Overpower

The pairing of Intel’s six-core Core i5-9400 with NVIDIA’s flagship RTX 5090 D in Overpower produces a fascinating split personality. At 1080p and 1440p, the CPU’s legacy architecture holds back what is otherwise a top-tier graphics card, while at 4K the GPU’s immense compute muscle takes over, delivering frame rates that approach high-refresh 4K gaming. The data shows a system where the weakest link shifts depending on resolution, and the benchmark results quantify exactly where that transition occurs.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 122 frames per second. This is the lowest result at 1080p across all settings, with Low settings producing 160 FPS, Medium at 134 FPS, and High at 130 FPS.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 5090 D at 4K Low compared to 4K Ultra?

A: At 3840x2160, the average FPS at Low settings is 146, while at Ultra settings it drops to 111. That represents a 35 FPS difference, meaning Low settings are approximately 31.5% faster than Ultra in this specific configuration.

*Q: What is the combo’s ranking among all tested systems in Overpower?*

A: This CPU-GPU combination ranks 577th out of 2,980 tested combos in the game. This places it in the top 19.4% of all tested configurations, though well below the top tier occupied by newer CPU pairings.

Q: Does the CPU have a high benchmark percentile compared to other processors?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 sits at the 47th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2,254. Its closest rival, the Intel Core i7-1068NG7, scores 2,259, which is only 0.2% higher.

Q: What is the GPU’s percentile ranking among all graphics cards?

A: The RTX 5090 D achieves a 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 77,712. Its nearest competitor, the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT, scores 76,904, which is 1.1% lower.

Q: How does the FPS scale from 1080p to 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS goes from 130 at 1920x1080, to 125 at 2560x1440, and finally to 119 at 3840x2160. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 11 FPS, which is a relatively modest 8.5% decline.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications explain why it performs so well in Overpower. The GPU is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using a 5 nm process at TSMC, with a chip designated GB202. It contains 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, giving it a transistor density of 122.9 million per square millimeter. This is a massive chip, and the data reflects that scale.

Memory is a key strength. The RTX 5090 D comes with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, producing a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. The memory clock runs at 1750 MHz, which translates to 28 Gbps effective. For a game like Overpower, which is an Action title from 2023, this bandwidth means texture streaming and high-resolution assets are unlikely to bottleneck the GPU. The 32 GB capacity is far beyond what most current games require, so VRAM pressure should be minimal even at 4K Ultra.

The core configuration is equally impressive. The GPU has 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 render output units. It also includes 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores. The pixel rate is 423.6 GPixel/s, and the texture rate is 1,636.8 GTexel/s. Compute performance reaches 104.8 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16 (at a 1:1 ratio). These figures suggest the GPU is capable of handling any workload Overpower presents, including ray-traced effects if enabled.

Clock speeds are relatively modest for a flagship, with a base clock of 2017 MHz and a boost clock of 2407 MHz. This is likely due to the enormous power envelope, which is rated at 575 W TDP with a suggested PSU of 950 W. The card uses a dual-slot design with a single 16-pin power connector, and measures 304 mm in length, 137 mm in height, and 48 mm in width. The bus interface is PCIe 5.0 x16, which provides ample bandwidth for data transfer.

In Overpower, the GPU’s role becomes clear when examining the measured FPS at different resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 111, which is playable but not extremely high. At 4K Low, the average jumps to 146 FPS, showing that the GPU has headroom when graphical load is reduced. The fact that 4K High produces 119 FPS, while 4K Medium produces 122 FPS, indicates that the GPU is scaling well with settings changes. The GPU’s 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms it is one of the fastest cards available, and its average benchmark score of 77,712 is nearly identical to its closest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT, which scores 78,940 (1.6% higher).

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system where the CPU becomes less of a bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 1080p High, the average FPS is 130. Moving to 1440p High, the average drops slightly to 125 FPS. At 4K High, the average is 119 FPS. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is only 11 FPS, which is a mere 8.5% reduction. This is a remarkably small penalty for quadrupling the pixel count, and it strongly suggests that at 1080p, the CPU is limiting performance.

At Low settings, the pattern is similar. 1080p Low produces 160 FPS, 1440p Low produces 154 FPS, and 4K Low produces 146 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 4K is 14 FPS, or 8.75%. Again, the scaling is shallow, indicating that the GPU is not the primary constraint at lower resolutions. The CPU, with its six cores and six threads, cannot push frame rates much higher than 160 FPS in this game, regardless of how light the GPU load becomes.

