Valorant

Valorant is a competitive FPS that prioritizes high frame rates and low latency, and the combination of the Intel Core i7-12700KF with the AMD Radeon RX 570 delivers a distinct performance profile across resolutions. The measured data shows a clear dependency on both the CPU's strong single-thread capabilities and the GPU's aging architecture, resulting in frame rates that range from highly competitive at 1080p to merely playable at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K reveals a system where the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, while the CPU holds the frame rate ceiling at lower settings. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves an average of 287 FPS, which drops to 247.6 FPS at 1440p and further to 193.4 FPS at 4K—a reduction of 13.7% from 1080p to 1440p and 21.9% from 1440p to 4K. This scaling pattern indicates that at 1080p Low, the CPU is still capable of pushing more frames, but the RX 570's pixel throughput begins to constrain output as resolution increases.

Moving to High settings, the frame rate at 1080p is 178.6 FPS, falling to 154.5 FPS at 1440p and 124.7 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 13.5% and 19.3%, respectively, which is a similar trend to Low settings but with lower absolute values. The Ultra preset shows the most pronounced scaling: 172.6 FPS at 1080p, 145 FPS at 1440p, and 116.6 FPS at 4K, representing a 16.0% drop to 1440p and a 19.6% drop to 4K. The data suggests that the gap between 1080p and 1440p is consistently around 13-16%, while the 1440p to 4K transition costs roughly 19-22%, indicating that the RX 570's memory bandwidth and fillrate are increasingly stressed at higher pixel counts.

Notably, the difference between Low and Ultra settings at any given resolution is substantial. At 1080p, Low produces 287 FPS while Ultra produces 172.6 FPS, a 39.9% reduction. This wide spread suggests that while the CPU can handle the game's logic at high speed, the GPU's shading units and ROPs are heavily taxed by increased visual fidelity. The 4K results reinforce this: Low delivers 193.4 FPS, but Ultra drops to 116.6 FPS, a 39.7% decrease. The consistency of this percentage across resolutions points to a GPU-bound scenario where shader complexity, not resolution alone, dictates the frame rate ceiling.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is a 12-core, 20-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its benchmark data shows strong single-thread performance, with a 3DMark single-thread score of 1043 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4091. This is crucial for Valorant, a game that relies heavily on a few threads for game logic and input handling. The CPU's percentile rank of 89 among all tested processors indicates it sits well above the median, and its average benchmark score of 35355 places it within 0.3% of rivals like the Intel Core i5-14400 and Intel Core i9-12900HX.

The measured FPS data confirms that the CPU is not the bottleneck at 1080p Low, where 287 FPS is achieved. This high frame rate aligns with the CPU's strong single-core capabilities. However, the CPU's multi-threaded performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 28979 and a PassMark multithread score of 34092, ensures that background tasks and game engine threads do not cause frame drops. The L3 cache of 25 MB shared provides ample space for game assets, and the 20 threads allow for efficient scheduling across the 12 physical cores.

The data shows that even at 4K Ultra, the combo still produces 116.6 FPS, which is well above playable thresholds, suggesting that the CPU maintains a solid frame rate floor regardless of GPU load. The 3DMark 8-thread score of 7211 and 16-thread score of 9282 demonstrate that the CPU has headroom for demanding scenarios, but Valorant's engine does not appear to scale beyond a few cores, as evidenced by the single-thread scores being the primary driver of high FPS. The base clock of 3.60 GHz is modest, but the boost clock of 5.00 GHz ensures that the CPU can react quickly to frame-time spikes, which is critical for a competitive FPS.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570, based on the Polaris 20 chip with GCN 4.0 architecture, is a 14 nm GPU with 2048 shading units, 128 TMUs, and 32 ROPs. Its core clocks are 1168 MHz base and 1244 MHz boost, with 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus providing a bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. The GPU's benchmark scores show a percentile rank of 74 among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 30158, placing it within 0.8% of rivals like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile and NVIDIA Tesla M60.

The GPU's pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s are the key metrics for Valorant's rendering load. At 1080p, the GPU can keep up with the CPU's frame generation, but as resolution increases, the pixel rate becomes a limiting factor. The 4K Low result of 193.4 FPS shows that even with reduced shader complexity, the RX 570's fillrate is insufficient to match the CPU's potential, which is evident from the 1080p Low score of 287 FPS. The memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s is adequate for 1080p, but at 4K, the larger frame buffer requirements likely cause some stalls, contributing to the 19-22% performance drops observed.

The RX 570's FP32 performance of 5.095 TFLOPS is moderate, and the 4 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Valorant's textures even at Ultra settings, but the GPU's age shows in the scaling behavior. The DirectX 12 support with feature level 12_0 and Vulkan 1.3 compatibility are adequate for the game's API requirements. The data indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at resolutions above 1080p, as the frame rate drops are more severe with increased resolution than with increased settings, suggesting that the GPU's memory system and rasterization units are the constraining factors.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination ranks 1560 out of 1650 tested combos in Valorant, placing it in the bottom 5.5% of all configurations. This low ranking is surprising given the individual component percentiles (CPU at 89, GPU at 74), but it reflects the GPU's limitations in a game that can be CPU-light at lower resolutions. The combo's rank suggests that while the CPU is high-performing, the RX 570 drags down the overall experience, particularly at higher resolutions where the GPU becomes the bottleneck.

The nearest rivals for the CPU include the Intel Core i5-14400, which scores 35336 (0.1% lower), and the Intel Core i7-13800H, which scores 35416 (0.2% higher). These rivals would produce similar frame rates in CPU-bound scenarios, but their performance with the RX 570 would likely be comparable, as the GPU is the limiting factor. The GPU's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (0.2% higher), which would offer better frame rates, and the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (0.2% higher), indicating that many modern GPUs outperform the RX 570.

The combination's rank of 1560 indicates that most other combos in the database deliver higher average FPS in Valorant. This is likely due to the prevalence of more modern GPUs that can handle higher resolutions and settings without the same performance drops. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 287 FPS, which is competitive, but at 4K Ultra, it drops to 116.6 FPS, which is below the 144 Hz refresh rate that many competitive players target. The rank reflects this inconsistency, as the combo excels at lower resolutions but falters when pushed to higher visual fidelity.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers 287 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors, while Medium provides 190.2 FPS and High offers 178.6 FPS. The Ultra preset at 172.6 FPS is still above 144 Hz, but the marginal visual improvement over High may not justify the 6 FPS drop. For players with a 144 Hz monitor, the High preset at 178.6 FPS offers a good balance, but for those seeking maximum frame rates, Low is the clear choice.

At 1440p, the Low preset delivers 247.6 FPS, which is excellent for competitive play, while Medium (157.8 FPS) and High (154.5 FPS) are both above 144 Hz. The Ultra preset at 145 FPS is just barely above the 144 Hz threshold, but it is the least stable option. For 1440p, Medium or High settings provide a good compromise between visual quality and performance, as both are well above 150 FPS. At 4K, the Low preset is the only option that approaches playable competitive levels, delivering 193.4 FPS, while Medium (127.6 FPS) and High (124.7 FPS) are below 144 Hz, and Ultra (116.6 FPS) is significantly lower.

The data suggests that this combo is best suited for 1080p or 1440p gaming with Low or Medium presets to maintain high frame rates. At 4K, the GPU becomes a limiting factor, and even Low settings produce frame rates that may be adequate for casual play but not for high-level competitive matches. The recommendation is to prioritize lower settings at higher resolutions to maintain frame rate consistency, or to stick with 1080p and higher presets for a balance of visual fidelity and performance.