Ready Or Not

# Ready Or Not: Intel Core Ultra 9 185H + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 — Benchmark Analysis

This combination pairs Intel's 16-core Meteor Lake mobile flagship with NVIDIA's top-tier Ada Lovelace desktop GPU, producing a system that delivers exceptional frame rates in Ready Or Not across all tested resolutions and settings, though the data reveals a clear GPU-bound profile at higher resolutions and a CPU-limited ceiling at 1080p.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H is a 16-core, 22-thread mobile processor based on the Meteor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 7 nm process node. It operates with a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz, with a 45 W TDP. Its cache hierarchy includes 112 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor supports dual-channel DDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, which is relevant for feeding the RTX 4090 in a game like Ready Or Not that stresses both CPU and GPU subsystems.

In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 17984.5 and a single-core score of 1810.5. Its Geekbench scores are 11657 (multi-core) and 1794 (single-core). The PassMark multi-thread score is 29376, with a single-thread score of 3697. The processor sits at the 85th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35670.

Relative to its nearest rivals, the Core Ultra 9 185H is essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 (which scores 35719, a delta of -0.1%) and the Intel Core 7 250H (35728, delta -0.2%). It is slightly behind the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (35802, delta -0.4%) and the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X (35909, delta -0.7%). These sub-1% deltas indicate that the 185H's computational throughput is comparable to these desktop and mobile alternatives, meaning any performance differences in Ready Or Not are more likely attributable to the GPU or system-level factors than to raw CPU capability.

The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the system reaches 369 FPS average. This is an extremely high frame rate that approaches the practical limits of game engine logic and frame pacing. At this resolution and setting, the CPU's single-thread performance and memory bandwidth are likely the primary constraints, as the RTX 4090 can render frames faster than the CPU can issue draw calls and update game state. The 5.10 GHz boost clock and 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth become critical at this point, as they determine how quickly the processor can process the game's AI, physics, and rendering commands. The 22 threads also help with background tasks and the game's multi-threaded systems, though Ready Or Not is not known to scale perfectly across all cores.

At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 68, which is a 4.4x reduction from the 1080p Low figure. This dramatic drop indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions, while the CPU has ample headroom. The Core Ultra 9 185H's 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it is more than sufficient for this game, and the benchmark results confirm that the processor is not the bottleneck at 1440p or 4K.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD102 chip, manufactured on TSMC's 5 nm process. It contains 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die, with a transistor density of 125.3M per mm². The GPU operates at a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with memory clocked at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). It features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has 16384 shading units, 512 TMUs, 176 ROPs, 128 RT cores, and 512 tensor cores, delivering 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 4090 achieves a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9223, a Geekbench OpenCL score of 255416, and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 271631. Its PassMark G3D score is 38194, with a G2D score of 1299 and a GPU compute score of 26613. The GPU sits at the 88th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 60347.

Relative to its nearest rivals in the benchmark database, the RTX 4090 is closely matched with the Intel Arc Pro A60 (60326, delta 0%), the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 (60140, delta 0.3%), and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (61896, delta -2.5%). It leads the AMD Radeon PRO V710 (58657, delta 2.9%). These deltas are small, but the RTX 4090's 24 GB of VRAM and 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth are far beyond what Ready Or Not requires, even at 4K Ultra settings.

The measured FPS data shows the RTX 4090's dominance. At 4K High, the system averages 96 FPS; at 4K Medium, 106 FPS; and at 4K Low, 122 FPS. The 4K Ultra setting drops to 68 FPS, which is a significant reduction but still playable. At 1440p, the GPU easily exceeds 130 FPS even at Ultra settings (130 FPS), with High at 185 FPS, Medium at 203 FPS, and Low at 233 FPS. At 1080p, the GPU is essentially unconstrained, delivering 206 FPS at Ultra and up to 369 FPS at Low.

The 24 GB VRAM capacity is particularly relevant for Ready Or Not, which features detailed environments and multiple AI characters. The data shows no signs of VRAM-related performance degradation at any resolution, as the FPS scales consistently with resolution and settings. The 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and geometry processing do not become bottlenecks, even at 4K.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS this combo achieves in Ready Or Not?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 369, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The lowest average is 68 FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H has an average benchmark score of 35670, which is within 0.7% of its closest competitors: the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 (-0.1%), Intel Core 7 250H (-0.2%), AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (-0.4%), and AMD Ryzen 7 7700X (-0.7%).

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the primary bottleneck at 4K Ultra?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS drops to 68. This is a 3.0x reduction from 1080p Ultra (206 FPS), while the CPU has sufficient headroom as shown by its 85th percentile ranking.

Q: What is the frame time impact of enabling Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: The average FPS drops from 185 at High to 130 at Ultra at 2560x1440, a 30% reduction. The min FPS at Medium is 173, but no min FPS data is provided for Ultra settings.

Q: How does the GPU's benchmark percentile compare to its in-game performance?

A: The RTX 4090 sits at the 88th percentile among all GPUs in synthetic benchmarks, and its in-game performance is consistent with that, delivering over 100 FPS at 4K High and over 200 FPS at 1080p Ultra.

Q: Does the system maintain playable frame rates at all tested settings?

A: Yes, the lowest average FPS recorded is 68 at 4K Ultra, which is above the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered playable. All other settings and resolutions produce average FPS above 96.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured performance data covers three resolutions and four settings levels, providing a comprehensive picture of how this combo scales.