At Medium settings, the measured data includes minimum and maximum FPS values, providing more insight. At 1080p Medium, the average is 134 FPS, with a minimum of 114 and a maximum of 154. At 1440p Medium, the average is 129 FPS, with a minimum of 109 and a maximum of 148. At 4K Medium, the average is 122 FPS, with a minimum of 103 and a maximum of 140. The minimum FPS values track closely with the averages, suggesting consistent frame pacing without major stutters.

The Ultra settings tell the most interesting story. At 1080p Ultra, the average FPS is 122. At 1440p Ultra, it is 117. At 4K Ultra, it is 111. The drop from 1080p to 4K is 11 FPS, which is exactly the same as at High settings. This consistency across settings indicates that the resolution scaling is uniform, and the limiting factor shifts from the CPU at 1080p to the GPU at 4K. At 1080p, the GPU is not fully utilized because the CPU cannot feed it enough frames. At 4K, the GPU’s workload increases enough that it becomes the primary bottleneck, but the high core count and fast memory ensure that performance remains strong.

The data shows that for this pairing, 1080p is CPU-bound, while 4K is GPU-bound. The crossover point appears to be somewhere between 1440p and 4K, where the GPU’s workload becomes large enough to overshadow the CPU’s limitations. This is a classic sign of a high-end GPU paired with a mid-range processor from an older generation.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of performance across three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the lowest average FPS is 122 at Ultra settings, and the highest is 160 at Low settings. The Medium setting produces an average of 134 FPS, with a minimum of 114 and a maximum of 154. High settings produce 130 FPS on average. The spread from Low to Ultra is 38 FPS, indicating that graphical settings have a significant impact, but the CPU still limits the ceiling.

At 2560x1440, the averages are slightly lower across the board. Low settings produce 154 FPS, High settings produce 125 FPS, Medium settings produce 129 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 117 FPS. The Medium setting again shows a minimum of 109 and a maximum of 148. The spread from Low to Ultra is 37 FPS, nearly identical to 1080p. This suggests that the CPU is still playing a role at 1440p, since the GPU should be able to push higher frame rates if it were the sole constraint.

At 3840x2160, the averages drop further. Low settings produce 146 FPS, High settings produce 119 FPS, Medium settings produce 122 FPS, and Ultra settings produce 111 FPS. The Medium setting shows a minimum of 103 and a maximum of 140. The spread from Low to Ultra is 35 FPS, which is only slightly narrower than at lower resolutions. The key difference is that at 4K, the GPU is now the primary bottleneck, and the CPU’s limitations are less pronounced.

Looking at the specific numbers, the highest measured FPS in the entire dataset is 160 at 1080p Low. The lowest is 111 at 4K Ultra. The minimum FPS values, where available, show that the system never drops below 103 FPS in any tested configuration. This indicates that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate remains playable. The maximum FPS values are only available for Medium settings, but they show that the system can reach up to 154 FPS at 1080p, 148 FPS at 1440p, and 140 FPS at 4K.

The performance at 4K Ultra is particularly noteworthy. An average of 111 FPS at 4K with maximum settings is a strong result for any system, and it demonstrates the raw power of the RTX 5090 D. The fact that 4K High produces 119 FPS and 4K Medium produces 122 FPS shows that the GPU scales gracefully with settings. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is only 8 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset is not overly demanding relative to High.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the Intel Core i5-9400 and the RTX 5090 D ranks 577th out of 2,980 tested combinations in Overpower. This places it in the top 19.4% of all tested systems. While that is a solid ranking, it is not as high as the GPU’s individual performance would suggest. The RTX 5090 D is in the 92nd percentile among GPUs, but the CPU is only in the 47th percentile among processors. This mismatch pulls the combo down from what it could achieve with a more modern CPU.

The ranking of 577 out of 2,980 means that there are 576 tested combos that perform better, and 2,403 that perform worse. This is a strong result overall, but it highlights the CPU’s role as a limiting factor. If the same GPU were paired with a top-tier CPU, the combo would likely rank much higher. The data shows that in Overpower, the combination of a six-core, six-thread CPU from 2018 with a 2025 flagship GPU is not optimal, even if it is still capable of high frame rates.

