Valorant

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 delivers exceptionally high frame rates in Valorant, a competitive FPS where performance headroom is paramount. The measured data reveals a configuration that is heavily CPU-bound at lower resolutions, with the GPU only beginning to assert its influence as resolution increases. Across all tested settings and resolutions, the average frame rates never dip below the 390 FPS mark, indicating a system capable of driving high-refresh-rate monitors to their limits.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K is remarkably shallow, which is a clear indicator of a CPU bottleneck. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo produces an average of 557.1 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 Low reduces this to 525.1 FPS, a drop of 32.0 FPS. The transition to 3840x2160 Low yields 490.8 FPS, showing a further decrease of 34.3 FPS. This pattern suggests that even at 4K, the processor is still the primary limiting component.

The scaling becomes even more compressed when examining the Ultra preset. The 1920x1080 Ultra result is 457.8 FPS, while 2560x1440 Ultra sits at 430.3 FPS, and 3840x2160 Ultra reaches 398.7 FPS. The total delta between the lowest and highest resolution for Ultra settings is a modest 59.1 FPS. This narrow spread—approximately 13% performance loss from 1080p to 4K—indicates that the RTX 5070 is not being fully utilized at any resolution, as the i5-13400F's single-thread performance is the limiting factor for Valorant's game logic and draw call processing.

The data shows that resolution has a minimal impact on the experience. A user moving from a 1080p monitor to a 4K display would lose only around 60 FPS on the Ultra preset, which is a negligible penalty when starting from a baseline above 450 FPS. This behavior confirms that the system is overprovisioned for the graphical demands of Valorant, leaving the CPU as the definitive bottleneck across the entire resolution spectrum.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070, with its 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus, provides 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is far more than sufficient for Valorant's modest texture and asset requirements. The benchmark results indicate that the GPU's role is largely passive in this title; its high pixel rate of 201.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 482.3 GTexel/s are never stressed by the game's rendering workload.

The GPU operates with a base clock of 2325 MHz and a boost clock of 2512 MHz. These clock speeds contribute to the card's substantial compute capabilities, including a FP32 throughput of 30.87 TFLOPS. However, in Valorant, these specifications are secondary to the CPU's ability to feed the render thread. The measured FPS deltas between Low and Ultra settings at the same resolution illustrate this point: at 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is only 99.3 FPS (557.1 vs 457.8), which is a relatively small penalty for a significant visual upgrade.

The GPU's 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores are effectively idle in this esports title, as Valorant does not utilize ray tracing or DLSS features. The card's 80 ROPs and 192 TMUs are more than capable of handling the game's simple geometry and particle effects. The data suggests that the RTX 5070 is operating well below its potential, evidenced by the fact that the 4K Ultra result (398.7 FPS) is only 28.5% lower than the 1080p Low result, a gap that would be much wider in a GPU-bound scenario.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific CPU-GPU combination achieves a rank of 366 out of 1650 tested combos in Valorant. This places it in the top 22.2% of all configurations, which is a strong showing for a mid-range processor paired with a high-end graphics card. The ranking reflects the importance of the CPU in this game; the i5-13400F's strong single-thread performance is what propels this combo above many systems with more powerful GPUs.

The CPU itself sits in the 82nd percentile against all processors, with an average benchmark score of 25236. Its nearest rivals in synthetic testing include the Intel Core i7-13620H (0.1% higher score), the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (0.5% lower), and the AMD EPYC 9474F (0.5% higher). These margins are negligible in real-world gaming, but they highlight that the i5-13400F is a well-balanced performer in the mid-range segment.

The GPU's percentile ranking is 83rd against all graphics cards, with an average benchmark score of 41687. Its closest competitors in raw compute are the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (0.2% higher), the NVIDIA Tesla M40 (0.5% lower), the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (0.6% higher), and the AMD Radeon Pro 580X (0.7% lower). The combination of an 82nd percentile CPU and an 83rd percentile GPU yields a 366th place ranking, which aligns with expectations for this pairing, though the game's CPU dependence means the processor's contribution to the final rank is disproportionately large.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on the optimal settings for this hardware. The Low preset offers the highest frame rates across all resolutions, but the gains are not substantial enough to justify the visual compromise. At 1080p, the Low preset achieves 557.1 FPS, while the High preset reaches 461.5 FPS—a difference of 95.6 FPS. At 4K, the gap narrows to 80.0 FPS (490.8 vs 410.8).

For competitive play, the Medium preset appears to be the sweet spot. At 1080p, it delivers 468.8 FPS, which is only 7.3 FPS higher than High and 88.3 FPS lower than Low. The Medium preset at 1440p yields 445.1 FPS, and at 4K it produces 411.9 FPS. These numbers suggest that Medium offers a better balance of visual fidelity and performance, as the frame rate remains well above the refresh rate of any current monitor.

The Ultra preset provides the best visual quality but exacts a measurable toll. At 1080p Ultra, the system produces 457.8 FPS, which is 11.0 FPS lower than High and 99.3 FPS lower than Low. The performance difference between High and Ultra is small across all resolutions—at 4K, it is only 12.1 FPS (410.8 vs 398.7). Given that all presets produce frame rates well above 390 FPS, users with high-refresh displays should prioritize visual quality, making the High preset a sensible recommendation for most players, with Ultra reserved for those who want maximum detail and have a monitor that can display the difference.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its peak performance. The Low preset averages 557.1 FPS, which is the highest recorded result in the entire dataset. The Medium preset follows at 468.8 FPS, then High at 461.5 FPS, and Ultra at 457.8 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 99.3 FPS, demonstrating that the GPU is capable of handling all presets with minimal frame rate loss relative to the absolute numbers.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance hierarchy remains consistent. The Low preset averages 525.1 FPS, a 32.0 FPS decrease from 1080p. The Medium preset produces 445.1 FPS, High delivers 439.6 FPS, and Ultra achieves 430.3 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 94.8 FPS. The differences between Medium, High, and Ultra are compressed, with only 14.8 FPS separating the three presets (445.1 vs 439.6 vs 430.3).

At 3840x2160, the system still maintains exceptionally high frame rates. The Low preset averages 490.8 FPS, which is only 66.3 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result. The Medium preset reaches 411.9 FPS, High produces 410.8 FPS, and Ultra drops to 398.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 92.1 FPS. Notably, the difference between Medium and High at 4K is a mere 1.1 FPS, making the choice between those presets inconsequential from a performance standpoint. The Ultra preset is only 12.1 FPS slower than High, suggesting that users can enable maximum settings without sacrificing meaningful performance.