Revolution Idle

# Revolution Idle with Intel Core i5-12400 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070

The pairing of Intel's Core i5-12400 with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 3070 produces a decidedly mixed bag in Revolution Idle, a game that scales predictably with resolution but reveals a clear GPU bottleneck at 4K. At 1080p, the combo delivers smooth, high-refresh-rate performance, while 4K Ultra falls below playable thresholds. The data shows a system whose CPU headroom is substantial, but whose 8 GB frame buffer and Ampere architecture struggle under the heaviest loads.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for this combo shows a steep performance cliff as resolution climbs. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the average FPS hits 151, which is nearly three times the 50 FPS average recorded at 3840x2160 Low. This drop of approximately 67% between the lowest and highest resolutions at the same settings strongly indicates that the RTX 3070's rendering throughput, rather than the CPU, becomes the limiting factor at 4K.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all settings tiers. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at High settings, the average FPS falls from 109 to 69, a reduction of roughly 37%. The subsequent jump from 1440p to 4K at High brings the average down to 36 FPS, another 48% loss. This accelerating degradation at higher resolutions is the classic signature of a GPU-bound scenario, as the pixel count increases by about 2.25x from 1080p to 1440p and another 2.25x from 1440p to 4K, while the FPS drops far more than proportionally.

Notably, the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens dramatically at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low (151 FPS) and Ultra (70 FPS) is 81 FPS. At 4K, that same Low-to-Ultra spread narrows to just 27 FPS (50 vs 23). This compression suggests that at 4K, the GPU is so saturated that even reducing settings yields diminishing returns—the memory bandwidth and compute limits dominate regardless of the quality preset.

For an idle game, the framerates at 1440p are generally acceptable, with High and Medium both above 69 FPS. However, 4K Ultra at 23 FPS is a poor experience, and even 4K High at 36 FPS sits below the 40 FPS threshold many players consider a minimum for smoothness. The data indicates that this combo is best suited for 1080p or 1440p gaming in Revolution Idle, with 4K reserved for lower settings or for players tolerant of sub-40 FPS performance.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific CPU-GPU combination ranks 1569th out of 3712 tested combos for Revolution Idle. This places it in the upper half of all tested pairings, though not in the top tier. The percentile positioning is more telling: the RTX 3070 sits at the 61st percentile among all GPUs, while the Core i5-12400 ranks at the 72nd percentile among all CPUs. The combo's mid-pack rank reflects a pairing where neither component is a standout performer in this title's context.

The ranking implies that a substantial number of tested combos outperform this setup, likely including those with higher-end GPUs or CPUs with more cores. However, the rank also shows that this pairing beats more than half of all tested configurations, which is a reasonable outcome for a mid-range CPU paired with a previous-generation high-end GPU. The data suggests that in Revolution Idle, the combo's performance is adequate for mainstream gaming but does not push into enthusiast territory.

Interestingly, the i5-12400's nearest CPU rivals in average benchmark score include the AMD EPYC 7643 (delta of -0.1%), the Intel Core i7-1355U (-0.3%), and the AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 (-0.7%), with the Intel Core i3-14100F slightly ahead at +0.9%. These tiny deltas indicate that the i5-12400's computational performance is very closely matched to a broad range of processors, meaning the combo's ranking in Revolution Idle is likely driven more by the GPU than the CPU. For the RTX 3070, its nearest rivals—the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT (+0.7%), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690 (+1.0%), and AMD Radeon HD 7970M (+1.1%)—show that the GPU's raw score is in a crowded field, with the Tesla K40c at -1.5% trailing slightly.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA104 chip fabricated on Samsung's 8 nm process. It packs 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs, along with 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1500 MHz and boosts to 1725 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus. This configuration yields a memory bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s, which is substantial but becomes a constraint at 4K resolutions.

The 8 GB GDDR6 frame buffer is the most critical limitation exposed by the Revolution Idle data. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS collapses to 23, and the measured minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 32, indicating that the memory capacity and bandwidth are inadequate for the highest resolution and quality settings. The 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, while respectable for 1440p, cannot sustain the data throughput required at 3840x2160 with Ultra details. This is reflected in the fact that moving from 1080p Ultra (70 FPS) to 4K Ultra (23 FPS) represents a 67% performance loss, far exceeding what would be expected from pixel count scaling alone.

The GPU's compute capabilities are strong—20.31 TFLOPS FP32 and FP16 (1:1)—which helps at lower resolutions where the CPU can feed frames quickly. However, the pixel rate of 165.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 317.4 GTexel/s become bottlenecks at 4K. The RTX 3070's 61st percentile ranking among all GPUs reflects its position as a solid upper-mid-range card, but its end-of-life production status and 220 W TDP suggest it is a previous-generation part that newer cards have surpassed.

The GPU's benchmark scores corroborate its behavior in-game. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3162 and PassMark G3D score of 22214 indicate competent DirectX 12 performance, while the Geekbench OpenCL score of 112821 shows strong compute throughput. Yet, the PassMark DirectX 9 score of 247 and DirectX 10 score of 150 are comparatively low, suggesting that older API paths may not be well-optimized—though Revolution Idle likely uses modern APIs given its 2023 release.

