High On Life

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the Intel Arc B390 produces a playable but constrained experience in High On Life, with benchmark results showing that the system is firmly limited by the graphics processor at higher resolutions while the CPU provides just enough headroom to keep 1080p sessions viable. The data indicates a total of twelve measured frame rate data points across four settings presets and three resolutions, with the combination ranking 2608th out of 2958 tested combos for this game, placing it in the lower percentile of all tested hardware pairings. This is a system that can handle the game at its most forgiving settings, but the performance ceiling is low enough that any attempt to push visual fidelity results in a sharp decline in fluidity.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and predictable pattern: as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, average frame rates drop substantially across every settings preset. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 78 at 1080p to 55 at 1440p, then to 33 at 4K. That represents a 29.5% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a further 40% drop from 1440p to 4K. The trend is consistent across all presets, but the magnitude of the drop becomes more severe at higher quality settings.

At High settings, the average FPS goes from 50 at 1080p to 35 at 1440p, a 30% reduction, and then to 21 at 4K, another 40% reduction from the 1440p figure. Medium settings follow a similar trajectory: 61 FPS at 1080p drops to 43 at 1440p (a 29.5% decline) and then to 26 at 4K (a 39.5% decline from 1440p). Ultra settings show the steepest proportional losses: 38 FPS at 1080p falls to 26 at 1440p (31.6% lower) and then to 16 at 4K (38.5% lower than 1440p).

The consistency of these percentage drops across different presets is a strong indicator that resolution scaling is the dominant factor here. The fact that the relative decline from 1440p to 4K is consistently larger than the decline from 1080p to 1440p suggests that the graphics processor is being saturated well before the 4K mark. At 4K, even the lowest settings preset only manages 33 FPS average, which is below the threshold most users would consider smooth for a first-person shooter. The data shows that 1080p is the only resolution where any preset achieves an average above 60 FPS, and that only happens at Low settings.

This scaling behavior points directly at the GPU as the limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see a much smaller difference between 1440p and 4K results, since the render load would be rising while the CPU work stayed roughly constant. Instead, the frame rate drops by roughly 40% at every step from 1440p to 4K, which is a classic symptom of a graphics processor that is running out of fill rate and shading capacity. The pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s are modest figures, and the 4K resolution demands far more pixel throughput than this GPU can deliver, resulting in single-digit-to-low-20s frame rates at the highest resolution.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, built on a 14 nm process node. Its base clock is 2.90 GHz with a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, and it has a 9 MB shared L3 cache alongside 256 KB L2 and 64 KB L1 per core. The CPU's benchmark scores show a mixed picture: its Cinebench R23 multicore score is 6629, while the single-core score is 935. In Geekbench, it achieves 5141 multicore and 1389 single-core. The average benchmark score across all tests is 2254, placing it at the 47th percentile of all CPUs tested.

Relative to its nearest rivals, the i5-9400 is essentially dead even. The Intel Core i7-1068NG7 scores 2259, which is -0.2% relative to the i5-9400. The Intel Core i7-10710U scores 2248, a +0.3% delta, and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 scores 2246, also +0.3% from the i5-9400. The Intel Core i3-10305 scores 2264, which is -0.4% relative. These sub-1% deltas mean that, for the purposes of this game, the i5-9400 is functionally interchangeable with any of these four processors in terms of overall compute capability.

In High On Life, the CPU's role appears to be sufficient for the lower resolutions but not necessarily the limiting factor. At 1080p Low settings, the system reaches 78 FPS average, which suggests the CPU can feed the GPU enough data to maintain a decent frame rate. However, at 1080p Ultra, the average drops to 38 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it falls to 16 FPS. If the CPU were the primary constraint, we would expect the frame rate to plateau at some CPU-limited value regardless of resolution. The data does not show such a plateau; instead, the frame rate continues to fall as resolution increases, confirming that the GPU is the bottleneck in this pairing.

The six cores and six threads are adequate for a game of this type, which likely does not heavily utilize more than six threads. The 2.90 GHz base clock and 4.10 GHz boost clock are moderate, and the CPU's single-thread performance, as indicated by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 935, is enough to avoid being a major liability at 1080p. The data suggests that the CPU is not the primary constraint at any resolution, but at 1080p Low, the system is closer to a balanced state, with the 78 FPS average being a credible result for this hardware combination.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2608th out of 2958 tested combos in High On Life. That places it in the bottom 11.8% of all tested hardware pairings, which is a low position but not an absolute worst-case scenario. The rank reflects the fact that the Arc B390 is a very low-performance graphics solution, sitting at the 9th percentile of all GPUs tested, while the i5-9400 is a mid-range processor at the 47th percentile.

The GPU's benchmark score of 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 is its only recorded benchmark, and it places it in the company of very weak graphics solutions. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX with a score of 1463 (a +1.3% delta for the Intel part), the NVIDIA GeForce 800M at 1460 (+1.5%), the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM at 1446 (+2.5%), and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 at 1443 (+2.7%). The Arc B390 is slightly ahead of all four of these, but the margins are tiny, ranging from 1.3% to 2.7%. This tells us that the GPU is operating in the same performance tier as decade-old entry-level discrete graphics cards, which explains the low overall combo rank.

