Overpower

Overpower, a 2023 action title, presents a demanding load profile that clearly separates CPU and GPU responsibilities. The measured FPS data for the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER combination reveals a system where the graphics card is the primary performance arbiter, particularly at higher resolutions and quality settings. The data indicates a playable but not high-refresh-rate experience, with the CPU demonstrating sufficient headroom to avoid becoming a bottleneck at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 exposes a significant frame rate drop, characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 59.6 at 1080p to 55.0 at 1440p, a modest 7.7% reduction, but then descends sharply to 42.5 at 4K, an additional 22.7% decline from the 1440p figure. This pattern indicates that the GTX 1660 SUPER’s pixel throughput is the limiting factor at 4K, whereas at 1080p, the workload is less demanding on the GPU’s fillrate and memory bandwidth. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is more punishing, showing that the card’s 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth and 85.68 GPixel/s pixel rate are strained by the 8.3 million pixels of 4K output.

Notably, the Low settings at 4K produce an average of 78.6 FPS, which is higher than the High settings at 1080p (59.6 FPS). This counterintuitive result suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor even at lower resolutions; the GPU’s architecture, with its 1408 shading units, is more sensitive to quality presets than to resolution alone. The frame rate gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is substantial, from 100.4 down to 50.9, a 49.3% difference, whereas at 4K the same settings spread is from 78.6 down to 39.1, a 50.2% difference. The consistency of this percentage drop across resolutions reinforces that the GPU’s compute and texture units are the primary determinant of performance, not the CPU’s ability to feed the pipeline.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. In this game, its role appears secondary to the GPU. The benchmark scores for this CPU, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914 and a single-core score of 3093, place it in the 88th percentile of all CPUs, indicating ample processing power for game logic and physics. However, the FPS data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would theoretically be most stressed, the system achieves 100.4 FPS, suggesting the processor is not the constraint.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the Intel Core i7-12800H and AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645, with deltaPct values of 0 and 0.2 respectively, indicating near-identical average benchmark scores. This parity suggests that the i5-14400F’s performance in Overpower would be similar to these alternatives if they were paired with the same GPU. The 20 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR4/DDR5 memory provide sufficient bandwidth for the game’s data streams, as evidenced by the fact that reducing resolution from 4K to 1080p at the same settings yields a larger FPS increase than would be expected if the CPU were stalling the GPU.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is the clear bottleneck in this configuration. With 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth, the card is positioned in the 55th percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 14286 is nearly matched by rivals such as the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (14314) and Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics (14315), with deltaPct values of -0.2, indicating they are statistically equivalent in general compute. However, in Overpower, the GTX 1660 SUPER’s Turing architecture, with 1408 shading units and a boost clock of 1785 MHz, shows its age against modern titles.

The FPS data shows that the GPU’s 5.027 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is insufficient for high-refresh-rate gaming at 1080p Ultra, where it averages 50.9 FPS. At 4K Ultra, the card drops to 39.1 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The 6 GB VRAM capacity is also a concern; at 4K High, the game likely needs to swap textures, contributing to the 42.5 FPS average. The card’s DirectX 12 (12_1) support and 157.1 GTexel/s texture rate are adequate for the game’s geometry, but the 48 ROPs limit the pixel fill rate, which is evident in the steep 4K performance drop.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the i5-14400F and GTX 1660 SUPER ranks 1494 out of 1744 tested combinations in Overpower. This places it in the bottom 14.4% of all systems, which is consistent with the GPU’s mid-range status. The rank reflects that while the CPU is in the 88th percentile, the GPU’s 55th percentile drags the overall system down. The data shows that this combo is not designed for high-end 4K gaming, but rather for 1080p medium to high settings.

Given that the GPU’s nearest rivals have average scores within 0.7% of each other, the ranking is highly sensitive to the CPU pairing. The i5-14400F’s strong single-threaded performance, as seen in its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3093, ensures that it does not hold back the GPU at lower resolutions. However, the rank of 1494 suggests that the GTX 1660 SUPER is the primary differentiator; pairing it with a faster GPU would likely move this combo significantly higher in the rankings, while a slower CPU would have minimal impact.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system shows its best performance. Low settings yield an average of 100.4 FPS, which is playable on high-refresh-rate monitors. Medium settings drop to 65.0 FPS, High to 59.6 FPS, and Ultra to 50.9 FPS. The 1080p data indicates that the game is GPU-bound even at this resolution, as the FPS scales nearly linearly with the GPU’s workload. The 100.4 FPS at Low is a strong result, but the drop to 50.9 at Ultra shows that the card’s 6 GB of VRAM and 1408 shading units are stressed by the highest quality textures and effects.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance becomes more constrained. Low settings produce 89.7 FPS, which is still respectable, but Medium drops to 52.8 FPS, High to 55.0 FPS, and Ultra to 44.0 FPS. The anomaly where Medium (52.8) is lower than High (55.0) is likely due to specific rendering features that are more expensive at medium quality, but the overall trend is clear: 1440p is a challenging resolution for this GPU, with most settings hovering around the 50 FPS mark. The 4K results are the most telling. Low settings manage 78.6 FPS, but Medium drops to 45.0 FPS, High to 42.5 FPS, and Ultra to 39.1 FPS. At 4K, the card is severely limited by its memory bandwidth and pixel rate, making the game unplayable at Ultra. The data shows that the GTX 1660 SUPER is a 1080p-class card for Overpower, with 1440p being borderline and 4K only viable at the absolute lowest settings.