Overpower

The pairing of the Intel Core i5-9400 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER in Overpower produces a dataset that clearly delineates the boundaries of both components. The measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets reveal a system where the GPU is the primary driver of performance, but the CPU’s six physical threads establish a ceiling that becomes increasingly relevant as settings are lowered. This analysis examines the scaling behavior, component roles, and final ranking of this combination within the broader test pool.

Resolution Scaling

The most instructive data point is the transition from 1080p to 4K at the High preset, where average frame rates move from 75.5 FPS to 58.4 FPS. This drop of 17.1 FPS (approximately 22.6%) is modest compared to what a purely GPU-bound scenario would typically show, suggesting that the CPU is already limiting performance at 1080p. At 1440p High, the average of 64.9 FPS sits nearly halfway between the 1080p and 4K figures, reinforcing a linear scaling pattern that points to a balanced bottleneck shift.

When settings are dropped to Low, the scaling behavior becomes more revealing. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 127.8 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. At 1440p Low, that figure falls to 112.3 FPS, and at 4K Low, it reaches 95.9 FPS. The relative drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is 31.9 FPS, or about 25%. This is a smaller percentage loss than what would be expected if the GPU were the sole limiting factor, indicating that the i5-9400’s six threads are preventing the RTX 2060 SUPER from fully stretching its legs at lower resolutions.

The Medium and Ultra presets tell a complementary story. At Medium, the 1080p score of 78.7 FPS drops to 72.6 FPS at 1440p and then to 59.1 FPS at 4K. The step from 1440p to 4K represents a 13.5 FPS loss, which is proportionally larger than the 6.1 FPS loss from 1080p to 1440p. This suggests that the GPU begins to dominate the bottleneck as pixel count increases. At Ultra settings, the pattern is similar but with lower absolute numbers: 61.8 FPS at 1080p, 54.4 FPS at 1440p, and 44.4 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is the only sub-45 FPS figure in the entire dataset, and it confirms that the RTX 2060 SUPER’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 256-bit bus are adequate for high-resolution work but not for maximum quality at 4K.

Interpreting these numbers together, the data indicates that Overpower is not heavily CPU-bound at high resolutions. The gap between 1080p and 4K at High (17.1 FPS) is nearly identical to the gap at Medium (19.6 FPS), which implies that the game’s engine scales predictably with resolution. However, the fact that 1080p Low (127.8 FPS) is only 31.9 FPS higher than 4K Low (95.9 FPS) suggests that the CPU is holding back the GPU at lower settings. If the GPU were the only constraint, the 4K Low score would likely be much closer to half of the 1080p Low figure. The measured difference of 31.9 FPS (about 25%) is smaller than that, pointing to a CPU bottleneck that caps the maximum frame rate around 128 FPS regardless of how light the GPU workload becomes.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Overpower?*

A: Based on measured frame rates, 1440p High at 64.9 FPS offers the best balance of visual quality and smoothness. The 4K High result of 58.4 FPS is playable but leaves little headroom, while 1080p High at 75.5 FPS wastes the GPU’s potential given the CPU bottleneck observed at lower settings.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 SUPER perform relative to its nearest rivals?

A: The GPU’s average benchmark score of 19774 places it 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN (19706) and 0.5% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (19680). It also leads the NVIDIA Quadro K5200 by 0.8% and the NVIDIA Tesla K40m by 1.3%. In terms of raw compute, the RTX 2060 SUPER delivers 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

*Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Overpower?*

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K High, the average frame rate is 58.4 FPS, which is smooth enough for most players. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 44.4 FPS, which may feel less responsive. The 4K Low result of 95.9 FPS shows that the GPU has headroom, but the CPU’s six threads limit the maximum frame rate.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 a bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data suggests yes. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 127.8 FPS, but at 1080p High it only manages 75.5 FPS. The difference between these two settings (52.3 FPS) is larger than the GPU’s typical scaling would predict, implying that the CPU is preventing the graphics card from reaching higher frame rates even when the GPU workload is light.

Q: How does the i5-9400 compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The i5-9400’s average benchmark score is 2305, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core i3-10305 (2300) and the Intel Core i3-1125G4 (2299). It is 0.4% ahead of the Intel Xeon E-2134 (2295) and 0.6% behind the Intel Core i7-8809G (2319). The 0.6% gap to the i7-8809G is the largest delta in the group.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory configuration and how does it affect performance?

A: The RTX 2060 SUPER has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory subsystem is sufficient for 4K High settings (58.4 FPS) but becomes a limiting factor at 4K Ultra (44.4 FPS), where higher texture loads and larger buffer requirements push the card closer to its bandwidth ceiling.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel’s 14 nm process. Its base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.10 GHz are modest by modern standards, but the 9 MB of shared L3 cache helps mitigate the lack of Hyper-Threading. The benchmark data shows a single-core R23 score of 1125 and a multi-core score of 7969, placing it in the 50th percentile among all CPUs in the database.

