Valorant

The Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the Intel Arc B570 produces a highly capable Valorant machine, ranking in the 2227th position out of 2883 tested combos for this specific game. This places the combo in the lower-middle portion of the database, meaning that while it is far from the top-tier esports configurations, it still delivers frame rates that are far beyond what a typical 60 Hz or even 144 Hz monitor can display. The data indicates that this pairing is severely overqualified for competitive play, as even the most demanding preset tested at 4K resolution stays comfortably above the 200 FPS threshold. For a game like Valorant, where reaction time and frame consistency matter more than raw graphical fidelity, this combo offers a surplus of performance headroom.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 2227 out of 2883 tested combinations places it in the 77th percentile of all tested systems for Valorant specifically. That sounds modest, but context is critical. Valorant is a highly optimized competitive shooter, and the gap between the 2227th and the top-ranked combos is often measured in hundreds of frames per second rather than playability. The measured FPS data shows that even at the most demanding setting (Ultra at 4K), this combo averages 207 FPS, which is still far above the 144 Hz refresh rate that most competitive players use. The rank reflects that there are many combos with stronger CPUs or GPUs that push well beyond 500 FPS at lower settings, but the practical benefit of those extra frames is minimal for most users. The data shows that this combo’s ranking is dragged down by the fact that it is not a top-tier enthusiast pairing, but it is also not a low-end system struggling to maintain playable rates. It sits in a sweet spot where the performance is more than sufficient for the game’s requirements, even if it does not top leaderboards. The 2883 combos tested include many with flagship CPUs like the Core i9 series and top-end GPUs, so ranking in the lower half does not indicate a weak system; it merely indicates that the i5-12400F and Arc B570 are mid-range parts that do not chase extreme frame rates. For a player using a standard 1080p monitor, the measured 508 FPS at Low settings is more than double what any current high-refresh display can show, so the rank is somewhat misleading in terms of real-world experience.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is the primary driver of the frame rates in this data, and its specifications explain why it performs so well in Valorant. The GPU features 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. For a game like Valorant, which is not particularly VRAM-hungry at competitive settings, 10 GB is ample, and the memory bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and asset loading do not become bottlenecks. The core clock is listed at 2500 MHz for both base and boost, which is a relatively high clock speed that helps maintain consistent frame delivery. The GPU has 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units, giving it a pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s. These numbers indicate that the card is well-balanced for a game that relies more on raw geometry and draw calls than on complex shading effects. The FP32 performance of 11.52 TFLOPS is more than enough for Valorant’s engine, which is based on Unreal Engine 4 but highly optimized for low-latency competitive play. The Arc B570’s nearest rival in the database is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile, with a delta of 0.1% in average benchmark score, meaning the two are effectively tied in synthetic tests. It also sits within 0.1% of the Intel Arc A750, its direct predecessor in Intel’s lineup, showing that the B570 is a refinement rather than a generational leap. In the measured FPS data, the GPU’s role becomes clear when comparing settings: at 1080p Low, the combo hits 508 FPS, but at 1080p Ultra, it drops to 304 FPS. The 204 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at the same resolution shows that the GPU is doing more work at higher presets, but even the lowest figure remains highly playable. The card’s 18 ray tracing cores are not relevant for Valorant, as the game does not use ray tracing, but they do not hurt performance either. The 5 nm process node from TSMC and 19,600 million transistors indicate a modern, efficient design that runs within a 150 W TDP, making it a practical choice for most systems.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern when moving from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p Low, the combo averages 508 FPS. At 1440p Low, that drops to 434 FPS, and at 4K Low, it falls to 347 FPS. The scaling is roughly linear: each step up in resolution costs about 20% of the frame rate. This suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the CPU’s workload does not change significantly with resolution. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 304 FPS, while at 1440p Ultra it is 259 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it is 207 FPS. The same pattern holds: a 15-20% drop per resolution step. This is a typical GPU-bound scaling curve. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would remain nearly flat across resolutions, because the CPU would be doing the same amount of work regardless of pixel count. The fact that FPS drops consistently with resolution indicates that the Arc B570 is the component being pushed harder as pixel count increases. At 1080p, the CPU has more headroom to feed frames, but the GPU is still capable of rendering over 500 FPS at Low settings, which confirms the card’s efficiency. At 4K, the GPU’s fill rate and bandwidth become more critical, and the 380.0 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient to keep the card from stalling, but the raw pixel throughput limits the frame rate to 347 FPS at Low and 207 FPS at Ultra. For a game like Valorant, where most competitive players choose lower settings to maximize frame rates, the 4K Low result of 347 FPS is still exceptional, but the data shows that the combo is more balanced at 1440p and below. The gap between 1080p and 4K at the same settings is roughly 40% of the 1080p frame rate, which is the expected cost of quadrupling the pixel count. This behavior indicates that the i5-12400F is not holding back the GPU at any resolution, as the frame rate scaling follows the GPU’s expected performance curve.