Overpower

The Intel Core i7-12700KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER presents a striking imbalance in "Overpower." The data shows a 12-core, 20-thread processor with a 5.00 GHz boost clock driving a GPU that sits at the 55th percentile of all GPUs. This combination ranks 1530th out of 1744 tested combos in the game, placing it in the bottom 12% of systems. The benchmark results consistently indicate that the GTX 1660 SUPER is the limiting factor, with the CPU's substantial headroom going largely unused across all tested resolutions and settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how dramatically performance collapses as resolution increases, a classic sign of GPU-bound rendering. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 101.4 FPS, but this drops to 89.4 FPS at 2560x1440 and further to 77.1 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 24% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K at Low settings. The pattern intensifies at higher quality presets. With High settings, the system produces 55.6 FPS at 1080p, 50.1 FPS at 1440p, and 46.9 FPS at 4K — a 15.6% decline from 1080p to 4K. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 45.3 FPS at 1080p to 42.1 FPS at 1440p and finally 39.2 FPS at 4K, a 13.5% decrease.

The scaling pattern suggests that at Low settings, the GPU still has some headroom at 1080p, but the 77.1 FPS at 4K Low indicates the rendering pipeline is already saturated. At High and Ultra presets, the resolution scaling is more compressed because the GPU is heavily loaded even at 1080p. Interestingly, the gap between 1440p and 4K is smaller than the gap between 1080p and 1440p at every settings tier. For example, at Medium settings, the FPS drops from 61.2 at 1080p to 56.2 at 1440p (8.2% decline), then to 49.7 at 4K (11.6% decline from 1440p). This non-linear scaling points to memory bandwidth constraints, as the GTX 1660 SUPER's 336.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes a bottleneck when pixel throughput demands increase.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows suggest that Medium settings offer the most balanced experience, particularly for 1080p and 1440p gaming. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 61.2 FPS, which is only 5.6 FPS higher than High (55.6 FPS) but a substantial 15.9 FPS lower than Low (101.4 FPS). The jump from Medium to Ultra costs 15.9 FPS, bringing the frame rate down to 45.3 FPS. For 2560x1440, Medium produces 56.2 FPS, which remains playable, while High drops to 50.1 FPS and Ultra falls to 42.1 FPS. At 3840x2160, no preset achieves 60 FPS; the best option is Low at 77.1 FPS, followed by Medium at 49.7 FPS.

The data indicates that Low settings at 1080p (101.4 FPS) are the only configuration that comfortably exceeds 100 FPS, making it the choice for high-refresh-rate displays. However, for visual fidelity, Medium at 1440p (56.2 FPS) provides a 12.2% improvement over High at 1080p (55.6 FPS) in terms of resolution while barely sacrificing frame rate. The Ultra preset at any resolution appears wasteful, as it yields the lowest FPS in every category without a corresponding benefit in the measured data. The sweet spot for this hardware is clearly Medium at 1080p or 1440p, where the GPU's 6 GB of VRAM and 192-bit memory bus are adequately utilized.

GPU Role

The GTX 1660 SUPER's specifications directly explain the performance ceiling observed. With 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 336.0 GB/s bandwidth, the card is configured for 1080p gaming. The 1408 shading units and 88 texture mapping units operate at a boost clock of 1785 MHz, producing 5.027 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The 48 ROPs achieve a pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s, which becomes a limiting factor at 4K resolutions. The GPU's 55th percentile ranking among all GPUs places it in the mid-range tier, and its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (0.7% higher average score) and the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics (0.2% higher).

The benchmark data shows the GPU's DirectX 12 score of 50 in Passmark, which is notably lower than its DirectX 11 score of 104. This suggests the Turing architecture's DX12 implementation may not be fully optimized for "Overpower," potentially explaining the steep performance drop at higher settings. The 12 nm process node and 6,600 million transistors on a 284 mm² die indicate an older design that lacks hardware ray tracing and tensor cores, features absent from the measured results. The GPU's 125 W TDP and 300 W suggested PSU requirement are modest, but the PCIe 3.0 x16 interface may introduce bandwidth limitations when paired with the CPU's Gen 4, 20 Lanes support.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this combo?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 101.4, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 2560x1440?

A: No preset at 1440p reaches 60 FPS. The closest is Low settings at 89.4 FPS, followed by Medium at 56.2 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 14286, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (14314), 0.2% lower than the Intel Iris Xe MAX Graphics (14315), and 0.7% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT (14389).

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in "Overpower"?