The CPU's 47th percentile ranking is respectable, but when paired with a GPU at the 9th percentile, the overall system performance is dragged down significantly. The combo rank of 2608 out of 2958 shows that the vast majority of tested systems perform better in this game. For context, the GPU's average benchmark score of 1482 is its only data point, and the CPU's average of 2254 is well above the GPU's relative standing, so the GPU is clearly the weaker link in this pairing. The data indicates that users with this combo are getting performance that is below the median experience for High On Life, and the limiting factor is unambiguously the graphics processor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of how this combo performs across all tested configurations. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 78 FPS, which is the highest recorded average in the entire dataset. Medium settings at the same resolution yield 61 FPS average, with a minimum of 52 and maximum of 70. High settings drop to 50 FPS average, and Ultra settings fall to 38 FPS average. These are the only configurations where the system approaches or exceeds 60 FPS, and only Low does so.

At 2560x1440, the numbers step down noticeably. Low settings produce 55 FPS average, which is still playable but no longer smooth by most standards. Medium settings average 43 FPS, with a minimum of 36 and maximum of 49. High settings average 35 FPS, and Ultra settings average 26 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 29 FPS, which shows how much headroom the GPU loses when quality settings are raised.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles across the board. Low settings average 33 FPS, Medium averages 26 FPS (with a minimum of 22 and maximum of 30), High averages 21 FPS, and Ultra averages 16 FPS. None of these 4K configurations reaches 35 FPS average, and the Ultra preset at 4K produces a single-digit-to-low-20s experience that would be difficult to play comfortably. The minimum FPS data points that exist (Medium preset at all three resolutions) show that frame pacing is relatively consistent, with the minimums staying within 10 FPS of the averages.

Looking at the full matrix, the pattern is straightforward: the system is most viable at 1080p Low (78 FPS), acceptable at 1080p Medium (61 FPS), and borderline at 1080p High (50 FPS). At 1440p, only Low (55 FPS) approaches a playable level, and at 4K, all presets produce averages below 35 FPS, with the lowest being 16 FPS at Ultra. The data shows no configuration where the system achieves both high resolution and high settings simultaneously, reinforcing the conclusion that this GPU is the binding constraint.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics processor based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on a 3 nm process node. It has 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster operation units, along with 12 ray tracing cores. Its base clock is 300 MHz, which boosts to 2500 MHz, and its FP32 performance is rated at 7.680 TFLOPS. The GPU uses system shared memory, meaning there is no dedicated VRAM, and its memory bandwidth is listed as system dependent.

The GPU's benchmark results are stark: a single 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482, which places it at the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are all entry-level NVIDIA parts from over a decade ago, and the Intel GPU's margins over them are slim. Against the GeForce GT 520MX, the Arc B390 is 1.3% faster; against the GeForce 800M, it is 1.5% faster; against the GT 625 OEM, it is 2.5% faster; and against the GT 710, it is 2.7% faster. These sub-3% differences mean that, for all practical purposes, the Arc B390 performs like a very old, very low-end discrete GPU.

In High On Life, this GPU's limitations are exposed clearly by the measured FPS. The 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is insufficient for modern game rendering at high resolutions, and the lack of dedicated VRAM means the system must rely on shared memory, which can introduce additional latency and bandwidth constraints. The pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s are modest, and they directly translate into the frame rate drops observed when moving from 1080p to 1440p to 4K. The GPU's 9th percentile ranking means that the vast majority of graphics solutions tested perform better, and this is the primary reason why the combo rank is so low.

The GPU's clock behavior also matters: a base clock of 300 MHz is very low, and even the 2500 MHz boost clock is not enough to overcome the small number of shading units. With only 24 ROPs, the GPU's ability to fill pixels at high resolutions is severely constrained, which explains why 4K performance collapses to 16-33 FPS depending on settings. The ray tracing cores are present, but with only 12 of them, their impact on a game like High On Life is likely negligible, and the game does not appear to rely heavily on ray tracing based on the measured results.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal configuration for this combo is 1080p with the Low preset, which delivers an average of 78 FPS. This is the only settings combination that achieves an average above 70 FPS, and it provides the smoothest experience that this hardware can deliver. The next best option is 1080p Medium, which averages 61 FPS, but the minimum of 52 FPS means there will be occasional dips below the 60 FPS threshold. For users who prioritize frame rate stability, 1080p Low is the clear choice.

At 1440p, the Low preset averages 55 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a fast-paced FPS. Medium at 1440p averages 43 FPS, and the minimum of 36 FPS indicates that the experience will be inconsistent, with noticeable stutters during busy scenes. The data suggests that 1440p is only viable at Low settings, and even then, the 55 FPS average is 23 FPS lower than the 1080p Low result. Users should avoid 4K entirely, as the best 4K result is 33 FPS at Low settings, which is below the minimum threshold for a comfortable gaming experience.

For the best balance of visual quality and performance, 1080p Medium is a reasonable compromise, since its 61 FPS average is above 60 and the visual uplift over Low is meaningful. However, the minimum of 52 FPS means that the game will occasionally drop below 60, which could be noticeable. The High preset at 1080p averages 50 FPS, which is a 11 FPS drop from Medium and may not justify the visual improvement. Ultra at any resolution is not recommended, as the highest Ultra average is 38 FPS at 1080p, and at 4K Ultra the average is a mere 16 FPS.

The data strongly supports 1080p Low as the primary recommendation, with 1080p Medium as a secondary option for users who can tolerate occasional frame rate dips. The GPU's 9th percentile ranking and its proximity to decade-old discrete GPUs indicate that this hardware is simply not capable of handling higher resolutions or quality settings in High On Life. Users should accept the 1080p Low compromise to achieve a playable experience, as any attempt to raise settings or resolution will result in a significant loss of fluidity that undermines the game's fast-paced action. The measured data shows no configuration where the system exceeds 78 FPS average, and only one configuration where it exceeds 70 FPS, so managing expectations is key with this hardware combination.