In Overpower, the CPU’s role becomes evident when examining the frame rate deltas across settings. At 1080p, moving from Low (127.8 FPS) to Medium (78.7 FPS) incurs a 49.1 FPS penalty, while moving from Medium to High (75.5 FPS) costs only 3.2 FPS. This non-linear scaling suggests that the game’s engine offloads significant work to the GPU at Medium settings, but that the CPU’s six threads are saturated at Low settings, preventing the GPU from achieving frame rates beyond the 128 FPS mark. The same pattern appears at 1440p, where Low (112.3 FPS) to Medium (72.6 FPS) shows a 39.7 FPS drop, while Medium to High (64.9 FPS) is only 7.7 FPS.

The CPU’s 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 42.7 GB/s of bandwidth are adequate for this workload, but they do not provide any headroom for future titles. The chip’s PCIe Gen 3 interface with 16 lanes is sufficient for the RTX 2060 SUPER, which also runs on PCIe 3.0 x16. The measured results indicate that the i5-9400 is the limiting factor at 1080p Low, where the GPU’s utilization is likely capped, but at higher resolutions and settings, the GPU takes over as the primary bottleneck. The 4K Ultra result of 44.4 FPS is almost certainly GPU-bound, given that the CPU has more than enough headroom to feed the graphics card at that resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested processor and graphics card combinations for Overpower, this pairing ranks 1333rd out of 1744 combinations. This places it in the 76th percentile of all tested systems, meaning roughly a quarter of the tested combos perform better. The ranking reflects the balance between the i5-9400’s 50th percentile CPU score and the RTX 2060 SUPER’s 63rd percentile GPU score.

The rank is primarily driven by the GPU’s strong performance relative to its peers. The RTX 2060 SUPER’s average benchmark score of 19774 is only 0.3% ahead of the GTX TITAN and 0.5% ahead of the RTX 2070, indicating that it sits near the top of its performance class. However, the CPU’s 50th percentile ranking drags the combo down slightly, as many competing systems pair stronger processors with similar or weaker GPUs.

The measured frame rates support this ranking. At 1080p High, the combo achieves 75.5 FPS, which is competitive for its class but not exceptional. At 4K High, the 58.4 FPS result is respectable, but the 4K Ultra figure of 44.4 FPS reveals the GPU’s limitations at maximum quality. The combo’s rank of 1333 out of 1744 suggests that it is a mid-pack performer, capable of smooth gameplay at 1440p High (64.9 FPS) but not designed for enthusiast-level 4K gaming. The data indicates that the RTX 2060 SUPER is the stronger component in this pairing, and that upgrading the CPU to a higher-percentile part would likely improve the combo’s rank more than upgrading the GPU.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture using TSMC’s 12 nm process, with a die size of 445 mm² and 10,800 million transistors. Its base clock of 1470 MHz and boost clock of 1650 MHz deliver 7.181 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, which is complemented by 34 RT cores and 272 Tensor cores. The GPU’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, a configuration that proves adequate for 1440p gaming but struggles at 4K Ultra.

In Overpower, the GPU’s role is most apparent in the resolution scaling data. At 4K Ultra, the average frame rate of 44.4 FPS represents the GPU’s absolute limit, and the 14.0 FPS drop from 4K High (58.4 FPS) to 4K Ultra shows the cost of enabling maximum quality settings. The GPU’s 63rd percentile ranking among all GPUs is reflected in these results, which show that it can handle 4K at reduced settings (95.9 FPS at Low) but cannot maintain playable frame rates at maximum quality.

The memory configuration plays a critical role in Overpower’s high-resolution performance. The 8 GB capacity is sufficient for the game’s textures at 4K High, but the 448.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes a bottleneck at Ultra settings, where the 44.4 FPS result indicates that the memory subsystem is struggling to keep up with the shading units and TMUs. The GPU’s pixel rate of 105.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 224.4 GTexel/s are consistent with its performance class, but they are not sufficient to overcome the memory bandwidth limitation at 4K Ultra.

The RTX 2060 SUPER’s benchmark scores reinforce its position in the hierarchy. Its Passmark G3D score of 16462 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2011 place it near the top of the mid-range segment, and its average benchmark score of 19774 puts it just ahead of the RTX 2070 (19680) by 0.5%. In practice, this means that the GPU rarely falls below 60 FPS in Overpower at 1440p High (64.9 FPS) and only dips below 45 FPS at 4K Ultra (44.4 FPS). The GPU’s 175 W TDP and single 8-pin power connector are reasonable for the performance delivered, and its DirectX 12 Ultimate support ensures compatibility with the game’s engine features.