A: The data strongly indicates the GPU is the limiting component. The CPU's 89th percentile ranking versus the GPU's 55th percentile, combined with the resolution scaling pattern showing FPS drops as resolution increases, confirms the GPU-bound nature of the workload.

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low settings produce 101.4 FPS while Ultra produces 45.3 FPS, a difference of 56.1 FPS or 55.3% lower performance for Ultra.

Q: How does this combo rank overall in the game's tested combinations?

A: The combo ranks 1530th out of 1744 tested combinations, placing it in the bottom 12.3% of all tested systems for "Overpower."

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF brings substantial processing power that the GTX 1660 SUPER cannot fully utilize in "Overpower." With 12 cores and 20 threads across Alder Lake architecture, the CPU scores 28979 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 4091 in single-core tests. Its average benchmark score of 35355 places it at the 89th percentile of all CPUs, with rivals like the Intel Core i5-14400 (0.1% higher) and Intel Core i9-12900HX (0.2% lower) showing nearly identical performance. The 25 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample data locality for game logic, while the 5.00 GHz boost clock ensures responsive single-threaded performance.

The Passmark multi-thread score of 34092 and single-thread score of 3984 demonstrate the CPU's capability, yet the measured FPS in "Overpower" never exceeds 101.4 FPS even at Low settings. This ceiling is not a CPU limitation; the 3dmark_2_threads score of 2065 and 3dmark_4_threads score of 4011 indicate strong low-thread-count performance that would easily drive higher frame rates if the GPU could keep up. The CPU's 125 W TDP and support for DDR4 and DDR5 memory provide flexible platform options, but the data shows the processor is effectively idle-waiting in this configuration. The 3dmark_16_threads score of 9282 versus the max_threads score of 9983 suggests the CPU scales well with additional threads, yet "Overpower" appears to be GPU-limited even at the lowest settings tested.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are 101.4 (Low), 61.2 (Medium), 55.6 (High), and 45.3 (Ultra). The progression from Low to Medium represents a 39.6% drop in performance, while Medium to High costs 9.2%, and High to Ultra costs 18.5%. At 2560x1440, the values are 89.4 (Low), 56.2 (Medium), 50.1 (High), and 42.1 (Ultra). The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 11.8% at Low, 8.2% at Medium, 9.9% at High, and 7.1% at Ultra. At 3840x2160, the values are 77.1 (Low), 49.7 (Medium), 46.9 (High), and 39.2 (Ultra). The reduction from 1440p to 4K is 13.8% at Low, 11.6% at Medium, 6.4% at High, and 6.9% at Ultra.

The Ultra settings consistently produce the lowest FPS across all resolutions, with 39.2 FPS at 4K being the absolute minimum measured. Low settings show the widest resolution scaling, dropping 24.0% from 1080p to 4K, while High settings show the narrowest scaling at 15.6% from 1080p to 4K. This suggests that quality presets load the GPU more uniformly across resolutions, whereas Low settings allow the GPU to reveal its raw throughput limits at higher pixel counts. The Medium preset offers the most consistent scaling pattern, with 61.2 FPS at 1080p, 56.2 FPS at 1440p, and 49.7 FPS at 4K, representing a step-down of roughly 8-12% per resolution tier.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 1530 out of 1744 tested combinations places it in the 12th percentile of all systems tested in "Overpower." This low ranking is directly attributable to the GPU, which sits at the 55th percentile of all GPUs, while the CPU sits at the 89th percentile of all CPUs. The disparity between these two percentiles explains why the system underperforms relative to its processor's potential. The GTX 1660 SUPER's average benchmark score of 14286 is just 0.2% below the AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 and 0.7% below the AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, indicating the GPU is competitive with integrated graphics solutions in some scenarios — a significant handicap for the i7-12700KF.

In practical terms, this combo ranks among the bottom 214 tested combinations, meaning 87.7% of tested systems deliver better performance in "Overpower." The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks — the Core i5-14400, Core i7-13800H, Core i9-12900HX, and Core i5-13600T — all have average scores within 0.3% of the i7-12700KF, yet pairing any of them with a stronger GPU would likely yield dramatically better in-game results. The data suggests that the i7-12700KF's capabilities are wasted in this configuration, as the measured FPS values are consistently GPU-bound even at 1080p Low settings. The 101.4 FPS maximum at 1080p Low represents the GPU's ceiling, not the CPU's, as evidenced by the CPU's 3dmark_max_threads score of 9983, which indicates far greater processing headroom.