Valorant

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers frame rates that stay above 478 FPS in Valorant across every tested resolution and preset, which is a result consistent with a CPU-bound esports title despite the 92nd-percentile GPU. The measured combination sits at rank 275 out of 3708 registered combo entries in this database, placing it in the top 7.4% of all tested systems. While the GeForce RTX 5090 carries enormous graphics hardware — including 21,760 shading units, a 512‑bit memory bus, and 1.79 TB/s of GDDR7 bandwidth — the core frame pacing in Valorant appears to be set by the i7-13700K’s 16-core, 24‑thread Raptor Lake configuration rather than by the GPU’s compute capabilities.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS at 1080p, 1440p, and 2160p tell a clear story about where the bottleneck resides. At High settings, the average frame rate drops from 552 FPS at 1920×1080 to 523 FPS at 2560×1440 and then to 486 FPS at 3840×2160 — a 12.0% loss from 1080p to 4K. The same pattern appears across every other preset: Low settings produce 658 FPS at 1080p, 624 FPS at 1440p, and 579 FPS at 4K, which is only a 12.0% reduction. Medium settings go from 561 FPS at 1080p to 532 FPS at 1440p and 494 FPS at 4K (10.9% drop), while Ultra starts at 543 FPS at 1080p, drops to 515 FPS at QHD, and ends at 478 FPS at 4K (12.0% drop). Converting the pixel count from FHD to UHD quadruples the number of pixels, yet the FPS penalty stays remarkably small — consistently under 12% across all four presets. If the RTX 5090 were the limiting component, the frame rate would fall severely with the 4× pixel workload, but that is not observed here. The data Points shoulder that the i7-13700K sustains the frame delivery; the huge shading and texture throughput of the GPU (423.6 GPixel/s and 1,636.8 GTexel/s) is never saturated. The effect of changing render quality is slightly larger than the effect of changing resolution. From 1080p Low to 1080p Ultra, the FPS drops from 658 to 543 — a 17.5% difference, or more than half the entire scaling penalty of moving from the lowest to the Ultra preset. Similarly, at 4K the Low preset still yields 579 FPS, which is 16.7% higher than the Ultra’s 486. In graphical competition, the CPU’s single-thread capabilities and the game’s log-driven engine dominate, not the GPU’s raw fill rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination ranks 275th out of 3708 tested in the database, which means only 7.4% of the tested combos place ahead of it for Valorant. This is a strong position. The general hardware benchmarks support a high standing: the i7-13700K shows a 89th-percentile standing among all CPUs with an average score of 46881, while the RTX 5090 is in the 92nd percentile with an average score of 79842. The nearest CPU rivals listed are extremely close — the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 shows an average score of 46971, a delta of -0.2% relative to the i7-13700K; the Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 (47022) is -0.3%; the Ryzen 9 7845HX (46654) is +0.5%; and the Xeon w3-2535 (46653) is +0.5%. These differences are tiny, implying that the i7-13700K’s raw benchmark position is not radically different from four other high-end chips. In this game, the combination still manages to place within the top percentile tier, and that is where the pairing of a strong CPU with a powerful but not fully utilized GPU matters for a high frame target. The game’s rank 275 of 3708 is above average, but it is not a top-100 spot, possibly because higher single‑thread burst or greater cache support can be leveraged by other combos. The raw FPS numbers (369–658 FPS) further confirm that this combo offers a comfortable year‑ometer for actively competitive frame rates, regardless of the exact rank separation.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090 is a monstrous graphics processor by every spec—its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory, 512‑bit bus, 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, and peak FP32 performance of 104.8 TFLOPS look more than adequate for any shooter. It is placed at 92nd percentile among all GPUs, and its nearest rivals (Tesla P100 variants, Radeon RX 6850M XT, Radeon Pro Vega 64X) have recorded average scores within 1.4% of the 79842 average. However, the measured game performance paints a divergent picture. In Valorant, the maximum frame rate recorded is 658 FPS at 1080p Low, which is far below the native capability of the sole. The resolution scaling data (Section above) shows that a 4K pixel workload only reduces average FPS by roughly 300 – 12 %, which indicates the GPU is not approaching its memory buffer or shading unit. Given that the GPU other internal benchmarks (PassMark G2D 1413, G3D 39650, OpenCL 275670) are measured generically, they don’t translate to this esports title where the computational load is mostly low. The GPU clock behavior also suggests headroom: the base clock is 2017 MHz, and the boost clock is 2407 MHz. During a 5‑minute frame at 4K Ultra, the data show the average FPS 478 and not the three‑digit numbers we associate with the card’s maximum. There is no data on power or cooling in the packet, but the measured FPS values aren't exploiting the entire 575 W TDP and pick. Instead, the system is effectively delivering the frame rate kinetics to the image drawing the CPU can generate on each of its pixels. The 32 GB frame buffer is far above what any esports title requires, so there is no memory capacity pressure. Instead, the game’s geometric and logic computations at the draw are fine for the RTX 5090 to handle at even 4K, but the FPS ceiling is set by the CPU, not by the Vertex shader count or the ROPS. All 176 ROPS and 56 Tensor cores are underutilized.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS measured for this combination?

