Pc Building Simulator

# Pc Building Simulator — Intel Core i5-12400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

Pc Building Simulator, a simulation title from early 2019, presents an unusual workload profile: it is far more dependent on CPU physics and logic simulation than on GPU rasterization. The pairing of an Intel Core i5-12400F with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 creates a stark imbalance that the measured FPS data exposes clearly. Across all resolutions and settings, the RTX 5090 — which sits in the 94th percentile of all GPUs — appears consistently underutilized, while the i5-12400F, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, becomes the decisive factor in frame pacing. The data reveals a system where the GPU's raw power is held back by the processor's single-thread and multi-thread limits, making this combination more interesting as a study in bottlenecking than as a performance showcase.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K in this game tells a story of a CPU-bound title. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 353.4 at 1920x1080 to 298.8 at 2560x1440, a reduction of 54.6 FPS (15.4%). Moving to 3840x2160, the average drops further to 175.1, which is a 50.5% decline from the 1080p figure. This steep drop at 4K Low suggests that even at the lowest graphical load, the GPU begins to matter more, but the absolute numbers remain extraordinarily high — 175 FPS at 4K Low is far beyond what most titles would deliver with any hardware.

The scaling pattern changes dramatically at Ultra settings. At 1080p Ultra, the system hits 253.5 FPS, dropping to 165.2 at 1440p (a 34.8% reduction) and then to 86.6 at 4K (a 65.8% reduction from 1080p). The fact that 4K Ultra produces less than one-third of 1080p Low's frame rate (86.6 vs. 353.4) indicates that resolution and settings scaling interact heavily here. However, the 1080p Ultra to 1440p Ultra gap of 88.3 FPS (34.8%) is disproportionately large compared to the 1440p to 4K gap of 78.6 FPS (47.6%), which hints at a component switching between limiting states. At lower resolutions, the CPU caps performance; at 4K, the GPU begins to take over, but the RTX 5090's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth mean that even 4K Ultra is not a true stress test for this card.

What the data implies is that the CPU is the limiting factor until approximately 1440p, after which the GPU's workload increases enough to become co-limiting. The i5-12400F's single-core score of 909 in 3dmark_single_thread and its 77th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggest that Pc Building Simulator's simulation logic, which likely relies on a few heavily-threaded processes, cannot feed the RTX 5090 fast enough at lower resolutions. The result is that resolution scaling behaves oddly: the FPS penalty from 1080p to 1440p is smaller than expected for a GPU-bound scenario, but the 1440p to 4K drop is closer to what one would predict for a GPU-heavy load.

FAQ

Q: Does the RTX 5090 provide a meaningful performance advantage in Pc Building Simulator?

A: The data shows mixed results. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 353.4 FPS, but at 1080p Ultra, it drops to 253.5 FPS — a 99.9 FPS difference. The GPU's 94th percentile ranking among all GPUs suggests it has headroom, but the CPU's 77th percentile ranking indicates that the processor likely prevents the GPU from reaching its full potential.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combination?

A: At 2560x1440 High, the system achieves 170.9 FPS, which is 87.2% of the 1080p High score of 268.5 FPS. This suggests that 1440p offers a good balance, as the FPS penalty from 1080p is relatively modest (97.6 FPS) compared to the jump to 4K, where High settings yield only 91.3 FPS — a 46.6% reduction from 1440p High.

Q: How does the i5-12400F compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i5-12400F has an average benchmark score of 19221. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-8700K, scores 19210, a delta of just 0.1%. The AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS scores 19364, which is 0.7% higher, while the AMD EPYC 7773X trails at 18979, 1.3% lower. The Intel Core i5-1335U is nearly identical at 19167, just 0.3% behind.

Q: Is the RTX 5090's performance consistent with its benchmark standing?

A: The RTX 5090 has an average benchmark score of 84306, placing it in the 94th percentile. Its nearest rival, the RTX 5090 D, scores 84241 (0.1% lower), while the RTX 5050 Mobile scores 84171 (0.2% lower). However, in Pc Building Simulator, the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (86.6) is far below what the GPU's raw compute (104.8 TFLOPS FP32) would suggest, indicating a CPU bottleneck.

