Undisputed

The Intel Core i3-12100F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT produces a fascinating performance profile in Undisputed, where the data reveals a massive swing between CPU-bound and GPU-bound scenarios. At 1080p Low settings, the combo reaches 404 FPS, indicating that the RX 7900 XT is barely breaking a sweat, while at 4K Ultra, the frame rate collapses to 71 FPS, showing the GPU being pushed to its limits. This is a combination where the 4-core, 8-thread i3-12100F demonstrates it can feed a high-end GPU at lower resolutions, but the scaling curve suggests that the RDNA 3.0 card is the primary driver of performance when visual fidelity increases. The measured data shows a 68th percentile CPU against all processors, while the GPU sits at the 55th percentile against all graphics cards, yet the in-game ranking of 735 out of 3718 combos places this pairing in the top 20% of tested configurations for Undisputed.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies in this system. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 404 FPS, which is exceptionally high and indicates that neither component is being fully utilized, as the game is likely limited by engine-level frame pacing or draw call submission rather than raw hardware capability. Moving to 1440p Low drops the average to 292 FPS, a reduction of 112 FPS (27.7%) that still leaves plenty of headroom, and then at 4K Low the average falls to 185 FPS, which represents a 54.2% decrease from the 1080p figure. This pattern demonstrates that even at Low settings, the resolution scaling is not linear, with the 4K resolution requiring four times the pixel throughput of 1080p, yet the frame rate only drops by roughly half, indicating that the RX 7900 XT has spare compute capacity at lower settings.

When examining the High preset, the scaling becomes more pronounced and reveals the GPU's growing influence. At 1080p High, the combo delivers 240 FPS, which drops to 174 FPS at 1440p (a 27.5% reduction), and then falls to 110 FPS at 4K (a 54.2% reduction from 1080p). The consistent percentage drops across Low and High presets suggest that the game's rendering pipeline scales predictably with pixel count, but the absolute frame rates at 4K High (110 FPS) versus 4K Low (185 FPS) show that the GPU's shading units, texture units, and raster operations are increasingly taxed as settings increase. The Ultra preset at 4K produces just 71 FPS, which is a 64.4% drop from the 4K Low figure, and this dramatic fall-off indicates that the RX 7900 XT's 20 GB of GDDR6 memory and 800 GB/s bandwidth are being heavily utilized, with the 5376 shading units struggling to maintain throughput at the highest visual quality.

The Medium preset provides the only complete data with minimum and maximum frame times, and this reveals additional insight into frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the average is 290 FPS with a minimum of 247 and maximum of 334, showing a spread of 87 FPS that indicates relatively consistent frame delivery. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 210 FPS with a range of 178 to 241 (63 FPS spread), and at 4K Medium the average is 133 FPS with a range of 113 to 153 (40 FPS spread). Interestingly, the frame time variance shrinks as resolution increases, which suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU's 4 cores are occasionally causing hitches that manifest as larger FPS fluctuations, while at higher resolutions the GPU becomes the limiting factor and smooths out the frame delivery curve.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combo achieves in Undisputed?

A: The maximum measured average FPS is 404, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This represents the absolute ceiling for this pairing, where the RX 7900 XT is vastly overprovisioned for the workload.

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

A: The Intel Core i3-12100F with AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT ranks 735th out of 3718 combos tested in Undisputed, placing it in the top 19.8% of all configurations evaluated.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the bottleneck at 4K Ultra?

A: At 3840x2160 Ultra, the average FPS is 71, and this low figure combined with the GPU's 55th percentile ranking suggests the RX 7900 XT is the limiting component. The CPU's 4 cores and 8 threads can still feed frames at this resolution, but the GPU's shading units are overwhelmed by Ultra settings.

Q: What is the largest frame rate difference between presets at the same resolution?

A: At 1920x1080, the difference between Low (404 FPS) and Ultra (155 FPS) is 249 FPS, representing a 61.6% reduction in performance when moving from the lowest to highest visual quality preset.

Q: Does the combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K with High settings?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with High settings, the average FPS is 110, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. This suggests the RX 7900 XT can handle 4K gaming in Undisputed without needing to drop to Medium settings.

Q: How does the Medium preset's frame time consistency change across resolutions?

A: The data shows a narrowing gap between minimum and maximum FPS as resolution increases: at 1080p Medium the spread is 87 FPS (247-334), at 1440p Medium it is 63 FPS (178-241), and at 4K Medium it is 40 FPS (113-153). This indicates more consistent frame pacing at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 735 out of 3718 tested configurations places it squarely in the upper quintile of all systems evaluated in Undisputed, which is remarkable given the modest CPU at the heart of this pairing. The Intel Core i3-12100F holds a 68th percentile ranking against all CPUs, and its nearest rivals include the Intel Core 3 N355 (identical average score of 13492), the Intel Core i5-9500 (13452, 0.3% slower), and the Intel Core 5 120UL (13594, 0.7% faster). This indicates that the i3-12100F performs comparably to mid-range processors from previous generations, though it lacks the multi-threaded muscle of higher-core-count parts.

On the GPU side, the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT ranks at the 55th percentile against all graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 13745. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon 660M (13812, 0.5% faster), the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile (13821, 0.5% faster), and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT (13543, 1.5% slower). These comparisons are based on synthetic benchmarks, but the in-game data for Undisputed shows that this GPU delivers exceptional performance at 1080p and 1440p, only falling behind at 4K Ultra where it produces 71 FPS.

