Ready Or Not

Ready Or Not is a punishing tactical shooter that stresses both CPU and GPU, and the pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700K with the Intel Arc B390 produces a highly specific performance profile. The data shows a system that is capable of delivering playable frame rates at 1080p but struggles significantly as resolution increases, clearly illustrating where the hardware bottleneck lies.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a steep performance cliff as you move from 1080p to 4K. At 1080p with High settings, the combo averages 99 FPS. Stepping up to 1440p drops that average to 62 FPS, a substantial 37% reduction. Pushing further to 4K results in an average of just 33 FPS, which is a 67% drop from the 1080p High result. This scaling pattern is the signature of a GPU-bound scenario; the i7-14700K is clearly feeding frames as fast as it can, but the Arc B390’s rendering capabilities are being overwhelmed by the sheer pixel count.

The trend holds across all settings presets. For Ultra settings, the average frame rate falls from 69 FPS at 1080p to 44 FPS at 1440p, and then plummets to 23 FPS at 4K. Even on Low settings, which typically reduce GPU load, the system can only manage 125 FPS at 1080p, dropping to 79 FPS at 1440p and 41 FPS at 4K. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is only 18 FPS, but the difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 56 FPS. This compression of the settings gap at higher resolutions suggests the GPU is so saturated at 4K that changing graphical fidelity has a diminished impact on the final frame rate.

The data indicates that the Intel Core i7-14700K is not the limiting factor in this configuration. The CPU’s benchmark scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 33440.5 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2569, demonstrate immense processing power. The bottleneck is unequivocally the Intel Arc B390. Its performance percentile of 9 versus all GPUs places it in the lowest tier, and its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 is a clear indicator of its limited rasterization throughput. At 1080p, the CPU can push the GPU to its limits, but as resolution climbs, the GPU’s pixel fill rate and shader processing become the hard ceiling.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is the decisive factor in this system’s gaming performance, and its specifications explain why it struggles under load. The GPU’s architecture is Xe3-LPG, built on a 3 nm process, with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz. It has 1536 shading units and 12 ray tracing cores. However, the most critical and unusual specification is its memory configuration: it uses "System Shared" memory, with a bus width and type also listed as "System Shared" and bandwidth listed as "System Dependent."

This shared memory setup is a fundamental performance limiter. Unlike a dedicated VRAM pool, the GPU must compete with the CPU for memory bandwidth on the system bus. The data shows pixel rate at 60.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance at 7.680 TFLOPS. While these compute figures are modest, the shared memory architecture means that the effective performance will be further hampered by system memory latency and bandwidth constraints, which is particularly punishing for a game like Ready Or Not that likely streams many assets.

The GPU’s benchmark results confirm its low-end positioning. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 puts it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals are ancient parts like the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463 score, 1.3% delta) and the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 (1443 score, 2.7% delta). This is not a GPU designed for high-refresh gaming or high-resolution textures. The measured FPS data reflects this, as the card’s performance drops off a cliff at 1440p and becomes nearly unplayable at 4K on any setting above Low. The boost clock of 2500 MHz is high, but the architecture and memory limitations prevent it from translating into meaningful gaming performance.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured performance, the optimal settings for this combination are heavily dependent on the display resolution. The data shows that the system is only capable of a consistently playable experience at 1080p. At this resolution, even the High preset delivers an average of 99 FPS, which is smooth for a tactical shooter. The Ultra preset at 1080p yields 69 FPS, which is still playable but represents a significant 30% performance hit for what is likely a marginal visual gain over High. The Medium preset at 1080p offers an average of 109 FPS, and the Low preset hits 125 FPS, but these lower presets sacrifice visual fidelity that is important for spotting enemies in a game like this.

For the best balance of visual quality and performance, the High preset at 1080p is the clear sweet spot. The data shows a 62 FPS average at 1440p High, which is on the edge of playability but may feel inconsistent in firefights. The Medium preset at 1440p provides a 69 FPS average, which is more stable, but the drop from High to Medium is a concession. At 4K, the situation is grim. The High preset averages just 33 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 23 FPS, both of which are too low for a game that requires quick reactions. The Low preset at 4K averages 41 FPS, which is below the threshold for a comfortable experience.

