Ready Or Not

# Ready Or Not: Intel Core Ultra 7 265 + Intel Arc B390 Benchmark Analysis

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 paired with the Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics produces a highly constrained gaming experience in Ready Or Not, with the combo ranking 2611th out of 2947 tested configurations. The data reveals a system where the GPU is the overwhelming bottleneck, as the Arc B390's integrated design and shared memory architecture struggle to deliver playable frame rates at higher resolutions. This analysis breaks down the measured performance across three resolutions and four quality presets, offering a clear picture of what this combination can and cannot do in the tactical shooter.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data shows a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate, but the optimal preset depends heavily on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 125 FPS average, which is the highest measured score across all tested configurations. Medium follows at 109 FPS, High at 99 FPS, and Ultra drops significantly to 69 FPS. For competitive play or smooth tactical movement at 1080p, the Low preset provides the best experience, offering more than double the frame rate of Ultra while maintaining playable conditions.

At 2560x1440, the situation becomes more nuanced. Low delivers 79 FPS, Medium drops to 69 FPS, High to 62 FPS, and Ultra falls to 44 FPS. The Medium preset at this resolution offers the best balance, with a minimum frame rate of 58 FPS and a maximum of 79 FPS, keeping the experience above the 60 FPS threshold for most of the session. Low is still viable for those prioritizing smoothness, but Medium's visual improvements over Low come at a modest 10 FPS cost.

At 3840x2160, no preset achieves a fully smooth experience. Low delivers 41 FPS, Medium 36 FPS with a minimum of 30 FPS and maximum of 41 FPS, High 33 FPS, and Ultra drops to 23 FPS. The Low preset is the only reasonable choice at 4K, as it stays above 40 FPS average, though dips below 30 FPS are likely in intense firefights. Medium's 30 FPS minimum makes it borderline unplayable, and High and Ultra are effectively slideshows.

The data suggests that for the best overall experience, users should prioritize resolution over preset quality. At 1080p with Low settings, the system delivers a smooth 125 FPS, which is ideal for the game's fast-paced tactical combat. At 1440p, Medium offers the best compromise at 69 FPS. At 4K, only Low is viable, and even then, performance is marginal. The measured scores indicate that this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming, with 1440p being a secondary option for those willing to accept lower settings.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel's 3 nm process. Its memory configuration is entirely system-shared, meaning it draws from the same DDR5 pool as the CPU, with bandwidth described as "System Dependent." This reliance on shared memory is a fundamental limitation, as the GPU cannot access dedicated VRAM and must compete with the processor for memory bandwidth.

The GPU's clock speeds show a base of 300 MHz and a boost of 2500 MHz, with the latter representing the maximum frequency under load. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 benchmark score of 1482 places this GPU in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, indicating it performs worse than 91% of tested graphics solutions. Its nearest rivals in the benchmark database are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, GeForce 800M, GT 625 OEM, and GT 710, with delta percentages of 1.3%, 1.5%, 2.5%, and 2.7% respectively. This means the Arc B390 is only marginally faster than these legacy mobile and entry-level desktop parts, none of which are remotely capable of modern gaming at high settings.

The GPU's compute specifications include 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units, along with 12 ray tracing cores. Its pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s and texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 7.680 TFLOPS. These numbers, while respectable for an integrated solution, are dwarfed by dedicated graphics cards. The 80 W TDP further confirms its modest power envelope, typical of integrated graphics rather than discrete solutions.

In Ready Or Not, the GPU's limitations are starkly evident. At 1080p Ultra, the average frame rate drops to 69 FPS from 125 FPS at Low, a 45% reduction that highlights how quickly the GPU saturates with increased graphical load. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate collapses to 23 FPS, demonstrating that the Arc B390 simply lacks the raw throughput to handle the game's visual demands at higher resolutions. The shared memory architecture compounds this issue, as texture loading and geometry processing compete with system memory bandwidth, causing stutters and frame time spikes in complex scenes.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2611th out of 2947 tested combos in Ready Or Not, placing it in the bottom 11% of all configurations. This ranking is a direct consequence of the GPU's integrated nature, as the CPU itself is a high-performance desktop part. The Core Ultra 7 265 sits in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 64640, indicating that the processor is not the limiting factor in this pairing.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the AMD EPYC 4464P with an average score of 64823 (0.3% higher), the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F with 64438 (0.3% lower), the AMD EPYC 7343 with 64202 (0.7% lower), and the AMD EPYC 9124 with 65104 (0.7% higher). These delta percentages show that the Core Ultra 7 265 is competitive with high-end server and desktop processors, reinforcing that the CPU is more than capable of feeding a dedicated GPU.

The GPU's ranking is far less impressive. With a 9th percentile position and an average benchmark score of 1482, the Arc B390 is positioned among the weakest graphics solutions in the database. Its nearest rivals are all ancient or ultra-low-end parts, with the GT 520MX being a 2011-era entry-level mobile GPU. The delta percentages of 1.3% to 2.7% indicate that the Arc B390 barely outperforms these obsolete parts, making it an extremely poor choice for gaming.

