Minimum

The Intel Core Ultra X7 368H paired with the AMD Radeon 890M presents a study in asymmetry for Minimum, a 2014 Third-Person Shooter. The data shows a system where the integrated GPU is the clear limiting factor at higher resolutions, while the processor’s strength becomes apparent only when the graphical load is reduced. This combination, which ranks 3491 out of 3712 tested combos, delivers playable framerates only at 1080p, with performance collapsing as resolution scales upward.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep and consistent performance penalty as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At the Low preset, the average framerate drops from 84 FPS at 1080p to 54 FPS at 1440p, a 36% reduction, and then plummets to 29 FPS at 4K, representing a 65% loss from the 1080p baseline. This pattern is repeated across all settings, indicating that the rendering pipeline is heavily constrained by pixel throughput.

The scaling behavior is most telling at the Medium preset, where the data includes both minimum and maximum framerates. At 1080p, the average is 64 FPS with a range of 55 to 74 FPS. At 1440p, the average drops to 41 FPS with a range of 35 to 48 FPS. At 4K, the average falls to 22 FPS, with the minimum at 19 FPS and maximum at 26 FPS. The consistency of the delta between resolutions—roughly a 35% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 46% drop from 1440p to 4K at Medium—suggests that the integrated GPU’s compute units are saturated by the increasing pixel count.

The High preset shows a similar trajectory: 54 FPS at 1080p, 35 FPS at 1440p, and 19 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, starting at 41 FPS at 1080p, falling to 27 FPS at 1440p, and reaching a nearly unplayable 14 FPS at 4K. These figures indicate that the scaling is not linear but rather exponential in the penalty, with the gap between Low and Ultra widening as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low (84 FPS) and Ultra (41 FPS) is 43 FPS; at 4K, the difference shrinks to 15 FPS (29 vs 14), showing that the GPU is so overwhelmed at 4K that even reducing settings provides diminishing returns.

This behavior points to the AMD Radeon 890M as the primary bottleneck. The framerate collapse at 4K, where even Low settings cannot maintain 30 FPS, confirms that the pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth are insufficient for the workload. The CPU, with its 16 cores and 16 threads, is not the limiting factor in these scenarios; the data shows that the GPU’s rasterization capabilities are exhausted long before the processor’s potential is reached.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon 890M is an integrated graphics solution based on the RDNA 3.5 architecture, built on a 4 nm process by TSMC. It features 1024 shading units, 64 texture mapping units, and 32 raster operation pipelines, along with 16 ray tracing cores. The GPU’s base clock is 400 MHz, boosting up to 2900 MHz, which provides a theoretical FP32 performance of 5.939 TFLOPS. The memory configuration is system shared, meaning it draws from the same LPDDR5X pool as the CPU, with bandwidth described as "System Dependent."

The GPU’s benchmark results place it in the 45th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 9210. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon Vega 8 (average score 9221, 0.1% faster), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (9273, 0.7% faster), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 (9294, 0.9% faster). This positioning suggests the 890M performs comparably to a mid-range discrete GPU from a decade ago, which aligns with the observed framerates in Minimum.

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 590 and the Passmark G3D score of 8076 reflect the GPU’s modest compute capabilities. The DirectX 11 benchmark score of 73 is notably higher than the DirectX 12 score of 37, which is relevant given that Minimum was released in 2014 and likely relies on older API paths. The DirectX 9 score of 97 is the highest among the legacy APIs, suggesting the GPU retains strong compatibility with the era’s rendering techniques.

In practice, the 890M’s 32 ROPs and 64 TMUs are the key specifications for Minimum’s resolution scaling. At 1080p, the GPU can push 84 FPS at Low settings, but the 4K Ultra result of 14 FPS demonstrates that the pixel throughput is the hard ceiling. The system-shared memory, while flexible, does not provide the dedicated bandwidth that discrete GPUs offer, which likely contributes to the severe framerate penalties at higher resolutions. The GPU’s 15 W TDP suggests it operates within a tight power envelope, further limiting sustained performance under load.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra X7 368H is a 16-core, 16-thread processor based on the Panther Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 3 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.00 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz, with a 25 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 2.5 MB of L2 per core, and 18 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is LPDDR5X over a dual-channel bus, providing 153.6 GB/s of bandwidth.

The CPU’s benchmark results position it in the 87th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 40518. Its nearest rivals are the Intel Core 7 253PE (40557, 0.1% faster), the Intel Core 5 223PE (40585, 0.2% faster), the AMD Ryzen 9 7940H (40431, 0.2% slower), and the Intel Xeon 6507P (40426, 0.2% slower). This places the Ultra X7 368H in elite company, with multi-core scores like Cinebench R23 at 28221 and single-core at 3984.

