Fortnite

Fortnite with the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 7600 produces a wide spread of results across its four preset tiers and three resolutions, ranging from a highly playable 208 FPS at 1080p Low to a barely interactive 27.4 FPS at 4K Ultra. The data positions this combination in the 1029th spot out of 1564 tested combos, indicating a mid-pack performer that can handle competitive play but struggles with maximum fidelity at high pixel counts. The following analysis breaks down the measured frames, scaling behavior, and the distinct roles the CPU and GPU play in shaping the experience.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data points to Low as the best overall preset for this hardware pairing, particularly for players prioritizing smoothness. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 208 FPS, which is 59.2 FPS higher than the Medium preset's 148.8 FPS and 94.7 FPS above High's 113.3 FPS. For a fast-paced Battle Royale title, that headroom translates directly into reduced input latency and a more responsive feel. Even at 2560x1440, Low maintains 131 FPS, keeping the experience well above the 60 FPS threshold and still 39.1 FPS ahead of Medium at the same resolution.

The Medium preset serves as the best compromise for users who want improved visuals without sacrificing playability. At 1080p, Medium's 148.8 FPS is still excellent for competitive play, and it jumps to 91.9 FPS at 1440p. The step from Medium to High costs 35.5 FPS at 1080p and 19 FPS at 1440p, a steep penalty for what is typically a modest visual gain in Fortnite's stylized aesthetic. High is only recommended at 1080p, where 113.3 FPS remains acceptable, but at 1440p the 72.9 FPS average starts to feel less fluid for twitch-reaction gameplay.

The Ultra preset is largely inadvisable with this configuration. At 1080p, it produces 76.5 FPS, which is playable but represents a 131.5 FPS drop from Low. At 1440p, Ultra falls to 50.3 FPS, and at 4K it drops to a near-unplayable 27.4 FPS. Given that the data shows no scenario where Ultra exceeds the refresh-rate targets typical of competitive monitors, it is best reserved for single-player exploration or screenshot purposes rather than actual matches. The optimal path is clear: Low for ranked or arena modes, Medium for general play, and a hard stop before High or Ultra at resolutions above 1080p.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Fortnite?

A: The peak measured value is 208 FPS, recorded at the Low preset with a resolution of 1920x1080.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Fortnite?

A: Only marginally. The 4K results show 71.1 FPS on Low and 35.9 FPS on High, with Ultra dropping to 27.4 FPS. Playable 4K requires the Low preset, and even then the frame rate is below what competitive players typically prefer.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: The drop is consistent across presets. Low falls from 208 to 131 FPS (a 77 FPS loss), Medium from 148.8 to 91.9 FPS (a 56.9 FPS loss), High from 113.3 to 72.9 FPS (a 40.4 FPS loss), and Ultra from 76.5 to 50.3 FPS (a 26.2 FPS loss).

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the bottleneck at 1080p Low?

A: The data suggests the CPU is the limiting factor at this setting. The RX 7600 can produce over 200 FPS, and the i5-9400's six cores and six threads without hyper-threading are the likely constraint for pushing beyond that figure, as evidenced by the 208 FPS ceiling.

Q: What is the difference between the High and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: High yields 72.9 FPS while Ultra drops to 50.3 FPS, a 22.6 FPS difference in favor of High. The visual uplift from High to Ultra is not worth the performance hit at this resolution.

Q: How does this combo rank relative to all tested configurations for Fortnite?

A: It sits at rank 1029 out of 1564 total combos, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database. The GPU's 63rd percentile standing is offset by the CPU's 50th percentile, pulling the overall ranking down.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 is the dominant component in this pairing, wielding 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's boost clock of 2655 MHz and game clock of 2250 MHz provide the raw throughput that drives the higher frame rates, with 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs handling Fortnite's geometry and effects. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2310 and a PassMark G3D score of 16634 place the card in the 63rd percentile of all GPUs, which is a respectable standing for a mainstream part.

