Fortnite

The Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination delivers exceptionally high frame rates in Fortnite, with performance scaling predictably across resolution and settings presets. The data indicates a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while at 1080p, the CPU’s strong single-thread performance becomes a more significant factor in achieving triple-digit frame rates. This analysis breaks down the measured results to show exactly where each component’s strengths lie and how they interact under different graphical loads.

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

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 10 nm process. It features a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. Its cache configuration includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and it uses the Intel Socket 1700 interface. The CPU’s benchmark profile shows a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 24491 and a single-core score of 2064, alongside a Geekbench single-core score of 2491 and a multi-core score of 16673.

In Fortnite, the CPU’s impact is most visible at the lowest resolution and settings, where the frame rate ceiling is highest. At 1080p Low, the system achieves an average of 478 FPS, a figure that demands exceptional per-thread performance to feed the GPU. The i5-14600K’s 5.30 GHz boost clock is directly relevant here, as Fortnite’s game logic and draw-call submission scale heavily with single-thread speed. The processor’s 20 threads also ensure that background tasks and the game’s audio and physics systems do not create bottlenecks, even when the main game thread is saturated. The PassMark single-thread score of 4270 places this CPU in the 90th percentile among all CPUs, underscoring its strength in this specific workload.

At higher resolutions, the CPU’s role diminishes as the GPU takes over the primary load. The difference between 1080p Low (478 FPS) and 1440p Low (304 FPS) is a 36.4% drop, which is far larger than the drop from 1440p Low to 4K Low (160 FPS), a 47.4% reduction. This nonlinear scaling suggests that the CPU can still push high frame rates at 1440p, but the GPU’s pixel throughput becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases. The CPU’s multi-core performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 24491, is more than sufficient for Fortnite’s engine, which rarely utilizes more than a handful of threads effectively. The data shows that the i5-14600K is not a bottleneck in any measured configuration, as even the most demanding 4K Ultra preset (58 FPS) is far below the CPU’s frame-generation capacity.

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

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this combo in Fortnite?

A: The highest measured average is 478 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This is the only configuration that surpasses the 400 FPS mark, with the next closest being 337 FPS at 1080p Medium.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 4090 compared to its nearest rival in GPU benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4090’s average benchmark score is 60347, which is nearly identical to the Intel Arc Pro A60’s score of 60326, a delta of 0%. The AMD Radeon Pro W6600M is 2.5% slower, while the AMD Radeon PRO V710 is 2.9% slower.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra settings at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, Low settings produce an average of 160 FPS, while Ultra settings produce 58 FPS. This represents a 63.8% reduction in average frame rate when moving from Low to Ultra, highlighting the massive impact of graphical fidelity on this GPU.

Q: Does the i5-14600K outperform the AMD EPYC 4345P in average benchmark score?

A: Yes, the i5-14600K has an average benchmark score of 48618, while the AMD EPYC 4345P scores 48470. The i5-14600K is 0.3% ahead, a marginal difference that places them as direct rivals in CPU performance.

Q: Which resolution provides the highest minimum frame rate recorded in the data?

A: The highest minimum frame rate is 286 FPS, recorded at 1920x1080 with Medium settings. The 1440p Medium preset records a minimum of 182 FPS, and the 4K Medium preset records a minimum of 96 FPS.

Q: What is the combo’s rank among all tested system configurations for Fortnite?

A: The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 103rd out of 3700 tested combos in Fortnite. This places it in the top 2.8% of all configurations, indicating near-top-tier performance.

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

The measured data reveals a clear pattern of frame rate degradation as resolution increases, which is typical for a high-end GPU paired with a strong CPU. Across all settings presets, the transition from 1080p to 1440p results in a substantial drop, and the transition from 1440p to 4K is even more severe. This scaling behavior is a direct indicator of the system’s bottleneck shifting from the CPU to the GPU.

