Valorant

The Intel Core i5-12400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 combination delivers exceptional performance in Valorant, with measured frame rates that far exceed the requirements of competitive play. The data shows a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-limited at lower resolutions but transitions to a more balanced profile as resolution increases. Across all tested settings and resolutions, the average frame rate never drops below 287 FPS, indicating a substantial performance headroom for high-refresh-rate monitors.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling behavior from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic pattern of diminishing GPU headroom. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces 525.5 FPS, which is the highest recorded figure in the dataset. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings drops the average to 498.7 FPS, a reduction of 26.8 FPS or approximately 5.1 percent. The transition to 3840x2160 at Low settings yields 462.1 FPS, representing a further 36.6 FPS decrease from the 1440p result. This relatively modest degradation—a total drop of 63.4 FPS from 1080p to 4K—indicates that at Low settings, the frame rate is constrained more by the CPU's single-thread performance than by the GPU's rendering capacity.

The scaling pattern shifts when settings are raised to Ultra. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset produces 422.2 FPS, which falls to 357.2 FPS at 2560x1440 (a 65 FPS decline) and then to 287 FPS at 3840x2160 (a further 70.2 FPS drop). The larger absolute decreases at higher settings demonstrate that the RTX 4060's shading units, texture mapping units, and pixel rate become progressively more engaged as graphical complexity increases. The 135.2 FPS difference between 1080p Ultra and 4K Ultra underscores that the GPU is the limiting component at higher resolutions, whereas the 63.4 FPS spread at Low settings suggests the CPU is the primary bottleneck at lower resolution.

The intermediate settings confirm this trend. At Medium, the frame rate goes from 450.3 FPS at 1080p to 397.5 FPS at 1440p and 317.2 FPS at 4K. High settings show a similar progression: 440.2 FPS at 1080p, 378.7 FPS at 1440p, and 298.7 FPS at 4K. The gap between Low and Ultra widens as resolution increases—from 103.3 FPS at 1080p to 175.1 FPS at 4K—which is consistent with a GPU that has sufficient memory bandwidth and compute capacity for esports titles but is still subject to the physical limits of its 128-bit memory interface and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth when pixel count quadruples.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Core i5-12400 and RTX 4060 ranks 742nd out of 1,650 tested combos in Valorant, placing it in the 55th percentile of all configurations. This mid-pack ranking is notable given the exceptionally high absolute frame rates, which suggests that the benchmark database includes many combinations with more powerful CPUs or GPUs that push even higher in this lightly threaded title.

The CPU's placement among its nearest rivals provides context for this ranking. The Core i5-12400 scores 19,850 on average across all benchmark tests, which is 0.1 percent ahead of the Intel Core i7-9700 (19,831) and 0.4 percent ahead of the Intel Core i5-11600K (19,771). It trails the Intel Core i7-8700 by 0.2 percent (19,894) and the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX by 0.4 percent (19,928). These delta percentages are remarkably small, indicating that the 6-core, 12-thread Alder Lake design is essentially performance-equivalent to these rivals in aggregate benchmarks. In Valorant specifically, the 4.40 GHz boost clock and 18 MB of shared L3 cache are the attributes that matter most, and the data suggests they are sufficient to keep the RTX 4060 well-fed at 1080p.

For the GPU, the RTX 4060's average benchmark score of 23,181 places it 66th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (23,321, 0.6 percent higher), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (23,338, 0.7 percent higher), the Intel Arc B580 (23,021, 0.7 percent lower), and the AMD Radeon 760M (22,999, 0.8 percent lower). The tight clustering of these scores—within 1.5 percent of each other—shows that the RTX 4060 delivers competitive raw compute performance for its class, even though its 8 GB GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus are modest by modern standards.

GPU Role

The RTX 4060's specifications align well with Valorant's requirements. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1830 MHz with a boost clock of 2460 MHz, and its memory runs at 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective). The 8 GB GDDR6 frame buffer on a 128-bit bus provides 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is adequate for this title's stylized visuals and relatively small texture sets. The 3,072 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 render output units deliver 15.11 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, 236.2 GTexel/s texture rate, and 118.1 GPixel/s pixel rate respectively.

