Ready Or Not

# Ready Or Not with Intel Core i7-13700K + Intel Arc B390

The Intel Core i7-13700K paired with the Intel Arc B390 in Ready Or Not delivers playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p across most settings, but the GPU's limited throughput becomes the decisive factor at higher resolutions. The measured data shows a system that is firmly CPU-capable but GPU-constrained, with the Arc B390's benchmark percentile ranking in the 9th percentile against all GPUs, while the i7-13700K sits in the 89th percentile against all CPUs. This imbalance shapes every performance result in the dataset.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Ready Or Not?

A: 1920x1080 is the strongest resolution. At Low settings the combo reaches 125 FPS average, Medium produces 109 FPS, and High delivers 99 FPS. Even Ultra maintains 69 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in raw benchmark scores?

A: The Arc B390 scores 1482 in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test. This places it 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% ahead of the GeForce 800M (1460), 2.5% ahead of the GT 625 OEM (1446), and 2.7% ahead of the GT 710 (1443). These are all low-end GPUs, confirming the B390's entry-level positioning.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: No. The data indicates the opposite. At 1920x1080 Low, the system produces 125 FPS, but at 3840x2160 Low it drops to 41 FPS. This 67% reduction in frame rate as resolution increases shows the GPU is the limiting component. The i7-13700K's strong multi-threaded scores (30745 in Cinebench R23 multicore) suggest it has ample headroom.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Medium and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium produces 69 FPS average (with a minimum of 58 FPS), while Ultra drops to 44 FPS. That is a 25 FPS reduction, or approximately 36% lower performance, when moving from Medium to Ultra at the same resolution.

Q: How does the i7-13700K rank against its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The i7-13700K has an average benchmark score of 46881. It is 0.2% behind the AMD Ryzen 9 5900 (46971), 0.3% behind the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375 (47022), 0.5% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7845HX (46654), and 0.5% ahead of the Intel Xeon w3-2535 (46653). These are all very close scores, indicating near parity with these competitors.

Q: Is the Arc B390's system-shared memory a limitation in this game?

A: The memory configuration uses System Shared memory with System Dependent bandwidth. This is a notable constraint for a game like Ready Or Not, which benefits from dedicated VRAM. The measured 4K Ultra result of 23 FPS average reflects this limitation, as the shared memory subsystem struggles with the combined load of high-resolution textures and the game's rendering demands.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy across settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset provides the most balanced experience: 109 FPS average with a minimum of 92 FPS and a maximum of 125 FPS. This gives a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining visual quality above Low. The High preset at 1080p produces 99 FPS, which is also playable, but the Medium preset's minimum frame rate of 92 FPS offers more consistent performance than High's unspecified minimum.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset again stands out as the optimal choice. It delivers 69 FPS average with a minimum of 58 FPS and a maximum of 79 FPS. The 58 FPS minimum is close to the 60 FPS target but still playable. High at 1440p produces 62 FPS average, which is acceptable, but the lack of a reported minimum frame rate makes Medium the safer recommendation. Ultra at 1440p drops to 44 FPS, which is below smooth gameplay standards.

At 3840x2160, no preset achieves a fully smooth experience. Low produces 41 FPS, Medium 36 FPS, High 33 FPS, and Ultra 23 FPS. For users who must play at 4K, Low is the only viable option, but even that falls short of 60 FPS. The data suggests that 1080p Medium or High, or 1440p Medium, are the best settings-to-performance trade-offs for this combo.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is built on the Xe3-LPG architecture with a 3 nm process node, featuring 1536 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 24 ROPs. It operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz. The GPU's pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s, texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s, and FP32 throughput is 7.680 TFLOPS. It includes 12 ray tracing cores and supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

The memory configuration is System Shared, meaning the GPU relies on system RAM rather than dedicated VRAM. This is a critical factor in Ready Or Not's performance. The game's tactical shooter environments, which feature dense geometry and dynamic lighting, place significant demands on memory bandwidth. The System Dependent bandwidth means performance can vary based on the system's memory setup, but the shared configuration inherently limits the GPU's ability to handle high-resolution textures efficiently.

