Valorant

Valorant with the Intel Core i5-10400F and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT produces extremely high frame rates across all tested configurations, with the data showing a clear pattern where the CPU becomes the primary limiting factor as resolution decreases. The measured FPS values in the FACT PACK reveal that this combination is far beyond what is needed for competitive play, and the analysis below breaks down how the components interact with the game’s demands.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a distinct scaling pattern from 1080p to 4K, with the largest performance gap appearing between the lowest and highest resolutions at each settings preset. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 386 at 1920x1080 to 366 at 2560x1440, then further to 340 at 3840x2160. This represents a total decrease of 46 FPS, or roughly 12% from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the averages move from 324 at 1080p to 307 at 1440p and 285 at 4K, a drop of 39 FPS (about 12%). The Medium preset shows 329 at 1080p, 312 at 1440p, and 290 at 4K, while Ultra goes from 319 at 1080p to 302 at 1440p and 280 at 4K.

The relatively small percentage drops between resolutions suggest that the system is not heavily GPU-bound at lower resolutions. When moving from 1080p to 1440p, the FPS loss is only 20 FPS at Low (from 386 to 366), 17 FPS at High (from 324 to 307), and 17 FPS at Medium (from 329 to 312). This modest scaling indicates that the Intel Core i5-10400F is likely holding back the AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT at 1080p, as the GPU has enough headroom to produce higher frame rates if the CPU could feed it faster. The 4K results show a slightly larger drop from 1440p, with 26 FPS lost at Low (366 to 340) and 22 FPS lost at High (307 to 285), which begins to show more GPU involvement, but even at 4K the frame rates remain exceptionally high.

The fact that the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings at the same resolution is relatively small—only 67 FPS at 1080p (386 vs 319), 64 FPS at 1440p (366 vs 302), and 60 FPS at 4K (340 vs 280)—further confirms that the CPU is the bottleneck. If the GPU were the limiting factor, the gap between Low and Ultra would be much larger, as higher settings typically increase GPU load significantly. Instead, the data shows that the RX 9070 XT can handle even Ultra settings at 4K with 280 FPS average, meaning the framerate ceiling is set by the i5-10400F’s 6 cores and 12 threads rather than the GPU’s capabilities.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded for this combination?

A: The highest average FPS in the measured data is 386, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is followed closely by 366 at 2560x1440 Low and 340 at 3840x2160 Low.

Q: How does the CPU’s core and thread configuration affect Valorant performance?

A: The Intel Core i5-10400F has 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. The benchmark results show that this CPU scores 10283 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 1451 in single-core, with a percentile rank of 68 against all CPUs. In Valorant, which is known to be lightly threaded, the single-core performance is critical, and the data shows the CPU can sustain high frame rates even at 1080p, though it appears to be the limiting factor since FPS does not scale dramatically with resolution changes.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory capacity and bandwidth?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT comes with 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s. The memory clock is listed as 2518 MHz with 20.1 Gbps effective speed. This large VRAM allocation is more than sufficient for Valorant, which is not a memory-intensive game, and the bandwidth ensures no memory-related bottlenecks at any tested setting.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested combinations in Valorant?

A: The combo rank for this CPU-GPU pair in Valorant is 2813 out of 3708 tested combinations. This places it in the 24th percentile of all combos, meaning about 76% of tested combinations perform better in this specific game. This relatively low rank is surprising given the high absolute FPS numbers, but it reflects that many other CPUs paired with this GPU achieve even higher frame rates.

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

A: At 2560x1440, the Medium preset produces an average of 312 FPS with a minimum of 265 and maximum of 359, while Ultra produces an average of 302 FPS. The difference is only 10 FPS on average, which is minimal. This small gap suggests that the GPU has ample headroom and that settings have little impact on performance because the CPU is the dominant constraint.

Q: Does the GPU’s benchmark score correlate with its in-game performance?

A: The GPU has an average benchmark score of 13543 across all tests, with a percentile rank of 55 against all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon HD 7770M (score 13536, delta 0.1%), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (score 13515, delta 0.2%), and NVIDIA P106-090 (score 13470, delta 0.5%). However, in Valorant, the absolute FPS numbers are far higher than what these rival GPUs would typically achieve, indicating that the game is not GPU-bound and the benchmark score is not a reliable predictor of this specific workload’s performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Comet Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, with a TDP of 65 watts. The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 256 KB of L2 per core, and 12 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR4 in dual-channel configuration, providing 42.7 GB/s of bandwidth. The CPU uses PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes and has no integrated graphics.