These specifications explain the measured results. Valorant is not a demanding title in terms of VRAM usage, so the 8 GB capacity is never a limiting factor. The GPU's pixel rate becomes relevant at 4K, where the render output units must fill four times the pixels of 1080p. The data shows that the RTX 4060 can still produce 287 FPS at 4K Ultra, which confirms the efficiency of the Ada Lovelace architecture and the game's optimization. The 24 RT cores and 96 tensor cores are not directly exercised by Valorant's rasterization pipeline, but their presence contributes to the GPU's overall die efficiency.

The GPU's 66th percentile ranking against all GPUs, combined with the combo's 55th percentile ranking in this specific game, indicates that the RTX 4060 is the stronger component in this pairing. The CPU's 77th percentile ranking across all CPUs is higher than the GPU's, yet the combo ranking is dragged down by other factors—likely the fact that many competing combos pair the RTX 4060 with even faster processors for this CPU-bound title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset provides a detailed picture of performance across all twelve tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 525.5 FPS, Medium produces 450.3 FPS, High yields 440.2 FPS, and Ultra achieves 422.2 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 103.3 FPS, which is the smallest spread across all resolutions, confirming that the CPU is the primary bottleneck at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset drops to 498.7 FPS, Medium to 397.5 FPS, High to 378.7 FPS, and Ultra to 357.2 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra widens to 141.5 FPS, showing that the GPU begins to exert more influence. The transition from 1080p to 1440p costs between 26.8 FPS (Low) and 65 FPS (Ultra), with the larger penalty at higher settings.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset produces 462.1 FPS, Medium delivers 317.2 FPS, High yields 298.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 287 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread at 4K is 175.1 FPS, the largest of any resolution. The 4K results demonstrate that even the highest settings remain playable on high-refresh-rate displays, though the 287 FPS Ultra figure is the only measurement below the 300 FPS threshold that some competitive players target.

The scaling efficiency from 1080p to 4K is consistent across settings: Low retains 87.9 percent of its 1080p performance, Medium retains 70.4 percent, High retains 67.9 percent, and Ultra retains 68.0 percent. This pattern indicates that the RTX 4060's 8 GB memory capacity is sufficient, but its 272.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes a limiting factor at 4K, particularly when higher-quality textures and effects are enabled.

Settings Recommendations

For players using a 1080p display with a 240 Hz or 360 Hz refresh rate, the Low preset is the optimal choice. The 525.5 FPS average at 1080p Low provides maximum headroom above the display's refresh rate, ensuring that frame time spikes never cause visible stutter. The CPU-bound nature of this configuration means that raising settings to Medium (450.3 FPS) or High (440.2 FPS) costs only 75-85 FPS, which may still be acceptable for those who prefer slightly better visual fidelity without sacrificing competitive responsiveness.

At 1440p, the Medium preset offers the best balance between visual quality and performance. The 397.5 FPS average at Medium is sufficient for any current high-refresh-rate monitor, while the jump to High (378.7 FPS) or Ultra (357.2 FPS) provides diminishing returns in visual quality for a 20-40 FPS penalty. Players with 1440p 240 Hz displays should consider High settings, as the 378.7 FPS still exceeds the refresh rate with comfortable margin.

For 4K displays, the Low preset is strongly recommended for competitive play. The 462.1 FPS at 4K Low is the only configuration that maintains frame rates above 400 FPS at this resolution, providing the smoothest experience. The Medium preset (317.2 FPS) is the highest setting that remains viable for 240 Hz displays, while High (298.7 FPS) and Ultra (287 FPS) are better suited to 144 Hz monitors where the lower frame rates are still well above the refresh threshold.

The data overall indicates that this combo is overqualified for Valorant at standard competitive settings. The RTX 4060's 66th percentile GPU ranking and the Core i5-12400's 77th percentile CPU ranking combine to produce frame rates that are roughly 2-3 times higher than what most competitive players require, making this a robust pairing for esports use with substantial future-proofing headroom.