Valorant

The Intel Core i3-12100F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivers extraordinary frame rates in Valorant, a title where the CPU often dictates the ceiling. The data shows a clear trend: as resolution drops, the frame rate climbs, but the gains are far from linear, revealing where this combination’s bottleneck truly lies. At 4K with High settings, the combo averages 384.1 FPS; stepping down to 1440p pushes that to 417.5 FPS, and at 1080p it reaches 441.1 FPS. This scaling pattern—roughly a 57 FPS jump from 4K to 1080p—indicates that while the RTX 4080 SUPER is still doing meaningful work at lower resolutions, the i3-12100F’s four cores begin to constrain the pipeline. The most telling figure is the Low settings run: at 1080p, the combo hits 526.4 FPS, which is 85.3 FPS higher than the High preset at the same resolution. That gap narrows to 36.3 FPS at 1440p and 74.7 FPS at 4K, suggesting that the CPU’s single-thread strength (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681) becomes the primary limiter when graphical load is minimal.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling in Valorant for this combo follows a predictable pattern, but the magnitude of the drops tells a story about component balance. From 1080p to 1440p on High settings, the average FPS falls from 441.1 to 417.5, a reduction of 23.6 FPS or roughly 5.3%. Moving from 1440p to 4K, the drop is steeper: 417.5 down to 384.1, a 33.4 FPS decrease. This non-uniform scaling—where the 1440p-to-4K transition costs more than the 1080p-to-1440p step—suggests the GPU is becoming more relevant at higher resolutions, but the CPU is never fully relieved. The Low preset amplifies this effect. At 1080p Low, the frame rate is 526.4 FPS; at 1440p Low, it drops to 495.1 FPS (a 31.3 FPS loss), and at 4K Low, it lands at 458.8 FPS (a further 36.3 FPS loss). Here, the total scaling from 1080p to 4K is 67.6 FPS, which is actually smaller than the 83.3 FPS gap seen on High settings. This counterintuitive result indicates that even at 4K Low, the CPU’s frame generation limit is being approached, as the GPU has ample headroom to render the scene but the processor can’t feed it faster. The Ultra preset shows the tightest spread: 434.1 FPS at 1080p, 410.3 FPS at 1440p, and 376.9 FPS at 4K. The delta between 1080p and 4K Ultra is 57.2 FPS, which aligns closely with the High preset’s 57.0 FPS gap, reinforcing that the CPU bottleneck is consistent regardless of quality settings. The data suggests that for competitive play at 1080p, this combo is overkill—the 526.4 FPS at Low settings far exceeds any display’s refresh rate—while at 4K Ultra, the 376.9 FPS still leaves substantial headroom for future games.