The discrepancy between the GPU's 55th percentile ranking and its strong in-game performance highlights that Undisputed is not particularly demanding on graphics hardware, allowing the RX 7900 XT to punch above its synthetic benchmark weight. The combination of a top-quintile CPU and a mid-pack GPU results in a system that ranks in the 80th percentile overall for this game, suggesting that the pairing is well-balanced for sports titles that prioritize frame rate over extreme visual fidelity. The data also shows that the CPU's 68th percentile ranking is sufficient for this game, as even at 1080p Low (404 FPS) the processor is not preventing the GPU from reaching very high frame rates.

Settings Recommendations

For players prioritizing maximum frame rates and competitive play, the Low preset at 1080p delivers 404 FPS, which is far beyond what any display can currently show, making this setting combination effectively wasted potential. The Medium preset at 1080p still produces 290 FPS with a minimum of 247, which provides a 34% reduction in frame rate compared to Low but likely offers substantially better visual quality in terms of shadows, textures, and post-processing effects. Given that the Medium preset at 1440p still achieves 210 FPS with a minimum of 178, this appears to be the sweet spot for high-refresh-rate displays, offering both improved visual fidelity over Low and frame rates that exceed 144 Hz capabilities.

For 4K gaming, the High preset at 110 FPS is the recommended choice, as it provides a significant visual upgrade over Medium (133 FPS) while maintaining frame rates above 100 FPS, which is smooth for most players. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 71 FPS, and while this is still playable, the 35.5% reduction from High to Ultra suggests diminishing returns in visual quality for the frame rate cost. The data shows that the Medium preset at 4K (133 FPS) offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for 4K displays, as the jump from Medium to High costs 23 FPS (17.3%) but may not deliver a proportional visual improvement.

At 1440p, the High preset (174 FPS) is the optimal choice for most users, as it maintains frame rates well above 144 Hz while providing better visual quality than Medium (210 FPS). The Ultra preset at 1440p (112 FPS) is viable but reduces the frame rate by 35.6% compared to High, and this drop may be noticeable on high-refresh-rate monitors. The measured data suggests that players should avoid the Low preset entirely unless they are chasing absolute maximum frame rates, as the jump from Low to Medium at any resolution provides a significant visual upgrade with only a moderate frame rate penalty.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080 resolution, the combo delivers its strongest performance across all settings. The Low preset produces an average of 404 FPS, the highest figure recorded in the entire dataset, while the Medium preset averages 290 FPS with minimum and maximum values of 247 and 334 FPS respectively. The High preset drops to 240 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 155 FPS, representing a 61.6% reduction from Low to Ultra. This wide spread of 249 FPS between the lowest and highest presets demonstrates that the RX 7900 XT has enormous headroom at 1080p, and the CPU's 4 cores are sufficient to maintain high frame rates even at Ultra settings.

Moving to 2560x1440 resolution, the performance scales down but remains exceptionally high. The Low preset averages 292 FPS, the Medium preset averages 210 FPS with a range of 178 to 241 FPS, and the High preset delivers 174 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p produces 112 FPS, which is a 61.6% reduction from the Low preset's 292 FPS, mirroring the percentage drop seen at 1080p. The consistent 61.6% reduction from Low to Ultra across both 1080p and 1440p suggests that the game's settings scaling is resolution-independent, and the GPU is handling the increased pixel count without introducing additional bottlenecks.

At 3840x2160 resolution, the frame rates finally show the GPU being pushed to its limits. The Low preset averages 185 FPS, which is still very high for 4K gaming, while the Medium preset drops to 133 FPS with a range of 113 to 153 FPS. The High preset produces 110 FPS, and the Ultra preset falls to 71 FPS, which is the lowest figure in the entire dataset. The reduction from Low to Ultra at 4K is also 61.6% (from 185 to 71 FPS), confirming that the settings scaling is consistent across all resolutions, and the absolute frame rates at 4K Ultra (71 FPS) indicate that this is the only configuration where the RX 7900 XT struggles to maintain high refresh rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process node with a die size of 163 mm². Its base clock of 3.30 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz provide solid single-thread performance, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1674 and Geekbench single-core score of 1932. The processor's 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache (80 KB L1 per core) help maintain responsiveness in gaming workloads, and the PassMark single-thread score of 3444 places it among the better-performing desktop CPUs for lightly-threaded tasks.

In Undisputed, the CPU's role becomes apparent when examining the frame rate scaling across resolutions. At 1080p Low (404 FPS), the CPU is almost certainly the limiting factor, as no modern game can sustain such high frame rates without significant CPU overhead, and the 4-core design may be causing occasional frame pacing issues. The Medium preset's minimum FPS values at 1080p (247), 1440p (178), and 4K (113) show that the CPU can maintain frame delivery even when the GPU is heavily loaded, but the narrowing frame time variance at higher resolutions suggests that the CPU's 8 threads are sufficient for this game's physics and AI calculations.

The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 11860 and PassMark multi-thread score of 14015 indicate that the i3-12100F is not a powerhouse for heavily-threaded workloads, but Undisputed appears to be a game that scales primarily with GPU performance. The 3DMark scores show a plateau from 4 threads (2859) to 8 threads (4026) and max threads (4023), suggesting that the processor's performance does not improve significantly beyond 8 threads, which is exactly what the 4-core/8-thread design provides. The CPU's 68th percentile ranking against all processors, combined with the GPU's 55th percentile ranking, results in a system that performs exceptionally well in this sports title, where the combination of moderate CPU demands and GPU-heavy rendering favors this particular pairing.