Valorant

FAQ

Q: How does the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 compare to its closest CPU rivals in average benchmark score?

A: The Ryzen 5 5600 has an average benchmark score of 20468, placing it just 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V (20454), 0.2% ahead of both the AMD Ryzen 5 8500G (20425) and AMD EPYC 9454P (20422), and 0.5% ahead of the AMD EPYC 7713 (20363). This indicates a very tight cluster of performance at this tier.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking, and which rival is closest in performance?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9060 sits in the 59th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 16014. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti with a score of 16129, meaning the RX 9060 trails it by 0.7%. It also edges out the AMD Radeon R9 370X (15862) by 1% and the AMD Radeon RX 7700 (15852) by 1%.

Q: In the measured FPS data, what is the highest average frame rate achieved by this combo?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 495 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. The next best is 469 FPS at 2560x1440 with Low settings, showing that low graphical presets are key to maximizing frame rates in Valorant.

Q: Does the combo's rank in Valorant place it in the top half of all tested configurations?

A: Yes. The combo ranks 1524th out of 2883 tested combos in Valorant, which places it just past the midpoint (approximately 52.9% of the way through the ranking). This suggests it is a solidly mid-pack performer for this specific title.

Q: Which measured settings preset at 1080p shows the most significant drop from the Low preset's average FPS?

A: At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset averages 391 FPS, which is 104 FPS lower than the Low preset's 495 FPS. The High preset (411 FPS) and Medium preset (422 FPS) sit between these extremes, showing a relatively linear scaling of performance cost as visual fidelity increases.

Q: What is the GPU's memory bandwidth, and how does the memory clock relate to it?

A: The RX 9060 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. The memory clock is listed as 2250 MHz with 18 Gbps effective speed, which directly feeds into that bandwidth figure.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with a Navi 44 chip, fabricated on a 4 nm process by TSMC. Its role in Valorant is substantial, as the data shows it is capable of pushing extremely high frame rates even at demanding resolutions. The GPU operates with a base clock of 1700 MHz, a game clock of 2400 MHz, and a boost clock of 2990 MHz. This boost behavior is critical for sustaining high FPS in fast-paced FPS games, where frame time consistency matters as much as raw averages.

The memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 across a 128-bit bus, yielding 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. In Valorant, a game not typically known for massive texture memory consumption, this 8 GB allocation is ample. The bandwidth figure is the key metric here; 288.0 GB/s allows the GPU to feed its 1792 shading units and 112 texture mapping units without bottlenecking. The GPU's pixel rate of 191.4 GPixel/s and texture rate of 334.9 GTexel/s further indicate that fill-rate intensive tasks are well handled.

Looking at the GPU's synthetic benchmarks provides context for its gaming performance. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 3322, while Geekbench OpenCL hits 88183 and Vulkan reaches 39476. The Passmark G3D score of 17631 places it in the 59th percentile of all GPUs. The deltaPct values against its nearest rivals show a razor-thin margin: 0.7% behind the RTX 3060 Ti, 1% ahead of the R9 370X and RX 7700, and 2.1% ahead of the Pro W5500. This means the RX 9060's raw compute power is competitive with upper-midrange cards from previous generations.

In actual Valorant play, the GPU's role shifts from being a bottleneck at lower resolutions to becoming more relevant at 4K. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 495 FPS; at 4K Low, it drops to 435 FPS. The delta of 60 FPS from 1080p to 4K is relatively modest, suggesting that at 1080p the CPU is doing heavy lifting, while the GPU has headroom. The FP32 compute of 21.43 TFLOPS and FP16 at 21.43 TFLOPS (1:1 ratio) confirm this is a capable compute unit, which explains why it can handle even 4K Ultra at 267 FPS without dropping below playable levels.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and AMD Radeon RX 9060 ranks 1524th out of 2883 tested combos specifically in Valorant. This ranking places it in the 47.1st percentile of all combos tested for this game, meaning roughly 47% of configurations perform worse. Given that Valorant is a competitive FPS where high frame rates are paramount, this mid-pack ranking is notable because it indicates the combo achieves playable performance across all tested settings.