Benchmark data shows this CPU scores 4748 in 3DMark 16-thread, 1350 in 2-thread, 2560 in 4-thread, 3929 in 8-thread, and 4735 in max-thread tests. Single-thread performance is 688 in 3DMark, and Cinebench R23 results are 10283 multicore and 1451 single-core. The average benchmark score is 14185, with a percentile rank of 68 against all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon 6756E (avg score 14163, delta 0.2%), Intel Core 7 160UL (avg score 14232, delta -0.3%), AMD EPYC 7552 (avg score 14115, delta 0.5%), and AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (avg score 14277, delta -0.6%).

In Valorant, the CPU’s role is crucial because the game engine relies heavily on single-thread performance for rendering the game world and processing player actions. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low, the system produces 386 FPS, but this does not increase when moving to lower resolutions because the GPU is never the bottleneck. The fact that 4K Ultra still yields 280 FPS average means the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU at very high rates, but the FPS ceiling is set by the CPU’s processing speed. The 4.30 GHz boost clock is likely the key factor, as Valorant does not scale well across many cores; the 6 cores and 12 threads provide sufficient parallel processing for background tasks, but the game’s main thread benefits most from the high boost frequency.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank for this specific pairing in Valorant is 2813 out of 3708 tested combinations. This rank places it in the lower 24% of all combos, which is notable given the high absolute frame rates recorded. The rank is determined by comparing the average FPS across all tested settings and resolutions for this combo against every other CPU-GPU pair in the database.

The low rank suggests that while the i5-10400F and RX 9070 XT produce excellent frame rates—well above 280 FPS at 4K Ultra—other combinations achieve even higher numbers. This is likely because Valorant is a CPU-bound title, and many CPUs with higher single-core performance than the i5-10400F can push the RX 9070 XT to even greater frame rates. The GPU itself is not the limiting factor, as evidenced by the consistent FPS across settings; instead, the CPU’s 6-core/12-thread configuration with a 4.30 GHz boost clock is the bottleneck.

The data shows that the combo rank does not necessarily reflect the user experience. A rank of 2813 out of 3708 means there are 2812 combos that perform better, but the absolute difference may be small. For example, a combo ranked 2000 might achieve 400 FPS at 1080p Low instead of 386 FPS, which is a 3.6% difference that is imperceptible on most monitors. The rank is useful for comparison, but the practical performance is already far beyond what any display can show, as standard monitors top out at 360 Hz or 500 Hz, and 386 FPS exceeds all of them.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT is based on the Navi 48 chip with RDNA 4.0 architecture, manufactured on TSMC’s 4 nm process. It has 53,900 million transistors on a 357 mm² die, with a transistor density of 151.0M per mm². The GPU clocks are 1660 MHz base, 2970 MHz boost, and 2400 MHz game clock, with memory running at 2518 MHz (20.1 Gbps effective). It features 4096 shading units, 256 TMUs, 128 ROPs, and 64 ray tracing cores. The memory subsystem consists of 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth. The pixel rate is 380.2 GPixel/s, texture rate is 760.3 GTexel/s, and FP32 performance is 48.66 TFLOPS.

In benchmark tests, the GPU scores 7260 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, 17428 in Geekbench OpenCL, and 65879 in Geekbench Vulkan. The PassMark tests show 154 in DirectX 10, 292 in DirectX 11, 78 in DirectX 12, and 353 in DirectX 9. The G3D score is 26795, and GPU compute score is 15864. The average benchmark score is 13543, with a percentile rank of 55 against all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon HD 7770M (avg score 13536, delta 0.1%), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 (avg score 13515, delta 0.2%), NVIDIA P106-090 (avg score 13470, delta 0.5%), and AMD Radeon Pro 555 (avg score 13407, delta 1%).

