Pc Building Simulator

# Pc Building Simulator on Intel Core i9-14900K + AMD Radeon RX 7600

Pc Building Simulator, a simulation title from 2019, presents an interesting workload profile that stresses both CPU and GPU depending on the settings and resolution chosen. With the Intel Core i9-14900K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7600, the measured frame rates reveal a configuration that is strongly CPU-limited at lower resolutions but shifts toward GPU limitation as pixel count rises. The i9-14900K, with its 24 cores and 32 threads, holds a 97th percentile ranking among all CPUs, while the RX 7600 sits at the 63rd percentile among GPUs, creating a notable imbalance that manifests in the data across all tested presets.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combination shows a clear hierarchy across the four settings presets, and the choice of optimal settings depends heavily on the target resolution. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers an average of 227.9 FPS, which is far beyond what any standard display can show, while the Ultra preset still produces 108.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is substantial, with Ultra being 52.2% slower, yet both remain fully playable on high-refresh monitors. For competitive or high-refresh gaming, the Medium preset at 163.4 FPS offers a strong balance, keeping frame rates comfortably above 144 Hz while improving visual fidelity over Low.

At 1440p, the situation changes meaningfully. The Low preset achieves 144.3 FPS, which exactly matches a common 144 Hz refresh rate, while High and Ultra produce 74.7 and 70.8 FPS respectively. The Medium preset at 102.5 FPS represents the best compromise, staying above 100 FPS while providing noticeably better image quality than Low. For users with 1440p displays, Medium is the recommended starting point, with an option to drop to Low if frame rate consistency is prioritized over visuals.

At 4K, the data suggests that High settings are the only reasonable choice, delivering 37 FPS, while Ultra drops to 37.5 FPS — essentially identical. The Low preset at 72.6 FPS and Medium at 55.5 FPS are the only presets that clear 60 FPS, but the visual degradation at Low is significant for a simulation game where reading text and interface elements matters. Given that Ultra provides no measurable benefit over High at this resolution (37.5 vs 37 FPS), High settings are the clear recommendation for 4K, accepting that frame rates will hover near 60 FPS only when dropping to Low or Medium. The overall recommendation across all resolutions is Medium for 1080p and 1440p, and High for 4K if visual fidelity is paramount, with Low as a fallback for smoother motion.

FAQ

Q: Does this CPU-GPU combination perform better at 1080p or 1440p?

A: The data shows that at 1080p, the Low preset reaches 227.9 FPS, while at 1440p the same preset achieves 144.3 FPS. The 1440p results are more balanced relative to the GPU's capabilities, but 1080p yields the highest absolute frame rates across every settings preset.

Q: Is the Intel Core i9-14900K bottlenecking the AMD Radeon RX 7600?

A: Benchmark results indicate yes, particularly at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 227.9 FPS, which is more than double the 4K High result of 37 FPS. This wide spread suggests the CPU can feed frames far faster than the GPU can render at higher pixel counts, making the RX 7600 the limiting factor at 1440p and 4K.

Q: What is the difference between Ultra and High settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset averages 37.5 FPS while High averages 37 FPS — a negligible 0.5 FPS difference. This indicates that the Ultra preset offers no practical performance penalty at 4K, but also no meaningful gain in this workload, likely due to the GPU being saturated at both settings.

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

A: The combination ranks 1182nd out of 1769 tested combos in Pc Building Simulator, placing it in the lower third of the database. This relatively low ranking reflects the significant CPU-GPU imbalance, where the i9-14900K's high-end performance is wasted at higher resolutions by the mid-range RX 7600.

Q: Can this setup achieve 144 FPS at 1440p?

A: Only with the Low preset, which averages 144.3 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 102.5 FPS, and High falls to 74.7 FPS. Users targeting 144 Hz at 1440p must use Low settings, sacrificing visual quality for frame rate.

Q: What is the best resolution-to-settings match for 60 FPS?

A: For 60 FPS, 1080p Ultra at 108.8 FPS and 1440p High at 74.7 FPS both exceed the target comfortably. At 4K, only the Low preset at 72.6 FPS and Medium at 55.5 FPS come close, with Medium falling short of 60 FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock reaches 2655 MHz, with a game clock of 2250 MHz, and the card is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a 6 nm process. In Pc Building Simulator, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution increases, which aligns with the VRAM and bandwidth constraints visible in the data.

At 1080p, the RX 7600 is rarely the bottleneck. The lowest average FPS at this resolution is 108.8 on Ultra, which is still high, and the jump from Ultra to Low (108.8 to 227.9 FPS) shows the GPU has headroom when the CPU can feed it efficiently. However, at 1440p, the scaling tells a different story: Ultra drops to 70.8 FPS, a 35% reduction from 1080p Ultra, while Low only falls from 227.9 to 144.3 FPS. This non-linear scaling suggests the GPU's compute resources, not memory bandwidth, are the limiting factor.