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the best experience for this combo depends on the monitor’s refresh rate and resolution. At 1080p, which is the most common resolution for competitive Valorant, the Low preset delivers 508 FPS, the Medium preset delivers 335 FPS, the High preset delivers 319 FPS, and the Ultra preset delivers 304 FPS. The jump from Low to Medium costs 173 FPS, which is a significant drop, but the jump from Medium to High only costs 16 FPS, and from High to Ultra only 15 FPS. This suggests that the Medium preset is the sweet spot for those who want a visual upgrade without sacrificing much performance, as it still provides a 335 FPS average. However, for players using a 360 Hz monitor, the Low preset is the only one that can keep up with the display’s maximum refresh rate. At 1440p, the same pattern holds: Low is 434 FPS, Medium is 286 FPS, High is 272 FPS, and Ultra is 259 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p still exceeds 240 Hz, making it a viable choice for high-refresh 1440p monitors. At 4K, the numbers are 347 FPS for Low, 228 FPS for Medium, 217 FPS for High, and 207 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset at 4K is the first one that dips below 240 FPS, so for 4K players, Low is the only preset that guarantees maximum refresh rate support on 240 Hz displays. The data shows that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across all resolutions, as it provides a substantial improvement over Low in terms of texture quality and effects while only costing about 30% of the frame rate. The High and Ultra presets offer diminishing returns, with only 10-15 FPS difference between them, so there is little reason to choose Ultra over High unless the monitor’s refresh rate is already saturated. For most players, the recommendation is to start with Medium and adjust downward only if the average FPS drops below the monitor’s refresh rate. The measured minimum FPS values for Medium settings are 285 FPS at 1080p, 243 FPS at 1440p, and 194 FPS at 4K, which means even the worst-case frame drops stay above 144 Hz at 1080p and 1440p, and just below at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS table for this combo is as follows. At 1920x1080, the Low preset averages 508 FPS, the Medium preset averages 335 FPS with a minimum of 285 FPS and a maximum of 385 FPS, the High preset averages 319 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 304 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 434 FPS, the Medium preset averages 286 FPS with a minimum of 243 FPS and a maximum of 329 FPS, the High preset averages 272 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 259 FPS. At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 347 FPS, the Medium preset averages 228 FPS with a minimum of 194 FPS and a maximum of 263 FPS, the High preset averages 217 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 207 FPS. The Medium preset is the only one that includes minimum and maximum values in the data, which shows a range of about 100 FPS between the lowest and highest frame rates at each resolution. At 1080p Medium, the range is 285 to 385 FPS, meaning the frame time variance is about 0.9 milliseconds, which is imperceptible in practice. At 1440p Medium, the range is 243 to 329 FPS, and at 4K Medium, the range is 194 to 263 FPS. The fact that the minimum FPS at 4K Medium is 194 FPS, which is still above 144 Hz, indicates that the combo never dips into unplayable territory, even at the highest resolution and a mid-tier preset. The data also shows that the Low preset at 1080p is the only configuration that exceeds 500 FPS, which is a milestone that only the fastest combos achieve. The difference between Low and Ultra at any resolution is substantial, ranging from 204 FPS at 1080p to 140 FPS at 4K, but the Ultra preset still delivers frame rates that are more than sufficient for any display currently on the market. The pattern across all settings is consistent: the combo scales predictably with resolution and settings, with no anomalies or unexpected bottlenecks.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a six-core, twelve-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, running at a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. It has 18 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core, which are important for gaming performance, as Valorant is a game that benefits from low-latency cache access. The CPU’s single-thread performance is strong, as evidenced by its 3dmark single-thread score of 909 and its passmark single-thread score of 3481. In a game like Valorant, which relies heavily on a single primary game thread, this single-thread performance is often the deciding factor for frame rates. The CPU’s multi-thread scores are also respectable, with a cinebench r23 multi-core score of 12380 and a passmark multi-thread score of 19433, but these are less relevant for Valorant’s gameplay. The data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in this combo, because the frame rates scale with resolution and settings in a way that indicates GPU limitation. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 508 FPS, which is near the limit of what the game engine can produce, and the CPU is likely doing its part to feed the GPU with draw calls. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and 10 nm process node make it an efficient choice, and its socket is Intel Socket 1700, which is a mainstream platform. The nearest rivals to the i5-12400F in terms of average benchmark score are the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS with a delta of 0%, the Intel Core 3 201E with a delta of -0.1%, and the Intel Core i5-1335U with a delta of 0.3%. These rivals are all within a fraction of a percent of the i5-12400F’s average score of 19039, which means that in synthetic tests, the CPU is essentially tied with several other mid-range and mobile processors. For Valorant specifically, the CPU’s 2-thread score of 1699 in 3dmark and its 4-thread score of 3067 suggest that the first few threads are the most important, and the i5-12400F handles these well. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 73 out of all tested CPUs indicates that it is in the upper quarter of all processors in the database, which is a solid position for a mid-range desktop part. The boost clock of 4.40 GHz is not the highest on the market, but it is sufficient for Valorant’s demands, and the 18 MB of L3 cache helps reduce memory latency, which is crucial for maintaining consistent frame times. The data shows that the CPU’s role in this combo is to provide a stable base for the GPU to operate, and it does so without introducing any noticeable frame pacing issues. The measured FPS at 1080p Low of 508 FPS is likely near the engine’s upper limit, so even a more powerful CPU would not yield significantly higher frame rates in this game. The i5-12400F’s memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 gives builders flexibility, though the memory bandwidth is not listed in the data, so its impact on performance cannot be quantified here. Overall, the CPU is a well-matched partner for the Arc B570 in Valorant, providing enough single-thread performance to keep the GPU fed at high frame rates without becoming a limiting factor.