Overpower

FAQ

Q: What is the overall performance percentile of the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 processor?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 sits at the 89th percentile among all CPUs tested, indicating it outperforms the vast majority of processors in the database. Its average benchmark score is 46062, placing it statistically neck-and-neck with rivals like the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (46030, 0.1% slower) and the Intel Core i9-13900HX (46098, 0.1% faster).

Q: How does the RTX 4070's compute performance compare to its nearest competitors?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 achieves an average benchmark score of 37648, which places it at the 81st percentile of all GPUs. Its closest rival is the NVIDIA Tesla P4 (37628, 0.1% slower), while the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 trails by 0.4% (37507), and the RTX 4080 Mobile leads by 1.3% (38135).

Q: What is the best 4K average FPS recorded for this combo, and at which settings?

A: At 3840x2160 resolution, the highest average FPS is 160, achieved at Low settings. The Medium preset delivers 100 FPS average (with a min of 85 and max of 115), High drops to 93 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 77 FPS.

Q: Is there a measurable FPS difference between 1440p and 1080p at Ultra settings?

A: Yes, at Ultra settings, upgrading from 1920x1080 (102 FPS average) to 2560x1440 (91 FPS average) costs 11 FPS, and moving further to 3840x2160 (77 FPS average) costs another 14 FPS. The total drop from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra is 25 FPS.

Q: What is the CPU's multithreaded performance in Cinebench R23?

A: The Core Ultra 5 235 scores 14769 points in Cinebench R23 multicore and 2085 points in single-core. Its 14 cores and 14 threads operate with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 4070 have, and what is its memory bandwidth?

A: The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective), while the GPU core has a base clock of 1920 MHz and a boost clock of 2475 MHz.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070's role in Overpower's measured results is defined by its 12 GB frame buffer and the Ada Lovelace architecture's throughput characteristics. With 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, the GPU delivers a pixel rate of 158.4 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 455.4 GTexel/s. These specifications translate into the measured FPS data, where the GPU's 29.15 TFLOPS FP32 compute power becomes the primary driver at higher resolutions.

The VRAM capacity of 12 GB proves sufficient across all tested settings, as no min-FPS anomalies suggest memory capacity bottlenecks even at 4K Ultra. The 504.2 GB/s bandwidth is the key enabler for the 160 FPS average at 4K Low, where texture streaming demands are reduced but the raw pixel fill rate is still substantial. At 4K Medium, the average FPS drops to 100 with a recorded min of 85 FPS, indicating that the GPU's shading throughput, not memory bandwidth, is the limiting factor as settings increase.

The RTX 4070's boost clock of 2475 MHz, combined with its 200 W TDP, allows sustained performance across the benchmark suite. The GPU's 81st percentile ranking among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37648, places it just 0.1% behind the Tesla P4 and 0.4% ahead of the RX Vega 56. This competitive positioning explains why the card can handle 4K gaming at playable framerates, though the data shows that Ultra settings at 4K (77 FPS) push the GPU to its practical limit without upscaling features.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the Overpower benchmark database, this specific combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ranks 642nd out of 2980 tested combos, placing it in the 78.5th percentile of all system configurations. This rank reflects the balance between the CPU's 89th percentile standing and the GPU's 81st percentile performance, with the combination landing slightly above the GPU's individual percentile due to the strong processor support.

The rank of 642 suggests that while neither component is top-tier, their pairing creates a system that outperforms roughly four out of five tested configurations in this game. The CPU's nearest rivals — the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (0.1% faster), Intel Core i9-13900HX (0.1% slower), AMD EPYC 4364P (0.2% slower), and AMD EPYC 7303 (0.2% slower) — all cluster within a narrow performance band, indicating that the processor is not the differentiator in this combo's ranking.

Instead, the GPU's position relative to its rivals (0.1% behind Tesla P4, 0.4% ahead of RX Vega 56, 1.3% behind RTX 4080 Mobile) likely drives the combo's placement. The 2980 total combos include many with higher-end GPUs, which explains why 642nd is a respectable but not elite ranking. The data implies that this combo is well-suited for high-refresh 1440p gaming and capable 4K play, but it will not top leaderboards dominated by flagship GPU pairings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest framerates across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 212 FPS, which is 60% higher than the Medium preset's 132 FPS average (min 112, max 152). High settings yield 123 FPS, while Ultra drops to 102 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1080p represents a 110 FPS reduction (52% loss), indicating that the GPU is heavily loaded even at this resolution when settings are maxed.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern shifts slightly. Low settings deliver 189 FPS average (an 11% drop from 1080p Low), Medium achieves 118 FPS (min 100, max 135), High reaches 109 FPS, and Ultra maintains a playable 91 FPS. The gap between Medium and High narrows to just 9 FPS at 1440p, compared to the same 9 FPS gap at 1080p, suggesting that the GPU's shading units become more saturated as resolution increases.

