Valorant

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER combination delivers exceptional performance in Valorant, with the measured data showing average frame rates that far exceed the requirements of even the most demanding high-refresh-rate displays. Across all tested resolutions and settings, the lowest recorded average FPS is 338.4, which means the system never dips below what would be considered elite-tier performance. The data suggests that players have an unusual degree of freedom in choosing settings, as the performance floor is already so high that visual fidelity can be prioritized without sacrificing competitive smoothness.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a clear hierarchy across the four tested presets, but the differences are surprisingly small in percentage terms. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 466.4 FPS, while the High preset produces 389.4 FPS, a delta of roughly 77 FPS. This gap narrows when moving to Medium at 397.6 FPS and Ultra at 382.5 FPS. The pattern holds across all resolutions: Low is always the fastest, followed by Medium, then High, with Ultra trailing slightly behind.

For competitive play, the Low preset at 1920x1080 offers the highest possible frame rate at 466.4 FPS, which maximizes input responsiveness and minimizes frame time variance. However, the data indicates that the performance penalty for upgrading to Medium is modest—a drop to 397.6 FPS—while providing noticeably better visual clarity for spotting enemies at range. The High preset at 389.4 FPS and Ultra at 382.5 FPS are nearly identical in performance, suggesting that players who prioritize visuals can enable Ultra with minimal cost.

At 2560x1440, the same relative ordering persists, with Low at 445.1 FPS, Medium at 376.7 FPS, High at 368.5 FPS, and Ultra at 362.4 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 20-25 FPS across settings, which is a small price for the added sharpness. At 3840x2160, the Low preset still achieves 409.4 FPS, while the other presets cluster tightly between 338.4 and 346.5 FPS. The recommendation leans toward Medium or High as the sweet spot, as they provide the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate headroom, particularly at 1440p where the 376.7 FPS on Medium still leaves enormous buffer above 240Hz refresh rate displays.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combo in Valorant?

A: The peak measured average FPS is 466.4, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low settings preset. This represents the absolute ceiling for this configuration in the tested data.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: At Low settings, the drop is from 466.4 FPS at 1920x1080 to 409.4 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of 57 FPS. At Ultra settings, the drop is from 382.5 FPS to 338.4 FPS, a reduction of 44.1 FPS.

Q: Does the RTX 4070 SUPER's VRAM capacity matter for Valorant?

A: The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory, which is far beyond what Valorant requires. The game's engine is not demanding on memory capacity, so the 12 GB allocation is not a limiting factor in any measured scenario.

Q: Which settings preset shows the smallest gap between 1080p and 4K?

A: The Ultra preset shows the smallest absolute drop, from 382.5 FPS at 1080p to 338.4 FPS at 4K, a difference of 44.1 FPS. This suggests that at higher settings, the GPU workload scales more predictably with resolution.

Q: Is this combo more CPU-bound or GPU-bound in Valorant?

A: The data indicates a CPU-bound scenario. The Ryzen 5 5500's 6 cores and 12 threads with a boost clock of 4.20 GHz appear to be the primary driver, as the FPS differences between Low and Ultra at the same resolution are relatively small, while resolution scaling has a larger impact.

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

A: The combo ranks 825th out of 1650 tested combinations, placing it exactly in the middle of the database. This is notable given the high absolute FPS numbers, suggesting that many other combos also achieve very high frame rates in this game.

Resolution Scaling

The measured data shows a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, but the magnitude is far smaller than what would be expected if the GPU were the primary bottleneck. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at Low settings reduces average FPS from 466.4 to 445.1, a drop of 21.3 FPS (approximately 4.6%). The same resolution jump at Ultra settings reduces FPS from 382.5 to 362.4, a drop of 20.1 FPS (approximately 5.3%). This consistency suggests that the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU has ample headroom to handle the increased pixel count.

The jump from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 is more pronounced. At Low settings, FPS falls from 445.1 to 409.4, a drop of 35.7 FPS (approximately 8%). At Ultra settings, the drop is from 362.4 to 338.4, a reduction of 24 FPS (approximately 6.6%). The larger absolute drop at Low settings indicates that at lower graphical loads, the CPU is even more dominant, while the GPU begins to show its influence at higher settings and resolutions.

Overall, the scaling behavior reveals that this system is heavily CPU-limited in Valorant. The RTX 4070 SUPER, with its 7168 shading units and boost clock of 2475 MHz, is capable of far more work than the Ryzen 5 5500 can feed it. The 1080p to 4K transition costs only 57 FPS at Low settings, which confirms the GPU's raw power but also a signal that the CPU is holding back the full potential of the graphics card.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 825th out of 1650 tested combinations, placing it precisely at the 50th percentile of all tested systems in Valorant. This middle-of-the-pack ranking is surprising given the absolute FPS figures, which are extraordinarily high. The data suggests that Valorant is so well-optimized and CPU-bound that many mid-range and even older CPUs paired with modest GPUs can achieve comparable frame rates, provided they have strong single-thread performance.

