Fortnite

Fortnite on the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the Intel Arc B370 presents a highly lopsided matchup. The CPU is a top-tier desktop part, while the GPU is an integrated-class solution operating with system-shared memory. The measured frame rates in this data reflect that imbalance clearly, with the Arc B370 acting as the decisive bottleneck at every resolution and setting tested. This analysis breaks down those results, what they mean for playability, and how each component contributes to the final numbers.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average frame rate this combination achieves at 1080p?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 104, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only configuration in the measured data that breaks the 100 FPS mark.

Q: How does this system perform at 1440p with Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the system delivers an average of 46 FPS, with a minimum of 39 FPS and a maximum of 53 FPS. This is a playable range for slower-paced gameplay, but far from competitive.

Q: Is this setup capable of 4K gaming in Fortnite?

A: No. At 3840x2160, even the best-case scenario (Low settings) only produces an average of 35 FPS. Ultra settings at 4K drop to an average of 13 FPS, making the game effectively unplayable at that resolution.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B370 compare to its nearest rivals in raw GPU benchmarks?

A: The Arc B370 scores 1184 in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 benchmark. This places it within a 1.4% performance delta of its closest competitors, including the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 and the AMD FirePro M2000. Its percentile ranking versus all GPUs is 5, indicating it is in the bottom 5% of all tested graphics processors.

Q: What is the CPU's benchmark standing relative to other processors?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84003, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs. It performs 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K and 1.1% ahead of the AMD EPYC 4584PX in average score.

Q: Does the CPU's integrated graphics affect the dedicated GPU performance?

A: The data indicates the system uses a discrete GPU (the Intel Arc B370) for its measured FPS results. The CPU does have integrated graphics (Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU), but the benchmark results are for the Arc B370, which has its own dedicated, albeit low-powered, silicon. The CPU's integrated graphics are not a factor in these FPS figures.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is the primary limiting factor in this configuration. Its specifications are modest: it features 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 render output units. The boost clock is set at 2400 MHz, with a base clock of 300 MHz. The architecture is Xe3-LPG on Intel's 3 nm process node.

Crucially, the memory configuration is "System Shared" for both size and type. This means the GPU has no dedicated VRAM and instead relies on the system's main memory, with bandwidth described as "System Dependent." This is a severe limitation for a game like Fortnite, which benefits greatly from fast, dedicated video memory. The lack of dedicated VRAM is likely a primary reason for the low frame rates, as the GPU must contend with the CPU for memory bandwidth.

The GPU's compute capabilities are also limited. It offers 6.144 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 12.29 TFLOPS of FP16 performance. Its pixel rate is 48.00 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 96.00 GTexel/s. These figures are consistent with a low-end integrated or entry-level discrete part, not a dedicated gaming GPU.

The benchmark data confirms this. In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the Arc B370 scores only 1184 points. This places it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs, meaning 95% of tested graphics cards perform better. The deltaPct values to its nearest rivals are all under 1.5%, with the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (scoring 1186) being only 0.2% slower. This puts the Arc B370's performance in the same class as graphics hardware from over a decade ago, making it fundamentally unsuitable for modern, high-fidelity gaming at playable frame rates.

The GPU's TDP is listed as 25 W, which is extremely low for a graphics processor. This low power envelope explains the modest clock speeds and compute throughput. The system's performance in Fortnite is directly tied to this GPU's capabilities; the frame rates do not scale with resolution or settings in a way that suggests CPU limitation, but rather a hard cap imposed by the GPU's rendering throughput.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and predictable pattern: as resolution increases, average frame rates drop significantly. This is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario, where the graphics processor is the limiting component.

At 1920x1080, the system achieves an average of 104 FPS on Low, 73 FPS on Medium, and 57 FPS on High. Moving to 2560x1440, those numbers fall to 66 FPS on Low, 46 FPS on Medium, and 36 FPS on High. At 3840x2160, the averages drop to 35 FPS on Low, 25 FPS on Medium, and 19 FPS on High.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p (a 1.78x increase in pixel count) results in a 36.5% reduction in FPS for Low settings (104 to 66) and a 36.9% reduction for Medium settings (73 to 46). This is a substantial performance hit. The scaling from 1440p to 4K (a 2.25x increase in pixel count) is even more punishing. Low settings drop from 66 FPS to 35 FPS, a 47% reduction. Medium settings drop from 46 FPS to 25 FPS, a 45.7% reduction.

This pattern strongly indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see less variation in frame rates across resolutions, as the CPU's workload would remain relatively constant. Instead, the frame rates scale inversely with the number of pixels, which is the hallmark of a graphics-bound workload. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is clearly capable of feeding the GPU with data, but the Arc B370 simply cannot render the frames fast enough to keep up with higher resolutions.

The 1080p Low setting (104 FPS) is the only configuration that approaches a genuinely smooth experience. Every other resolution and settings combination falls well below the 60 FPS target that most players consider the baseline for acceptable performance. The data suggests that even at 1080p, the Arc B370 is working at its absolute limit, and any increase in graphical fidelity or resolution will result in a disproportionately large drop in performance.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the only configuration that offers a consistently playable experience is 1920x1080 with Low settings, which yields an average of 104 FPS. This is the sole setting combination that clears the 60 FPS threshold, and it does so by a wide margin. For players who prioritize frame rate above all else, this is the clear choice.

