Revolution Idle

Revolution Idle is not a typical GPU stress test, but the measured frame rates for the Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 reveal distinct scaling patterns that point to where the bottleneck lies. At 1080p, the average frame rates are tightly clustered, with Low settings producing 112.1 FPS, High at 103.6 FPS, and Medium at 102.8 FPS. The spread from Low to High is only 8.5 frames per second, which suggests the CPU is the primary limiter at this resolution. The RTX 3070, which sits in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs, has ample headroom to render these frames, but the i5-9400’s six cores and six threads appear to cap the output. The Ultra preset, however, tells a different story, dropping to 67.4 FPS, a 44.7 FPS deficit from Low, which indicates that the graphics card begins to take on more responsibility as the settings increase.

Moving to 1440p, the scaling becomes more pronounced. The Low preset yields 95 FPS, a 17.1 FPS drop from 1080p, while High and Medium produce 69.9 FPS and 73.6 FPS respectively. The margin between Low and High at 1440p expands to 25.1 FPS, which is a clear sign that the GPU is now the limiting component. The Ultra preset at 1440p drops further to 47 FPS, which is less than half the frame rate of the Low preset. This pattern continues at 4K, where the data shows a severe performance cliff. At 3840x2160, the Low preset manages 52.7 FPS, but High and Medium both fall to around 37.6 FPS and 37.4 FPS, respectively. The Ultra preset at 4K is nearly unplayable at 22.6 FPS. The difference between 1080p Low and 4K Low is 59.4 FPS, a 53% reduction in performance, which confirms that the RTX 3070’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are being pushed to their limits at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU and GPU combo in Revolution Idle?

A: The data shows that 1080p is the only resolution where all settings except Ultra maintain a playable frame rate above 100 FPS. At 1440p, the Low preset still achieves 95 FPS, but High and Medium fall to 69.9 FPS and 73.6 FPS, which are acceptable but not ideal for a smooth experience. 4K is only viable on Low settings, where the 52.7 FPS average is borderline.

Q: How does the Ultra preset affect performance compared to Low?

A: The Ultra preset imposes a significant penalty across all resolutions. At 1080p, Ultra delivers 67.4 FPS versus 112.1 FPS on Low, a 44.7 FPS difference. At 1440p, the gap widens to 48 FPS (47 vs 95), and at 4K, Ultra produces 22.6 FPS compared to 52.7 FPS on Low, a 30.1 FPS difference. The scaling suggests that Ultra heavily taxes the RTX 3070’s resources.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 a bottleneck for the RTX 3070?

A: The evidence points to yes at 1080p. The CPU’s average benchmark score is 2305, and it sits at the 50th percentile of all CPUs. Its six cores and six threads with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.10 GHz are modest. The near-identical frame rates between Low, Medium, and High at 1080p (112.1, 102.8, and 103.6 FPS respectively) indicate that the CPU is capping performance before the GPU can show its full strength.

Q: What does the 4K performance indicate about the GPU’s memory capacity?

A: The RTX 3070 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus. At 4K, the High and Medium presets both produce almost identical average frame rates (37.6 and 37.4 FPS), which is a classic sign of memory bandwidth saturation. The Ultra preset drops to 22.6 FPS, suggesting that the 8 GB capacity is insufficient for the highest settings at this resolution.

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

A: The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 ranks 814th out of 1774 tested combos in Revolution Idle. This places it in the upper-middle tier of all tested systems, indicating that while it is not a top-tier performer, it is far from the bottom.

Q: What is the most consistent setting across all resolutions?

A: The Low preset is the most consistent in terms of maintaining the highest frame rates at each resolution. It delivers 112.1 FPS at 1080p, 95 FPS at 1440p, and 52.7 FPS at 4K. No other preset comes close to these figures, particularly at 1440p and above, where the Medium and High settings fall below 80 FPS.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture with an 8 nm process node from Samsung. It features 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output units, along with 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1500 MHz and a boost clock of 1725 MHz, with a memory clock of 1750 MHz running on 8 GB of GDDR6 memory. The memory interface is 256-bit wide, which provides a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. In benchmark tests, the RTX 3070 achieves a PassMark G3D score of 22214 and an average benchmark score of 28238, placing it in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, which scores 27985 and is 0.9% slower, and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti, which scores 27956 and is 1% slower.

