Overpower

The Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination delivers a highly playable experience across all tested resolutions in Overpower, though the performance scaling reveals a clear division of labor between the two components. At 1080p, the system achieves an average of 161 FPS on Low settings, which drops to 86.6 FPS on Ultra. Moving to 1440p, the average on Low is 155.3 FPS, while Ultra produces 73 FPS. At 4K, the spread narrows considerably: Low averages 131 FPS, Medium 83.3 FPS, High 75.9 FPS, and Ultra 61.7 FPS. This scaling pattern—where the gap between Low and Ultra shrinks from roughly 74 FPS at 1080p to about 69 FPS at 4K—indicates that the RTX 3070 remains the dominant performance driver even at higher resolutions, but the CPU begins to exert more influence as pixel count rises.

Resolution Scaling

The data shows a predictable yet informative degradation in frame rates as resolution increases. At 1080p, the transition from Low (161 FPS) to Ultra (86.6 FPS) represents a 46% reduction in average FPS, demonstrating that the GPU is heavily utilized even at the lowest settings. When moving to 1440p, the Low setting yields 155.3 FPS, only a 3.5% drop from 1080p, while Ultra falls to 73 FPS, a 15.7% decline. This relatively modest scaling between 1080p and 1440p suggests that the RTX 3070 has sufficient headroom to handle the additional pixel workload, with the i5-9400's six cores and six threads providing consistent feeding.

At 4K, the pattern shifts. The Low preset averages 131 FPS, which is 18.6% lower than the 1080p Low result, while Ultra averages 61.7 FPS, a 28.7% reduction from the 1080p Ultra figure. The larger percentage drop at Ultra settings indicates that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor more aggressively, as the higher preset increases both shading and memory pressure. Notably, the difference between 1440p Ultra (73 FPS) and 4K Ultra (61.7 FPS) is 15.5%, a smaller gap than between 1080p Ultra and 1440p Ultra, suggesting diminishing returns from resolution scaling once the GPU is saturated. The combination ranks 819 out of 1744 tested combos in this game, placing it in the middle of the field.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA104 chip, featuring 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output units. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory operates across a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The base clock is 1500 MHz with a boost clock of 1725 MHz, and the memory runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). These specifications translate into a pixel rate of 165.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 317.4 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 20.31 TFLOPS. The GPU's benchmark results show a Passmark G3D score of 22214 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3162, with an average benchmark score of 28238 placing it at the 72nd percentile among all GPUs.

In Overpower, the GPU's role is most apparent in the scaling between presets. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 161 FPS, but this drops to 110.1 FPS on Medium and 100.6 FPS on High, showing that each preset tier adds significant shading and texture work. The 4K results reinforce this: Low averages 131 FPS, Medium 83.3 FPS, High 75.9 FPS, and Ultra 61.7 FPS. The RTX 3070's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT with an average score of 27985 (0.9% behind) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti with 27956 (1% behind), while the AMD FirePro S7150 leads by 0.6% with 28409. This indicates the RTX 3070 is competitive with these older or lower-tier parts, but its 8 GB VRAM and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the game's demands at all tested settings.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across resolutions. At 1080p, Medium averages 110.1 FPS, which is 27.3% higher than High (100.6 FPS) and only 31.6% lower than Low (161 FPS). The jump from Low to Medium costs 50.9 FPS at 1080p, but the visual fidelity improvement is substantial, and the system still maintains over 100 FPS. At 1440p, Medium delivers 94.8 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play and only 6.5 FPS behind High (88.3 FPS) in the other direction. The 4K Medium result of 83.3 FPS is particularly strong, as it sits comfortably above the 60 FPS target and is only 7.4 FPS below the 4K High average of 75.9 FPS.

For users prioritizing maximum frame rates, the Low preset at 1080p (161 FPS) or 1440p (155.3 FPS) is the clear choice, but the visual compromise is significant. The Ultra preset, while delivering 86.6 FPS at 1080p and 73 FPS at 1440p, drops to 61.7 FPS at 4K, which is still playable but shows the GPU working at its limit. The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot for most users, as it maintains above 80 FPS even at 4K while providing a meaningful upgrade over Low. High settings offer only marginal gains over Medium—5.9 FPS at 1080p, 6.5 FPS at 1440p, and 7.4 FPS at 4K—making it a less efficient choice unless visual quality is paramount.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The system achieves an average of 86.6 FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, according to the measured data.

Q: How does the RTX 3070 compare to its nearest rival in benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 3070 has an average benchmark score of 28238, which is 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (27985) and 1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (27956), but 0.6% behind the AMD FirePro S7150 (28409).

Q: Which resolution delivers the highest frame rate on Low settings?

A: The highest Low-setting average is 161 FPS at 1920x1080, followed by 155.3 FPS at 2560x1440 and 131 FPS at 3840x2160.

Q: Does the i5-9400 bottleneck the RTX 3070 in this game?

A: The data does not show a bottleneck; the CPU's six cores and six threads with a boost clock of 4.10 GHz deliver a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 7969 and a single-core score of 1125, which is sufficient to keep the GPU fed, as evidenced by the 4K Low result of 131 FPS.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1440p Medium and 4K Medium?

A: The 1440p Medium average is 94.8 FPS, while the 4K Medium average is 83.3 FPS, representing a difference of 11.5 FPS or about 12.1% lower at the higher resolution.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination ranks 819 out of 1744 tested combos in Overpower, placing it in the 47th percentile of all tested systems.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a Coffee Lake Refresh processor with six cores and six threads, running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 256 KB of L2 per core, and 9 MB of shared L3, with a dual-channel DDR4 memory interface providing 42.7 GB/s of bandwidth. The CPU's benchmark results show a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 7969 and a single-core score of 1125, with an average benchmark score of 2305 placing it at the 50th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals in aggregate score include the Intel Core i3-10305 at 2300 (0.2% behind) and the Intel Core i3-1125G4 at 2299 (0.2% behind), while the Intel Core i7-8809G leads by 0.6% with 2319.

In Overpower, the CPU's role is most evident in the frame rate consistency across resolution changes. The drop from 1080p Low (161 FPS) to 1440p Low (155.3 FPS) is only 3.6%, and the further drop to 4K Low (131 FPS) is 15.7% from the 1440p result. This relatively flat scaling at Low settings indicates that the CPU is capable of maintaining high frame rates without becoming a constraint, as the RTX 3070 does the heavy lifting. However, the i5-9400's six threads do limit the absolute ceiling in CPU-bound scenarios, which is why the 1080p Low result of 161 FPS is the highest observed value, and it is likely close to the CPU's maximum output in this game. The single-core performance of 1125 in Cinebench R23 is adequate for the game's primary thread, and the six physical cores handle the multi-threaded workload without significant degradation, as reflected in the 4K Ultra result of 61.7 FPS, which is still above the 60 FPS threshold.