Overpower

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the Intel Arc B370 integrated graphics produces a severely GPU-bound experience in Overpower. The benchmark data reveals that this combination ranks in the bottom 8% of all tested configurations, and the frame rates across all resolutions and settings confirm that the Arc B370 is the primary bottleneck, unable to leverage the substantial processing power of the 290K Plus.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and predictable pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop reveals the nature of the limiting component. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 65 FPS at 1920x1080 to 58 FPS at 2560x1440, a decline of approximately 11%. Moving to 3840x2160 at Low settings yields 49 FPS, which represents a 25% drop from the 1080p result. This scaling behavior is classic for a system constrained by the graphics processor rather than the CPU.

The High settings preset tells a similar story but with a steeper overall curve. At 1920x1080 High, the combo produces 38 FPS, which falls to 34 FPS at 2560x1440 and finally to 28 FPS at 4K. The total reduction from 1080p to 4K at High settings is 26%, which is proportionally similar to the Low preset's drop. This consistency across presets suggests that the graphics pipeline is saturated at every quality level, with the integrated GPU's limited execution resources being the determining factor.

When examining the Medium and Ultra presets, the resolution scaling pattern remains consistent. Medium settings yield 41 FPS at 1080p, 36 FPS at 1440p, and 31 FPS at 4K, representing a 24% drop from the lowest to highest resolution. The Ultra preset produces 31 FPS at 1080p, 28 FPS at 1440p, and 24 FPS at 4K, a 23% decline. The uniformity of these percentage drops across all four presets — ranging from 23% to 26% — strongly indicates that the system is not becoming more or less CPU-bound at any point in the resolution spectrum. Instead, the integrated GPU's fill rate and shading capacity are exhausted at 1080p, and higher resolutions simply spread that limited throughput across more pixels.

The data also shows that the gap between Low and Ultra settings narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 34 FPS (65 vs 31), while at 4K that gap shrinks to 25 FPS (49 vs 24). This compression of the settings-based performance delta at higher resolutions is another hallmark of GPU limitation, as the pixel throughput ceiling becomes the dominant constraint regardless of the complexity of the shaders being executed.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is an integrated graphics solution built on the Xe3-LPG architecture, fabricated on Intel's 3 nm process. Its specifications reveal why it struggles in Overpower: the GPU operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz, and it relies on System Shared memory with System Dependent bandwidth. This means the graphics processor has no dedicated video memory, instead borrowing from the system's DDR5 pool through the dual-channel memory bus of the 290K Plus.

The raw compute figures for the Arc B370 are modest. The GPU features 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 render output units, along with 10 ray tracing cores. Its pixel rate is 48.00 GPixel/s and texture rate is 96.00 GTexel/s. Floating point performance is rated at 6.144 TFLOPS for FP32 and 12.29 TFLOPS for FP16. These specifications place the Arc B370 in the lowest percentile of all GPUs, with a percentile ranking of 5, meaning it outperforms only 5% of the graphics processors in the benchmark database.

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score for the Arc B370 is 1184, which places it in direct competition with legacy discrete graphics cards from over a decade ago. The nearest rivals in the GPU benchmark database include the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 with a score of 1186 (0.2% higher), the ATI Radeon HD 5770 with 1190 (0.5% higher), and the AMD Radeon HD 7650M with 1192 (0.7% higher). The AMD FirePro M2000 trails with a score of 1168, which is 1.4% lower. This comparison illustrates the fundamental mismatch between the Arc B370's capabilities and the demands of a modern action game like Overpower.

The GPU's power envelope of 25 W TDP and its integration as an IGP with no dedicated power connectors or slot width further confirm its positioning as a low-power solution. The system shared memory architecture means that the effective bandwidth available to the GPU is dictated by the CPU's memory controller and the system's DDR5 modules, which for the 290K Plus is rated at 115.2 GB/s. This shared bandwidth must be divided between CPU and GPU workloads, potentially creating contention during heavy gaming sessions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance for playable settings with this hardware combination. The only preset that achieves an average frame rate above 60 FPS is Low at 1920x1080, producing 65 FPS. This is the sole configuration in the entire dataset that reaches the standard threshold for smooth gameplay, and even this result lacks minimum frame rate data, so the stability of that 65 FPS average is unknown.

Every other configuration falls below 60 FPS, with the next closest being Low at 2560x1440 with 58 FPS. This is borderline playable but sits below the 60 FPS mark. Users targeting 1440p on this system should expect approximately 58 FPS at Low settings, which is a workable but not ideal experience. The Medium preset at 1080p produces 41 FPS with a minimum of 34 FPS and a maximum of 47 FPS, indicating substantial frame time variance that could result in noticeable stuttering during intense action sequences.

For users who prioritize visual quality over frame rate, the High preset at 1080p offers 38 FPS, and the Ultra preset at the same resolution yields 31 FPS. Both of these are below the 30 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for acceptable action game performance, with Ultra barely scraping by at an average of 31 FPS. At 4K resolution, no preset achieves 30 FPS, with High producing 28 FPS, Medium producing 31 FPS, Low producing 49 FPS, and Ultra producing 24 FPS. The 4K Medium result of 31 FPS is the only 4K configuration that exceeds 30 FPS, but the minimum frame rate of 26 FPS suggests inconsistent delivery.