In Revolution Idle, the GPU’s role becomes increasingly critical as resolution and settings increase. At 1080p, the performance is largely CPU-bound, as evidenced by the small frame rate differences between Low and High settings. However, at 1440p, the GPU begins to show its limits. The 69.9 FPS average at High settings is a 33.7 FPS drop from 1080p High, which is a substantial reduction. The Ultra preset at 1440p produces 47 FPS, which is less than half of the 1080p Low result. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the dominant factor, with all presets falling below 53 FPS. The 8 GB memory capacity appears to be a constraint, as the High and Medium presets at 4K produce nearly identical frame rates (37.6 vs 37.4 FPS), suggesting that the memory bandwidth is saturated rather than the compute units being fully utilized. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 22.6 FPS, which is a 30.1 FPS deficit from Low, indicating that the extra graphical load exceeds what the memory subsystem can handle efficiently.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates show a clear pattern. The Low preset delivers the highest performance at 112.1 FPS, followed by High at 103.6 FPS and Medium at 102.8 FPS. The Ultra preset is the outlier, dropping to 67.4 FPS. This represents a 44.7 FPS difference between Low and Ultra, which is a 40% reduction in performance. The similarity between High and Medium (a 0.8 FPS difference) suggests that these settings impose a similar load on the system.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates scale downward across all presets. Low achieves 95 FPS, which is a 17.1 FPS drop from 1080p Low. Medium follows at 73.6 FPS, and High at 69.9 FPS, with a 3.7 FPS difference between them. Ultra drops to 47 FPS, which is the lowest result at this resolution. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 48 FPS, a 50% reduction. This indicates that the GPU is becoming a more significant factor at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the performance is severely constrained. Low is the only preset that exceeds 50 FPS, with an average of 52.7 FPS. High and Medium produce nearly identical results of 37.6 and 37.4 FPS, respectively, with a negligible 0.2 FPS difference. Ultra drops to 22.6 FPS, which is the lowest measured frame rate in the entire dataset. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 30.1 FPS, a 57% reduction. The data shows that the step from 1440p to 4K on Ultra settings results in a 24.4 FPS drop, which is the largest single-resolution penalty in the entire dataset.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU supports DDR4 memory in a dual-channel configuration, providing a memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. Its cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 256 KB of L2 per core, and 9 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-9400 scores 803 in Cinebench R15 multi-core, 3346 in Cinebench R20 multi-core, and 7969 in Cinebench R23 multi-core. Its average benchmark score is 2305, which places it at the 50th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i3-10305, scores 2300, which is 0.2% slower.

In Revolution Idle, the CPU’s role is most apparent at 1080p, where the frame rates are tightly grouped. The Low, Medium, and High presets all produce results between 102.8 and 112.1 FPS, a spread of just 9.3 FPS. This clustering indicates that the i5-9400’s six cores and six threads are the limiting factor, as increasing the graphical load does not significantly impact performance until the Ultra preset, which drops to 67.4 FPS. The CPU’s modest boost clock of 4.10 GHz is likely insufficient to push frame rates higher in this scenario. At 1440p, the CPU becomes less of a bottleneck as the GPU takes over, but the 95 FPS result on Low settings still shows that the CPU can keep up with the RTX 3070 at lower graphical loads. The CPU’s 50th percentile ranking relative to all CPUs means it is an average performer, and the data suggests that it is the weaker link in this pairing at lower resolutions. The 9 MB of L3 cache is adequate for an idle game, but the lack of hyper-threading (six threads for six cores) limits its ability to handle background tasks that could impact frame pacing.