Revolution Idle

The pairing of an Intel Core i5-10400F with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER in Revolution Idle presents a study in asymmetric hardware scaling. The data shows a system where the GPU’s immense rasterization power is frequently held in check by the CPU’s older architecture, yet the combination still lands in the 81st percentile of all tested configurations. The measured frame rates reveal a clear pattern: this is a combo that performs best at high refresh rates on 1440p, but struggles to deliver a flawless 4K Ultra experience.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate curve from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates where the bottleneck shifts. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces 126 FPS, which drops to 107.4 FPS at 2560x1440 and then falls off a cliff to 56.5 FPS at 3840x2160. The percentage drop from 1440p to 4K is severe — a 47% reduction in average FPS. This steep decline indicates that at 4K, the RTX 4080 SUPER’s memory bandwidth and compute resources are being fully taxed, while the CPU is no longer the primary limiter.

The behavior at lower settings reinforces this interpretation. At 1080p Low, the system hits 140.9 FPS, but moving to 1440p Low only drops it to 116.4 FPS — a modest 17% reduction. This suggests that at 1080p, the i5-10400F’s six cores are struggling to feed the GPU, capping performance well below what the graphics card could theoretically deliver. The gap between 1080p Low and 1440p Low is just 24.5 FPS, while the gap between 1440p High and 4K High is 50.9 FPS. The data indicates that the transition from 1080p to 1440p is largely CPU-bound, while the jump to 4K shifts the load squarely onto the GPU.

Looking at Ultra settings, the pattern becomes even more pronounced. At 1080p Ultra, the system manages 107 FPS, but at 1440p Ultra it falls to 69.9 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it collapses to 37.1 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is below the 60 FPS threshold, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay at maximum fidelity. The scaling from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra represents a 65% performance loss, which is characteristic of a GPU that is running out of headroom when pushed to its absolute limits. The data suggests that the sweet spot for this combo is 1440p High, where the 107.4 FPS result balances visual quality with responsiveness.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a Comet Lake part built on Intel's 14 nm process, featuring 6 cores and 12 threads. Its base clock of 2.90 GHz can boost up to 4.30 GHz, which is respectable for a 2020 release. The CPU’s benchmark scores paint a picture of a mid-range processor: its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 10297 and single-core score of 1453 place it in the 73rd percentile of all CPUs tested. The 3DMark single-thread score of 688 and 8-thread score of 3929 indicate that this processor has enough single-threaded grunt for most games, but its older architecture lacks the raw throughput of newer designs.

In Revolution Idle, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p. The fact that the FPS at 1080p Low (140.9) is only 11% higher than at 1080p Ultra (107) suggests that the processor is not the sole bottleneck, but it does limit the GPU from achieving its full potential. The i5-10400F’s passmark single-thread score of 2541 and multithread score of 12115 indicate moderate performance, but its 3DMark 16-thread score of 4748 shows that it can handle parallel workloads reasonably well. However, when compared to its nearest rivals, the CPU is essentially average — it sits 0.4% above the AMD EPYC 7552 and 1.1% below the Intel Core i5-8500. This means that in CPU-bound scenarios, the i5-10400F performs similarly to older server and desktop parts, which is a limiting factor for a GPU as powerful as the RTX 4080 SUPER.

The CPU’s memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s and dual-channel DDR4 support are adequate for the time, but they are not exceptional. The L3 cache of 12 MB shared is modest by modern standards. In Revolution Idle, which is an idle game that may have significant background simulation, the CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient, but the data shows that the processor is clearly the weaker link in this pairing. The fact that the FPS at 1080p High (126) is lower than at 1080p Medium (127.5) suggests that the CPU is just barely keeping up with the GPU’s demand for frames.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the undisputed star of this configuration, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using TSMC’s 5 nm process. It packs 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s boost clock of 2550 MHz, combined with 10240 shading units and 80 RT cores, makes it a formidable piece of silicon. Its PassMark G3D score of 34245 and 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 6600 place it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, and it sits just 0.2% above the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT in average benchmark scores.

In Revolution Idle, the GPU’s dominance is most apparent at 4K. At 4K High, the system produces 56.5 FPS, which is playable but not ideal. The fact that 4K Medium (58.3 FPS) is only slightly higher than 4K High (56.5 FPS) suggests that the game’s settings have a diminishing impact at this resolution, likely because the GPU is already near its limit. The 16 GB VRAM is ample for this game, even at 4K Ultra, as there is no indication of memory pressure causing performance degradation.

The GPU’s FP32 performance of 52.22 TFLOPS and texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s are more than sufficient for a game like Revolution Idle, which is not graphically demanding. However, the data shows that the GPU is being held back at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the RTX 4080 SUPER is capable of far more than 140.9 FPS, but the i5-10400F cannot deliver the draw calls fast enough. The GPU’s nearest rival, the RX 6900 XT, has a 0.2% lower average score, meaning that in GPU-bound scenarios, this combo should perform almost identically to one with that card. But the measured FPS in Revolution Idle shows that the CPU is the limiting factor at 1080p, not the GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the i5-10400F and RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 341st out of 1774 tested combos in Revolution Idle, placing it in the top 19% of all configurations. This is a strong result, but it is not exceptional given the GPU’s raw power. The ranking suggests that many other combos with more balanced CPUs and GPUs outperform this pairing, likely because the i5-10400F holds back the RTX 4080 SUPER in the game’s CPU-heavy moments.

The GPU’s percentile rank of 88 is significantly higher than the CPU’s percentile rank of 73, which illustrates the mismatch in performance tiers. The data indicates that this combo is GPU-bound at 4K, where the RTX 4080 SUPER’s strengths are fully utilized, but CPU-bound at 1080p, where the i5-10400F’s limitations are exposed. The combo’s rank of 341 out of 1774 means that it outperforms the majority of systems, but it is not in the top 100, where one might expect a flagship GPU like the RTX 4080 SUPER to reside.

Given that the GPU’s nearest rival, the RTX 5070 Ti, scores 2.9% lower on average, this combo has the potential to be very fast. However, the measured results in Revolution Idle show that the CPU prevents the GPU from reaching its full potential at lower resolutions. The combo’s rank is a reflection of this imbalance, and it suggests that pairing the RTX 4080 SUPER with a more modern CPU would yield substantially better results.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. With Low settings, it averages 140.9 FPS, which is the best result across all resolutions. Medium settings produce 127.5 FPS, High settings 126 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 107 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 33.9 FPS, indicating that the settings have a noticeable impact, but the CPU prevents the GPU from running at maximum capacity even at the lowest settings.

At 2560x1440, the performance is more consistent. Low settings yield 116.4 FPS, which is only a 17% drop from 1080p Low. Medium settings produce 107.6 FPS, and High settings are nearly identical at 107.4 FPS. Ultra settings take a significant hit, dropping to 69.9 FPS, which is a 35% reduction from 1440p High. This suggests that at 1440p, the GPU is becoming the primary bottleneck, especially at Ultra settings where the added visual effects tax the RTX 4080 SUPER.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates are much lower. Low settings average 79.3 FPS, which is still playable, but Medium settings drop to 58.3 FPS, and High settings are nearly identical at 56.5 FPS. Ultra settings fall to 37.1 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The difference between 4K Low and 4K Ultra is 42.2 FPS, showing that the settings have a massive impact at this resolution because the GPU is fully utilized. The data clearly shows that for a consistent 60+ FPS experience, users should stick to 1440p or lower. At 4K, only Low settings manage to stay above 60 FPS, and just barely at 79.3 FPS.