likely the bottleneck at higher resolutions, as pixel throughput and texture filtering scale directly with resolution.

The scaling between Medium and High settings is also revealing. At 1440p, Medium averages 39 FPS while High averages 33 FPS, a 6 FPS gap. At 1080p the same settings gap is 10 FPS (61 vs 51). This suggests that the additional shading work in the High preset has a proportionally larger impact at lower resolutions, where the GPU is less saturated, whereas at 4K both presets are already so far past the GPU's capability that the difference compresses to just 3 FPS (21 vs 18). The data indicates that 1080p is the only resolution where this combo approaches a consistently smooth experience, and even then only at Low or Medium settings.

FAQ

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

A: The highest measured average is 79 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. No other resolution or preset combination exceeds this figure.

*Q: Can this system handle 4K resolution in Minimum?*

A: No. At 3840x2160, the best result is 28 FPS on Low settings, which falls below the 30 FPS threshold commonly considered the minimum for playable frame rates. Ultra settings at 4K produce only 14 FPS.

Q: How does the Radeon 880M compare to its nearest GPU rivals in terms of average benchmark score?

A: The Radeon 880M has an average benchmark score of 8436. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX scores 8427 (0.1% lower), the NVIDIA GeForce MX330 scores 8458 (0.3% higher), the AMD Radeon HD 8870M scores 8462 (0.3% higher), and the AMD Radeon R9 M375X scores 8325 (1.3% lower). These are all within a 1.6% band, indicating near-identical overall performance.

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

A: At 2560x1440, Low averages 51 FPS while Ultra averages 25 FPS, a difference of 26 FPS. The Ultra setting delivers exactly half the frame rate of Low at this resolution.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance in this game?

A: The data strongly indicates the GPU is the limiting component. The CPU's 16 cores and 5.00 GHz boost clock place it in the 87th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU sits in the 43rd percentile. Resolution scaling produces dramatic FPS drops consistent with GPU saturation.

*Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested systems in Minimum?*

A: This configuration ranks 2866th out of 2939 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 2.5% of all tested systems for this specific game.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra X7 368H brings substantial processing capability to this pairing, featuring 16 cores and 16 threads on a 3 nm Panther Lake architecture. Its base clock of 2.00 GHz and boost clock of 5.00 GHz, combined with 18 MB of shared L3 cache, produce strong synthetic benchmark results: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 28221 and a single-core score of 3984. The CPU's 87th percentile standing among all tested CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40518, places it well above the GPU's relative position, suggesting the processor has ample headroom for this title.

In Minimum, the CPU's role appears secondary given the frame rate patterns. If the processor were the bottleneck, resolution scaling would show minimal FPS variation, since CPU work per frame is largely independent of pixel count. Instead, the measured data shows FPS dropping by roughly half when moving from 1080p to 4K at every settings level—for example, High drops from 51 to 18 FPS, and Low drops from 79 to 28 FPS. This is classic GPU-bound behavior. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core 7 253PE (average score 40557, 0.1% higher), the Intel Core 5 223PE (40585, 0.2% higher), the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H (40431, 0.2% lower), and the Intel Xeon 6507P (40426, 0.2% lower), all of which would likely perform identically in this game given the GPU constraint.

The 16-core configuration is overkill for a 2014 title like Minimum, which was released well before mainstream CPUs reached this core count. However, the high boost clock of 5.00 GHz ensures that single-threaded game logic is handled efficiently. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 4005 and Cinebench R15 single-core score of 401 indicate strong per-core performance that should easily feed the GPU with draw calls and game state updates. The fact that the GPU becomes the limiting factor even at Low settings confirms that the CPU is not holding back performance in any measurable way.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal experience depends on the user's target resolution and tolerance for frame rate fluctuations. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 79 FPS average, which is the smoothest result in the entire dataset. However, the Medium preset at 61 FPS average (with a minimum of 52 FPS and maximum of 70 FPS) offers a substantial visual improvement over Low while still maintaining frame rates above 60 FPS. Given that the minimum recorded frame at Medium is 52 FPS, this preset provides a reasonable safety margin above the 30 FPS playability threshold, making it the recommended balance between visual quality and performance at 1080p.

The High preset at 1080p averages 51 FPS, which is playable but represents a 10 FPS sacrifice compared to Medium. Ultra at 1080p drops to 39 FPS, which is noticeably less smooth and approaches the territory where frame pacing issues become apparent in a fast-paced third-person shooter. For users who prioritize frame rate consistency, Medium at 1080p is the clear choice, as it keeps the average above 60 FPS while only sacrificing the highest-quality shadows and post-processing effects.