A: The highest average is 658 FPS, recorded at 1920×1080 resolution with Low settings. With Medium settings at 1080p, the average is 561 FPS with a known minimum of 477 FPS and a maximum of 645 FPS. Ultra at 1080p yields 543 FPS, and High gives 552 FPS.

Q: What is the lowest average FPS across all tested settings?

A: The lowest average is 478 FPS, which occurs at 3840×2160 with Ultra. At that same resolution, High yields 486 FPS and Low yields 579 FPS. The frame rate never drops below 478 FPS in any measured configuration, so the combo always delivers a high triple-digit frame rate.

Q: How does the i7-13700K compare to its nearest benchmark rivals?

A: According to the average benchmark score of 46881, the core i7-13700K is very evenly matched with the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 (46971 score, -0.2% delta) and the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX (46654, +0.5% delta). The difference to the closest competitor is within 0.3%, meaning any real-world divergence in Valorant is likely to be small.

Q: Which component limits the maximum FPS in Valorant?

A: The resolution scaling shows that moving from 1080p to 4K only reduces the average FPS by 10.9–12.0% across all presets. If the GPU were the limiting factor, a quadrupling of pixel load would cause a much larger loss. The fact that FPS goes from 658 at 1080p Low to 579 at 4K Low shows that the CPU (the i7-13700K) is the determining factor, not the GPU’s rendering capacity.

Q: Are the recorded frame rates higher than what any screen can display?

A: Every tested setting yields an average above 478 FPS, which is already beyond the refresh rate of most high-frequency monitors (though the pack does not provide specific panel refresh rates). The highest average is 658 FPS, meaning the system is supplying headroom far above even a 360 Hz class display.

Q: What is the minimum FPS observed for the Medium preset?

A: At 1920×1080 Medium, the minimum reported FPS is 477 FPS and the maximum is 645. At 2560×1440 Medium, the minimum is 452 FPS and the maximum 612. At 2160p Medium the minimum is 420 FPS and the maximum is 568 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

When choosing a preset for Valorant on this combo, the measured rows show that the performance band is narrow but consistent. The highest FPS is invariably produced with the Low setting: 658 FPS at 1080p, 624 FPS at 1440p, and 579 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset delivers 561 FPS at 1080p, 532 @ 1440p, and 494 at 4K. Moving up to Ultra reduces these yields to 543, 515, and 478 respectively. Since even the worst of the four presets (Ultra at 4K) stays above 478 FPS, the combination is able to push into territory typical of top-tier competitive play on any of the settings. The main factor is more subtle: frame consistency. The data only records minimum/maximum values for the Medium preset. At medium settings, the 1080p row has a 477 FPS minimum and a 645 maximum, meaning the spread is 173 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the spread is 610–452 = 160 FPS, and at 4K Medium, the spread is 420–568 = 148 FPS. These min/max figures provide some reassurance that the Medium preset has guaranteed frame consistency that falls no lower than 420 FPS even at native 4K. No such min/max data is attached to the High, Low, or Ultra presets, so a player who values the absolute peak frame rate should select Low; anyone wanting a safe low bar at a respectable visual level would lean toward Medium. If render quality is prioritized, Ultra values (543 FPS at 1080p) still surpass the hardware’s lowest point. The FPS movement between the preset seems to be limited, and the final verdict from the data is that the Low preset is the performance choice—especially for an esports title where a small increase from 543 to 658 FPS can matter—but the other presets remain fully within the acceptable band, meaning the default is more about aesthetics than playability.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K carries 16 physical cores, 24 threads and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz and a 30 MB shared L3 cache. Its architectural base is Raptor Lake, built on Intel’s 10 nm process, and it supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. The CPU’s own benchmark results are robust: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 30745 points, while the single-core test achieves 2116; Geekbench hits 19429 multi and 2529 single; PassMark results include 45887 multithread and 4333 single-thread scores. Measured percentile is 89th among all CPUs. For Valorant, the CPU turns out to be the dominant performance limiter. The evidence in the resolution segmentation is that the FPS almost does not change from 1080p to 4K — a walking proof of a CPU-limited behavior on a GPU that’s barely flexed. A forwarding factor is the boost clock of 5.4 GHz, which directly supports single-threaded game logic; many esports titles rely on one or two cores, and the i7-13700K is capable of a near-boost feed. The 24 threads give the game and background tasks ample room, but the frequent utilization is more about speed than core count. The 30 MB L3 cache is also positioned to keep map state and instruction data close, reducing the time the DRAM (which is dual-channel) must be toggled. Compared with average benchmark competitors (Ryzen 9 5900 and siblings), this CPU rarely separates itself by more than 0.5% in generic metrics, yet these slight differences can amplify the specific thread-to-thread tracking required in a low-frame budget game. The pack’s data shows a highest FPS of 658 at Low, which is still some 425 FPS above the GPU’s operational floor. Nevertheless, no measured data gives us a number for the CPU's load or utilization; we can only infer that the limit rests on the processor side. The fact that the 479 FPS at 4K Ultra is still the lowest Figure, and the lowest floor value is 478 FPS, reflects the i7’s ability to send high frame orders to the enormous RTX 5090 even at 2160p. All advanced features of the GPU (RT cores, tensor) are not in play, but the core performance and cache behavior of the Raptor Lake chip proof to be the stable foundation of this ranking.