The data suggests that the best experience for this combo is Low settings at 1080p, which is the only configuration that provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. For users who must play at higher resolutions, Low at 1440p at 58 FPS is the next best option, though the lack of minimum frame rate data for this configuration makes it difficult to assess consistency. The Medium preset at 1080p at 41 FPS represents a reasonable compromise between visual fidelity and playability, but the minimum of 34 FPS indicates that demanding scenes will push the experience toward the lower boundary of acceptable performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates across presets are as follows: Low produces 65 FPS, High produces 38 FPS, Medium produces 41 FPS with a minimum of 34 FPS and a maximum of 47 FPS, and Ultra produces 31 FPS. The ordering of these results is notable because High actually performs worse than Medium, with a 3 FPS deficit. This suggests that the High preset may enable certain effects or rendering features that are more demanding than those in the Medium preset, despite Medium having a higher average frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the results follow a similar pattern. Low produces 58 FPS, High produces 34 FPS, Medium produces 36 FPS with a minimum of 31 FPS and a maximum of 42 FPS, and Ultra produces 28 FPS. The Medium preset again outperforms High, this time by 2 FPS. The relative ordering remains consistent with the 1080p results, confirming that the High preset is anomalously demanding relative to Medium.

At 3840x2160, the 4K results show Low producing 49 FPS, High producing 28 FPS, Medium producing 31 FPS with a minimum of 26 FPS and a maximum of 35 FPS, and Ultra producing 24 FPS. The Medium preset maintains its advantage over High, this time by 3 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K produces the lowest average frame rate in the entire dataset at 24 FPS, which is below the standard 30 FPS playability threshold.

The minimum and maximum frame rate data is only available for the Medium preset at each resolution. At 1080p, the range is 34 to 47 FPS, at 1440p it is 31 to 42 FPS, and at 4K it is 26 to 35 FPS. This represents a consistent spread of approximately 13 FPS between minimum and maximum at each resolution, indicating that the frame time variance does not scale significantly with resolution. The average FPS for Medium sits at roughly the midpoint of each range, suggesting a relatively symmetrical distribution of frame times around the average.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus with the Intel Arc B370 ranks 3427 out of 3713 total tested combinations in Overpower. This places the combo in the 7.7th percentile of all configurations, meaning that over 92% of tested systems deliver better performance in this game. The rank reflects the fundamental imbalance between the high-end CPU and the entry-level integrated GPU, where the graphics solution cannot come close to utilizing the processing capabilities of the 290K Plus.

The CPU itself is a top-tier performer. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus achieves a percentile ranking of 96 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84003. Its nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark database include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K with an average score of 83807 and a delta of 0.2%, the AMD EPYC 4584PX with 83090 and a delta of 1.1%, and the AMD EPYC 9135 with 82980 and a delta of 1.2%. The AMD EPYC 7F72 scores higher at 85072, representing a -1.3% delta. This places the 290K Plus at the very top of consumer desktop performance.

In stark contrast, the Arc B370 GPU has a percentile ranking of 5, with an average benchmark score of just 1184. Its nearest rivals are all over a decade old, with the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570, ATI Radeon HD 5770, and AMD Radeon HD 7650M all scoring within 0.7% of the Arc B370. This enormous gap between the CPU's 96th percentile ranking and the GPU's 5th percentile ranking explains the combo's poor position in the game's overall ranking. The 290K Plus is capable of feeding far more powerful graphics solutions, but the Arc B370 is fundamentally limited by its integrated design and shared memory architecture.

The combo rank of 3427 out of 3713 suggests that this configuration is among the least capable for Overpower, and the measured frame rates confirm this assessment. While the CPU contributes virtually no bottleneck in this scenario, the GPU's performance ceiling caps the entire system at frame rates that are only playable at 1080p Low settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It operates with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The CPU supports DDR5 memory through a dual-channel interface with a bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s and features 36 MB of shared L3 cache, along with 192 KB of L1 cache per core and 3 MB of L2 cache per core.

The CPU's benchmark results demonstrate exceptional performance across both single-threaded and multi-threaded workloads. In Cinebench R23, the 290K Plus scores 51731 in multi-core and 7303 in single-core. The PassMark multi-thread score is 60860, and the single-thread score is 4823. These results place the CPU in the 96th percentile of all processors, confirming its position as a high-end desktop part.

However, in the context of Overpower with the Arc B370, the CPU's capabilities are almost entirely irrelevant. The measured frame rates at every resolution and settings combination are limited by the GPU, not the CPU. Even at 1080p Low, where the system produces 65 FPS, the CPU is likely delivering frames far faster than the GPU can render them, resulting in the GPU being the sole constraint on performance.

The CPU's 24 cores and 24 threads provide ample processing capacity for any game workload, and its 5.80 GHz boost clock ensures strong single-threaded performance for game logic and physics calculations. The 115.2 GB/s memory bandwidth is shared with the integrated GPU, which may actually create a disadvantage in this configuration, as the GPU's need for memory access competes with CPU workloads. However, given that the GPU is the bottleneck, this contention is unlikely to manifest as a measurable impact on frame rates.

The integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU inside the CPU is distinct from the Arc B370 GPU that handles the rendering in this configuration. While the CPU includes its own integrated graphics solution, the benchmark data reflects the performance of the separate Arc B370, which is the GPU component in this combo. The CPU's role in this system is to feed the GPU with draw calls and geometry, and given the GPU's limited throughput, the CPU is never stressed in Overpower. The data shows no evidence of CPU limitation at any resolution or settings level, as the consistent scaling patterns across all configurations point exclusively to GPU-bound performance.