FAQ

*Q: Can this combo run Revolution Idle at 4K smoothly?*

A: No. At 3840x2160, the highest average FPS recorded is 50 on Low settings, dropping to 36 on High and 23 on Ultra. The 4K Medium average is 38 FPS with a minimum of 32, which is below the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay. Only the 1080p and 1440p resolutions offer consistently playable framerates.

Q: What is the best resolution for this pairing?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 is the sweet spot, with average FPS ranging from 70 (Ultra) to 151 (Low). At 2560x1440, performance is still acceptable, with High at 69 FPS and Medium at 72 FPS, but Ultra falls to 44 FPS, which may be borderline for some players.

Q: How does the i5-12400 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The i5-12400 has an average benchmark score of 18683. Its closest competitor is the AMD EPYC 7643 at 18697 (0.1% slower than the EPYC), followed by the Intel Core i7-1355U at 18730 (0.3% slower), and the AMD Ryzen AI 5 330 at 18811 (0.7% slower). The Intel Core i3-14100F at 18519 is 0.9% faster than the i5-12400.

Q: Is the RTX 3070's 8 GB VRAM sufficient for this game?

A: At 1080p and 1440p, the 8 GB frame buffer appears adequate, as all settings tiers at these resolutions achieve at least 44 FPS. However, at 4K, the memory capacity combined with the 448.0 GB/s bandwidth is insufficient, as evidenced by the 23 FPS average at Ultra and 36 FPS at High.

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

A: At 1920x1080, the average FPS on Low is 151, while on Ultra it is 70. This represents a 54% reduction in performance when moving from the lowest to the highest quality preset, which is a significant cost for visual fidelity.

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

A: It ranks 1569th out of 3712 tested combos in Revolution Idle, placing it in the 42nd percentile (higher is better). This indicates that it outperforms roughly 58% of all tested pairings but trails the top 42%.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of this combo's performance across three resolutions and four settings tiers. At 1920x1080, the average FPS is 151 on Low, 114 on Medium, 109 on High, and 70 on Ultra. The Medium setting at 1080p has a recorded minimum of 97 FPS and maximum of 131 FPS, showing a tight frame pacing window that suggests stability. The 1080p results are uniformly smooth, with even the lowest Ultra average exceeding 60 FPS.

At 2560x1440, performance drops but remains playable: Low averages 95 FPS, Medium 72 FPS (with a minimum of 61 and maximum of 83), High 69 FPS, and Ultra 44 FPS. The 1440p Medium minimum of 61 FPS is close to the 60 FPS threshold, indicating that dips below 60 are possible in demanding scenes. The 1440p Ultra average of 44 FPS is the first sign of strain, though it remains above the 30 FPS playability floor.

At 3840x2160, the performance collapses: Low averages 50 FPS, Medium 38 FPS (minimum 32, maximum 43), High 36 FPS, and Ultra 23 FPS. The 4K Medium minimum of 32 FPS is particularly telling, as it shows that even mid-range settings can cause frame drops below 30 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K, with its 23 FPS average, is effectively unplayable for most users.

The progression from 1080p to 4K at each settings tier reveals a consistent pattern: Low settings lose 67% of their average FPS (151 to 50), Medium loses 67% (114 to 38), High loses 67% (109 to 36), and Ultra loses 67% (70 to 23). This uniform 67% loss across all settings confirms that resolution, not quality preset, is the dominant factor limiting performance, pointing squarely at the GPU's rasterization and memory capabilities as the bottleneck.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU features 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core, and 18 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and its integrated UHD Graphics 730 is present but irrelevant for gaming with a discrete GPU.

In Revolution Idle, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the resolution scaling data. At 1080p, where the GPU is less taxed, the i5-12400's strong single-thread performance allows the RTX 3070 to reach 151 FPS on Low settings. The CPU's 3DMark single-thread score of 910 and PassMark single-thread score of 3456 indicate robust per-core performance, which is crucial for an idle game that likely has a single main game loop thread.

The multi-threaded capabilities are equally solid: the CPU scores 5873 in 3DMark's 16-thread test, 5890 in the max-threads test, and 15989 in Cinebench R23 multi-core. These scores place the i5-12400 at the 72nd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 18683. The CPU's nearest rivals, as noted, are all within 1% of its score, meaning that swapping to any of those processors would yield negligible performance differences in this game.

Given that the FPS drops by 67% from 1080p to 4K regardless of settings, the CPU is clearly not the limiting factor at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the CPU's 12 threads provide enough headroom to keep the GPU fed, as evidenced by the 151 FPS Low result. However, the CPU's 6 physical cores may become a constraint if the game were to have more complex simulation logic, but the data shows no such bottleneck in the current measurements. The i5-12400's 18 MB L3 cache and 12 threads are more than sufficient for Revolution Idle, making the RTX 3070 the definitive performance limiter in this pairing.