At 2560x1440, the situation changes considerably. The Low preset averages 51 FPS, which is adequate, but Medium drops to 39 FPS with a minimum of 33 FPS. High at 33 FPS and Ultra at 25 FPS are below the 30 FPS threshold for comfortable play. Therefore, 1440p users should stick to Low settings for a playable experience, with Medium being a compromise that may be acceptable for slower-paced sections. At 3840x2160, no preset achieves a 30 FPS average—the best is Low at 28 FPS—so 4K is not recommended for this title with this hardware. The data clearly indicates that 1080p Medium is the sweet spot, delivering 61 FPS average with the visual uplift over Low that the Medium preset provides.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 2866 out of 2939 tested configurations places it in the bottom 2.5% of all systems tested in Minimum. This is a very low standing, but it must be contextualized by the nature of the hardware. The AMD Radeon 880M is an integrated graphics processor with a 15 W TDP, designed for thin-and-light laptops rather than gaming performance. Its 43rd percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 8436, places it in the lower half of the GPU distribution. By contrast, the CPU ranks in the 87th percentile, creating a significant performance imbalance within the system.

The GPU's nearest rivals in overall benchmark scores are all older discrete mobile GPUs: the GTX 675MX from NVIDIA (8427, 0.1% lower), the MX330 (8458, 0.3% higher), the HD 8870M (8372, 0.3% higher), and the R9 M375X (8325, 1.3% lower). These comparisons show that the 880M performs at the level of a low-end discrete GPU from several generations ago, which is consistent with its 4K results in Minimum—the game simply demands more pixel throughput than this GPU can deliver at high resolutions. The rank of 2866 suggests that among the nearly 3000 tested combos, only about 73 configurations performed worse in this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates across settings are as follows: Low produces 79 FPS, Medium produces 61 FPS (with a minimum of 52 and maximum of 70), High produces 51 FPS, and Ultra produces 39 FPS. The progression shows a consistent 10 FPS drop from Low to Medium, Medium to High, and a 12 FPS drop from High to Ultra. This linear degradation suggests each preset tier adds a similar GPU workload at this resolution, and even the most demanding preset remains above 30 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low at 51 FPS, Medium at 39 FPS (minimum 33, maximum 45), High at 33 FPS, and Ultra at 25 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium is 12 FPS, Medium to High is 6 FPS, and High to Ultra is 8 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 33 FPS is just above the 30 FPS threshold, indicating that this setting is only marginally playable during demanding scenes. The 1440p results show that the GPU's fill rate limits begin to manifest, with even Low settings failing to reach 60 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low at 28 FPS, Medium at 21 FPS (minimum 18, maximum 24), High at 18 FPS, and Ultra at 14 FPS. None of these averages reach 30 FPS, and the Ultra preset produces a frame rate that would be considered a slideshow in a fast-paced shooter. The narrow spread between Low and Ultra at 4K—only 14 FPS—indicates that the GPU is completely saturated at this resolution, and settings changes have diminishing returns because the pixel throughput requirement alone overwhelms the 880M's 46.40 GPixel/s pixel rate.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon 880M is the decisive component in this system's Minimum performance. Built on the RDNA 3.5 architecture at 4 nm, this integrated GPU features 768 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 16 ROPs, with a boost clock of 2900 MHz. Its FP32 compute rating of 4.454 TFLOPS and texture rate of 139.2 GTexel/s are modest figures for 2024 hardware, and the benchmark data confirms that the GPU sits at the 43rd percentile among all GPUs. The passmark G3D score of 7615 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 535 both indicate entry-level performance.

The GPU's memory configuration is system-shared, with no dedicated VRAM, meaning bandwidth is "System Dependent" and varies with the host platform's LPDDR5X memory. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 153.6 GB/s provides the theoretical ceiling for the GPU's memory access, but this shared arrangement means the GPU competes with the CPU for memory bandwidth during gameplay. The 12 ray tracing cores are present but largely irrelevant for a 2014 title like Minimum, which predates hardware ray tracing and relies on traditional rasterization.

The resolution scaling data shows that the GPU's 16 ROPs are the most likely bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 4K, the pixel count is 8.29 million per frame, and at 14-28 FPS, the GPU is processing roughly 116 to 232 million pixels per second, which aligns with the 46.40 GPixel/s theoretical maximum only if the GPU is underutilized or memory-bandwidth limited. The fact that even Low settings at 4K cannot reach 30 FPS suggests that the shared memory bandwidth, rather than raw shading power, may be the ultimate constraint. This is consistent with the GPU's nearest rivals being older discrete parts with dedicated VRAM, such as the GTX 675MX, which still only slightly outperforms the 880M in aggregate benchmarks. In Minimum, the 880M's integrated nature and system-shared memory prove to be its greatest weakness, capping playable performance at 1080p Medium.