Overpower

The Intel Core i5-12400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 delivers a performance profile in Overpower that is clearly governed by the graphics card, but with a CPU that is more than capable of feeding it. The data shows a system that is well-balanced for high-refresh-rate 1080p and 1440p play, while 4K remains firmly in GPU-bound territory. This analysis breaks down the measured frame rates, component roles, and how this specific pairing ranks against other tested configurations.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a classic pattern of GPU dependency as resolution increases. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings, the average frame rate drops from 98.9 FPS to 88.3 FPS, a relatively modest decline of roughly 11%. However, the jump to 3840x2160 at High settings results in a more substantial reduction, landing at 77.6 FPS. This progression indicates that the RTX 3070's rendering load scales significantly with pixel count, particularly when crossing the 1440p to 4K threshold.

The scaling behavior is even more pronounced at lower settings, where the CPU has less work to do and the GPU becomes the sole bottleneck. At Low settings, the average frame rate at 1080p is 173.7 FPS. This falls to 158.1 FPS at 1440p, a decrease of about 9%. At 4K Low, the average drops to 133.7 FPS, which is a 23% reduction from the 1440p figure. This steeper decline at higher resolutions and lower settings confirms that the limiting component is the GPU, as the frame rate is heavily dependent on the resolution’s pixel throughput rather than the CPU’s ability to prepare frames.

The gap between settings also highlights this. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is substantial—from 173.7 FPS down to 82 FPS—showing that the GPU is the primary driver of performance changes. In contrast, the CPU's role is more static; it must maintain the same level of input processing and draw-call submission regardless of resolution. The data suggests that the Intel Core i5-12400 is not the limiting factor here, as the frame rate scales predictably with the GPU's workload.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for Overpower, this specific pairing holds a rank of 793 out of 1744 combos. This places it in the upper-middle tier of all tested systems, indicating that while it is not a top-tier extreme-performance rig, it sits comfortably above the median performer. The comboRankInGame field shows that this configuration outperforms more than half of the other tested pairings, which is a strong result for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end previous-generation GPU.

Relative to other components, the CPU itself ranks at the 77th percentile among all tested CPUs, while the GPU ranks at the 72nd percentile among all GPUs. This suggests a harmonious pairing, where neither component is drastically outclassing the other in terms of overall benchmark standing. The system’s overall rank of 793 out of 1744 suggests that the combination’s performance in this specific title is slightly lower than the average of its individual component percentiles, implying that Overpower may have specific optimization quirks that slightly favor other hardware configurations.

The nearest rivals for the CPU further contextualize its standing. The Intel Core i5-12400 has an average benchmark score of 19850, which is nearly identical to the Intel Core i7-9700 (19831, a 0.1% difference) and the Intel Core i7-8700 (19894, a -0.2% difference). This indicates that in raw compute, the i5-12400 trades blows with older i7 parts. The GPU, meanwhile, is closely matched with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (27985, a 0.9% difference) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (27956, a 1% difference). These close margins show that the RTX 3070’s performance is well-known and sits in a specific performance band.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is the dominant force in this configuration for Overpower. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a critical resource at higher resolutions and texture-heavy settings. The 8 GB capacity is sufficient for the High and Ultra settings tested, as the data shows playable frame rates at 4K Ultra (65.4 FPS), though the memory bandwidth becomes a more significant constraint as resolution climbs.

The GPU’s clock speeds are set at a base of 1500 MHz and a boost of 1725 MHz. These clocks, combined with the Ampere architecture’s 5888 shading units, produce a peak FP32 performance of 20.31 TFLOPS. This raw compute power is what drives the high frame rates seen at 1080p and 1440p. For instance, at 1440p High, the average of 88.3 FPS suggests that the GPU is efficiently utilizing its resources, while at 4K Ultra, the 65.4 FPS figure indicates that the GPU is nearing its limits with the most demanding settings.

The GPU’s performance relative to its nearest rivals is telling. With an average benchmark score of 28238, it sits just above the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (0.9% higher) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (1% higher). However, the RTX 3070’s feature set, including DirectX 12 Ultimate support and 46 RT cores, provides capabilities that older cards like the GTX 980 Ti lack. In Overpower, the data does not show a dramatic separation from these older cards, indicating that the game’s rendering workload is more dependent on raw shader throughput and memory bandwidth than on newer architectural features.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the system achieves an average of 173.7 FPS on Low, 106.9 FPS on Medium, 98.9 FPS on High, and 82 FPS on Ultra. The jump from Low to Medium is significant (a 38% reduction), while the difference between High and Ultra is smaller (a 17% reduction), suggesting that the Ultra preset introduces effects that are relatively less taxing than the initial quality uplift from Low to Medium.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 158.1 FPS (Low), 99.6 FPS (Medium), 88.3 FPS (High), and 77.8 FPS (Ultra). The 1440p Low figure of 158.1 FPS is still exceptionally high, making this resolution viable for competitive play if settings are turned down. The step from 1080p to 1440p at Ultra costs only about 5% performance (82 to 77.8 FPS), which is a modest penalty for a significant resolution upgrade.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops to 133.7 FPS (Low), 81.4 FPS (Medium), 77.6 FPS (High), and 65.4 FPS (Ultra). The 4K Low result of 133.7 FPS is impressive, proving that the GPU can handle 4K when the visual load is lightened. However, at Ultra settings, the 65.4 FPS average is just on the edge of high-refresh-rate gaming, and the data suggests that for a locked 60 FPS experience at 4K, players would need to use High settings, where the 77.6 FPS average provides more headroom.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its 18 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory position it as a solid mid-range option. In Overpower, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with frame data, and the measured results indicate it does so without becoming a bottleneck. The single-threaded performance, as evidenced by a 3DMark single-thread score of 910 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2249, is strong enough to handle the game’s main thread logic efficiently.

The CPU’s multi-threaded performance is also adequate. A Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15935 shows that it can handle background tasks and any game engine threads that scale beyond 6 cores. However, the data shows that the frame rate scales almost exclusively with resolution and GPU settings, which is the hallmark of a CPU that is not limiting performance. For example, at 1080p Low, the system hits 173.7 FPS, but at 1440p Low, it drops to 158.1 FPS. This 15.6 FPS difference is entirely due to the GPU’s increased load, not any change in CPU workload.

The CPU’s benchmark scores place it in a tight cluster with its rivals. Its average score of 19850 is virtually tied with the Intel Core i7-9700 (0.1% faster) and the Intel Core i7-8700 (0.2% slower). This suggests that in multi-threaded tasks, the i5-12400 performs on par with these older i7 parts, despite having fewer cores in some cases. The 12 threads provide competitive throughput, ensuring that the CPU does not hold back the RTX 3070 in Overpower’s action-heavy scenes.