Valorant

Valorant is a highly competitive tactical shooter that rewards fast reactions and consistent frame times, and the combination of an Intel Core i5-11400F with a GeForce RTX 4080 is aimed squarely at maximizing display refresh rates. This pairing couples a mid-range, unlocked-bus CPU (six cores, twelve threads) with a top-tier Ada Lovelace GPU that is typically reserved for 4K ray-tracing workloads. The measured results here show the RTX 4080 is far from stressed, but the data also reveals CPU-side frame pacing contributions that matter for a game like Valorant. The i5-11400F provides a solid foundation, and the RTX 4080 delivers excess headroom, resulting in average frame rates that consistently exceed 300 fps even at 4K Ultra, and surpass 400 fps at 1440p Low.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS measured for this combo?

A: At 1080p with Low settings, the average FPS is 453, marking the highest recorded average across all tested configurations. The next highest is 429 at 1440p Low, then 398 at 4K Low.

Q: Is this setup capable of 4K gaming?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 329, and with Low settings it rises to 398. All 4K presets deliver average frame rates well above 300 fps.

Q: How large is the performance difference between the CPU's nearest rivals?

A: The i5-11400F has an average benchmark score of 17177, which is 0.3% higher than the AMD EPYC 7H12 (score 17120) and 0.6% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (score 17074). Conversely, it trails the Intel Core i5-12450H by 0.4% (score 17239) and the AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 8300G by 0.6% (score 17278).

Q: What does the combo’s rank indicate?

A: Out of 3708 combos tested in Valorant, this particular CPU-GPU pair ranks 2016th, placing it in the 53rd percentile of the database.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 offer a noticeable benefit in Valorant?

A: Yes, but not as a bottleneck. The GPU’s extra performance is clearly evident, as even the worst-case preset (4K Ultra) exceeds 300 fps. However, because Valorant is a low-requirement title, the CPU’s single-core speed and cache configuration matter more at low resolutions where the GPU isn't predominant. The i5’s boost clock of 4.40 GHz plays an important role in keeping frame pacing consistent at high refresh rates.

Q: Which preset should a user running a 144Hz display select?

A: Even the Ultra preset at 4K reaches an average of 329 FPS, which far exceeds a 144Hz refresh rate. Users who prioritize absolute maximum frame rates might prefer Low 1080p (453 FPS), but those seeking higher detail can still achieve 373 FPS at 1080p Ultra, and 354 FPS at 1440p Ultra.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, using 45,900 million transistors on a 5 nm TSMC process. Its core configuration includes 9,728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 ROPs. The GPU’s base and boost clocks are 2205 MHz and 2505 MHz respectively, with GDDR6X VRAM rated at 22.4 Gbps effective, translating into a 716.8 GB/s memory bandwidth over a 256-bit bus. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is ample for any current title, and Valorant is certainly not memory-hungry.

As the game operates at frame rates that are usually bounded by the CPU rather than the GPU, the RTX 4080’s raw compute capabilities are mostly in reserve. The measured average FPS across all tested presets indicates that the GPU does not become the limiting factor until perhaps the absolute extremes of 4K, but even then the minimum observed is 289 FPS (at 4K, Medium). This reserves the graphics card’s Boost 3.0 capabilities for the one or two milliseconds of peak loads, while the frame delivery relies on the processor’s kernel.

Regardless, the GPU delivers its own score in benchmark suites: PassMark G3D 34457, Geekbench OpenCL 214739, and Geekbench Vulkan 263779. The RTX 4080’s nearest rival in terms of average benchmark score is the RTX 4080 SUPER, with a delta of only 0.1% (54209 vs 54247), indicating this chip is already at its parity ceiling.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measurement data is recorded across three resolutions and four settings. Here are the exact measured averages, along with the available frame rate minima and maxima:

1920x1080 (1080p)

• Low: 453 avg (no min/max listed)
• Medium: 386 avg, min 328, max 444
• High: 380 avg (no min/max)
• Ultra: 373 avg (no min/max)

2560x1440 (1440p)

• Low: 429 avg
• Medium: 366 avg, min 311, max 421
• High: 360 avg
• Ultra: 354 avg

3840x2160 (4K)

• Low: 398 avg
• Medium: 340 avg, min 289, max 391
• High: 334 avg
• Ultra: 329 avg

Across all settings, the resolution scaling is modest. The difference between Ultra and Low at 1080p is 80 FPS (373 → 453), while the gap at 4K is 69 FPS (329 → 398), and at 1440p the difference is 75 FPS (354 → 429). This suggests a smooth scaling where the GPU workload per pixel indeed limits, but the FP32 throughput remains over 48 TFLOPS to handle the per-pixel work.