At 3840x2160, the performance curve steepens. Low settings still manage 160 FPS, but Medium drops to 100 FPS (min 85, max 115), High falls to 93 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 77 FPS. The most significant relative drop occurs between Medium and High at 4K (7 FPS loss), while the 23 FPS difference between Low and Medium at 4K is larger than the 14 FPS difference at 1080p. This indicates that memory bandwidth and texture fetch rates are increasingly stressed at 4K, particularly when transitioning from Low to Medium where texture quality typically scales up.

Settings Recommendations

For players prioritizing smooth gameplay over visual fidelity, the 1080p Low preset at 212 FPS average provides the highest headroom for high-refresh monitors, though this sacrifices most graphical features. The 1440p Low setting at 189 FPS offers a balanced compromise between resolution and framerate, maintaining well above 144 FPS for competitive play.

The data suggests that Medium settings at 1440p (118 FPS average, min 100) represent the sweet spot for most users. This configuration keeps framerates above 100 FPS at all times while enabling moderate visual enhancements over Low. The 100 FPS minimum at 1440p Medium is identical to the 4K Medium average, highlighting that 1440p Medium is more consistent than 4K Medium, which has a min of 85 FPS.

For 4K gaming, the Low preset at 160 FPS is the only configuration that exceeds 120 FPS average, making it suitable for high-refresh 4K displays. The Medium preset at 100 FPS (min 85) is viable for standard 60 Hz monitors but may exhibit noticeable frame pacing issues during intense scenes given the 30 FPS spread between min and max. Ultra settings at any resolution below 1080p are not recommended, as the 4K Ultra average of 77 FPS leaves little margin for frame drops, and even 1080p Ultra's 102 FPS average is only marginally above the 100 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for smooth gameplay.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 provides the computational foundation for this combo, featuring 14 cores and 14 threads based on the Arrow Lake architecture. Its 3.40 GHz base clock and 5.00 GHz boost clock, combined with 24 MB of shared L3 cache, deliver strong single-thread performance as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2085. The processor's 65 W TDP and 3 nm process node (TSMC) contribute to efficient sustained performance without thermal throttling concerns.

In Overpower, the CPU's role is most apparent when examining the FPS deltas between settings at a fixed resolution. At 1080p, the difference between Low (212 FPS) and Ultra (102 FPS) is 110 FPS, which is primarily GPU-driven. However, the CPU's capability to feed the GPU at high framerates is demonstrated by the 212 FPS at 1080p Low — a workload where the GPU is not the bottleneck. The processor's PassMark multithread score of 37816 and single-thread score of 4516 indicate it can sustain high FPS without becoming the limiting component.

The CPU's nearest rivals all score within 0.2% of its average benchmark score of 46062, suggesting that any of these processors would yield nearly identical gaming performance. The Core Ultra 5 235's 89th percentile ranking means it outperforms the vast majority of CPUs, but its 14 threads (rather than 28 or more found on higher-end chips) may limit performance in heavily multithreaded game scenarios. For Overpower, the data shows no evidence of CPU bottlenecking, as FPS scales consistently with GPU load across resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU as the primary limiting component. At Low settings, the progression from 1080p (212 FPS) to 1440p (189 FPS) to 4K (160 FPS) shows a 24.5% total drop, which is relatively modest and indicates that the GPU has significant headroom at lower resolutions. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 23 FPS (10.8%), while the drop from 1440p to 4K is 29 FPS (15.3%), showing that the scaling penalty increases with resolution as pixel count grows quadratically.

At Medium settings, the scaling is more pronounced: 1080p (132 FPS) to 1440p (118 FPS) is a 14 FPS drop (10.6%), but 1440p to 4K (100 FPS) is an 18 FPS drop (15.3%). The min FPS at 4K Medium (85) is 27 FPS lower than the 1080p Medium min (112), representing a 24.1% reduction in worst-case performance. This suggests that memory bandwidth constraints become more visible at 4K Medium, where the 504.2 GB/s bandwidth is taxed by higher resolution textures.

Ultra settings show the steepest absolute degradation: 1080p (102 FPS) to 1440p (91 FPS) is an 11 FPS drop, and 1440p to 4K (77 FPS) is a 14 FPS drop, totaling a 25 FPS (24.5%) reduction from 1080p to 4K. The fact that the percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is nearly identical across Low (24.5%), Medium (24.2%), and Ultra (24.5%) indicates that the scaling penalty is resolution-driven rather than settings-driven. This consistency points to the GPU's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth as the limiting factors, with the CPU maintaining sufficient performance headroom even at 4K Ultra's 77 FPS average.