The CPU's percentile ranking among all processors is 74th, which is significantly higher than the GPU's 59th percentile ranking. This disparity suggests the CPU is the stronger component in this pairing. When considering that the CPU has an average benchmark score of 20468 and the GPU has an average benchmark score of 16014, the relative strength of the processor is clear. The combo's overall rank in Valorant (1524 of 2883) is likely pulled down by the GPU's more modest standing relative to other graphics cards.

The measured FPS data corroborates this ranking. At 4K Ultra, the combo still manages 267 FPS, which is far above the refresh rates of most monitors. Even at the most demanding preset tested, the system never dips below 250 FPS (the minimum FPS recorded at 4K Medium). The ranking of 1524 out of 2883 indicates that while many combos outperform this one, the absolute performance level remains exceptionally high for esports titles.

It is notably the combo's rank is exactly 1524, which is almost precisely at the halfway point of the 2883 tested combos. This symmetry suggests that the Ryzen 5 5600 + RX 9060 pairing represents a "typical" mid-range gaming system for Valorant, neither overperforming nor underperforming expectations. The data shows that this rank is achieved consistently across settings, with the combo never falling outside a narrow band of relative performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160) and four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, and Ultra). At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low averages 495 FPS, Medium averages 422 FPS with a minimum of 359 and maximum of 485, High averages 411 FPS, and Ultra averages 391 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 104 FPS, which represents a 21% reduction in average frame rate when moving from the lowest to highest quality preset.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 469 FPS, which is 26 FPS lower than the same preset at 1080p. Medium at 1440p averages 368 FPS (minimum 313, maximum 423), High averages 351 FPS, and Ultra averages 334 FPS. The delta from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 135 FPS, a 28.8% reduction. This larger percentage drop compared to 1080p indicates that the GPU becomes increasingly engaged at higher resolutions.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset still manages 435 FPS, while Medium averages 294 FPS (minimum 250, maximum 338), High averages 280 FPS, and Ultra averages 267 FPS. The reduction from Low to Ultra at 4K is 168 FPS, representing a 38.6% drop. This is a substantial performance penalty for the highest quality settings at 4K, though the absolute numbers remain impressive for a competitive shooter.

The minimum FPS values are only provided for Medium settings across all resolutions: 359 at 1080p, 313 at 1440p, and 250 at 4K. These minimums suggest that frame pacing remains stable even under load, with the 4K Medium minimum of 250 FPS still comfortably above typical high-refresh-rate monitor capabilities. The maximum FPS values follow similar trends, with 485 at 1080p Medium, 423 at 1440p Medium, and 338 at 4K Medium.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K reveals important information about where the bottleneck lies in this system. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 495 at 1080p to 469 at 1440p (a 5.3% decrease), and then to 435 at 4K (a further 7.3% decrease from 1440p). The total drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is 60 FPS, or 12.1%. This relatively small decrease suggests that at Low settings, the CPU is the primary limiter, as the GPU has ample headroom to render simple scenes.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is more pronounced. The average FPS drops from 391 at 1080p to 334 at 1440p (a 14.6% decrease), and then to 267 at 4K (a 20.1% decrease from 1440p). The total drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra is 124 FPS, or 31.7%. This larger percentage drop indicates that at Ultra settings, the GPU becomes more of a limiting factor, as higher quality presets increase the graphical workload.

The Medium preset shows intermediate scaling behavior. From 1080p (422 FPS) to 1440p (368 FPS) is a 12.8% drop, and from 1440p to 4K (294 FPS) is a 20.1% drop. The High preset follows a similar pattern: 411 FPS at 1080p, 351 FPS at 1440p (14.6% drop), and 280 FPS at 4K (20.2% drop from 1440p).