Comparing to the GPU’s nearest rivals, the RTX 5090 D has an average benchmark score of 77,712. The AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT scores 76,904, which is 1.1% lower. The AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT scores 78,940, which is 1.6% higher. The NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB scores 79,396, which is 2.1% higher, and the Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB scores 79,605, which is 2.4% higher. These small differences in synthetic benchmarks suggest that the RTX 5090 D is competitive with prior-generation high-end cards, but the combo ranking in Overpower reflects the real-world impact of the CPU pairing.

The CPU’s nearest rivals show a similar pattern. The Core i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2,254. The Intel Core i7-1068NG7 scores 2,259, which is 0.2% higher. The Intel Core i7-10710U scores 2,248, which is 0.3% lower. The AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 scores 2,246, which is 0.4% lower. The Intel Core i3-10305 scores 2,264, which is 0.4% higher. These are all very close scores, indicating that the i5-9400 is in a competitive range for its generation, but it is far behind modern CPUs in absolute terms.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, specifically the Coffee Lake Refresh generation. It was released in October 2018 and is now end-of-life. The base clock is 2.90 GHz, with a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. It has a 65 W TDP and uses the Intel Socket 1151. The process node is 14 nm, manufactured by Intel. The cache configuration includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 256 KB of L2 per core, and 9 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR4 with dual-channel bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. The PCIe interface is Gen 3 with 16 lanes (CPU only), and it includes integrated graphics in the form of UHD 630.

In Overpower, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The benchmark results show that at 1080p, the CPU becomes the limiting factor. The fact that 1080p Low produces 160 FPS, while 1080p Ultra produces 122 FPS, indicates that the GPU is capable of higher frame rates, but the CPU cannot keep up when the graphical load is light. The six cores and six threads are sufficient for many games, but modern titles often benefit from more threads. The lack of hyper-threading means the CPU has to rely on its six physical cores, which can be a disadvantage in CPU-bound scenarios.

The CPU’s benchmark scores reflect its age. In Cinebench R15, it scores 668 in multicore and 94 in singlecore. In Cinebench R20, it scores 2,784 in multicore and 392 in singlecore. In Cinebench R23, it scores 6,629 in multicore and 935 in singlecore. In Geekbench, it scores 5,141 in multicore and 1,389 in singlecore. These scores are typical for a six-core processor from 2018, but they are far below what modern CPUs achieve. The average benchmark score is 2,254, with a 47th percentile ranking among all CPUs.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are mostly mobile or lower-tier desktop chips. The Intel Core i7-1068NG7 is a mobile processor, while the Intel Core i7-10710U is an ultra-low-power mobile chip. The AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 is a first-generation Ryzen desktop chip. The Intel Core i3-10305 is a newer but lower-tier desktop chip. The fact that the i5-9400 is competitive with these chips shows that it holds its own within its generation, but it does not have the performance headroom of newer processors.

In the context of Overpower, the CPU’s 47th percentile ranking means that over half of all CPUs perform better in synthetic benchmarks. This translates to a real-world limitation in the game. The measured FPS at 1080p shows a ceiling of around 160 FPS, regardless of settings. This is a direct result of the CPU’s six cores and six threads not being able to process game logic fast enough to push higher frame rates. The boost clock of 4.10 GHz helps with single-threaded performance, but the lack of additional threads is a bottleneck in multi-threaded workloads.

The memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s is also a potential limitation. Modern CPUs often have higher bandwidth, which can affect game performance in CPU-bound scenarios. The dual-channel DDR4 support is standard for the era, but it is not as fast as the memory bandwidth available on newer platforms. This could contribute to the CPU being the limiting factor at lower resolutions.

Overall, the CPU’s role in this combo is to be the bottleneck at 1080p and 1440p, while the GPU takes over at 4K. The data shows that the CPU is capable of driving frame rates up to 160 FPS in Overpower, but it cannot go beyond that. For a game that is not heavily threaded, this might be sufficient, but for an Action title with complex physics and AI, the six-core, six-thread configuration is a limiting factor. The 47th percentile ranking and the close benchmark scores to its rivals confirm that the i5-9400 is a mid-range processor from its time, and pairing it with a 92nd percentile GPU creates an imbalance that is visible in the measured FPS data.