Valorant

Valorant is a competitive FPS that leans heavily on CPU performance, and the Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers frame rates that are almost absurdly high. The data shows a combo that never drops below 391 FPS at 4K Ultra settings, which is far beyond the refresh rate of any mainstream monitor. This is a system built for esports dominance, where the bottleneck is rarely the hardware and almost always the player’s reaction time.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. For a game like Valorant, which is notoriously sensitive to single-thread performance, the boost clock is the critical figure. The processor’s benchmark scores reflect this strength: it achieves a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3093 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2333. These numbers place it in the 88th percentile of all CPUs, indicating it is better than the vast majority of processors available.

In the context of this game’s measured FPS, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with enough draw calls and game logic updates to maintain those triple-digit frame rates. The multi-core performance is also robust, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914 and a Passmark multithread score of 25783, ensuring that background tasks or streaming won’t cause hitches. When compared to its nearest rivals, the i5-14400F is essentially tied with the Intel Core i7-12800H and AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645, with a deltaPct of 0% and 0.2% respectively. This means that in synthetic workloads, the CPU is performing at the expected level for its class, but the real story is how that translates to the 567.6 FPS seen at 1080p Low settings. The high boost clock, combined with a 20 MB shared L3 cache, allows the processor to keep up with the game’s physics and agent logic, ensuring that the GPU is never left waiting.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. Its boost clock is rated at 2475 MHz, and the memory runs at an effective 21 Gbps. In synthetic benchmarks, the GPU posts a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3854 and a Passmark G3D score of 26927, placing it in the 81st percentile of all GPUs. This is a capable card that is more than sufficient for a game like Valorant, which is not graphically demanding.

The GPU’s role here is to render the frames at the target resolution with minimal latency. The data shows that the RTX 4070 is never the limiting factor, even at 4K. At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 391.6, which is still exceptionally smooth. The 12 GB of VRAM is more than enough for Valorant’s textures, and the 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power ensures that the game’s simple shaders are processed with ease. Compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 4070’s average benchmark score is 37283, which is 0.6% lower than the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 and 2.5% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 5300M. This indicates that while the card is not at the top of the absolute performance charts, it is in a strong position for this specific workload.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: What is the maximum average FPS this combo can achieve in Valorant?

A: The highest recorded average FPS is 567.6, which occurs at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is the peak performance point in the measured data, showing the CPU’s ability to drive extremely high frame rates when the GPU load is light.

Q: How does the CPU’s single-core performance affect the FPS at 1080p?

A: The CPU’s Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3093 is directly relevant to the 1080p results. The data shows a jump from 475 FPS at High settings to 567.6 FPS at Low settings, demonstrating that the processor’s strong single-thread performance (boost clock of 4.70 GHz) allows it to handle the game’s logic at that resolution without bottlenecking.

Q: Is the RTX 4070’s 12 GB VRAM sufficient for this game?

A: Yes, the 12 GB of GDDR6X memory is far more than Valorant requires. The measured FPS at 4K Ultra is 391.6, which shows that even at the highest settings and resolution, the GPU’s memory and compute resources are not being exhausted.

Q: What is the difference in FPS between 1080p Low and 4K Low?

A: The difference is 72.1 FPS. The 1080p Low setting yields 567.6 FPS, while the 4K Low setting yields 495.5 FPS. This relatively small drop indicates that the GPU is handling the increased resolution efficiently, and the CPU is still providing enough data to keep the frame rate high.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other systems in the database?

A: This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ranks 337 out of 1650 possible combos for Valorant. This places it in the top 20% of all tested systems, confirming its high performance for this title.

Q: Which setting preset provides the highest FPS at 1440p?

A: The Low preset at 2560x1440 provides the highest average FPS of 537.5. The Medium preset drops to 454.6 FPS, and the High preset is at 449.6 FPS, showing a significant performance advantage to using the Low preset.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how this system scales across different resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 464.9 at Ultra settings to 567.6 at Low settings. The High preset sits at 475 FPS, and the Medium preset is at 482.1 FPS. This shows a predictable pattern where lower settings yield higher frame rates, but the differences are relatively small, with only a 102.7 FPS gap between the lowest and highest settings.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain extremely high. The Low preset delivers 537.5 FPS, while the High preset is at 449.6 FPS. The Medium and Ultra presets are close together at 454.6 FPS and 441.5 FPS, respectively. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is modest, with the Low preset losing 30.1 FPS and the High preset losing 25.4 FPS. This indicates that the GPU is still not under significant strain at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the performance is still remarkable but shows a more pronounced impact from the resolution increase. The Low preset is the fastest at 495.5 FPS, followed by Medium at 425.1 FPS, High at 414.4 FPS, and Ultra at 391.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 103.9 FPS, which is the largest across all resolutions. This suggests that while the GPU is starting to work harder, the CPU is still managing to provide high frame rates, as even the most demanding setting exceeds 390 FPS.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals which component is the primary driver of performance in this system. Looking at the Low preset, the FPS drops from 567.6 at 1080p to 537.5 at 1440p, which is a 5.3% decrease. Moving from 1440p to 4K, the FPS drops to 495.5, which is a 7.8% decrease. This relatively small reduction in frame rates as resolution increases strongly suggests that the CPU is the limiting factor, not the GPU. The RTX 4070 has enough headroom to render the higher-resolution frames without a significant performance hit, but the CPU’s ability to issue draw calls is the bottleneck.

For the Ultra preset, the scaling is slightly steeper. The FPS goes from 464.9 at 1080p to 441.5 at 1440p (a 5.0% drop) and then to 391.6 at 4K (an 11.3% drop). This larger drop at 4K indicates that the GPU is beginning to become more involved, but it is still not fully taxed. The fact that the 4K Ultra FPS of 391.6 is still higher than the 1080p Ultra FPS of many other systems shows that this pairing is well-balanced for Valorant. The data indicates that the CPU is the primary performance limiter at all resolutions, but the GPU starts to contribute more to the frame time as the pixel count increases.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

For players using a 1080p monitor, the data suggests that the High or Medium presets are the best choices. The High preset delivers 475 FPS, while the Medium preset is slightly higher at 482.1 FPS. The difference between these two is negligible, but the High preset will provide better visual quality for almost the same performance. The Ultra preset at 464.9 FPS is also viable, but the marginal visual gain over High does not justify the 10 FPS drop. The Low preset at 567.6 FPS is only useful for players with a 540 Hz monitor, which is a rare piece of hardware.

At 1440p, the Medium preset is the sweet spot. It delivers 454.6 FPS, which is only 5 FPS more than the High preset at 449.6 FPS. The Ultra preset at 441.5 FPS is also perfectly playable, but the Medium preset offers a good balance of visual fidelity and frame rate. The Low preset at 537.5 FPS is overkill for most 1440p monitors, which typically max out at 240 Hz or 360 Hz. For a 240 Hz monitor, the Ultra preset provides a comfortable margin.

For 4K gaming, the High preset is the recommended choice. It delivers 414.4 FPS, which is well above the 144 Hz or 165 Hz refresh rates of most 4K monitors. The Medium preset at 425.1 FPS offers a slight performance boost, but the visual difference is minimal. The Ultra preset at 391.6 FPS is still excellent and provides the best image quality, but it is not necessary for a competitive advantage. The Low preset at 495.5 FPS is only for players who prioritize raw frame rate over everything else. In summary, the High preset at any resolution provides an excellent balance, ensuring that the game looks good while maintaining frame rates that are far beyond what is needed for smooth competitive play.