Allods Online

Allods Online is an older MMORPG, but its performance with the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and Intel Arc B390 combo reveals a system heavily constrained by its graphics solution. The data shows a processor with immense headroom paired with an integrated GPU that struggles to translate that potential into playable frame rates at higher resolutions. The measured results across the board indicate that this configuration is best suited for competitive or low-detail play, where the CPU can dominate, rather than for high-fidelity experiences.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate collapse from 1080p to 4K is stark and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck lies. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo delivers a smooth 120 FPS average. Moving to 1440p drops that to 75 FPS, and at 4K it falls further to 39 FPS. This trajectory—a 67.5% performance loss from 1080p to 4K on Low settings—is characteristic of a system where the graphics processor is overwhelmed by the increasing pixel count, not a CPU limitation.

The scaling behavior is even more pronounced at higher detail levels. With High settings, the average frame rate drops from 59 FPS at 1080p to 37 FPS at 1440p and then to 19 FPS at 4K. This is a 68% reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the GPU is the primary limiting factor. The Ultra preset is nearly unplayable at any resolution above 1080p, with the 4K Ultra result of 12 FPS suggesting that the integrated graphics are being saturated by the combination of high pixel count and complex shading.

What’s particularly telling is the comparison between resolution scaling and settings scaling. At 1080p, dropping from Ultra (37 FPS) to Low (120 FPS) yields a 224% performance increase. However, at 4K, the same settings change only improves performance from 12 FPS to 39 FPS, a 225% increase. The consistency of this scaling factor across resolutions confirms that the GPU’s compute and memory bandwidth are the limiting resources, as the CPU is clearly capable of feeding frames at much higher rates than the GPU can render them.

The data suggests that this combo is not designed for 4K gaming. The 4K Medium result of 31 FPS with a minimum of 26 FPS is below the threshold for a consistently smooth experience. For any serious play, the resolution must be lowered to 1440p or 1080p, where the frame rates become more viable, though still heavily dependent on the chosen preset.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics processor based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, and its benchmark results place it in a very low performance tier. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 puts it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, directly competing with legacy discrete cards like the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, which it leads by 1.3%, and the GeForce GT 625 OEM, which it leads by 2.5%. These comparisons underscore that the B390’s performance is comparable to entry-level graphics solutions from over a decade ago.

The GPU’s specifications explain these results. It operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz, which are modest figures for modern standards. More critically, its memory is "System Shared," meaning it relies on the system’s main DDR5 memory rather than dedicated VRAM. The bandwidth is listed as "System Dependent," and in practice, this shared memory configuration imposes a severe penalty on performance, especially at higher resolutions where memory bandwidth demand increases exponentially.

The shading resources are also limited: 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units. The pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s, which are low figures. The FP32 performance of 7.680 TFLOPS is respectable on paper for an integrated solution but is insufficient for modern gaming workloads. The 12 ray tracing cores are present, but with a DirectX 12 Ultimate feature set, the actual gaming performance at 4K with ray tracing would be effectively unusable given the measured frame rates.

The measured FPS data directly reflects these hardware limitations. At 4K Ultra, the GPU can only produce 12 FPS, which is a slideshow. Even at 1080p Ultra, the 37 FPS average suggests the GPU is already at its computational limit. The fact that the 4K Low setting (39 FPS) is nearly identical to the 1080p Ultra setting (37 FPS) indicates that the GPU’s rendering pipeline is so constrained that it cannot effectively utilize the lower resolution to improve performance when detail settings are high. The GPU is the definitive bottleneck in this configuration.

CPU Role

In contrast to the GPU, the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a powerhouse. With 24 cores and 24 threads, it is built for heavy multi-threaded workloads. Its benchmark scores are exceptional: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and a single-core score of 7303. It sits in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84003. This puts it slightly ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K by 0.2% and the AMD EPYC 4584PX by 1.1%, while trailing the AMD EPYC 7F72 by 1.3%. For a desktop gaming CPU, this is near the top of the performance stack.

The CPU’s clock speeds are high, with a base of 3.70 GHz and a boost of 5.80 GHz. This high boost clock is crucial for gaming, where single-threaded performance often dominates. The 36 MB of shared L3 cache provides a large pool of fast memory for game assets, and the DDR5 memory support with a dual-channel bus offers high bandwidth. The 3 nm process node from TSMC ensures efficiency, though the 125 W TDP is considerable.

However, in Allods Online, this CPU’s power is mostly untapped. The game is an MMORPG from 2010, and its engine is unlikely to scale well beyond a few cores. The data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the GPU is least stressed, the CPU is not the limiting factor; the 120 FPS result is likely a cap imposed by the game engine or the GPU’s ability to process draw calls, not the CPU’s raw compute. The fact that the CPU can achieve a Passmark multi-thread score of 60860 and a single-thread score of 4823 indicates it could handle far more complex scenes than this game presents.

