Valorant

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern: this combination scales strongly with resolution, but the scaling curve is not uniform across settings. At 1080p Low, the combo delivers 286.3 FPS, which drops to 245 FPS at 1440p Low (a 14.4% reduction) and further to 194.7 FPS at 4K Low (a 20.5% reduction from 1440p). This progressive decline indicates that even at Low settings, the AMD Radeon RX 570 is beginning to feel the pixel-count pressure, though the frame rates remain exceptionally high.

Moving to High settings, the scaling behavior shifts. At 1080p High, the combo produces 178.4 FPS. At 1440p High, this falls to 151.9 FPS (a 14.9% drop), and at 4K High, it reaches 119.6 FPS (a 21.3% drop from 1440p). The percentage drops are remarkably consistent between Low and High presets, suggesting that the game's rendering load scales nearly linearly with resolution when other settings are held constant.

The Medium and Ultra presets tell a similar story. Medium settings yield 187.3 FPS at 1080p, 162.8 FPS at 1440p, and 131 FPS at 4K. Ultra settings produce 170.2 FPS, 148.6 FPS, and 114.2 FPS across the same resolution ladder. The gap between Medium and Ultra narrows as resolution increases: at 1080p the difference is 17.1 FPS, at 1440p it is 14.2 FPS, and at 4K it shrinks to 16.8 FPS. This convergence suggests that at higher resolutions, the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor, while at 1080p, the CPU's 4 cores and 8 threads have more headroom to feed the GPU.

The Intel Core i3-12100F, with its 4.30 GHz boost clock and 12 MB of shared L3 cache, appears to be keeping pace adequately at 1080p, where the GPU is less saturated. The data shows that the largest absolute FPS loss from 1080p to 4K occurs on Low settings (91.6 FPS), while the smallest absolute loss is on Ultra (56 FPS). This indicates that on Ultra, the GPU is already working harder, so the additional resolution scaling has a comparatively smaller absolute impact.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results clearly favor Low settings for maximum frame rate, with 286.3 FPS at 1080p, 245 FPS at 1440p, and 194.7 FPS at 4K. However, the jump from Low to Medium costs relatively little performance at 1080p: 187.3 FPS versus 286.3 FPS, a reduction of 99 FPS. For competitive play, Low settings provide the highest headroom, particularly if the display refresh rate exceeds 240 Hz.

Medium settings represent the most balanced preset for 1080p, delivering 187.3 FPS, which is still well above the 144 Hz threshold. At 1440p, Medium produces 162.8 FPS, and at 4K it maintains 131 FPS. Given that Valorant is a tactical FPS where frame consistency matters, Medium offers a good compromise between visual fidelity and performance.

High settings provide 178.4 FPS at 1080p, 151.9 FPS at 1440p, and 119.6 FPS at 4K. The performance penalty from Medium to High is modest at 1080p (9.1 FPS) but slightly larger at 4K (11.4 FPS). Ultra settings, which deliver 170.2 FPS at 1080p, 148.6 FPS at 1440p, and 114.2 FPS at 4K, offer marginal visual improvements over High with a correspondingly small FPS cost.

The data indicates that for 1080p displays, Medium or High settings provide the best experience, as the frame rates remain above 170 FPS in all cases. For 1440p, Medium is the recommended preset, since it maintains 162.8 FPS while High drops to 151.9 FPS. At 4K, Low settings are necessary to stay above 190 FPS, though Medium still achieves 131 FPS for less demanding scenarios.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum FPS this combo can achieve?

A: The highest measured FPS is 286.3, recorded at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Does this combo maintain playable frame rates at 4K?

A: Yes, all settings at 3840x2160 exceed 114 FPS, with Low settings reaching 194.7 FPS and Ultra at 114.2 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the difference between Low (286.3 FPS) and Ultra (170.2 FPS) is 116.1 FPS, representing a 40.6% reduction.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this configuration?

A: The data shows the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, as FPS drops consistently from 1080p to 4K. The CPU's 4.30 GHz boost clock and 8 threads appear sufficient for 1080p, where scaling from Low to Ultra has a smaller relative impact.

