Valorant

The pairing of the Intel Core i5-11400F with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti produces an extraordinary performance profile in Valorant, one that reveals a great deal about the division of labor between the processor and graphics card. The measured frame rates are exceptionally high across all settings and resolutions, but the pattern of those results tells a more nuanced story than simple speed. The data indicates a system that is fundamentally overqualified for the graphical demands of the title, yet the way performance scales with resolution and settings suggests that the CPU is the primary arbiter of the final frame rate in most scenarios.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is surprisingly modest, which is the first major clue about what limits this combination. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 451.5 FPS at 1920x1080 to 401.7 FPS at 3840x2160. That is a reduction of approximately 11%, a remarkably small penalty for a fourfold increase in pixel count. This shallow curve strongly implies that the RTX 4070 Ti is not being fully utilized at lower resolutions; the GPU has so much headroom that even a massive increase in rendering load barely affects the output.

The story changes slightly when moving from Low to Ultra settings at the same resolution. At 3840x2160, the difference between Low (401.7 FPS) and Ultra (325.9 FPS) is about 23%, indicating that the GPU does begin to feel the pressure of the highest preset, but the absolute numbers remain so high that the system never approaches a bottleneck. At 1920x1080, the gap between Low (451.5 FPS) and Ultra (375.6 FPS) is roughly 20%, which shows that the graphics card is still contributing to the performance delta, but the CPU’s ability to feed frames becomes the ceiling. The data suggests that at 1080p, the i5-11400F is likely the limiting factor, as the GPU cannot push much beyond the 450 FPS mark regardless of how light the graphical load becomes.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this specific pairing holds the rank of 884 out of 1650 combos for Valorant. This position is intriguing because it is near the middle of the pack, yet the measured FPS numbers are staggeringly high. The explanation lies in the nature of the game itself; Valorant is designed to run on a wide range of hardware, and many modern CPUs can achieve frame rates in the hundreds. The percentile position suggests that while the i5-11400F is a capable processor, it is not among the absolute top-tier for this esports title, where the very fastest CPUs with higher single-thread performance can push even higher numbers.

The GPU’s benchmark data reinforces this interpretation. The RTX 4070 Ti sits at the 85th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 44900. Its nearest rivals in the synthetic tests include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile with a deltaPct of -0.6, and the Intel Arc A730M at -1.5, showing that the desktop card is on par with or slightly ahead of those parts in raw compute. However, in Valorant, the GPU’s raw power is largely irrelevant because the game’s rendering engine is not demanding enough to stress a card of this caliber. The combo rank of 884 reflects a situation where the CPU, which sits at the 75th percentile among all CPUs, is the component that determines the final standing, not the GPU.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal preset is a matter of prioritizing consistency over raw maximums. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 451.5 FPS, which is the highest measured for this combination. The Medium preset drops to 383.6 FPS, while High and Ultra yield 381.7 and 375.6 FPS, respectively. The difference between Medium and High is negligible, with only about 2 FPS separating them, which suggests that the game engine is not heavily impacted by the graphical features enabled at those levels.

For competitive play, the Low preset appears to be the best choice, not because it looks worse, but because it provides the largest performance buffer. The jump from Low to Medium costs roughly 68 FPS at 1080p, which is a significant loss for a setting that does not offer a proportional competitive advantage. At 2560x1440, the pattern repeats: Low yields 428.8 FPS, while Medium (364.4 FPS) and High (362.3 FPS) are nearly identical. The data indicates that Medium and High are effectively the same in terms of performance, so choosing High over Medium is free, but Low remains the outlier for maximum FPS. At 4K, the spread narrows, but Low still leads with 401.7 FPS, making it the consistent choice for the highest refresh rates.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate this combo achieves in Valorant?

A: The highest measured average is 451.5 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

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

A: The average FPS drops from 451.5 at 1920x1080 to 401.7 at 3840x2160, a reduction of about 49.8 FPS.

Q: Does the Ultra preset provide any benefit over High at 1440p?

