Ready Or Not

The Intel Core i9-14900K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers extreme performance in Ready Or Not, with frame rates that remain playable even at maximum settings in 4K. The data shows this combination ranks 31st out of 1748 tested combos, placing it in the top 2% of all systems, a position earned by the sheer headroom in both the CPU and GPU.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates reveal a predictable yet steep drop as resolution climbs, but the absolute numbers remain exceptionally high. At 1080p with High settings, the combo produces 410.3 FPS, which falls to 262.1 FPS at 1440p and further to 139.1 FPS at 4K. This represents a 66.1% reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the GPU is increasingly becoming the limiting factor as pixel count rises, though the RTX 4090's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth keep the decline from being catastrophic.

The scaling pattern shifts depending on the preset level. With Low settings, the drop from 522.6 FPS at 1080p to 174.3 FPS at 4K is a 66.7% reduction, nearly identical to the High preset percentage. However, the Ultra preset shows a different behavior: 290.7 FPS at 1080p falls to 97.3 FPS at 4K, a 66.5% decrease. The consistency of these percentages across presets suggests that resolution scaling is primarily a function of the render resolution itself, not the complexity of the scene, which is characteristic of a game that is heavily bound by pixel throughput rather than geometry or AI calculations.

At 1080p, the frame rates are so high—even the Ultra preset hits 290.7 FPS—that the CPU's 24 cores and 32 threads are likely the primary constraint, as the GPU has ample headroom. The difference between Low and High at 1080p is 112.3 FPS, while the same comparison at 4K yields only 35.2 FPS, which indicates that the CPU bottleneck diminishes as the GPU becomes more saturated. The data suggests that for players targeting 4K, the RTX 4090 is the dominant component, while the i9-14900K's capabilities are only fully exercised at lower resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, is the central component driving these results. Its 16,384 shading units and 512 tensor cores provide the raw compute necessary for the game's tactical shooter environments, which often feature dense interior lighting and shadow effects. The GPU's boost clock of 2520 MHz, up from a base of 2235 MHz, allows it to sustain high throughput during prolonged firefights, and the 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus ensures that even the most texture-heavy maps do not cause stutter.

The measured data shows the RTX 4090's dominance in the Ultra preset, where 4K still manages 97.3 FPS, a figure that many lower-tier GPUs cannot achieve at 1080p. The GPU's 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate are directly reflected in the High preset results, where the 4K average of 139.1 FPS confirms the card's ability to handle complex shaders and post-processing effects simultaneously. The passmark G3D score of 38,194 and the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9,223 corroborate this, placing the card in the 91st percentile of all GPUs.

Interestingly, the GPU's benchmark nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla T4 and Quadro P6000, which are professional compute cards, not gaming-focused hardware. The deltaPct values of -0.4% and -1.3% against these cards are marginal, but in real-world gaming, the RTX 4090's dedicated RT cores and 128 tensor cores provide features that those workstation cards lack. The 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth is particularly crucial for Ready Or Not, where high-resolution textures and dynamic lighting require rapid data access, and the measured 4K High result of 139.1 FPS demonstrates that the memory subsystem is not a bottleneck.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K, with its 24 cores and 32 threads, provides the foundation for the system's high frame rates, particularly at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the limiting factor. Its boost clock of 6.00 GHz is the highest in the data, and the base clock of 3.20 GHz ensures sustained performance under load. The CPU's 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache are well-suited for the game's AI-driven enemy behavior and the physics calculations involved in destructible environments.

At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 522.6 FPS, a figure that is only possible when the CPU can feed frames to the GPU faster than the GPU can render them. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 49,872 and single-core score of 7,040 indicate that the i9-14900K excels in both threaded and single-threaded workloads, which is critical for a game that may not fully utilize all 32 threads but benefits from high per-core performance. The Geekbench multicore score of 20,370 further confirms the CPU's capability in multi-threaded scenarios.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database are the AMD EPYC 7413 and the Intel Core i9-14900KF, with deltaPct values of -0.3% and 0.7% respectively. This means the i9-14900K is statistically tied with the EPYC in average score, but the EPYC is a server processor with a different power profile and memory architecture, making it an unlikely competitor in a gaming system. The Core Ultra 7 265KF and 265K trail by 0.7% and 0.9%, showing that the i9-14900K is at the top of the consumer desktop stack. In Ready Or Not, the CPU's 6.00 GHz boost clock is likely the reason the 1080p frame rates exceed 400 FPS on High settings, as the game's logic and draw call submission are bound by single-core speed.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the i9-14900K and RTX 4090 achieves a rank of 31 out of 1,748 tested combinations, placing it in the 98th percentile of all systems. This ranking reflects the balance between the two components, where neither is a significant bottleneck for the other at any resolution. The top 30 combos above this one likely consist of similar high-end CPUs paired with the same RTX 4090, but with slightly better memory configurations or overclocking headroom.

The data shows that this combination is 1.4% faster than the average of all combos, as indicated by the combo rank, and the measured frame rates at 1080p Ultra (290.7 FPS) and 4K Ultra (97.3 FPS) demonstrate that it can handle the game's maximum settings without compromise. The GPU's percentile of 91 and the CPU's percentile of 97 suggest that the CPU is relatively stronger compared to its peers, which is why the system excels at lower resolutions where CPU performance is more critical.

The nearest rival combos in the database, while not explicitly listed, would likely include systems with the same GPU but a slightly slower CPU, such as the Core Ultra 7 265K, which trails the i9-14900K by 0.9% in average benchmark score. At 1080p, this difference could translate to a few frames per second, but at 4K, the gap narrows to negligible levels as the GPU becomes the primary constraint. The rank of 31 indicates that this system is not the absolute fastest, but it is within striking distance of the top, and the measured data supports this with 4K High hitting 139.1 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured frame rates, the High preset at 1440p offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance, delivering 262.1 FPS. This is more than double the 120 FPS that most high-refresh-rate monitors can display, providing ample headroom for any future driver overhead or background tasks. At 4K, the High preset at 139.1 FPS is the recommended choice, as it maintains a high frame rate while preserving the visual details that make Ready Or Not's environments immersive.

The Ultra preset at 4K, which yields 97.3 FPS, is viable for players with 100 Hz displays, but the 42.8% drop from High to Ultra at 4K suggests that the extra settings are not worth the performance cost for most users. At 1080p, the Medium preset at 452.1 FPS is the best option for competitive play, as it provides a significant boost over High (410.3 FPS) without the visual degradation of Low (522.6 FPS) that might make it harder to spot enemies in dark environments.

The Low preset at 1080p produces 522.6 FPS, which is only useful for players with 500 Hz monitors, a rarity in the market. At 1440p, the Medium preset at 287.9 FPS is a solid middle ground, offering a 25.8 FPS improvement over High while still maintaining high visual quality. For players with 4K 144 Hz displays, the High preset at 139.1 FPS is the only setting that comes close to maxing out the refresh rate, as the Ultra preset falls below 100 FPS and the Medium and Low presets, while faster, do not provide enough visual improvement to justify the drop in fidelity. The data clearly indicates that High is the sweet spot across all resolutions for this combination, offering the best frame rate per unit of visual quality.