Fortnite

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Fortnite with the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 shows a predictable decline as resolution increases, but the magnitude of that decline varies sharply by settings preset. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 441 FPS average. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 304 FPS, a reduction of 137 FPS or roughly 31%. At 4K Low, the average falls to 160 FPS, which is about 64% below the 1080p Low figure. This steep scaling curve at Low settings strongly indicates that the system is heavily CPU-limited at lower resolutions, where the GPU has ample headroom and the processor's ability to feed frames becomes the bottleneck.

The scaling pattern changes dramatically when we examine the High and Ultra presets. At 1080p High, the average is 261 FPS. At 1440p High, it drops to 166 FPS, a 36% reduction. At 4K High, the average is 88 FPS, which is 66% below the 1080p High result. For Ultra settings, the trend is similar but with lower absolute numbers: 172 FPS at 1080p, 110 FPS at 1440p, and 58 FPS at 4K. The fact that the percentage drops from 1080p to 4K are comparable across presets (around 64-66%) suggests that while the GPU becomes more relevant at higher resolutions, the CPU still exerts significant influence on frame pacing even at 4K.

The Medium preset provides additional insight. At 1080p Medium, the average is 337 FPS. At 1440p Medium, it is 214 FPS. At 4K Medium, it is 113 FPS. The 4K Medium result is 66% lower than the 1080p Medium figure, matching the scaling pattern seen in High and Ultra. However, the absolute difference between 1440p and 4K at Medium (101 FPS) is larger than the difference between 1080p and 1440p (123 FPS), indicating that the GPU load increases non-linearly as pixel count grows. Benchmark results indicate that the limiting component shifts from the CPU at 1080p to a more balanced CPU-GPU dependency at 4K, but the CPU never fully relinquishes its role as a constraint.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for maximizing frame rate with this combo?

A: The data shows that 1080p Low delivers the highest average FPS at 441. If competitive play is the priority, this setting and resolution combination offers the largest performance margin, with 1440p Low still providing 304 FPS average.

Q: How does the 4K Ultra experience compare to lower settings?

A: At 4K Ultra, the combo produces an average of 58 FPS. This is the lowest measured result across all configurations. The 4K High preset at 88 FPS is substantially smoother, and 4K Medium at 113 FPS offers a more playable experience for those who prioritize resolution over visual fidelity.

Q: Is the RTX 4090 the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: No. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings shows a 137 FPS drop, which is a larger absolute reduction than the drop from 1440p to 4K (144 FPS). This pattern indicates the CPU is the primary constraint at 1080p, as the GPU has enough throughput to render frames faster than the processor can issue them.

Q: What is the combo's ranking among tested systems for Fortnite?

A: The combo ranks 140th out of 3700 tested combinations. This places it in the top 4% of all combos in the database, reflecting strong overall performance despite the CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions.

Q: Does the Medium preset offer a good balance?

A: Based on the measured FPS, 1440p Medium at 214 FPS average and 4K Medium at 113 FPS average both provide high frame rates. The 1080p Medium result of 337 FPS shows that this preset scales efficiently, with the gap between Medium and Low narrowing as resolution increases.

Q: How does the 4K High result compare to the 1440p Ultra result?

A: The 4K High average is 88 FPS, while the 1440p Ultra average is 110 FPS. The 1440p Ultra setting delivers 25% more FPS than 4K High, suggesting that for users with high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors, Ultra settings are more beneficial than pushing to 4K with High settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Raphael. It operates on the AMD Socket AM5 platform with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. This processor is built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, with a transistor count of 6,570 million and a die size of 71 mm². The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR5 with dual-channel access and a bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s.

In Fortnite, the CPU's role is most apparent at lower resolutions and settings. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 441 FPS average, which is a remarkably high figure that likely approaches the practical ceiling for this processor in this game. The single-core performance, as measured by Cinebench R23 at 3072 points, is strong for a 7000-series part. Multi-core performance in Cinebench R23 is 21765 points, which places the processor in the 83rd percentile compared to all CPUs. This percentile ranking indicates that it outperforms most processors in general compute tasks, though the nearest rivals—the Intel Core i5-14600T at 32707 average score (0.1% delta) and the Intel Core Ultra 7 155H at 32697 average score (0.2% delta)—are extremely close in overall benchmark average.

The fact that the combo ranks 140th out of 3700 combos suggests that the CPU, while not the absolute fastest available, is more than adequate for Fortnite's engine. The game's performance at 1080p Low (441 FPS) versus 1440p Low (304 FPS) shows a 31% reduction, which is a larger percentage drop than would be expected if the GPU were the sole bottleneck. This indicates that the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads are being fully utilized at lower resolutions, and frame generation is limited by the processor's instruction throughput rather than the GPU's rendering capability.

The boost clock of 4.70 GHz is relevant because Fortnite tends to favor higher single-thread performance for game logic and physics. The Cinebench R20 single-core score of 1290 points and R15 single-core score of 309 points corroborate that this CPU has competitive single-thread capability. However, the PassMark single-thread score of 3689 and multithread score of 25645 show that the processor is not at the very top of the CPU hierarchy, which aligns with its 83rd percentile ranking.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves a rank of 140 out of 3700 tested combinations for Fortnite. This places it in the top 3.8% of all combos in the database. The high rank is primarily driven by the GPU's exceptional throughput, even though the CPU is a mid-range part by current standards. The rank indicates that for the vast majority of gamers, this combination would deliver frame rates well above the threshold for smooth competitive play.