The Ryzen 5 5500's percentile versus all CPUs is 79, indicating it outperforms 79% of tested processors in general benchmarks. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-12500, has an average score of 20897, a delta of -0.1% relative to the Ryzen's 20875. This places the CPU in a competitive position but not at the top tier. The GPU's percentile versus all GPUs is 84, with its nearest rival being the NVIDIA RTX A6000 at a delta of -0.2%.

The combination of a 79th percentile CPU and an 84th percentile GPU yielding a 50th percentile ranking in Valorant is telling. It implies that the game's performance ceiling is determined less by hardware tier and more by the specific CPU architecture's ability to handle the game's single-threaded physics and logic. The mid-pack ranking is not a criticism of this combo's absolute performance, but rather a reflection of the game's high floor for capable systems.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, manufactured on a 7 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock is 3.60 GHz, boosting up to 4.20 GHz, and it features 16 MB of L3 cache. In the measured FPS data, the CPU's influence is most evident in the relatively small performance gaps between Low and Ultra settings at any given resolution. At 1920x1080, the spread from Low to Ultra is 83.9 FPS (466.4 to 382.5), which is substantial but not reflective of a GPU bottleneck.

The CPU's single-thread performance, as indicated by its 3dmark single-thread score of 836 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2319, is critical for Valorant. The game's engine relies heavily on a primary game thread, and the Ryzen 5 5500's boost clock of 4.20 GHz provides the necessary speed. The 12 threads available via simultaneous multithreading help with background tasks, but the core clock speed is the dominant factor.

The fact that FPS drops by only 57 FPS from 1080p to 4K at Low settings suggests that the CPU can maintain a frame rate ceiling of around 409 FPS regardless of resolution. This is likely a hard limit imposed by the CPU's ability to process game logic, physics, and draw calls. The 16 MB L3 cache is beneficial for keeping frequently accessed game data close to the cores, reducing memory latency that could otherwise throttle frame production in a fast-paced FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are as follows: Low at 466.4, Medium at 397.6, High at 389.4, and Ultra at 382.5. The data shows a clear step-down from Low to Medium, with a 68.8 FPS difference, while the gap between Medium and High is just 8.2 FPS, and High to Ultra is 6.9 FPS. This suggests that the Medium preset offers a significant reduction in graphical load compared to Low, but moving beyond Medium yields diminishing returns in performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the pattern repeats with Low at 445.1, Medium at 376.7, High at 368.5, and Ultra at 362.4. The Low to Medium drop is 68.4 FPS, while Medium to High is 8.2 FPS, and High to Ultra is 6.1 FPS. The differences between Medium, High, and Ultra are remarkably consistent across resolutions, indicating that these presets have similar relative GPU workloads.

At 3840x2160, the values are Low at 409.4, Medium at 346.5, High at 343.5, and Ultra at 338.4. The Low to Medium drop is 62.9 FPS, while Medium to High is only 3 FPS, and High to Ultra is 5.1 FPS. At 4K, the Medium, High, and Ultra presets converge tightly, with a total spread of just 8.1 FPS. This convergence suggests that at higher resolutions, the GPU begins to play a more significant role, but it is still not the primary bottleneck, as even the lowest of these values (338.4 FPS) is exceptionally high.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using a 5 nm process from TSMC. It features 7168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1980 MHz with a boost clock of 2475 MHz, and its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory runs at 21 Gbps effective across a 192-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s.

In Valorant, the GPU's role is secondary to the CPU, but the data shows its influence grows with resolution and settings. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 83.9 FPS, which is the largest spread across all resolutions. This indicates that even at the lowest graphical settings, the CPU is the limiting factor, as the GPU can easily render frames at over 460 FPS. The GPU's 35.48 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is vastly underutilized at these settings.

At 4K, the GPU's workload increases, but the FPS drop is modest. The Low preset at 4K (409.4 FPS) is still higher than the Ultra preset at 1080p (382.5 FPS), demonstrating that the GPU has enormous headroom. The 12 GB VRAM capacity is never a concern in Valorant, as the game's textures and geometry are lightweight. The GPU's boost clock of 2475 MHz and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are more than sufficient to handle the game's rendering demands, and the data suggests that the RTX 4070 SUPER is effectively never the bottleneck in this pairing.