Fortnite

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows for Fortnite on this Intel Core Ultra 5 225 + Intel Arc B390 platform show a clear pattern: the Low preset is the only setting tier that delivers consistently playable frame rates across common resolutions. At 1920x1080, Low settings produce an average of 115 FPS, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. This is 34 FPS ahead of the Medium preset’s 81 FPS average at the same resolution, and 52 FPS ahead of High’s 63 FPS. If you are targeting smooth competitive play, Low is the only sensible choice.

Medium settings are a secondary option for users who prioritize visual quality over frame rate. At 1080p, Medium averages 81 FPS with a measured minimum of 69 FPS and maximum of 93 FPS. That minimum is still above the 60 FPS threshold many players consider acceptable, but the margin is thin. At 2560x1440, Medium drops to a 51 FPS average with a 44 FPS minimum, which will feel stuttery during busy fights. At 3840x2160, Medium falls to 27 FPS average, which is not viable for real-time play.

High settings are not recommended for any resolution in this dataset. At 1080p, High averages 63 FPS, which is technically playable but leaves no headroom for drops during building or combat. At 1440p, High averages 40 FPS, and at 4K it drops to 21 FPS. The Ultra preset is effectively a screenshot mode on this hardware: 41 FPS at 1080p, 26 FPS at 1440p, and 14 FPS at 4K. None of these are acceptable for action gameplay. The data suggests that the performance gap between Low and Medium is larger than the gap between Medium and High, so if you must compromise, stepping down to Low yields the biggest FPS gain per visual quality lost.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU/GPU combo in Fortnite?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the Low preset exceeds 100 FPS, averaging 115 FPS. At 2560x1440, the best result is 73 FPS on Low, and at 3840x2160, even Low only reaches 39 FPS. For a consistent experience, 1080p is the target.

Q: Can this system handle 4K Fortnite at any settings?

A: No. The highest 4K score in the measured rows is 39 FPS on Low settings. Medium averages 27 FPS, High averages 21 FPS, and Ultra averages 14 FPS. None of these approach smooth playability, so 4K should be avoided.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to Low at 1080p?

A: Ultra averages 41 FPS at 1920x1080, which is 74 FPS lower than the Low preset’s 115 FPS average. That is a 64% reduction in frame rate. The minimum FPS for Ultra is not recorded, but the average alone indicates it is too slow for competitive play.

Q: Is the Intel Arc B390’s performance in Fortnite consistent with its overall benchmark standing?

A: The GPU’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 1482, placing it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, GeForce 800M, GT 625 OEM, and GT 710, with deltaPct values of 1.3%, 1.5%, 2.5%, and 2.7% respectively. The measured Fortnite FPS aligns with this low-tier positioning, especially at higher settings.

Q: What is the measured FPS range for Medium settings?

A: The dataset includes minimum and maximum values only for Medium settings. At 1080p, the range is 69 to 93 FPS with an 81 FPS average. At 1440p, the range is 44 to 59 FPS with a 51 FPS average. At 4K, the range is 23 to 31 FPS with a 27 FPS average.

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

A: The combo ranks 2417 out of 2740 tested combinations. This places it in the lower tier of systems, consistent with the GPU’s 9th percentile standing and the CPU’s 85th percentile.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics processor based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel’s 3 nm process. It has a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz. The memory configuration is system-shared, meaning there is no dedicated VRAM; the GPU uses the same DDR5 memory as the CPU. Memory bandwidth is system-dependent, and the bus width is also system-shared. This architecture has 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units. It also includes 12 ray tracing cores.

The GPU’s raw compute figures are modest: FP32 performance is 7.680 TFLOPS, and FP16 is 15.36 TFLOPS with a 2:1 ratio. Pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s, and texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 benchmark score is 1482, which places it at the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are all legacy NVIDIA parts: the GT 520MX scores 1463 (1.3% slower), the GeForce 800M scores 1460 (1.5% slower), the GT 625 OEM scores 1446 (2.5% slower), and the GT 710 scores 1443 (2.7% slower). This puts the B390 in extremely low-end territory for gaming.

In Fortnite specifically, the GPU becomes the dominant bottleneck as resolution increases. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 115 FPS, but at 4K Low it drops to 39 FPS. That is a 66% reduction in frame rate purely from resolution scaling, which indicates the GPU is saturated at higher pixel counts. The system-shared memory is a particular concern because Fortnite’s asset streaming and texture storage compete with the CPU for the same memory bandwidth. The measured results show that the GPU cannot sustain even 30 FPS at 4K on Medium, and only barely exceeds 30 FPS at 4K on Low. The boost clock of 2500 MHz is high for an integrated part, but the low shading unit count and shared memory limit its real-world gaming performance.

The GPU’s API support includes DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. This means it can technically run modern rendering features, but the hardware lacks the throughput to use them at playable frame rates. The 12 ray tracing cores are present but effectively useless in Fortnite given the overall performance envelope. In practical terms, the B390 behaves like a display adapter with gaming pretensions, not a serious gaming GPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the dataset includes all four settings tiers. Low averages 115 FPS. Medium averages 81 FPS with a minimum of 69 FPS and a maximum of 93 FPS. High averages 63 FPS. Ultra averages 41 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra is not linear: the drop from Low to Medium is 34 FPS, from Medium to High is 18 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 22 FPS. This suggests that the Low preset removes enough rendering load to substantially help the GPU, while the gap between Medium and High is smaller.