The GPU's performance headroom is evident in the measured FPS deltas. At 1080p Low, the card delivers 208 FPS, which is more than double the 4K Low result of 71.1 FPS, showing that the card scales well when not pixel-bound. The nearest rival data reinforces this position: the RX 7600 scores 0.6% higher than the RX 7600 XT and 0.8% higher than the RX 460 in aggregate benchmarks, while trailing the RTX 3070 Mobile by 1.3% and the Arc B570 by 1.5%. This narrow band of competition means the card's Fortnite performance is predictable and consistent with its synthetic standing.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Fortnite's medium-detail assets, but the 4K Ultra result of 27.4 FPS suggests the memory bandwidth and compute resources are overwhelmed at maximum settings. The transition from High to Ultra at 4K costs 8.5 FPS (from 35.9 to 27.4), a 23.7% drop, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional effects (shadows, reflections, and post-processing) saturate the GPU's capabilities. For this game, the RX 7600 is best understood as a 1080p high-refresh and 1440p medium-refresh card, with its 4K role limited to the Low preset.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a clear tiered structure. The Low preset delivers 208 FPS, which is the only result above 200 FPS in the entire dataset. Medium follows at 148.8 FPS, High at 113.3 FPS, and Ultra at 76.5 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 131.5 FPS, meaning the Ultra preset costs nearly two-thirds of the Low preset's performance. Each step up in settings incurs a significant penalty: Low to Medium costs 59.2 FPS, Medium to High costs 35.5 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 36.8 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the same ordering persists but with compressed absolute values. Low hits 131 FPS, Medium drops to 91.9 FPS, High to 72.9 FPS, and Ultra to 50.3 FPS. The total spread narrows to 80.7 FPS, but the relative penalty of Ultra versus Low grows, as Ultra now delivers only 38.4% of Low's frame rate. The Medium preset at 1440p (91.9 FPS) is nearly equivalent to High at 1080p (113.3 FPS), highlighting how resolution scaling erodes the visual setting headroom.

At 3840x2160, the results become marginal for anything above Low. Low yields 71.1 FPS, Medium 50.6 FPS, High 35.9 FPS, and Ultra 27.4 FPS. The drop from Low to Medium at 4K is 20.5 FPS, and from Medium to High is 14.7 FPS, with the final step to Ultra costing 8.5 FPS. None of these 4K figures reach the 72.9 FPS that High achieves at 1440p, demonstrating that 4K is only viable with the most aggressive settings reduction.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate degradation from 1080p to 1440p to 4K reveals a GPU-bound profile at higher resolutions. At the Low preset, moving from 1080p (208 FPS) to 1440p (131 FPS) represents a 37% reduction, and then to 4K (71.1 FPS) another 45.7% reduction from the 1440p value. This steepening decline is classic pixel-throughput limitation, where the RX 7600's 288.0 GB/s bandwidth and 21.75 TFLOPS FP32 throughput cannot sustain the same work per frame as pixel count quadruples.

The Medium preset shows a similar pattern: 148.8 FPS at 1080p, 91.9 FPS at 1440p (a 38.2% drop), and 50.6 FPS at 4K (a 44.9% drop from 1440p). High and Ultra follow suit, with High dropping from 113.3 to 72.9 to 35.9 FPS, and Ultra from 76.5 to 50.3 to 27.4 FPS. The consistency of these percentage drops across presets indicates that resolution scaling is largely independent of the settings tier, which is a hallmark of GPU-bound performance.

The limiting component at 1080p Low is likely the CPU, given that the 208 FPS result is high but not extreme for the RX 7600's capabilities. However, by 1440p and especially 4K, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. The fact that Low at 4K (71.1 FPS) is still higher than Ultra at 1080p (76.5 FPS) is close, but the 4K Low frame rate is 5.4 FPS lower, showing that even the lowest settings cannot fully compensate for the 4x pixel count increase. This scaling behavior suggests that users with 1440p or 4K monitors should prioritize the Low or Medium presets to maintain playable frame rates.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, clocked at 2.90 GHz base and 4.10 GHz boost. Its 9 MB of shared L3 cache and 42.7 GB/s dual-channel memory bandwidth are modest by modern standards, and the CPU's synthetic scores reflect this: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7969 and single-core score of 1125. The processor sits at the 50th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the Core i3-10305 (0.2% higher) and the Core i7-8809G (0.6% higher), placing it in a tightly contested mid-range bracket.

In Fortnite, the CPU's role is most apparent at the 1080p Low preset, where the 208 FPS result represents the upper bound of what this processor can feed the GPU. The lack of hyper-threading (6 cores, 6 threads) means that Fortnite's main thread and physics/network threads compete for the same execution resources, which can cause frame-time spikes in crowded endgame scenarios even if average FPS looks healthy. The 50th percentile CPU standing, combined with the 63rd percentile GPU, produces the overall combo rank of 1029 out of 1564, suggesting the CPU drags the pairing down slightly.

The scaling data confirms the CPU's diminishing importance as resolution increases. At 4K, the difference between the Low preset (71.1 FPS) and the High preset (35.9 FPS) is entirely attributable to GPU workload, as the CPU is unlikely to be the constraint at such low frame rates. The CPU's 4.10 GHz boost clock helps maintain minimum frame rates in CPU-bound scenes, but the six threads without SMT are a structural weakness for a game like Fortnite that benefits from having spare cores for background tasks. For users seeking higher frame rates above 208 FPS, the data indicates the i5-9400 is the limiting factor, not the RX 7600.