At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 478 FPS at 1080p to 304 FPS at 1440p, a 36.4% decrease. Moving to 4K Low, the average drops further to 160 FPS, a 47.4% decrease from 1440p. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 66.5%. This steep decline is expected because Low settings reduce the pixel shading load, so the GPU’s raw fill rate and bandwidth become the primary constraints. The RTX 4090’s 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth and 443.5 GPixel/s pixel rate are the limiting factors here, as the CPU can easily sustain frame rates above 300 FPS at 1080p.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is less steep in absolute terms but still significant. The average drops from 172 FPS at 1080p to 110 FPS at 1440p, a 36.0% decrease, and then to 58 FPS at 4K, a 47.3% decrease from 1440p. The total drop is 66.3%. This consistency suggests that the GPU is the limiting component across all settings, as the relative decreases are similar regardless of preset. The CPU’s role is to provide a high frame-rate ceiling, which it does effectively, but the RTX 4090’s inability to maintain 4K Ultra frame rates above 60 FPS shows that even the flagship GPU is constrained by Fortnite’s demanding visual effects at maximum settings.

The Medium preset offers the most complete data, with minimum and maximum frame rates recorded. At 1080p Medium, the average is 337 FPS with a minimum of 286 and a maximum of 387. At 1440p Medium, the average is 214 FPS with a minimum of 182 and a maximum of 246. At 4K Medium, the average is 113 FPS with a minimum of 96 and a maximum of 130. The spread between minimum and maximum frame rates narrows as resolution increases, from 101 FPS at 1080p to 64 FPS at 1440p and 34 FPS at 4K. This indicates that at higher resolutions, the frame pacing becomes more consistent, as the GPU’s workload dominates and the CPU’s occasional spikes have less impact on the overall throughput.

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

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of the combo’s performance across twelve distinct configurations. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are 478 FPS for Low, 337 FPS for Medium, 261 FPS for High, and 172 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset at 1080p is the only configuration with a recorded minimum and maximum, showing 286 FPS and 387 FPS respectively. This gives a frame time variance of 101 FPS, which is the largest spread in the dataset. The Low preset at 1080p achieves nearly double the frame rate of the Ultra preset, demonstrating the GPU’s headroom when graphical effects are minimized.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates are 304 FPS for Low, 214 FPS for Medium, 166 FPS for High, and 110 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset records a minimum of 182 FPS and a maximum of 246 FPS, with a spread of 64 FPS. The transition from 1080p to 1440p results in average drops of 36.4% for Low, 36.5% for Medium, 36.4% for High, and 36.0% for Ultra. This consistency indicates that the scaling is purely resolution-driven, with no setting-specific anomalies.

At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are 160 FPS for Low, 113 FPS for Medium, 88 FPS for High, and 58 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset records a minimum of 96 FPS and a maximum of 130 FPS, with a spread of 34 FPS. The 4K Ultra preset is the only configuration that falls below 60 FPS average, making it the sole instance where the combo cannot maintain a smooth 60 FPS baseline. The 4K High preset at 88 FPS is still playable, but it represents a 44.9% reduction from the 1440p High preset’s 166 FPS.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, using TSMC’s 5 nm process with a chip of 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die. It features a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. The GPU has 16384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, along with 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores. Its compute capabilities include a FP32 performance of 82.58 TFLOPS, a pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s, and a texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s.

In Fortnite, the RTX 4090’s role is to handle the increasing pixel and shading load as resolution and settings rise. The 24 GB of VRAM is far beyond what Fortnite requires, even at 4K Ultra, so memory capacity is never a limiting factor in the measured results. The GPU’s memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s is more relevant, as it directly impacts the fill rate at high resolutions. The 4K Low preset’s 160 FPS average suggests that the GPU’s raw throughput is sufficient for a light load, but the 4K Ultra preset’s 58 FPS average shows that the additional shading work from Ultra settings overwhelms the GPU’s execution resources.