A: No measurable benefit is seen; Ultra yields 352.5 FPS while High yields 362.3 FPS, meaning Ultra is actually slightly slower.

Q: Which component is more likely to be the bottleneck in this game?

A: The data implies the CPU is the primary limiter, as the FPS does not scale significantly with resolution, indicating the GPU has spare capacity.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested combinations?

A: It ranks 884th out of 1650 combos, placing it in the middle of the database despite achieving very high absolute frame rates.

Q: Is the frame rate difference between Medium and High presets significant?

A: No, at 1080p the difference is only about 1.9 FPS (383.6 vs 381.7), making them essentially identical in performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti brings an enormous amount of graphical firepower to this pairing, but the benchmark results in Valorant show that it is rarely the deciding factor. The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. Its memory clock runs at 1313 MHz, with an effective data rate of 21 Gbps. These specifications are overkill for a game like Valorant, which does not require large memory pools or high bandwidth for its textures and geometry. The card’s 7680 shading units and 80 ROPs are capable of producing a pixel rate of 208.8 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 626.4 GTexel/s, yet the measured FPS values show that the game cannot utilize this capacity fully.

The GPU’s core clocks are set at a base of 2310 MHz and a boost of 2610 MHz, which are high figures, but the frame rate data suggests that the card is often waiting for the CPU to send it work. The fact that the FPS only drops by about 11% from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is telling; a GPU-bound scenario would show a much steeper decline. Even at Ultra settings, where the card is more engaged, the 4K performance of 325.9 FPS demonstrates that the RTX 4070 Ti is never close to being overwhelmed. The GPU’s 85th percentile ranking among all GPUs and its average benchmark score of 44900 confirm its high standing, but in Valorant, its role is to provide a safety net that ensures frame rates never dip below extremely high levels.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Rocket Lake architecture, manufactured on a 14 nm process. Its base clock is 2.60 GHz, and it can boost up to 4.40 GHz. The processor is equipped with 12 MB of shared L3 cache, and it supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 14372 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2029 in single-core, with a single-thread Passmark score of 2981. These numbers place the CPU at the 75th percentile among all CPUs, and its performance is closely matched by rivals such as the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U and the Intel Core i7-1260P, both with deltaPct values near zero.

In Valorant, the CPU’s single-thread performance is the critical factor, and the data shows that it is the limiting component. The FPS at 1080p Low is 451.5, but this does not increase when the resolution is lowered further, suggesting that the CPU has hit its ceiling for generating frames. The fact that the FPS does not drop significantly at 4K (only to 401.7 FPS) indicates that the CPU can still feed the GPU enough data to maintain high performance, but the absolute cap is set by the processor’s ability to process the game’s simulation logic. The combo’s rank of 884 out of 1650 reflects this limitation; faster CPUs with higher single-thread scores would likely push the FPS higher, but the i5-11400F still delivers excellent results for a mid-range processor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of this combo’s behavior across the tested settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset leads with an average of 451.5 FPS. Medium follows at 383.6 FPS, High at 381.7 FPS, and Ultra at 375.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is substantial, at 67.9 FPS, while the difference between Medium and High is only 1.9 FPS, and High to Ultra is another 6.1 FPS. This pattern shows that the game’s performance is highly sensitive to the transition from Low to Medium, but then becomes nearly flat as the preset increases.

At 2560x1440, the same hierarchy is observed. Low produces 428.8 FPS, Medium 364.4 FPS, High 362.3 FPS, and Ultra 352.5 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is modest, with Low losing 22.7 FPS and Ultra losing 23.1 FPS. At 3840x2160, the numbers compress further: Low yields 401.7 FPS, Medium 340.7 FPS, High 332.1 FPS, and Ultra 325.9 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 75.8 FPS, which is the largest spread in the data, indicating that the GPU does start to matter more at this resolution. However, even the lowest measured value, Ultra at 4K with 325.9 FPS, is still an exceptionally high frame rate that would be more than sufficient for any display technology. The data consistently shows that Low settings are the best way to maximize FPS, while the choice between Medium, High, and Ultra has a minimal impact beyond the initial step up from Low.