The data indicates that the scaling from 1080p to 1440p is relatively modest across all settings (ranging from 5.3% to 14.6%), while the scaling from 1440p to 4K is consistently around 20% for Medium, High, and Ultra. This pattern suggests that the GPU's capabilities begin to saturate at 4K, particularly with higher quality presets. At 1080p, especially with Low settings, the system appears CPU-bound, as the GPU could likely render even higher frame rates if the processor could feed it faster.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture (codenamed Vermeer), manufactured on a 7 nm process at TSMC. Its base clock is 3.50 GHz with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, and it carries a 65 W TDP. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and a shared 32 MB of L3 cache. This configuration is well-suited for gaming, where single-thread performance and cache latency are critical.

In Valorant, the CPU's role is paramount. The game is known for being CPU-intensive, and the measured FPS data supports this. At 1080p Low, where the GPU workload is minimal, the combo achieves 495 FPS. This high frame rate is likely limited by the CPU's single-thread performance, which is reflected in its benchmark scores: 3DMark single-thread score of 882, Cinebench R15 single-core of 260, Cinebench R20 single-core of 1085, Cinebench R23 single-core of 2584, Geekbench single-core of 1936, and Passmark single-thread of 3256.

The CPU's multi-threaded capabilities are also strong, with Cinebench R23 multicore scoring 18309 and Passmark multithread scoring 21541. However, in a game like Valorant, the single-thread scores are more relevant. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1737 indicates that even with two threads, the CPU performs well, which is typical for esports titles that may not fully utilize all 12 threads.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 74th among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20468, places it well above the GPU's 59th percentile. This suggests that in this pairing, the CPU is the stronger component and is likely not the primary bottleneck in most scenarios. The nearest CPU rivals all have average scores within 0.5% of the Ryzen 5 5600, underscoring its competitive position.

The 32 MB shared L3 cache is particularly beneficial for gaming, as it allows more data to be cached on-die, reducing memory latency. The CPU supports DDR4 memory with dual-channel configuration and 51.2 GB/s bandwidth, which is sufficient for Valorant's requirements. The PCIe Gen 4 interface with 20 lanes (CPU only) ensures the GPU has adequate bandwidth for data transfer.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings preset depends on the user's resolution and refresh rate priorities. For users with 240 Hz or lower refresh rate monitors, even the Ultra preset at 4K (267 FPS) exceeds the threshold for smooth gameplay. However, for competitive play where maximizing frame rate is paramount, the Low preset at 1080p (495 FPS) or 1440p (469 FPS) provides the highest possible frame rates.

At 1920x1080, the Low preset offers 495 FPS, which is 104 FPS higher than Ultra (391 FPS). The Medium preset (422 FPS) provides a reasonable balance, offering 73 FPS more than Ultra while still maintaining high visual quality. For most competitive players, the Medium preset at 1080p represents the best compromise between visual clarity and raw performance, as it delivers 422 FPS with a minimum of 359 FPS, ensuring no drops below high refresh rate thresholds.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset (469 FPS) remains the best choice for maximum performance, but the Medium preset (368 FPS) still provides excellent frame rates. The minimum FPS of 313 at 1440p Medium is notably lower than the 359 minimum at 1080p Medium, suggesting that users with 360 Hz monitors should consider 1080p if they want to guarantee no frame drops below their refresh rate.

For 4K users, the Low preset (435 FPS) is the only option that maintains frame rates above 400 FPS. The Medium preset (294 FPS) and High preset (280 FPS) are still excellent, but the Ultra preset (267 FPS) shows a significant drop. The minimum FPS of 250 at 4K Medium indicates that even at this high resolution, the system can maintain frame rates above 240 Hz, making it suitable for high-refresh-rate 4K monitors.

The data suggests that the Medium preset offers the best overall experience across all resolutions when considering both average FPS and the available minimum/maximum data points. It provides a significant uplift over High and Ultra presets while maintaining excellent visual quality. The Low preset is recommended only for users who prioritize raw frame rate above all else and are willing to sacrifice visual fidelity for competitive advantage.