The comparison with the Core Ultra 9 285K is instructive. The 290K Plus is only 0.2% faster in average benchmark score, which is a negligible difference in real-world gaming. This suggests that the 290K Plus’s additional clock speed does not translate into meaningful frame rate gains in Allods Online. The CPU is providing a solid foundation, but the user experience is entirely governed by the GPU’s limitations. If this combo were paired with a discrete GPU, the CPU would likely allow for much higher frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but with the B390, the CPU sits idle waiting for the graphics processor to catch up.

Settings Recommendations

Given the GPU’s constraints, the settings hierarchy is clear. The Low preset is the only option that provides a consistently playable experience across all resolutions. At 1080p Low, the 120 FPS average is excellent for an MMORPG, ensuring smooth gameplay during large-scale battles. At 1440p Low, the 75 FPS average is still very good and offers a nice balance between visual clarity and performance. Even at 4K Low, the 39 FPS average is borderline playable, though it may dip in crowded areas.

The Medium preset is a reasonable compromise, but only at lower resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the 94 FPS average with a minimum of 80 FPS is quite good and provides a noticeable visual upgrade over Low. At 1440p Medium, the 59 FPS average is acceptable, though the minimum of 50 FPS could be noticeable in action-heavy moments. However, at 4K Medium, the 31 FPS average is too low for a smooth experience, and the 26 FPS minimum would cause noticeable stuttering.

The High preset is not recommended for this combo. The 59 FPS at 1080p is playable, but the 37 FPS at 1440p and 19 FPS at 4K are not. The Ultra preset is effectively unplayable at all resolutions, with 37 FPS at 1080p being the best case, which is still below the 60 FPS target. The performance gap between Medium and High is substantial, suggesting that the High preset introduces effects that disproportionately tax the B390’s limited shader and memory resources.

For the best experience, the data strongly suggests using the Low preset at 1440p. This provides a 75 FPS average, which is smooth, while offering a higher resolution than 1080p to improve image clarity. If 1080p is the target resolution, then Medium at 94 FPS is the optimal choice, as it offers a significant visual boost over Low with only a 21.7% performance penalty. The 4K resolution should be avoided unless the user is willing to accept Low settings and frame rates in the 30s.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested hardware combinations for Allods Online, this pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and Intel Arc B390 ranks poorly. It holds the 2459th position out of 2775 total combos, placing it in the bottom 11.4% of all tested systems. This low ranking is a direct consequence of the GPU’s performance, as the CPU is among the fastest available.

The disparity between the CPU’s percentile ranking and the combo’s ranking is stark. The CPU is in the 96th percentile, while the GPU is in the 9th percentile. This massive imbalance means that the system is profoundly unbalanced for gaming. A user purchasing this CPU for its multi-threaded prowess would be severely disappointed by the gaming performance if relying on the integrated graphics.

The combo’s rank is likely dragged down by the fact that most other systems tested with this CPU would include a discrete graphics card. The data indicates that the Intel Arc B390 is a bottleneck that prevents the CPU from demonstrating its true gaming potential. In a game like Allods Online, which is CPU-light, this combo effectively performs like a low-end system. The 2459th rank is a warning to users that this is not a gaming configuration, despite the high-end processor at its core. It is a system suited for productivity tasks where the CPU’s 24 cores are utilized, not for gaming where the GPU takes precedence.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following measured frame rates were recorded for this combo in Allods Online:

At 3840x2160 (4K), the performance is consistently poor. The Low preset averages 39 FPS. The Medium preset averages 31 FPS, with a minimum of 26 FPS and a maximum of 36 FPS. The High preset averages 19 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 12 FPS, which is unplayable.

At 2560x1440 (1440p), the results are more varied. The Low preset averages 75 FPS, which is the best result at this resolution. The Medium preset averages 59 FPS, with a minimum of 50 FPS and a maximum of 68 FPS. The High preset averages 37 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 23 FPS.

At 1920x1080 (1080p), the performance is the strongest. The Low preset averages 120 FPS, a very smooth experience. The Medium preset averages 94 FPS, with a minimum of 80 FPS and a maximum of 108 FPS. The High preset averages 59 FPS, which is exactly at the 60 FPS target. The Ultra preset averages 37 FPS.

These numbers illustrate a clear pattern: the gap between Low and Medium is relatively small, while the jump from Medium to High and then to Ultra incurs massive penalties. For instance, at 1080p, moving from Low to Medium costs 26 FPS (21.7% drop), but moving from Medium to High costs 35 FPS (37.2% drop), and from High to Ultra costs 22 FPS (37.3% drop). This suggests that the High and Ultra presets enable rendering features that are particularly expensive for the B390’s architecture. The data also shows that the minimum FPS values are only recorded for the Medium preset, indicating that the other presets may have more volatile frame times, but the average scores are still indicative of overall performance. Users should target the Low or Medium presets at 1080p for the best balance of visual quality and playability, and lower the resolution to 1440p only if they stick to Low settings.