Q: What settings preset delivers the highest frame rate?

A: Low settings at 1080p produce 353.4 FPS, the highest measured value. However, Medium settings at 1080p yield 307.7 FPS (a 12.9% reduction), and High settings deliver 268.5 FPS (24.0% below Low). The gap between Medium and High is 39.2 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is only 15.0 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns at the top end.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: In Pc Building Simulator, this combination ranks 47th out of 1769 tested combos, placing it in the top 2.7% of all systems. This high ranking despite the CPU bottleneck indicates that the RTX 5090's raw power still carries the system to a strong overall position.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. Its 21760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs provide substantial rasterization headroom, while 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores handle ray tracing and AI workloads. The GPU's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus delivers 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is far more than any game at 4K Ultra would require. The boost clock of 2407 MHz and base clock of 2017 MHz are moderate for a flagship, but the FP32 throughput of 104.8 TFLOPS is exceptional.

In Pc Building Simulator, the GPU's role is oddly subdued. At 1080p Low, the system hits 353.4 FPS, but the RTX 5090's Passmark G3D score of 39650 and its 94th percentile ranking indicate it should be capable of far more. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra (86.6) is only 24.5% of the 1080p Low score, which suggests that the GPU is not the primary constraint at lower resolutions. The VRAM capacity of 32 GB is irrelevant here — even 4K Ultra textures would not approach that limit — and the memory clock of 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) is not a factor. The data implies that Pc Building Simulator's rendering workload is light enough that the GPU idles, waiting for the CPU to send draw calls and simulation updates.

At 4K, the GPU's role becomes more prominent. The FPS at 4K Ultra (86.6) is 34.1% of the 1080p Ultra score (253.5), which indicates that the increase in pixel count and texture detail begins to engage the RTX 5090's shading units. Yet even at 4K Ultra, the GPU is unlikely to be fully saturated, given that the card's pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s would theoretically handle this resolution with ease. The conclusion is that the RTX 5090's massive compute resources are wasted in this title, and the measured FPS reflects the CPU's limitations rather than the GPU's capabilities.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers 353.4 FPS on Low, 307.7 FPS on Medium, 268.5 FPS on High, and 253.5 FPS on Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is 99.9 FPS, a 28.3% reduction. The step from Medium to High costs 39.2 FPS (12.7%), while High to Ultra costs only 15.0 FPS (5.6%). This suggests that the Ultra preset adds little over High, and the CPU may be limiting even at Ultra.

At 2560x1440, the scores are 298.8 FPS (Low), 242.0 FPS (Medium), 170.9 FPS (High), and 165.2 FPS (Ultra). The Low to Medium drop is 56.8 FPS (19.0%), but the Medium to High drop is much larger at 71.1 FPS (29.4%). This discontinuity indicates a shift in the bottleneck: at 1440p Medium, the GPU begins to matter, but at High and Ultra, the CPU's limits reassert themselves. The High to Ultra gap is only 5.7 FPS (3.3%), confirming that Ultra provides negligible benefit at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are 175.1 FPS (Low), 128.7 FPS (Medium), 91.3 FPS (High), and 86.6 FPS (Ultra). The Low to Medium drop is 46.4 FPS (26.5%), and the Medium to High drop is 37.4 FPS (29.1%). Here, the GPU is clearly more involved, as the resolution increases the fill-rate demand. However, the High to Ultra gap of 4.7 FPS (5.1%) remains small, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional effects (likely shadows and reflections) do not heavily tax the RTX 5090. The 4K Low score of 175.1 FPS is nearly double the 4K Ultra score, showing that settings have a larger impact than resolution at this extreme.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a 6-core, 12-thread Alder Lake-S processor with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its 18 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide adequate data locality for most workloads, but the 10 nm process and 65 W TDP limit its sustained performance. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 16518 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2332 in single-core, placing it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs. Its average benchmark score of 19221 is nearly identical to the Intel Core i7-8700K (19210, 0.1% delta), indicating that the i5-12400F matches an older flagship in general compute.