The GPU’s benchmark scores place it in the 88th percentile among all GPUs, with an average score of 60347. Its nearest rival, the Intel Arc Pro A60, scores 60326, a 0% delta, which is surprising given the RTX 4090’s flagship positioning. The AMD Radeon Pro W6600M is 2.5% slower, and the AMD Radeon PRO V710 is 2.9% slower. These rival comparisons are based on synthetic benchmarks, which do not directly translate to Fortnite performance, but they contextualize the GPU’s overall compute capability. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9223 and the Geekbench Vulkan score of 271631 further indicate a GPU with strong API-specific performance, though Fortnite’s engine benefits most from the raw pixel and texture rates.

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

The measured data provides clear guidance on which settings preset offers the best experience for different priorities. For players seeking the absolute highest frame rate, the 1080p Low preset delivers 478 FPS, which is far beyond any display’s refresh rate and is primarily useful for competitive play where responsiveness is paramount. However, this preset sacrifices visual fidelity, and the 1440p Low preset at 304 FPS is a more balanced option for high-refresh-rate monitors, offering a 36.4% frame rate reduction for a significant resolution upgrade.

For a balance of visual quality and performance, the Medium preset is the standout choice. At 1080p, it produces 337 FPS, which is 29.5% lower than Low but with noticeably better visuals. At 1440p, the Medium preset yields 214 FPS, which is still well above the 144 Hz threshold and provides a smoother experience than High (166 FPS) or Ultra (110 FPS). The Medium preset also has the most complete frame time data, with a minimum of 286 FPS at 1080p, ensuring that even the worst-case frame drops remain above 280 FPS. At 4K, the Medium preset’s 113 FPS average is nearly double the Ultra preset’s 58 FPS, making it the highest-fidelity preset that maintains a playable frame rate at this resolution.

The High preset is a middle-ground option that is difficult to recommend given the data. At 1080p, it achieves 261 FPS, which is 22.6% lower than Medium, but the visual difference between High and Ultra is minimal in many games. At 4K, High produces 88 FPS, which is 22.5% lower than Medium, and the Ultra preset’s 58 FPS is the only configuration that falls below 60 FPS. For players with a 4K 60 Hz display, the Ultra preset is technically playable but leaves no headroom for frame drops, making High a safer choice for consistent pacing. The Ultra preset is best reserved for players with 1080p or 1440p displays who prioritize image quality over frame rate, as it still delivers 172 FPS at 1080p and 110 FPS at 1440p.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 103rd out of 3700 tested combos in Fortnite. This places it in the top 2.8% of all configurations, which is a strong result but not the absolute top tier. The data indicates that there are 102 other combos that achieve higher average frame rates in this game, likely featuring even more powerful CPUs or specialized overclocking configurations. The rank is a composite measure, meaning it accounts for performance across all tested resolutions and settings, not just a single best-case scenario.

The CPU’s percentile ranking of 90 (vs all CPUs) and the GPU’s percentile ranking of 88 (vs all GPUs) suggest that both components are near the top of their respective categories. However, the combo rank of 103/3700 (97.2nd percentile) is slightly higher than the individual component percentiles, indicating that the pairing works well together in Fortnite’s specific workload. The CPU’s nearest rivals, including the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (0.2% slower) and the AMD EPYC 4345P (0.3% slower), are all within 1% of the i5-14600K’s average score, which shows that the CPU’s performance is tightly clustered with other high-end processors.

The GPU’s nearest rivals are more dispersed, with the Intel Arc Pro A60 matching the RTX 4090’s score exactly (0% delta) and the AMD Radeon PRO V710 being 2.9% slower. This synthetic benchmark parity does not reflect Fortnite’s real-world performance, where the RTX 4090’s 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth give it a massive advantage in pixel-heavy scenarios. The combo’s 103rd rank is thus proof of the fact that Fortnite is not the most demanding title for this hardware, and many other games would likely see this combo rank higher. The 4K Ultra preset’s 58 FPS average is the weakest result, and it is this single data point that likely prevents the combo from breaking into the top 100, as other combos may maintain higher frame rates at maximum settings.