At 2560x1440, Low averages 73 FPS. Medium averages 51 FPS with a minimum of 44 FPS and a maximum of 59 FPS. High averages 40 FPS. Ultra averages 26 FPS. The 1440p results show a similar pattern to 1080p, but every tier is roughly 30-40% slower. The Medium preset’s minimum of 44 FPS is below the 60 FPS target, indicating that even mid-range settings will produce noticeable frame dips.

At 3840x2160, Low averages 39 FPS. Medium averages 27 FPS with a minimum of 23 FPS and a maximum of 31 FPS. High averages 21 FPS. Ultra averages 14 FPS. At 4K, even the Low preset fails to reach 40 FPS, and the Ultra preset’s 14 FPS average is effectively unplayable. The Medium preset’s minimum of 23 FPS confirms that frame pacing will be erratic.

Comparing across resolutions at the same settings: Low at 1080p is 115 FPS, at 1440p is 73 FPS, and at 4K is 39 FPS. Medium at 1080p is 81 FPS, at 1440p is 51 FPS, and at 4K is 27 FPS. High at 1080p is 63 FPS, at 1440p is 40 FPS, and at 4K is 21 FPS. Ultra at 1080p is 41 FPS, at 1440p is 26 FPS, and at 4K is 14 FPS. The data consistently shows that resolution has a larger impact on frame rate than settings changes, which points to the GPU as the limiting factor.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is severe across all settings. At Low, the system delivers 115 FPS at 1080p, 73 FPS at 1440p, and 39 FPS at 4K. That is a drop of 42 FPS going from 1080p to 1440p, and another 34 FPS going from 1440p to 4K. The percentage reduction from 1080p to 4K is 66%. At Medium, the figures are 81 FPS at 1080p, 51 FPS at 1440p, and 27 FPS at 4K, a 67% reduction. At High, 63 FPS at 1080p, 40 FPS at 1440p, and 21 FPS at 4K, a 67% reduction. At Ultra, 41 FPS at 1080p, 26 FPS at 1440p, and 14 FPS at 4K, a 66% reduction.

The consistency of this ~66-67% drop across all settings is telling. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the frame rate to stay closer to the same value as resolution increases, because the CPU workload does not scale with pixel count. Instead, the frame rate scales almost exactly with the pixel count: 4K has four times the pixels of 1080p, and the frame rate drops to roughly one-third of the 1080p value. This is the signature of a GPU-bound scenario where the integrated Arc B390 simply cannot fill pixels fast enough.

The data also shows that the delta between settings at any given resolution is smaller than the delta between resolutions at any given setting. For example, at 1080p, the spread between Low and Ultra is 74 FPS. At 4K, the spread between Low and Ultra is 25 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions further confirms that the GPU is the limiting component: when it is already overwhelmed by pixel count, reducing settings has diminishing returns. The CPU, an Intel Core Ultra 5 225, has a single-thread PassMark score of 4412 and a multi-thread score of 30459, which is ample for Fortnite’s engine. The bottleneck is not in the processor.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. The L3 cache is 20 MB shared, and each core has 192 KB of L1 and 3 MB of L2. It supports dual-channel DDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. The CPU’s benchmark scores are strong: Cinebench R23 multi-core is 25891, single-core is 3655, and PassMark multi-thread is 30459 with single-thread at 4412. It ranks in the 85th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36938.

Its nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark database are the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (avg score 36945, deltaPct 0), AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (avg score 37018, deltaPct -0.2%), AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (avg score 37093, deltaPct -0.4%), and Intel Core i9-12900T (avg score 37112, deltaPct -0.5%). These deltaPct values are all within 0.5% of the Ultra 5 225, meaning the CPU is performance-equivalent to a broad range of mid-range and older high-end parts. None of these rivals are the bottleneck in Fortnite.

In the measured Fortnite data, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game state updates. Given that the frame rate drops by two-thirds when moving from 1080p to 4K, the CPU is clearly not the limiting factor. If the CPU were the constraint, we would see similar frame rates at all resolutions, because the CPU workload is independent of resolution. Instead, the frame rate scales with pixel count, which means the GPU is saturated.

The CPU’s high single-thread performance (3655 in Cinebench R23 single-core) is relevant because Fortnite’s main game thread is typically single-threaded. A score in this range is more than adequate to drive frame rates well above 115 FPS at 1080p Low if the GPU could keep up. The multi-thread score of 25891 in Cinebench R23 indicates that background tasks and physics calculations will not starve the main thread. However, the system-shared memory architecture of the GPU means that the CPU’s memory bandwidth is also used for graphics data, which can create contention. The CPU’s 102.4 GB/s bandwidth is respectable, but the integrated GPU has no dedicated VRAM and must share this resource.

The 10 cores and 10 threads are sufficient for Fortnite, which does not scale heavily beyond a few threads. The boost clock of 4.90 GHz provides the single-thread speed needed for responsive gameplay. In summary, the CPU is a capable mid-range part that is not holding back this system’s Fortnite performance. The measured FPS numbers are entirely attributable to the GPU’s limitations.