Pc Building Simulator

Pc Building Simulator is a simulation title that tasks players with assembling and troubleshooting virtual PCs, and its performance profile with the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 9070 reveals a system that is heavily leveraged toward high refresh rates at mainstream resolutions. The measured data shows a combination that excels at 1080p and 1440p gaming, while 4K Ultra settings push the GPU to its limits, resulting in a playable but less fluid experience.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling across resolutions is telling. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces an average of 346 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops this to 219 FPS, a reduction of 127 FPS. At 4K Low, the average falls further to 114 FPS. This steep decline from 1080p to 4K indicates that the AMD Radeon RX 9070 is the primary performance limiter as pixel count increases. The CPU has ample headroom to feed the GPU at lower resolutions, but the GPU's rendering workload becomes the bottleneck as resolution scales.

The pattern is consistent across all settings presets. With High settings, the system averages 173 FPS at 1080p, 109 FPS at 1440p, and 57 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 64 FPS, and from 1440p to 4K is 52 FPS. This near-linear degradation suggests that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are being saturated. The Radeon RX 9070's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus providing 644.6 GB/s of bandwidth is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K resolution demands more from the rendering pipeline.

The most significant single-step drop occurs between 1080p Medium and 1440p Medium, where the average falls from 245 FPS to 155 FPS. This 90 FPS reduction highlights that even at Medium settings, the pixel throughput required at 1440p is substantially higher. At 4K, the gap between Low and Ultra settings is 60 FPS (114 FPS to 54 FPS), showing that the GPU's compute resources are the deciding factor. The data clearly shows that this combination is optimized for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K being a secondary consideration for owners of this hardware.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, built on a 3 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock of 3.70 GHz can boost up to 5.80 GHz. This high boost clock is critical for the frame rates observed in Pc Building Simulator, as the game's simulation logic and physics calculations benefit from strong single-thread performance. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7303 points reflects this capability, and the Passmark single-thread score of 4823 corroborates it.

In Pc Building Simulator, the CPU's role is to manage the game's systems, including the simulation of component temperatures, power draw, and the logical flow of the building process. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 346 FPS, a figure that would be impossible if the CPU were a limiting factor. The processor's 36 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 115.2 GB/s bandwidth provide the necessary data throughput for the game's asset streaming and UI interactions.

Comparing the Ultra 9 290K Plus to its nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark database, it scores 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, 1.1% higher than the AMD EPYC 4584PX, and 1.2% higher than the AMD EPYC 9135. It is 1.3% lower than the AMD EPYC 7F72. These deltas are minimal, indicating that the Ultra 9 290K Plus is well within the performance envelope of other high-end desktop and server processors. The processor's 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms that it sits at the top tier of available hardware. For this game, the CPU's 24 cores are more than sufficient, as the simulation typically does not scale perfectly across all cores, but the high boost clock ensures that the primary game thread runs efficiently.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is the graphics workhorse in this configuration, built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 48 chip on a 4 nm process. Its boost clock of 2520 MHz and game clock of 2070 MHz, combined with 3584 shading units, deliver the raw compute power needed for the game's rendering. The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6 memory is a significant asset, allowing for high-resolution textures without exceeding the frame buffer, which is a common cause of stuttering in simulation games with many on-screen elements.

The GPU's Passmark G3D score of 25381 places it in the 69th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z, which it leads by 0.6%, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, which leads it by 1.2%. The AMD Radeon RX 6800S is 0.8% ahead, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile is 1.1% behind. These narrow margins show that the RX 9070 competes with a range of previous-generation high-end cards, though its modern architecture provides features like DirectX 12 Ultimate support.

In Pc Building Simulator, the GPU's role is to render the 3D view of the PC case, components, and the workbench. The measured FPS data shows that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K Ultra, where it averages 54 FPS. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 165 FPS, indicating that the GPU can handle the render load but is not as overtaxed. The GPU's 128 ROPs and 224 TMUs handle the pixel and texture processing, and the 36.13 TFLOPS of FP32 performance provides the shader throughput for the game's visual effects. The 644.6 GB/s memory bandwidth is sufficient for the game's data demands, as evidenced by the smooth performance at 1440p Medium, which averages 155 FPS with a minimum of 132 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of performance across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1080p, the system demonstrates its peak capabilities. Low settings yield an average of 346 FPS, Medium settings produce 245 FPS with a minimum of 209 and maximum of 282, High settings deliver 173 FPS, and Ultra settings achieve 165 FPS. This shows that even at the highest settings, the system maintains a frame rate well above the typical 144 Hz refresh rate of gaming monitors.

At 1440p, the performance remains strong. Low settings average 219 FPS, Medium settings average 155 FPS with a minimum of 132 and maximum of 178, High settings average 109 FPS, and Ultra settings average 104 FPS. The transition from Medium to High at 1440p results in a 46 FPS drop, indicating that the higher settings introduce more complex shading and post-processing effects that tax the GPU.

At 4K, the performance becomes more variable. Low settings average 114 FPS, Medium settings average 81 FPS with a minimum of 69 and maximum of 93, High settings average 57 FPS, and Ultra settings average 54 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is only 3 FPS, suggesting that the Ultra preset adds effects that have diminishing returns relative to their performance cost at this resolution. The minimum FPS of 69 at 4K Medium shows that the system can maintain playable frame rates even in demanding scenes, but the 54 FPS average at 4K Ultra indicates that this setting is best avoided for a consistently smooth experience.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achieved by this system?

A: The highest average frame rate is 346 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the system perform at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the system averages 54 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered smooth for most players.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to be the bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor at 1080p, as the frame rate varies significantly with settings changes (346 FPS at Low vs 165 FPS at Ultra), while the CPU's high single-thread performance is sufficient to avoid limiting the frame rate.

Q: What is the average FPS at 1440p with Medium settings?

A: The average FPS at 2560x1440 with Medium settings is 155 FPS, with a minimum of 132 FPS and a maximum of 178 FPS.

Q: How does the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus compare to its closest competitor?

A: The Ultra 9 290K Plus has an average benchmark score of 84003, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K's score of 83807.

Q: What is the VRAM capacity of the AMD Radeon RX 9070?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 9070 has 16 GB of GDDR6 memory.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance for the optimal settings preset at each resolution. For 1080p, the Ultra preset at 165 FPS is the recommended choice, as it delivers the highest visual quality while maintaining a frame rate that exceeds the refresh rate of most high-end monitors. The gap between High (173 FPS) and Ultra (165 FPS) is minimal, so the visual upgrade from Ultra is worth the small performance cost.

At 1440p, the Medium preset at 155 FPS offers the best balance. The High preset at 109 FPS is still smooth, but the 46 FPS drop from Medium to High is substantial. The Ultra preset at 104 FPS provides no tangible benefit over High, making Medium the sweet spot for a high refresh rate experience. The minimum FPS of 132 at Medium ensures that there are no significant frame hitches during gameplay.

At 4K, the Low preset at 114 FPS is the only option that consistently stays above 100 FPS. The Medium preset at 81 FPS is playable and offers a better visual experience, but the minimum of 69 FPS may be noticeable in scenes with many components on screen. The High and Ultra presets, at 57 FPS and 54 FPS respectively, are best avoided for smooth gameplay. For 4K, Medium is the recommended preset, as it provides a playable average frame rate with improved visuals over Low, while High and Ultra do not offer enough of a performance margin to justify their lower frame rates.