At 1920x1080, the system achieves its highest frame rates. With Low settings, the average FPS is 369. Medium settings produce an average of 322 FPS, with a min FPS of 273 and a max FPS of 370. High settings yield 292 FPS average. Ultra settings bring the average down to 206 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 163 FPS, representing a 44% reduction in performance when moving to the highest quality preset.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show a clear step down. Low settings average 233 FPS. Medium settings average 203 FPS, with a min of 173 and a max of 233. High settings produce 185 FPS average. Ultra settings drop to 130 FPS average. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 103 FPS, a 44% reduction, which is proportional to the 1080p scaling.

At 3840x2160, the system still delivers playable frame rates, though the Ultra preset starts to challenge the GPU. Low settings average 122 FPS. Medium settings average 106 FPS, with a min of 90 and a max of 122. High settings yield 96 FPS average. Ultra settings drop to 68 FPS average. The reduction from Low to Ultra at 4K is 54 FPS, a 44% drop, which is consistent with the other resolutions.

The min FPS data is only provided for Medium settings at each resolution: 273 at 1080p, 173 at 1440p, and 90 at 4K. These figures indicate that the system maintains stable frame delivery even when scenes become more demanding, with no obvious stuttering or frame time spikes.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The resolution scaling behavior reveals a classic GPU-bound profile. Moving from 1080p to 1440p at High settings, the average FPS drops from 292 to 185, a 37% reduction. Moving from 1440p to 4K, the average drops from 185 to 96, a 48% reduction. The total scaling from 1080p High to 4K High is a 67% reduction (from 292 to 96 FPS).

At Low settings, the scaling is even more pronounced: 369 FPS at 1080p drops to 233 FPS at 1440p (37% reduction), then to 122 FPS at 4K (48% reduction from 1440p). The total drop from 1080p Low to 4K Low is 67%, matching the High settings scaling.

At Ultra settings, the pattern is similar but with lower absolute numbers: 206 FPS at 1080p, 130 FPS at 1440p (37% reduction), and 68 FPS at 4K (48% reduction from 1440p). The total reduction from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra is 67%.

The consistent 37% drop from 1080p to 1440p and 48% drop from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor. The RTX 4090's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are being taxed as resolution increases, while the CPU's role remains constant. The fact that the percentage reduction is uniform across settings suggests that the game's rendering pipeline scales predictably with resolution, and the GPU's 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth is sufficient to maintain this scaling without hitting a bandwidth wall.

The CPU's influence is most visible at 1080p Low, where 369 FPS likely approaches the engine's frame rate ceiling. The fact that the system can achieve such high frame rates indicates that the Core Ultra 9 185H's single-thread performance (boost clock 5.10 GHz) and memory bandwidth (89.6 GB/s) are not limiting factors at lower resolutions. The CPU is only fully utilized when the GPU can render frames faster than the game logic can update, which occurs at 1080p Low.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings preset depends on the user's display resolution and frame rate target.

At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset provides 206 FPS average, which is well above the refresh rate of most monitors. The High preset at 292 FPS is unnecessary unless the user has a 240 Hz or higher display. The Medium preset at 322 FPS offers minimal visual difference from High in most scenes but adds 30 FPS. For users with standard 144 Hz displays, the Ultra preset is recommended as it provides the best visual quality while still maintaining a frame rate that exceeds the display's capabilities.

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset delivers 130 FPS average, which is sufficient for 120 Hz or 144 Hz displays. The High preset at 185 FPS is a better choice for 165 Hz or 240 Hz monitors, as it offers a significant frame rate increase with only a minor visual quality reduction. The Medium preset at 203 FPS is suitable for esports-style play, though Ready Or Not is a tactical shooter where visual clarity is important.

At 3840x2160, the High preset at 96 FPS is the recommended choice for 4K displays with 120 Hz refresh rates. The Medium preset at 106 FPS offers a slight performance boost but sacrifices some visual fidelity. The Ultra preset at 68 FPS is playable but does not fully utilize a 120 Hz display, and the visual improvement over High may not justify the 29% frame rate reduction. The Low preset at 122 FPS is not recommended for 4K as it significantly reduces visual quality for a modest frame rate gain.

The min FPS data at Medium settings (273 at 1080p, 173 at 1440p, 90 at 4K) suggests that the Medium preset provides the most stable frame delivery, with the smallest gap between average and minimum FPS. However, the High preset at 4K (96 FPS average) is likely to maintain acceptable frame times in intense firefights, as the GPU has sufficient headroom above the 60 FPS threshold.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 635th out of 2947 tested combinations in the database for Ready Or Not. This places the combo in the top 21.5% of all tested systems, which is a strong result given the game's demanding nature and the large number of combinations tested.

The rank of 635 out of 2947 is notable because it reflects the overall performance of the system across all measured scenarios, not just the highest settings. The system's ability to maintain high frame rates at 4K Ultra (68 FPS) and exceptionally high frame rates at 1080p Low (369 FPS) contributes to its ranking. The fact that it ranks in the 78th percentile or higher suggests that the vast majority of tested systems cannot match this performance level.

Given the CPU's 85th percentile ranking and the GPU's 88th percentile ranking among their respective components, the combo's 635th rank out of 2947 is consistent with what would be expected from pairing two high-performing components. The slight discrepancy between the component percentiles and the combo's overall rank can be attributed to the game's specific engine characteristics and the fact that Ready Or Not may not scale perfectly with the RTX 4090's massive compute resources at lower resolutions.

The data indicates that this combo is particularly well-suited for 1440p and 4K gaming, where the GPU's capabilities are more fully utilized. The CPU's strong single-thread performance ensures that it does not become a bottleneck even at high frame rates, as evidenced by the 369 FPS result at 1080p Low. The combination of 16 cores, 22 threads, and 24 MB of L3 cache provides ample processing power for the game's AI and physics systems, while the GPU's 24 GB of VRAM and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth handle the game's detailed textures and environments without issue.