The recommendation is to prioritize 1080p. If you are constrained to 1440p, the Medium preset offers the most stable frame rate at 69 FPS, but you will have to accept lower fidelity. The 4K resolution should be avoided entirely with this GPU, as even the lowest settings fail to produce a consistently smooth frame rate. The data clearly shows that the Arc B390 is not suited for high-resolution gaming, and the best experience will be found by lowering the resolution to match the GPU’s capabilities.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS data for the Intel Core i7-14700K + Intel Arc B390 combination is as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 125 FPS average
• Medium: 109 FPS average (min 92, max 125)
• High: 99 FPS average
• Ultra: 69 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 79 FPS average
• Medium: 69 FPS average (min 58, max 79)
• High: 62 FPS average
• Ultra: 44 FPS average

3840x2160:

• Low: 41 FPS average
• Medium: 36 FPS average (min 30, max 41)
• High: 33 FPS average
• Ultra: 23 FPS average

The data shows a consistent pattern of diminishing returns as settings increase. At 1080p, the jump from High to Ultra costs 30 FPS. At 1440p, the same jump costs 18 FPS. At 4K, it costs 10 FPS. This indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions, and the visual quality settings have less impact on the final frame rate. The frame time consistency, as measured by the min and max FPS on Medium settings, shows a spread of 33 FPS at 1080p, 21 FPS at 1440p, and 11 FPS at 4K, suggesting the GPU is working harder and frame pacing becomes more erratic at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for Ready Or Not, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i7-14700K and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2611 out of 2947 total combos. This places it in the bottom 11% of all tested systems. This low ranking is entirely attributable to the GPU. The CPU is a high-end part with a 94th percentile ranking against all CPUs, but the system’s overall performance is dragged down by the GPU’s 9th percentile ranking.

This ranking is a clear signal that the combination is poorly balanced for this game. A top-tier CPU paired with a bottom-tier GPU creates a massive bottleneck. The system has the processing power to run the game’s AI and physics calculations with ease, but it cannot render the frames fast enough to utilize that power. The result is a frustrating experience where the game may feel CPU-responsive in terms of logic but is visually stuttering and slow. For context, the CPU’s nearest rivals in terms of raw processing power include the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (avg score 69515, deltaPct -0.2%), but this does nothing to help the GPU’s performance. The rank of 2611 out of 2947 is a definitive statement that this is not a viable high-performance gaming configuration.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K plays the role of a powerful but underutilized engine in this pairing. Its specifications are formidable: 20 cores, 28 threads, a base clock of 3.40 GHz, and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. It has 33 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory. Its benchmark scores are equally impressive, with a Passmark multithread score of 52392 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2569. This is a CPU designed for heavy multitasking, content creation, and high-end gaming.

However, in this specific configuration, the CPU’s potential is entirely capped by the GPU. In Ready Or Not, which is a CPU-intensive tactical shooter, the i7-14700K is more than capable of handling the game’s simulation and AI. The data shows that at 1080p, the system achieves 125 FPS on Low settings, which indicates the CPU is feeding the GPU as fast as the GPU can render. The bottleneck is not the CPU’s ability to calculate game logic, but the GPU’s ability to draw the resulting frames.

The CPU’s high single-thread performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2160, is critical for maintaining high frame rates in games that rely on a single main thread. However, even this strength cannot overcome the GPU’s fundamental lack of rendering power. The measured FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is purely a function of the GPU’s pixel throughput. The CPU’s role is to provide the frames; the GPU’s role is to draw them. In this case, the CPU is providing frames at a rate far exceeding the GPU’s ability to display them, resulting in a system where the GPU is the sole and absolute bottleneck. Upgrading the GPU would unlock the CPU’s full potential, but with the Arc B390, the i7-14700K is effectively a high-performance engine strapped to a low-performance transmission.