GPU Role

The RTX 4080 SUPER’s role in Valorant is more about consistency than raw throughput, as the game is not graphically demanding. The GPU’s 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, is vastly more than Valorant requires at any resolution. The benchmark data confirms this: the GPU’s Passmark G3D score of 34245 places it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, yet the frame rates in Valorant are capped by the CPU in most scenarios. The GPU’s boost clock of 2550 MHz and base clock of 2295 MHz provide the raw compute (52.22 TFLOPS FP32) to handle 4K rendering with ease, but the measured FPS differences between Low and Ultra settings at the same resolution are modest. At 1080p, the spread from Low (526.4 FPS) to Ultra (434.1 FPS) is 92.3 FPS, while at 4K, the spread is 81.9 FPS (458.8 Low vs. 376.9 Ultra). This narrowing spread at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU is starting to contribute more to the frame time, but it still never becomes the primary limiter. The GPU’s architecture, Ada Lovelace on a 5 nm process from TSMC, includes 10240 shading units and 80 RT cores, but Valorant does not leverage ray tracing or DLSS, so these features remain idle. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 53610, which is 0.2% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT’s 53489, suggests that this card is a top-tier performer, but in Valorant, its immense power is underutilized. The memory clock of 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective) is irrelevant to the frame rates observed, as the game’s texture and geometry data are trivial for 16 GB of VRAM. The data shows that the GPU’s role is to ensure that no graphical setting or resolution can drag the frame rate below 376.9 FPS, which is a safety net rather than a performance driver.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i3-12100F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER ranks 514th out of 1650 tested combos in Valorant, placing it in the 68.8th percentile of all configurations. This rank is remarkably high for a CPU that, on its own, only sits in the 72nd percentile of all CPUs, and a GPU in the 88th percentile. The rank suggests that Valorant’s engine heavily favors the CPU’s single-thread performance, which is a strong suit for the i3-12100F—its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1681 is competitive with much more expensive processors. The CPU’s nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 3975WX, has an average score of 13534, which is just 0.1% higher than the i3-12100F’s 13516, meaning the two are statistically identical in general benchmarks. However, the Threadripper has 64 cores versus the i3’s 4, so Valorant’s reliance on a few fast cores is evident. The combo’s rank of 514 is also notable because the RTX 4080 SUPER’s nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (0.2% faster in average score), would likely produce similar frame rates when paired with the same CPU, as the GPU is not the limiting factor. The data implies that users could drop to a lower-tier GPU without sacrificing much in Valorant, but the RTX 4080 SUPER ensures that the combo remains future-proof for more demanding titles. The rank also reflects the CPU’s 4 cores and 8 threads, which are sufficient for Valorant’s modest threading requirements, as evidenced by the 3DMark 4-thread score of 2859 versus the 8-thread score of 4026—a small scaling gain that suggests the game uses fewer than 8 threads effectively.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of this combo’s performance across twelve distinct configurations. At 1920x1080, the frame rates are consistently above 430 FPS: Low settings deliver 526.4 FPS, Medium 444.2 FPS, High 441.1 FPS, and Ultra 434.1 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 82.2 FPS, which is the largest single-setting jump in the entire dataset, indicating that the Medium preset introduces significant GPU work that the CPU can partially hide. At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts: Low produces 495.1 FPS, Medium 419.4 FPS, High 417.5 FPS, and Ultra 410.3 FPS. The difference between Medium and High at this resolution is just 1.9 FPS, showing that these two presets are nearly identical in GPU load. The 4K results (3840x2160) show the lowest frame rates but still maintain an impressive floor: Low 458.8 FPS, Medium 389.9 FPS, High 384.1 FPS, and Ultra 376.9 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 4K is 81.9 FPS, which is slightly smaller than the 92.3 FPS spread at 1080p. This compression of the settings spread at higher resolutions is a classic sign of the CPU becoming the bottleneck, as the GPU’s frame time increases with resolution but the CPU’s frame generation time remains constant. Across all resolutions, the Low preset consistently outperforms the Ultra preset by a margin of 81.9 to 92.3 FPS, but even the lowest recorded average (376.9 FPS at 4K Ultra) is far above the refresh rate of any mainstream monitor. The data reveals that for this combo, the user has the freedom to max out settings at any resolution without falling below 370 FPS, which is a rarity in game benchmarking.

FAQ

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

A: The highest average FPS is 526.4, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How much does the frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K on Ultra settings?

A: The frame rate drops from 434.1 FPS at 1080p Ultra to 376.9 FPS at 4K Ultra, a difference of 57.2 FPS.

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

A: The CPU is the primary limiter, as evidenced by the small frame rate gaps between Medium, High, and Ultra presets at each resolution, and the fact that the GPU’s benchmark score (53610) is far above what Valorant requires.

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

A: It ranks 514th out of 1650 combos, placing it in the upper third of all tested systems.

Q: What is the difference in average FPS between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 495.1 FPS while Ultra produces 410.3 FPS, a difference of 84.8 FPS.

Q: Does the GPU’s 16 GB VRAM impact performance in Valorant?

A: No, the data shows no evidence of VRAM limitations; the frame rates are consistently CPU-bound, and even at 4K Ultra with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory, the GPU is never the bottleneck.