At 4K, the GPU is clearly saturated. Ultra produces 37.5 FPS and High 37 FPS, with Medium at 55.5 FPS — even the best-case Low preset cannot exceed 72.6 FPS. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is not explicitly tested here, but the fact that Ultra and High yields nearly identical results at 4K implies the card is hitting its rendering ceiling rather than a memory ceiling. The RX 7600's 64 ROPs and 2048 shading units are modest for 4K workloads, and the data reflects this: the card's percentileVsAllGpus of 63 places it below average, and its nearest rivals include the RX 7600 XT (0.6% faster) and the RX 460 (0.8% faster), showing it sits in a crowded mid-range segment.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i9-14900K + AMD Radeon RX 7600 combination ranks 1182nd out of 1769 tested combos in Pc Building Simulator, placing it in the 33rd percentile of all configurations. This ranking is surprisingly low given the CPU's strength, but it makes sense when considering the workload. The i9-14900K scores 49,872 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and holds a 97th percentile ranking among all CPUs, yet the RX 7600's 63rd percentile GPU ranking drags the combo down.

The CPU's nearest rivals illustrate its performance tier: the AMD EPYC 7413 is 0.3% faster, the Intel Core i9-14900KF is 0.7% slower, and the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is 0.9% slower. On the GPU side, the RX 7600 is 1.5% slower than the Intel Arc B570 and 1.3% slower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, but 0.6% faster than the RX 7600 XT. These tight deltas suggest that swapping either component would not dramatically alter the combo's rank unless paired with a much stronger GPU.

The rank of 1182 out of 1769 indicates that most tested combos outperform this pairing, likely because the i9-14900K is overkill for the RX 7600 in this simulation title. A more balanced mid-range CPU would likely achieve a similar or better rank when paired with this GPU, as the CPU's excess headroom is never fully utilized at 1440p and 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals where the bottleneck lies. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate falls from 108.8 FPS at 1080p to 70.8 FPS at 1440p (a 34.9% drop) and then to 37.5 FPS at 4K (a 47.0% further drop). This steep decline as resolution increases is characteristic of GPU limitation, since the RX 7600's rendering throughput cannot keep pace with the pixel count.

At Low settings, the pattern is different: 227.9 FPS at 1080p drops to 144.3 FPS at 1440p (36.7% drop) and then to 72.6 FPS at 4K (49.7% drop). The relative consistency of these percentage drops across settings — roughly 35% from 1080p to 1440p and another 47-50% from 1440p to 4K — confirms that the GPU is the primary limiter at all resolutions above 1080p. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rate would plateau at lower resolutions regardless of settings, but the data shows continuous scaling.

The fact that 1080p Low produces 227.9 FPS while 4K Low produces 72.6 FPS indicates that the i9-14900K can drive frame rates far above what the RX 7600 can render at higher resolutions. The CPU's Passmark multi-thread score of 58,674 and Geekbench multi-core score of 20,370 suggest it has ample headroom, but the GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 2,310 reflects its mid-range positioning. In practical terms, users should expect to halve their frame rate when moving from 1440p to 4K, regardless of settings, which is a direct consequence of the GPU's limited pixel throughput.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results show a wide performance envelope. The Low preset delivers an average of 227.9 FPS, while Medium reaches 163.4 FPS, High hits 111.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 108.8 FPS. The step from Low to Medium is a 28.3% drop, from Medium to High is a 31.6% further drop, and from High to Ultra is a negligible 2.6% drop. This suggests that High and Ultra are nearly identical in performance cost at 1080p, with the extra visual features of Ultra adding almost no rendering burden.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 144.3 FPS (Low), 102.5 FPS (Medium), 74.7 FPS (High), and 70.8 FPS (Ultra). The relative gaps between presets are similar to 1080p, but the absolute values are lower across the board. Medium at 1440p (102.5 FPS) is slightly slower than High at 1080p (111.7 FPS), which demonstrates that the resolution increase costs roughly one full settings tier of performance.

At 3840x2160, the results compress significantly: Low averages 72.6 FPS, Medium 55.5 FPS, High 37 FPS, and Ultra 37.5 FPS. The High and Ultra results are statistically identical, differing by only 0.5 FPS, which strongly suggests a GPU bottleneck where the card cannot differentiate between these two presets. The jump from Medium to High is a 33.3% drop, while Low to Medium is a 23.5% drop. Across all resolutions, the 1080p results provide the highest frame rates, with 1440p offering a balance, and 4K requiring significant settings compromises to maintain playable performance.