In Minimum, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the framerate data. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 84 FPS, which is well within the CPU’s capability to feed the GPU. The Passmark single-thread score of 4005 and the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3984 indicate strong per-core performance, which is crucial for a game from 2014 that likely relies on fewer threads. The Passmark physics score of 2857 further suggests adequate computational throughput for the game’s physics simulation.

The 16 threads may provide headroom for background tasks or higher settings, but the data shows that the GPU becomes the bottleneck before the CPU’s limits are tested. At 1080p Ultra, the framerate drops to 41 FPS, which is a GPU constraint rather than a CPU one. The CPU’s 5.00 GHz boost clock ensures that even the most demanding single-threaded scenarios in Minimum would not cause a processor-side stall. The memory bandwidth of 153.6 GB/s is shared with the iGPU, which could be a point of contention, but the CPU’s L3 cache helps mitigate frequent memory accesses.

The CPU’s performance percentile (87th) versus the GPU’s (45th) highlights the disparity in this combo. The processor is overkill for the integrated graphics, meaning that any framerate improvements from lower resolutions are solely attributable to reducing the GPU’s workload, not the CPU’s.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra X7 368H and AMD Radeon 890M ranks 3491 out of 3712 tested combos in Minimum. This places it in the bottom 6% of all configurations, which is expected given the integrated GPU’s limitations. The rank reflects that while the CPU is high-performing, the combo is dragged down by the GPU’s inability to handle the game’s rendering demands at higher resolutions.

Comparatively, the GPU’s nearest rivals—the AMD Radeon Vega 8, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960, and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465—all have average scores within 1% of the 890M. This suggests that in Minimum, the 890M would perform similarly to those GPUs. The GTX 960, a dedicated card from 2015, would likely achieve higher framerates due to its dedicated VRAM, but the benchmark scores indicate the raw compute is similar. The combo rank of 3491 is thus a reflection of the GPU’s 45th percentile standing, not the CPU’s 87th percentile.

The data shows that this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can achieve playable framerates on Low and Medium settings. At 1440p, the framerates fall below 60 FPS on all presets, making it a marginal experience at best. At 4K, the system cannot maintain 30 FPS on any settings, rendering it unsuitable for that resolution. The rank of 3491 out of 3712 indicates that most other tested combos, even those with older CPUs, outperform this pairing due to the GPU bottleneck. This is a case where the CPU’s strength does not translate to in-game performance because the GPU is the limiting factor.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal experience for this combo is at 1920x1080 with the Low preset, which delivers an average of 84 FPS. This is the only configuration that achieves a framerate comfortably above 60 FPS, providing smooth gameplay for a third-person shooter. The Medium preset at 1080p also offers a solid experience at 64 FPS, with a minimum of 55 FPS, which is acceptable for most players.

At 1440p, the Low preset averages 54 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a fast-paced shooter. The Medium preset at 1440p drops to 41 FPS, which introduces noticeable stutter. The High preset at 1080p averages 54 FPS, same as 1440p Low, but the lower resolution should provide more consistent frame pacing. The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution, as it yields 41 FPS at 1080p, 27 FPS at 1440p, and 14 FPS at 4K, all of which are below the threshold for a responsive shooter.

For the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, the Medium preset at 1080p is the recommended choice. It provides a 64 FPS average with a 55 FPS minimum, which keeps the gameplay fluid while offering better textures and effects than Low. The High preset at 1080p is a viable alternative for those prioritizing image quality, but the 54 FPS average is borderline. At 4K, even the Low preset’s 29 FPS is insufficient, so users should avoid 4K entirely with this combo. The data clearly indicates that 1080p is the target resolution, with Medium being the sweet spot.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured framerates are as follows:

• Low: 84 FPS average
• Medium: 64 FPS average, 55 FPS minimum, 74 FPS maximum
• High: 54 FPS average
• Ultra: 41 FPS average

At 2560x1440, the measured framerates are:

• Low: 54 FPS average
• Medium: 41 FPS average, 35 FPS minimum, 48 FPS maximum
• High: 35 FPS average
• Ultra: 27 FPS average

At 3840x2160, the measured framerates are:

• Low: 29 FPS average
• Medium: 22 FPS average, 19 FPS minimum, 26 FPS maximum
• High: 19 FPS average
• Ultra: 14 FPS average

The data shows a clear hierarchy: 1080p Low is the only configuration that exceeds 80 FPS, while 4K Ultra is the only one that falls below 15 FPS. The Medium preset at each resolution provides the most complete dataset, with minimum and maximum values that illustrate the frame time variance. At 1080p Medium, the variance is 19 FPS (55 to 74), which is relatively tight. At 1440p Medium, the variance is 13 FPS (35 to 48), and at 4K Medium, it is 7 FPS (19 to 26). This shrinking variance at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU is consistently saturated, leaving little headroom for frame spikes. The 4K results, with averages of 29 FPS or lower across all settings, confirm that this combo is not viable for 4K gaming in Minimum, regardless of the graphical preset.