To contextualize this rank, the RTX 4090 is the flagship of the GeForce 40-series, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD102 chip. It has 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 raster operation units. Its FP32 performance is 82.58 TFLOPS, and it features 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores. The GPU's average benchmark score is 60347, placing it in the 88th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in benchmark scores are the Intel Arc Pro A60 at 60326 (0% delta), the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 at 60140 (0.3% delta), and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M at 61896 (-2.5% delta). These rivals are workstation-oriented cards, which underscores that the RTX 4090's gaming performance is exceptionally high.

The CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score are the Intel Core i5-14600T (32707, 0.1% delta), Intel Core Ultra 7 155H (32697, 0.2% delta), AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H (32812, -0.2% delta), and AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 (32662, 0.3% delta). These scores are all within 0.3% of the Ryzen 5 7400F's average of 32750, indicating that the CPU is competitive with a range of mid-range and mobile processors. The fact that the combo ranks 140th despite having a CPU that is only in the 83rd percentile reveals that Fortnite is not heavily CPU-bound in a way that would penalize this pairing.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the primary driver of the high frame rates observed in Fortnite. Its specifications are immense: 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of memory bandwidth. The GPU has a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). The AD102 chip contains 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC. The GPU's pixel rate is 443.5 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 1,290.2 GTexel/s.

In Fortnite, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases and settings are raised. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces 58 FPS average, which is the lowest measured result. This is a clear indication that the GPU is the limiting factor at this extreme configuration, as the CPU has more than enough headroom to issue draw calls at that frame rate. The 4K High result of 88 FPS and 4K Medium result of 113 FPS further demonstrate the GPU's scaling under load. The difference between 4K High and 4K Ultra (30 FPS) is substantial, suggesting that the Ultra preset introduces rendering features that heavily tax the GPU's compute and memory subsystems.

The GPU's 24 GB of VRAM is more than sufficient for Fortnite, even at 4K Ultra, but the data shows that the bottleneck is not memory capacity but rather raw compute throughput. The 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is the key metric, as Fortnite's rendering pipeline at Ultra settings likely leverages heavy pixel shading and post-processing effects. The GPU's percentile ranking of 88th among all GPUs, combined with its average benchmark score of 60347, confirms that it is one of the fastest consumer graphics cards ever produced. The nearest rivals in benchmark scores—Intel Arc Pro A60 and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48—are not gaming-focused products, which emphasizes the RTX 4090's dominance in gaming workloads.

At 1080p, the GPU's role is diminished because the CPU cannot feed frames fast enough. The 441 FPS at 1080p Low versus 261 FPS at 1080p High shows a 69% increase from High to Low, which is a larger jump than the GPU alone would typically produce. This suggests that at 1080p Low, the GPU is waiting for the CPU, while at 1080p High, it becomes more engaged. The GPU's massive memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s ensures that texture streaming and asset loading are never a constraint, even at 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Fortnite with this combo spans three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1080p, the results are as follows: Low settings produce an average of 441 FPS, Medium produces 337 FPS (with a minimum of 286 and maximum of 387), High produces 261 FPS, and Ultra produces 172 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 269 FPS, which shows that the settings preset has a massive impact on performance at this resolution. The Medium preset's min and max FPS figures (286-387) indicate that frame times are relatively stable, with a 101 FPS range between the lowest and highest recorded frames.

At 1440p, the averages are: Low at 304 FPS, Medium at 214 FPS (min 182, max 246), High at 166 FPS, and Ultra at 110 FPS. The difference between 1080p and 1440p at each settings level is consistent: a 137 FPS drop at Low, a 123 FPS drop at Medium, a 95 FPS drop at High, and a 62 FPS drop at Ultra. This pattern shows that the GPU becomes more heavily utilized as resolution increases, but the CPU still manages to maintain high frame rates. The Medium preset at 1440p has a min-max range of 64 FPS, which is tighter than at 1080p, suggesting better frame pacing.

At 4K, the averages are: Low at 160 FPS, Medium at 113 FPS (min 96, max 130), High at 88 FPS, and Ultra at 58 FPS. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 144 FPS at Low, 101 FPS at Medium, 78 FPS at High, and 52 FPS at Ultra. The 4K Ultra result of 58 FPS is the only configuration that falls below 60 FPS average, which is a critical threshold for smooth gameplay on many displays. The 4K Medium result of 113 FPS is notably higher than the 4K High result of 88 FPS, indicating that the Medium preset offers a better balance of visual quality and performance at this resolution.

The overall pattern across all resolutions is that Low settings provide the highest frame rates, with the largest absolute differences occurring between 1080p and 1440p. The Ultra preset consistently delivers roughly 39-40% of the Low preset's frame rate at each resolution (441 to 172 at 1080p, 304 to 110 at 1440p, 160 to 58 at 4K). This consistency suggests that the Ultra preset imposes a fixed additional GPU workload relative to Low, regardless of resolution. The Medium preset's min FPS at 4K is 96, which is above the 60 FPS threshold, while the 1080p Medium min is 286 and the 1440p Medium min is 182, all indicating that this combo never dips below playable frame rates except at 4K Ultra.