In Pc Building Simulator, the CPU's role is dominant. The game's simulation logic — tracking component temperatures, power draws, and user actions — likely runs on a limited number of threads. The i5-12400F's 3dmark scores show a single-thread score of 909 and a max-thread score of 5912, with 16-thread score of 5895. The small difference between 8-thread (4779) and 16-thread (5895) scores suggests that the CPU's scaling beyond 8 threads is limited, which aligns with a game that may use 4-6 threads heavily. The Passmark physics score of 1202 is particularly telling, as physics simulations in PC building software often bottleneck on single-core performance.

The measured FPS data supports the CPU bottleneck hypothesis. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 353.4 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's maximum frame generation capability for this game. The fact that 1440p Low only drops to 298.8 FPS (a 15.4% reduction) while 4K Low drops to 175.1 FPS (a 50.5% reduction) indicates that the CPU can maintain high frame rates until the GPU workload becomes substantial. The 1080p Ultra score of 253.5 FPS is 71.7% of the 1080p Low score, suggesting that even at Ultra settings, the CPU is still the primary limit — the GPU has enough headroom to render the extra effects without significant cost.

Settings Recommendations

The data suggests that the High preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across resolutions. At 1080p High, the system delivers 268.5 FPS, which is 75.9% of the Low score but with substantially better visuals. The jump to Ultra adds only 15.0 FPS (5.6%) over High at 1080p, making Ultra a poor trade-off for the marginal visual gain. At 1440p, High delivers 170.9 FPS, which is 57.2% of the 1080p High score, but still above 144 Hz refresh rates. The Ultra preset at 1440p (165.2 FPS) is nearly identical to High, confirming that Ultra's extra effects are not worth the negligible FPS difference.

At 4K, the recommendation changes. High settings produce 91.3 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth play but above it for most displays. Medium settings at 4K yield 128.7 FPS, a 41.0% improvement over High, making Medium the better choice for 4K if visual fidelity is not paramount. Low at 4K (175.1 FPS) is overkill for any display and sacrifices too much quality. The data indicates that Medium at 4K provides the best compromise, as the step from Medium to High costs 37.4 FPS (29.1%), which is a significant penalty for what is likely a modest visual upgrade in a simulation game where the user interface and component models are the focus.

For users with high-refresh-rate displays, 1440p High (170.9 FPS) is the sweet spot, as it clears 144 Hz and maintains strong visuals. At 1080p, High (268.5 FPS) is sufficient for even 240 Hz displays, and the Ultra preset's 253.5 FPS is still above that threshold, so either works. The key insight is that the Ultra preset offers diminishing returns across all resolutions, with the FPS gap between High and Ultra never exceeding 15.0 FPS (at 1080p) and shrinking to just 4.7 FPS at 4K.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 47th out of 1769 tested combos in Pc Building Simulator, placing it in the top 2.7% of all systems. This ranking is remarkably high given the apparent CPU bottleneck, which suggests that the RTX 5090's sheer performance still boosts the system despite the processor's limitations. The fact that this combo outperforms 97.3% of tested systems indicates that Pc Building Simulator is not particularly demanding, and even a mid-range CPU paired with a flagship GPU can achieve top-tier results.

Comparing to the CPU's nearest rivals, the i5-12400F's average benchmark score of 19221 is within 1.3% of the AMD EPYC 7773X (18979) and 0.7% of the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (19364), which means that swapping the CPU for any of these would likely produce similar results in this game. The GPU's nearest rivals — the RTX 5090 D (84241, 0.1% lower) and RTX 5050 Mobile (84171, 0.2% lower) — are so close in benchmark scores that the measured FPS in Pc Building Simulator would likely be identical, reinforcing that the CPU is the differentiator here.

The high ranking (47th) may be partly due to the fact that the RTX 5090's 32 GB VRAM and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are overkill for this game, but the GPU's percentile ranking (94th) and the CPU's 77th percentile ranking combine to place this system well above average. However, the data hints that a more balanced pairing — such as a higher-tier CPU with a mid-range GPU — could achieve similar or better results in this specific title, as the CPU bottleneck would be alleviated without sacrificing GPU capability. The ranking is impressive on paper, but it reflects the game's low demands more than the synergy of these components.