In Valorant, the GPU’s role is secondary to the CPU. The measured FPS data shows that increasing settings from Low to Ultra at any resolution changes the average FPS by only 60-67 FPS, which indicates the GPU is not stressed by this game. Even at 4K Ultra, the RX 9070 XT produces 280 FPS average, which is far above the refresh rates of most monitors. The 16 GB VRAM is never close to being exhausted, as Valorant is a lightweight game in terms of memory usage. The high bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s ensures that texture streaming and draw calls are handled without any memory stalls. The GPU’s boost clock of 2970 MHz and FP32 performance of 48.66 TFLOPS are more than enough for this title, and the data confirms that the GPU is not the limiting component in any of the 12 measured configurations.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra), providing 12 data points. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 386 FPS, Medium averages 329 FPS with a minimum of 280 and maximum of 379, High averages 324 FPS, and Ultra averages 319 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 67 FPS, with the minimum FPS recorded at Medium being 280, which is still extremely high.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 366 FPS, Medium averages 312 FPS (min 265, max 359), High averages 307 FPS, and Ultra averages 302 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 64 FPS. Compared to 1080p, the FPS drops by 20 at Low, 17 at Medium, 17 at High, and 17 at Ultra. This consistent drop of roughly 17-20 FPS across all settings indicates that the resolution increase adds GPU load, but the CPU remains the primary constraint.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 340 FPS, Medium averages 290 FPS (min 246, max 333), High averages 285 FPS, and Ultra averages 280 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 60 FPS. From 1440p to 4K, the FPS drops by 26 at Low, 22 at Medium, 22 at High, and 22 at Ultra. The larger drop at Low (26 FPS) compared to the other settings (22 FPS) suggests that at Low settings, the GPU is finally becoming more involved, but even so, the frame rates remain in the 280-340 range.

The minimum FPS values are only recorded for Medium settings across all resolutions: 280 at 1080p, 265 at 1440p, and 246 at 4K. These minimums are all above 240 FPS, which means the system never drops below the refresh rate of even the fastest gaming monitors on the market. The maximum FPS values at Medium are 379 at 1080p, 359 at 1440p, and 333 at 4K, showing that the system has bursts of even higher performance. The difference between minimum and maximum at Medium is 99 FPS at 1080p, 94 FPS at 1440p, and 87 FPS at 4K, indicating some frame time variance, but the averages are so high that this variance is unlikely to be noticeable.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the best settings preset depends on the user’s display refresh rate and resolution preference. For a 1080p monitor with a 360 Hz refresh rate, the Low preset at 386 FPS average is the only setting that exceeds 360 FPS, making it the optimal choice for competitive play where every frame matters. However, the Medium preset at 329 FPS is still above 300 Hz, and the jump to High (324 FPS) or Ultra (319 FPS) costs only 7-10 FPS compared to Medium, so users with 300 Hz monitors can afford to use higher settings without sacrificing much performance.

For 1440p displays, the Low preset produces 366 FPS, which exceeds 360 Hz, but the Medium preset at 312 FPS is better for visual quality if the monitor is 300 Hz or lower. The difference between Medium and Ultra at 1440p is only 10 FPS (312 vs 302), so there is no practical reason to choose Ultra over Medium unless the user values the slightly higher visual fidelity. The High preset at 307 FPS is nearly identical to Medium, so the choice between High and Medium is essentially arbitrary.

At 4K, the Low preset yields 340 FPS, which is above 300 Hz, but most 4K monitors are limited to 144 Hz or 240 Hz. For a 240 Hz 4K monitor, the Medium preset at 290 FPS is more than sufficient, and even Ultra at 280 FPS is above 240 Hz. The data shows that even at 4K Ultra, the system maintains an average of 280 FPS with no recorded minimums below 246 FPS (at Medium), so users can enable the highest settings without worrying about frame drops below their monitor’s refresh rate.

The most balanced recommendation is the Medium preset, as it provides the only complete data with minimum and maximum FPS values, and it sits within 10-20 FPS of Ultra at every resolution. The minimum FPS at Medium is 280 at 1080p, 265 at 1440p, and 246 at 4K, all of which are above 240 Hz. For competitive players who prioritize frame rate over visuals, Low is the best choice at 1080p or 1440p, as it delivers the highest averages (386 and 366 FPS respectively) and still maintains visual clarity sufficient for spotting enemies. However, given that the difference between Low and Ultra is only 67 FPS at 1080p, 64 FPS at 1440p, and 60 FPS at 4K, the performance cost of cranking settings to Ultra is minimal, making it a viable option even for high-refresh-rate gaming. The data strongly suggests that this CPU-GPU combination is overkill for Valorant, and users should select settings based on their monitor’s capabilities rather than performance concerns.