The Arc B390's benchmark performance is modest, scoring 1482 in the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test. This places it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals are all older NVIDIA low-end models: the GT 520MX, GeForce 800M, GT 625 OEM, and GT 710. The delta percentages range from 1.3% to 2.7%, meaning the B390 is only marginally faster than these aging parts. In Ready Or Not, this translates to the GPU being the primary bottleneck, particularly at higher resolutions where the frame rate drops sharply.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo shows its strongest performance. Low settings produce 125 FPS average, Medium delivers 109 FPS with a minimum of 92 FPS and a maximum of 125 FPS, High reaches 99 FPS, and Ultra drops to 69 FPS. The progression from Low to Medium is a 16 FPS decrease, while Medium to High is a 10 FPS decrease, and High to Ultra is a 30 FPS decrease. This suggests that Ultra settings impose a significant additional load, likely due to increased shadow quality and post-processing effects.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates scale down proportionally. Low produces 79 FPS, Medium delivers 69 FPS with a minimum of 58 FPS and a maximum of 79 FPS, High reaches 62 FPS, and Ultra drops to 44 FPS. The difference between Low and Medium is 10 FPS, Medium to High is 7 FPS, and High to Ultra is 18 FPS. The minimum frame rate for Medium at 58 FPS is notable, as it shows the system can dip below 60 FPS even at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the performance becomes marginal. Low produces 41 FPS, Medium delivers 36 FPS with a minimum of 30 FPS and a maximum of 41 FPS, High reaches 33 FPS, and Ultra drops to 23 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 5 FPS, Medium to High is 3 FPS, and High to Ultra is 10 FPS. The Ultra result of 23 FPS is the lowest in the entire dataset, indicating that 4K Ultra is essentially unplayable with this combo.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 2611 out of 2947 tested combinations in Ready Or Not. This places it in the bottom 11% of all tested systems, which is consistent with the GPU's low benchmark percentile. The i7-13700K is a high-end CPU with an 89th percentile ranking, but the Arc B390's 9th percentile GPU ranking drags the overall combo down significantly.

In the context of the game's performance data, this ranking reflects the GPU bottleneck. At 1080p, the combo can achieve playable frame rates across all settings, but the results are not exceptional. At 1440p, the performance is adequate for Medium settings but falls short of ideal for High and Ultra. At 4K, the combo struggles to maintain even 40 FPS on Low settings.

The disparity between the CPU and GPU rankings is stark. The i7-13700K's nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 5900, Ryzen AI 9 HX PRO 375, Ryzen 9 7845HX, and Intel Xeon w3-2535, all with scores within 0.5% of each other. In contrast, the Arc B390's rivals are all low-end NVIDIA parts from previous generations. This CPU-GPU mismatch explains why the combo ranks so low overall despite having a capable processor.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a 16-core, 24-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 30 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration and has 20 PCIe Gen 5 lanes.

In benchmark tests, the i7-13700K demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance. It scores 30745 in Cinebench R23 multicore, 16292 in Cinebench R20 multicore, and 19429 in Geekbench multicore. The 3DMark tests show a scaling from 2262 for 2 threads to 12412 for max threads, indicating good thread scaling. Single-thread performance is also solid, with 2116 in Cinebench R23 singlecore and 2529 in Geekbench singlecore.

For Ready Or Not, the CPU's role is to handle the game's AI, physics, and simulation logic. The 16 cores and 24 threads provide ample processing power for these tasks. The PassMark multithread score of 45887 and the physics score of 2716 suggest the CPU can maintain high frame rates without becoming a limiting factor. However, in this combo, the GPU's limitations prevent the CPU from being fully utilized, particularly at higher resolutions where the GPU becomes the bottleneck.

The CPU's 89th percentile ranking against all CPUs confirms its high-end positioning. Its average benchmark score of 46881 is nearly identical to its nearest rivals, with less than 1% difference in either direction. This means the i7-13700K is not the source of any performance issues in Ready Or Not; rather, it provides a strong foundation that the Arc B390 cannot fully exploit.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this system. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 125 FPS at 1920x1080 to 79 FPS at 2560x1440 (a 37% decrease) and then to 41 FPS at 3840x2160 (a 48% decrease from 1440p). This steep decline indicates that the GPU's rendering throughput, not the CPU, is the limiting factor.

At Medium settings, the scaling is similar: 109 FPS at 1080p, 69 FPS at 1440p (a 37% decrease), and 36 FPS at 4K (a 48% decrease from 1440p). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings suggests that the GPU's performance scales uniformly with resolution, which is typical of a GPU-bound scenario.

At High settings, the frame rates are 99 FPS at 1080p, 62 FPS at 1440p (a 37% decrease), and 33 FPS at 4K (a 47% decrease from 1440p). Ultra settings show the most dramatic drop: 69 FPS at 1080p, 44 FPS at 1440p (a 36% decrease), and 23 FPS at 4K (a 48% decrease from 1440p).

The consistent ~37% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~48% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings strongly indicates that the GPU is the limiting component. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the frame rates to remain more stable across resolutions, as the CPU workload does not scale with resolution. The data confirms that the Arc B390's limited throughput, combined with its System Shared memory, prevents this combo from achieving high frame rates at higher resolutions.