The contrast between the CPU's high percentile and the GPU's low percentile explains the combo's poor ranking. In gaming workloads, the GPU is the dominant factor, and a weak GPU will drag down even the most powerful CPU. The data shows that this combo is fundamentally unbalanced, with the processor's capabilities wasted by the integrated graphics solution. For users considering this pairing, the benchmark results suggest that any discrete GPU, even a modest one, would dramatically improve the gaming experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are 125 FPS on Low, 109 FPS on Medium, 99 FPS on High, and 69 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 92 FPS and a maximum of 125 FPS, indicating consistent performance with only minor dips. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 45% reduction in frame rate, with each preset step costing roughly 10-15% performance. Notably, the jump from High to Ultra is the largest single drop, at 30 FPS, suggesting that Ultra's additional visual effects place a disproportionate load on the GPU.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates are 79 FPS on Low, 69 FPS on Medium, 62 FPS on High, and 44 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset reports a minimum of 58 FPS and maximum of 79 FPS, showing a wider variance than at 1080p. The resolution increase from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 35-40% performance across all presets, with Low dropping from 125 to 79 FPS, Medium from 109 to 69 FPS, High from 99 to 62 FPS, and Ultra from 69 to 44 FPS. This consistent percentage drop indicates that the GPU is scaling linearly with pixel count, a sign of a fill-rate-bound scenario.

At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are 41 FPS on Low, 36 FPS on Medium, 33 FPS on High, and 23 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 30 FPS and a maximum of 41 FPS. The transition from 1440p to 4K costs an additional 45-50% performance, with Low dropping from 79 to 41 FPS, Medium from 69 to 36 FPS, High from 62 to 33 FPS, and Ultra from 44 to 23 FPS. At 4K, even the Low preset struggles to maintain playable frame rates, and the Ultra preset's 23 FPS average makes the game nearly unresponsive.

The frame rate data reveals a consistent pattern: the GPU's performance scales almost perfectly with resolution, indicating that the Arc B390 is severely limited by its pixel throughput capabilities. The 60.00 GPixel/s pixel rate is simply insufficient for 4K rendering, and the shared memory bandwidth further constrains texture and geometry processing. The measured results show that this combo is only truly playable at 1080p with Low to High settings, with Medium at 1440p being the absolute ceiling for acceptable performance.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data provides critical insight into the system's bottleneck. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 reduces frame rates by approximately 37% across all presets. This is close to the theoretical pixel count increase of 78% (from 2.07 million to 3.69 million pixels), but the actual performance drop is less than the pixel increase would suggest. This discrepancy indicates that the GPU is not purely pixel-bound at these resolutions, and other factors such as memory bandwidth and shader throughput are also contributing to the performance ceiling.

The transition from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 is more telling. The pixel count increases by 125% (from 3.69 million to 8.29 million), yet the frame rate drops by only 45-50%. This non-linear scaling suggests that the GPU is hitting a more fundamental limit at 4K, likely related to its 24 raster output units and 120.0 GTexel/s texture rate. The Arc B390 simply cannot process the increased geometry and texture data fast enough, causing the frame rate to collapse regardless of the preset selected.

The scaling pattern across all three resolutions shows that the GPU is the limiting component in every scenario. The CPU, with its 20 cores and 20 threads, is never the bottleneck, as evidenced by the consistent frame rate reductions that track closely with pixel throughput. The Core Ultra 7 265's 5.30 GHz boost clock and 30 MB of shared L3 cache provide ample processing power for the game's AI and physics calculations, but these are dwarfed by the GPU's inability to keep up with rendering demands.

This resolution scaling analysis has practical implications for users. At 1080p, the system is somewhat CPU-bound at Low settings (125 FPS), but becomes GPU-bound as settings increase. At 1440p and above, the GPU is unambiguously the limiting factor, with the CPU's capabilities going largely unused. The data suggests that lowering resolution is the most effective way to improve frame rates, as it directly reduces the GPU's workload without penalizing the CPU.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is a 20-core, 20-thread desktop processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on TSMC's 3 nm process. Its base clock is 2.40 GHz with a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, and it features 192 KB of L1 cache per core, 3 MB of L2 cache per core, and 30 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor supports dual-channel DDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s, and its 65 W TDP reflects its efficiency-focused design.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Core Ultra 7 265 demonstrates strong multi-threaded performance. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42216 places it among the top desktop processors, while the single-core score of 5960 indicates excellent per-thread performance. The PassMark multi-thread score of 49682 and single-thread score of 4689 further confirm its capabilities. These numbers show that the CPU is more than capable of handling the demands of Ready Or Not, which is primarily a GPU-bound game.

However, in the context of this combo, the CPU's power is largely wasted. The Arc B390's integrated nature means that the CPU must also handle graphics processing, but the GPU's 7.680 TFLOPS FP32 performance is the absolute limit. The CPU's 20 cores and 20 threads are more than sufficient for the game's AI, physics, and game logic, but they cannot compensate for the GPU's lack of dedicated memory and compute resources.

The CPU's 93rd percentile ranking among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 64640, places it just behind the AMD EPYC 4464P and AMD EPYC 9124, and just ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F and AMD EPYC 7343. These rivals are all server or high-end desktop parts, emphasizing that the Core Ultra 7 265 is a top-tier processor. In Ready Or Not, this CPU would easily support a mid-range or even high-end discrete GPU, but the Arc B390 holds it back.

The data shows that the CPU's role in this combo is to provide a stable foundation, ensuring that the GPU is always the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 125 FPS, which is near the CPU's practical limit for this game, but at higher resolutions, the GPU's constraints dominate. The CPU's 5.30 GHz boost clock and 30 MB L3 cache are likely sufficient for the game's most demanding scenes, but users would see minimal improvement from upgrading the CPU alone. The bottleneck is unequivocally the GPU, and any meaningful performance gain would require a discrete graphics card.