The Medium preset at 1080p produces an average of 73 FPS, which is also playable, but the minimum FPS of 62 is close to the edge of what many consider the lower bound for smooth gameplay. This preset offers a better visual experience than Low, but the frame rate trade-off is significant, a 30% drop from 104 FPS.

High settings at 1080p drop the average to 57 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS target and will likely result in noticeable stutters during intense firefights or when many structures are present. The Ultra preset at 1080p is not recommended, as the 37 FPS average is too low for a fast-paced Battle Royale game.

At 1440p, even the Low preset (66 FPS average) is marginally above the 60 FPS target, but the margin is thin. Medium settings at 1440p (46 FPS average) are not recommended for competitive play, and High and Ultra are unplayable. At 4K, no settings preset is viable, with the best average being 35 FPS on Low.

The data indicates that this system is best suited for 1080p gaming with the Low or Medium presets. The performance cliff between Medium and High at every resolution suggests that the GPU's shading and memory capabilities are overwhelmed by the increased texture and effects work required by higher presets. For the best balance of visual quality and playability, 1080p Medium is the recommended choice. For maximum frame rate, 1080p Low is the only option. Any other configuration will result in an experience that is either below the 60 FPS target or outright unplayable.

Measured FPS Breakdown

Here is the complete list of measured average frame rates from the data, broken down by resolution and settings preset.

At 1920x1080, the results are as follows. The Low preset delivers the highest average at 104 FPS. The Medium preset delivers an average of 73 FPS, with a minimum of 62 FPS and a maximum of 84 FPS. The High preset delivers an average of 57 FPS. The Ultra preset delivers an average of 37 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops considerably. The Low preset delivers an average of 66 FPS. The Medium preset delivers an average of 46 FPS, with a minimum of 39 FPS and a maximum of 53 FPS. The High preset delivers an average of 36 FPS. The Ultra preset delivers an average of 24 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles to maintain playable frame rates. The Low preset delivers an average of 35 FPS. The Medium preset delivers an average of 25 FPS, with a minimum of 21 FPS and a maximum of 28 FPS. The High preset delivers an average of 19 FPS. The Ultra preset delivers an average of 13 FPS.

These numbers highlight a consistent pattern. The gap between Low and Medium is significant (a 30% drop at 1080p, a 30% drop at 1440p, and a 29% drop at 4K), but the gap between Medium and High is even more severe (a 22% drop at 1080p, a 22% drop at 1440p, and a 24% drop at 4K). The jump to Ultra is also punishing. This indicates that the GPU's resources are severely strained by the higher-fidelity rendering paths.

The minimum and maximum FPS figures for the Medium presets provide some insight into frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the range is 62-84 FPS, a spread of 22 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the range is 39-53 FPS, a spread of 14 FPS. At 4K Medium, the range is 21-28 FPS, a spread of 7 FPS. The absolute spread shrinks as resolution increases, but the relative variance remains high, suggesting inconsistent frame pacing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is an extremely powerful processor, and its role in this system is to feed the GPU with as much data as possible. It has 24 cores and 24 threads, which is an unusual configuration (no hyperthreading), with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz. The L3 cache is 36 MB shared, and the L2 cache is 3 MB per core. It supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus with a bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s.

The CPU's benchmark results are stellar. It scores 51731 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 7303 in single-core. Its Passmark multithread score is 60860, and its single-thread score is 4823. These numbers place it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84003. It is 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, which is a negligible difference, but it demonstrates that the 290K Plus is at the very top of the desktop CPU hierarchy.

In Fortnite, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and draw calls. A processor with this level of single-thread and multi-thread performance will never be the bottleneck in this system. The data confirms this, as the frame rates do not scale with CPU capability but rather with GPU workload. When the resolution increases, the CPU's workload stays relatively flat, but the GPU's workload increases dramatically, leading to lower FPS.

The fact that the CPU has integrated graphics (Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU) is interesting, but it is not used in these benchmark results. The discrete Arc B370 is the rendering device. The CPU's high memory bandwidth (115.2 GB/s) is also a factor, but the GPU's "System Shared" memory means it competes with the CPU for that bandwidth, which can cause further performance degradation.

The performance delta between the 290K Plus and its nearest rivals is minimal. It is 1.1% ahead of the AMD EPYC 4584PX and 1.2% ahead of the AMD EPYC 9135. It lags the AMD EPYC 7F72 by 1.3%. These are all server-class or high-end desktop parts, and the differences in average score are within the margin of error for most benchmarking. The takeaway is that the CPU is performing exactly as expected for a flagship desktop processor.

The conclusion is that the CPU is not a limiting factor in Fortnite for this configuration. All performance bottlenecks are squarely on the Intel Arc B370 GPU. Players with this CPU who upgrade the graphics card to a more capable model would see a massive improvement in frame rates, as the CPU has ample headroom to support far more powerful GPUs. The 290K Plus is a future-proof foundation, but it is wasted on the Arc B370 in this gaming scenario.