Valorant

The Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER delivers exceptional frame rates in Valorant, a competitive FPS where high refresh rates are critical. The data shows this combination positioned in the 50th percentile of all tested combos, ranking 827th out of 1650 configurations. This places it in the middle of the pack for this title, though the absolute performance is so high that the ranking reflects the extreme competition at the top rather than any deficiency.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that is heavily CPU-bound at lower resolutions, with the GPU becoming the limiting factor only at 4K. At Low settings, moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 reduces average FPS by a modest 26.4 frames, from 533.6 to 507.2. The further step to 3840x2160 produces a larger decline of 57.5 FPS, landing at 449.7. This pattern indicates that at 1080p and 1440p, the processor is holding back the graphics card; the RTX 2070 SUPER has ample headroom to render frames faster than the CPU can feed it.

The scaling behavior changes dramatically with higher graphical presets. At High settings, the transition from 1080p to 1440p costs 62.1 FPS (411.1 to 349.0), and the move to 4K costs another 70.6 FPS (349.0 to 278.4). The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at High settings is approximately 32%, whereas at Low settings it is roughly 16%. This widening gap demonstrates that as graphical load increases, the GPU begins to take on a more significant role. However, even at 4K Ultra, the system maintains 266.1 FPS, which is still far above the refresh rate of most monitors.

The fact that 4K Ultra produces 266.1 FPS while 4K Low produces 449.7 FPS shows a 183.6 FPS spread purely from settings changes. This suggests that the RTX 2070 SUPER, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, has substantial compute resources that are only fully exercised at the highest resolutions. The benchmark results indicate that at 1080p, even Ultra settings cannot meaningfully engage the GPU, as the 394.2 FPS result at Ultra is only 139.4 FPS lower than the Low preset figure.

Settings Recommendations

For competitive play, the Low preset at 1080p delivers the highest measured average of 533.6 FPS, which provides the maximum possible input latency reduction. This represents a 139.4 FPS advantage over the Ultra preset at the same resolution. Players prioritizing response times should select Low, as the data shows this maximizes the refresh rate headroom available to high-frequency displays.

At 1440p, the Low preset maintains 507.2 FPS, which is still an excellent figure for high-refresh gaming. The Medium preset at 1440p produces 370.0 FPS, a substantial 137.2 FPS reduction from Low. The Ultra preset at 1440p drops to 336.1 FPS, which remains playable but sacrifices 171.1 FPS compared to the Low setting. The data suggests that Medium provides a balanced experience if visual fidelity is desired, as it retains over 370 FPS while improving image quality over the Low preset.

For 4K gaming, the choice becomes more nuanced. The Low preset achieves 449.7 FPS, which is still remarkably high. The High preset at 278.4 FPS and Ultra at 266.1 FPS both exceed the 240 Hz refresh rate common on high-end monitors. The benchmark results indicate that even at 4K Ultra, this combination never falls below the 200 FPS threshold, making any preset viable for competitive play. The Medium preset at 4K, delivering 295.7 FPS, offers a reasonable middle ground, though the difference between Medium and High is only 17.3 FPS.

GPU Role

The RTX 2070 SUPER operates with a base clock of 1605 MHz and a boost clock of 1770 MHz, built on the Turing architecture using the TU104 chip. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory runs at 1750 MHz with an effective speed of 14 Gbps across a 256-bit bus, yielding 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications place the GPU in the 65th percentile of all graphics cards tested, with an average benchmark score of 22206.

The VRAM capacity of 8 GB proves sufficient for Valorant at all tested resolutions and settings, as the game does not appear to exceed this allocation. The data shows no anomalous frame rate collapses that would indicate memory swapping or bandwidth limitations. The GPU's 2560 shading units and 64 ROPs provide substantial fill rate capabilities, with a pixel rate of 113.3 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 283.2 GTexel/s. These figures explain why the card can sustain high frame rates even at 4K, where pixel throughput becomes critical.

The nearest rival comparisons show the RTX 2070 SUPER performing within 2.5% of the AMD Radeon RX 5700 (which scores 21670, a 2.5% delta) and within 0.9% of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z (22006, a 0.9% delta). The RTX 4060 Mobile scores 22729, which is 2.3% higher, while the RTX A400 scores 22307, a 0.5% advantage. These tight margins indicate that the GPU's performance in Valorant aligns closely with its synthetic benchmark standing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results show a clear hierarchy across settings. The Low preset averages 533.6 FPS, followed by Medium at 432.0 FPS, High at 411.1 FPS, and Ultra at 394.2 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 139.4 FPS, which represents a 26% performance penalty for maximum visual quality. The difference between Medium and High is only 20.9 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns beyond Medium.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset delivers 507.2 FPS, which is a 26.4 FPS reduction from the 1080p result. The Medium preset at 370.0 FPS represents a 62.0 FPS drop from 1080p Medium, while High at 349.0 FPS and Ultra at 336.1 FPS show similar proportional decreases. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution widens to 171.1 FPS, indicating that the GPU is starting to contribute more to the performance equation.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset maintains 449.7 FPS, which is still above the 1440p High result. The Medium preset produces 295.7 FPS, High delivers 278.4 FPS, and Ultra rounds out at 266.1 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K expands to 183.6 FPS, the largest spread in the entire dataset. This indicates that at 4K, the GPU's workload scales more significantly with preset changes, as the pixel count quadruples from 1080p and stresses the shading units and memory bandwidth more heavily.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination ranks 827th out of 1650 tested configurations, placing it in the 50th percentile of all combos in Valorant. This is a surprisingly low rank given the absolute frame rates achieved, but it reflects the nature of Valorant as a title where even mid-range hardware can produce triple-digit FPS. The ranking indicates that while this combo is capable of excellent performance, there are 826 other combinations that achieve even higher average frame rates.

The CPU, the Intel Core i5-12400F, ranks in the 77th percentile of all processors with an average benchmark score of 19221. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-8700K (19210, a 0.1% delta), the Intel Core i5-1335U (19167, a 0.3% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (19364, a -0.7% delta), and the AMD EPYC 7773X (18979, a 1.3% delta). This tight clustering shows that the 12400F's performance is highly competitive with these alternatives, though none of these direct rivals are typically paired with a GPU at the level of the RTX 2070 SUPER.

The GPU's 65th percentile ranking (average score 22206) is lower than the CPU's 77th percentile, which suggests that in Valorant, the graphics card is the more limiting component relative to its peers. The data indicates that the combo's mid-pack ranking stems primarily from the GPU's position, as the CPU is capable of driving frame rates well beyond what most graphics cards can deliver in this title. The 1650 combos tested include many with higher-end GPUs that push average FPS above the 533.6 FPS ceiling observed here at 1080p Low.