Q: What settings should be used for a 144 Hz monitor?

A: All settings at 1080p and 1440p exceed 144 FPS, so any preset works. At 4K, only Low (194.7 FPS) and Medium (131 FPS) are viable, with Medium being borderline.

Q: How does the RX 570's 4 GB of GDDR5 memory affect performance?

A: The 4 GB memory capacity does not appear to cause issues in these measurements, as frame rates remain high across all resolutions and settings, with no anomalous drops that would indicate memory capacity limits.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i3-12100F and AMD Radeon RX 570 combination ranks 1569 out of 1650 tested combos for Valorant. This places the combo in the bottom 5% of all configurations, which seems counterintuitive given the high FPS numbers. The ranking reflects the fact that Valorant is a highly optimized esports title, and many other combos—particularly those with newer GPUs—achieve even higher frame rates.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 74 places it above 74% of all GPUs in synthetic benchmarks, with an average benchmark score of 30158. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (0.2% higher score), the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (0.2% higher), and the NVIDIA Tesla M60 (0.6% higher). This clustering indicates that the RX 570 is a mid-to-upper-tier performer in the broader GPU landscape.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 72, with an average benchmark score of 13516, places it near the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX (0.1% lower score) and the Intel Core i7-1250U (0.4% higher). This suggests the i3-12100F is a capable processor for gaming, despite its 4-core/8-thread configuration.

The low combo rank is driven by the fact that Valorant is CPU-light and GPU-light relative to other games, allowing even modest hardware to achieve high FPS. The rank of 1569 out of 1650 means that 81 other combos performed worse, but the vast majority of tested configurations deliver higher frame rates in this specific title.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i3-12100F is a 4-core, 8-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It features a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with 12 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU's single-thread performance is strong, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681 and Geekbench single-core score of 2224.

In Valorant, the CPU's role appears to be secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 286.3 FPS, which suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU adequately. However, the fact that FPS drops by 91.6 FPS from 1080p Low to 4K Low indicates that the GPU becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases.

The CPU's multi-threaded performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 11912, is more than sufficient for Valorant's workload, which typically uses fewer than 8 threads. The Passmark multithread score of 14015 and the 3DMark 8-thread score of 4026 further confirm that the CPU has ample headroom for this game.

The 12 MB of L3 cache, shared across all cores, helps with game data locality, and the 4.30 GHz boost clock provides responsive single-core performance. The CPU's 72nd percentile ranking versus all CPUs indicates it outperforms 72% of processors in average benchmark scores, which aligns with its ability to maintain high FPS in Valorant when paired with a mid-range GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 286.3 FPS on Low, 187.3 FPS on Medium, 178.4 FPS on High, and 170.2 FPS on Ultra. The step from Low to Medium is the largest performance drop (99 FPS), while the step from High to Ultra is the smallest (8.2 FPS).

At 2560x1440, the results are 245 FPS on Low, 162.8 FPS on Medium, 151.9 FPS on High, and 148.6 FPS on Ultra. The Low-to-Medium drop is 82.2 FPS, and the High-to-Ultra drop is 3.3 FPS, showing diminishing returns at higher presets.

At 3840x2160, the combo produces 194.7 FPS on Low, 131 FPS on Medium, 119.6 FPS on High, and 114.2 FPS on Ultra. The Low-to-Medium drop is 63.7 FPS, while the High-to-Ultra drop is 5.4 FPS.

Across all resolutions, Low settings consistently deliver at least 65% more FPS than Ultra settings. The largest absolute difference is at 1080p (116.1 FPS), and the smallest is at 4K (80.5 FPS). This indicates that the GPU is more heavily utilized at higher resolutions, reducing the relative impact of settings changes.

The data shows that the combo is capable of exceeding 240 FPS only at 1080p Low and 1440p Low. For 144 Hz displays, the combo comfortably exceeds the refresh rate at all settings except 4K Ultra, where it still achieves 114.2 FPS. For 240 Hz displays, only 1080p Low and 1440p Low provide sufficient headroom.