Frame time consistency, when available, shows that Medium presets at 1080p (max 444, min 328) and 1440p (max 421, min 311) produce a spread of ~116 and ~110 FPS, respectively—the largest counter per range. In contrast, the High and Ultra presets of the same resolutions lack min/max data, so the Medium frame pacing is the only variable that can be analyzed. However, the average FPS for a given preset at each resolution indicates a decrease of only 14–25% as resolution increases, which underlines that the GPU is not being pushed.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data demonstrates that every preset from Low to Ultra yields more than 340 FPS on average on a 4K screen, which is already beyond any high-refresh display’s capabilities. Consequently, the choice of settings is largely a matter of visual preference and refresh rate target.

For a 144 Hz or 165 Hz monitor (or even 240 Hz), any preset at any resolution from 1080p to 1440p will provide a confident margin. The Low preset at 1440p gives 429 FPS, which is the highest measurement at that resolution, but it comes at the cost of visual fidelity. The Ultra preset at 1080p still delivers 373 FPS, only 22% below the Low preset, but with all visual effects on the highest quality being leveraged.

The strongest tradeoff can be seen at 4K: the Ultra preset (329 FPS) is only 0.3% below the high-end Liquid, and the difference to the Low preset at 399 FPS is still only 69 FPS. Given that Valorant does not include path-traced effects that require NVIDIA’s top hardware, the most balanced recommendation from the measured rows is High settings at 1440p with 360 FPS—a value that comfortably exceeds any display’s refresh while maintaining moderately high detail. At 1080p, High at 380 FPS is also a solid choice. For those who push for maximum frame rate, Low at 1080p (453 FPS) or Low at 4K (398) are the ultimate goals, but the pucker that can be reduced is minimal.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a six-core, twelve-thread processor from the Rockland Lake generation, built on the 14 nm Intel node. Its base clock is 2.60 GHz with a Maximum Turbo clock of 4.40 GHz, and it has 12 MB of shared L3 cache. The TDP is 65 W, aimed at mainstream systems with a 1200 socket. The CPU also supports dual-channel DDR memory with a memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s and 20 PCIe Gen-4 lanes.

In benchmark performance, the i5-11400F scores 17177 in the average across all CPU tests, placing it in the 71st percentile of all processors. Its single-thread performance in Cinebench R23 returns 2024 points, while the multi-thread score is 14340. The Geekbench single-core and multi-core scores are 1777 and 7737, respectively. These results place it closely among its nearest rivals: the AMD EPYC 7H12 (17120), Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (17074), and AMD Ryzen 9 3900X (17391) — though the latter are not in the list.

For Valorant, which is heavily CPU-bound at high refresh rates, the i5-11400F’s single-core performance is the critical asset. With a boost clock of 4.4 GHz and a 12 MB L3, it can keep frame generation consistent even with a GPU as powerful as the RTX 4080. The lack of a ded with a “no integrated graphics” confirms that the CPU’s duties are directed to game logic and physics.

When comparing to its rivals, the i5-11400F’s 0.3% higher average score compared to the AMD EPYC 7H12 and 0.6% higher score than the Intel Core Ultra 7 164U shows that its silicon is still relevant, but the game will not be bottlenecked even by the CPU because its limitation is the GPU in this title at these settings.

The data indicates the i5-11400F holds up well. Although the CPU’s release date is 2021-03-15, and the game was launched in 2020-06-01, this pairing is sufficient for the demands of Valorant. The RTX 4080’s raw power allows the frame rate to be determined by the CPU on most settings, and the i5-11400F delivers enough performance to achieve 300+ FPS averages at 4K.