Valorant

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER delivers exceptionally high frame rates in Valorant, a competitive FPS where the data shows the CPU is the primary driver of performance. Across all tested resolutions and settings, the average FPS never drops below 262.8, indicating that this combination is far more powerful than the game demands at standard display refresh rates. The benchmark results reveal a system that prioritizes raw frame generation over visual fidelity, making it a formidable setup for players who value responsiveness and smoothness above all else.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and consistent pattern: performance degrades as resolution increases, but the magnitude of that drop is surprisingly modest, underscoring the game's lightweight rendering demands. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 554.6 FPS, which serves as the peak performance baseline. Moving to 1440p at the same settings reduces the average to 527.1 FPS, a drop of 27.5 FPS or roughly 5%. The jump to 4K at Low settings brings the average down to 448.6 FPS, which is still an extraordinarily high frame rate, but represents a more substantial 19.1% reduction from the 1080p figure.

The scaling pattern shifts when examining higher quality presets. At High settings, the transition from 1080p (410 FPS) to 1440p (346.3 FPS) results in a 15.5% performance loss, while the move to 4K (278.8 FPS) further reduces the average by another 19.5%. This suggests that as settings increase, the GPU begins to play a slightly more significant role, yet the CPU remains the dominant factor even at 4K. The data implies that the RTX 2070 SUPER is never fully saturated, as even the most demanding configuration (4K Ultra) still produces 262.8 FPS, which is far beyond what most competitive displays can refresh. The limiting component is clearly the processor, as evidenced by the relatively small FPS deltas between resolutions compared to what would be expected from a GPU-bound scenario.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth, proves more than adequate for Valorant's modest visual requirements. The GPU's base clock of 1605 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz, combined with 2560 shading units, provide ample raw compute power that the game never fully exploits. The memory configuration is particularly telling: the data shows that even at 4K Ultra settings, where texture memory demands are highest, the system maintains 262.8 FPS, indicating that the 8 GB frame buffer is never a limiting factor.

The Turing architecture, built on a 12 nm process with 13,600 million transistors, delivers 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. This computational headroom explains why the GPU's percentile rank against all GPUs is 65, placing it above average but not elite. The benchmark results indicate that Valorant's rendering engine is not demanding enough to stress the RTX 2070 SUPER's capabilities, as evidenced by the fact that the GPU's nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A400, scores only 0.5% higher in average benchmark scores, yet the FPS differences in-game are substantial due to CPU limitations. The GPU's role in this combination is to provide a solid foundation that never bottlenecks the processor, allowing the i5-13400F to dictate the final frame rates.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal balance between visual quality and frame rate is achieved at Medium settings across all resolutions. At 1080p, the difference between Low (554.6 FPS) and Medium (430 FPS) is 124.6 FPS, but Medium provides improved visual fidelity while still maintaining a frame rate that exceeds any practical display requirement. The gap narrows at higher resolutions: at 1440p, Low produces 527.1 FPS versus Medium's 367 FPS, and at 4K, the figures are 448.6 FPS for Low and 290.5 FPS for Medium.

For players with 144Hz or even 240Hz monitors, High settings offer the best experience without sacrificing smoothness. At 1080p High, the system delivers 410 FPS, which is still far above any refresh rate ceiling. The data shows that Ultra settings provide minimal additional visual benefit over High while reducing performance by 4.7% at 1080p (410 to 390.7 FPS), 3.3% at 1440p (346.3 to 335 FPS), and 5.7% at 4K (278.8 to 262.8 FPS). The recommendation is clear: Medium or High settings are the sweet spot, as they provide excellent frame rates with better graphical fidelity than Low, without the diminishing returns of Ultra.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset reveals a consistent hierarchy across all twelve measured configurations. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from a low of 390.7 at Ultra settings to a high of 554.6 at Low settings, with Medium and High falling in between at 430 and 410 FPS respectively. The performance spread of 163.9 FPS between the lowest and highest settings at 1080p demonstrates the significant impact of quality presets on this CPU-bound scenario.

Moving to 2560x1440, the same pattern emerges but with compressed values. Low settings produce 527.1 FPS, Medium delivers 367 FPS, High achieves 346.3 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 335 FPS. The spread narrows to 192.1 FPS, indicating that the GPU's workload increases more proportionally with resolution than with settings. At 3840x2160, the figures are 448.6 FPS for Low, 290.5 FPS for Medium, 278.8 FPS for High, and 262.8 FPS for Ultra, with a spread of 185.8 FPS.

The data reveals an interesting anomaly: the performance gap between Low and Medium settings is consistently larger than the gap between Medium and High, or High and Ultra. At 1080p, the Low-to-Medium delta is 124.6 FPS, while Medium-to-High is 20 FPS and High-to-Ultra is 19.3 FPS. This suggests that the Low preset significantly reduces CPU workload, while the higher presets impose similar incremental demands.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combination achieves in Valorant?

A: The highest measured average is 554.6 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

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

A: The average FPS drops from 390.7 at 1080p to 262.8 at 4K with Ultra settings, representing a 32.7% reduction in performance.

Q: Is the RTX 2070 SUPER or the i5-13400F the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data indicates the CPU is the primary limiter, as the FPS differences between resolutions are relatively small, while the GPU remains underutilized even at 4K Ultra with 262.8 FPS.

Q: What is the difference between Low and Medium settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 527.1 FPS while Medium settings deliver 367 FPS, a difference of 160.1 FPS.

Q: Does the system maintain playable frame rates at 4K with all settings maxed?

A: Yes, at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the system still achieves 262.8 FPS, which far exceeds the requirements of any current display technology.

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

A: The combination ranks 810 out of 1650 tested combos in Valorant, placing it in the middle of the pack despite its high absolute frame rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F is clearly the dominant component in this Valorant configuration, as evidenced by the benchmark data. This processor features 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, built on Intel's Raptor Lake architecture using a 10 nm process. The CPU's 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide the low-latency data access that competitive FPS games demand. The 65W TDP indicates efficient power delivery, while the socket LGA1700 platform supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory, though the game's performance is not memory-bandwidth sensitive.

The i5-13400F's benchmark scores paint a picture of strong multi-threaded performance: it achieves 21,279 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 7,314 in 3DMark 16-thread tests. Its single-thread performance, critical for Valorant's engine, is solid with a 3DMark single-thread score of 960 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2,301. The CPU ranks in the 82nd percentile against all processors, with an average benchmark score of 25,236. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D, scores 25,365, which is 0.5% higher, while the Intel Core i7-13620H is 0.1% lower at 25,201. This tight clustering suggests that the i5-13400F offers competitive processing power that excels in gaming workloads where single-thread performance is paramount.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-13400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ranks 810 out of 1,650 tested combos in Valorant, placing it almost exactly at the median (49.1% percentile). This mid-pack ranking is surprising given the absolute frame rates achieved, which are exceptionally high. The explanation lies in the nature of Valorant's performance ceiling: since the game is so undemanding, many combinations achieve similar maximum frame rates, compressing the ranking distribution.

The data shows that the CPU's performance percentile (82nd) and the GPU's percentile (65th) are both above average, yet their combined rank in this specific game is middle-of-the-road. This suggests that Valorant's engine is optimized to run well on a wide range of hardware, and the differences between combinations become negligible at the extreme high end. The measured FPS figures, which exceed 260 FPS even at 4K Ultra, indicate that this combo is overqualified for the game's requirements, but the ranking reflects that many other systems also achieve comparable frame rates due to the game's efficient rendering pipeline. For players seeking the absolute highest frame rates, this combination delivers, but the rank shows that the hardware's potential is not fully utilized by Valorant's modest demands.