Red Dead Redemption 2

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 delivers a highly playable Red Dead Redemption 2 experience, but the data reveals a configuration that shifts between CPU and GPU dominance depending on the resolution and quality preset. Across the measured spectrum, this combo lands in the 421st position out of 1,687 tested combinations, placing it comfortably in the top quarter of all systems. The benchmark results show a system that excels at high-refresh 1080p and maintains solid 1440p performance, while 4K remains the exclusive domain of lower settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 150.6 FPS at 1920x1080 to 75.6 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of exactly half. This near-perfect halving indicates that the RTX 4070’s rendering throughput is the primary constraint as pixel count quadruples. The same pattern holds for Medium settings, where 112.9 FPS at 1080p drops to 57.3 FPS at 4K, again almost precisely a 50% reduction.

The scaling becomes even more pronounced at High and Ultra presets. At High, the 1080p result of 95.9 FPS falls to 70.6 FPS at 1440p, then further to 48.3 FPS at 4K. This represents a 49.6% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 31.6% additional drop from 1440p to 4K. The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling: 69.4 FPS at 1080p, 51.8 FPS at 1440p, and a barely playable 30.4 FPS at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 1440p at Ultra is 17.6 FPS, while the gap between 1440p and 4K is 21.4 FPS, suggesting that the GPU’s memory bandwidth and shading capacity become increasingly strained.

Notably, the resolution scaling is not perfectly linear, which points to a secondary CPU influence at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the 150.6 FPS figure is significantly higher than the 115.6 FPS at 1440p Low, a 35 FPS gap that implies the CPU is still capable of feeding frames faster than the GPU can render them at 1080p. However, at 4K Low, the 75.6 FPS result shows the GPU taking full control, as the frame rate is dictated almost entirely by pixel throughput rather than processor speed.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 421 out of 1,687 tested combinations places it in the 75th percentile of all systems tested in Red Dead Redemption 2. This is a strong showing, but the position is somewhat lower than the individual component percentiles might suggest. The Ryzen 5 7600X sits at the 83rd percentile among all CPUs, while the RTX 4070 ranks at the 81st percentile among all GPUs. The slight gap between component rankings and the combo rank indicates that this game’s engine does not perfectly utilize the strengths of either part.

The CPU’s nearest rivals provide context for its contribution. The Ryzen 5 7600X posts an average benchmark score of 26,272, which is essentially identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U (26,262, 0% delta), the AMD Ryzen 7 7735U (26,305, -0.1% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 5655GE (26,320, -0.2% delta). The only rival with a positive delta is the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X at 26,214, which scores 0.2% higher. This tight clustering suggests that the 7600X’s performance in this game is not a differentiator; it is squarely in the middle of a performance plateau.

For the GPU, the situation is similar. The RTX 4070’s average benchmark score of 37,283 is only 0.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (37,507) and 2.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 5300M (36,371). It trails the NVIDIA GeForce MX570 A by 1.9% (38,008) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile by 2.2% (38,135). These deltas are all within a narrow band, meaning that in synthetic benchmarks, the 4070 is not dramatically separated from its immediate competitors, even though its real-world gaming performance is typically superior.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070’s 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus provides 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth, which is the key resource for Red Dead Redemption 2’s large textures and open-world streaming. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS falls to 30.4, a level where the GPU is clearly overwhelmed. The memory clock runs at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective, and the boost clock reaches 2475 MHz, figures that are standard for this Ada Lovelace part.

The GPU’s percentile rank of 81 versus all GPUs is respectable, but its benchmark scores reveal a mixed profile. The PassMark G3D score of 26,927 is strong, but the DirectX 12 score of 103 is surprisingly low, suggesting that synthetic API tests do not fully capture this card’s gaming performance. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 157,352 and OpenCL score of 168,006 are more indicative of its compute capabilities. In Red Dead Redemption 2, the GPU’s role becomes dominant as resolution increases: at 1080p Low the CPU can push 150.6 FPS, but at 4K Ultra the GPU limits the combo to 30.4 FPS, a 79.8% reduction in frame rate that is entirely attributable to GPU workload.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers a wide range of performance depending on settings. Low settings produce 150.6 FPS, which is exceptionally smooth and well beyond the refresh rate of most monitors. Medium settings drop to 112.9 FPS, still excellent for competitive play. High settings yield 95.9 FPS, a solid number for a visually demanding title. Ultra settings bring the frame rate down to 69.4 FPS, which remains playable but shows the cost of maximum quality.

Moving to 2560x1440, the results are more moderate. Low settings achieve 115.6 FPS, which is still very high. Medium settings deliver 84.8 FPS, a comfortable level for most users. High settings drop to 70.6 FPS, which is near the threshold for high-refresh displays. Ultra settings fall to 51.8 FPS, a level that is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. The transition from 1080p to 1440p at Ultra costs 17.6 FPS, while the same transition at Low costs 35 FPS, indicating that the GPU is more efficient at higher settings when pixel count increases.

At 3840x2160, the data shows a clear limitation. Low settings produce 75.6 FPS, which is surprisingly playable for 4K. Medium settings drop to 57.3 FPS, still acceptable. High settings fall to 48.3 FPS, which is on the edge of smoothness. Ultra settings plummet to 30.4 FPS, which is generally considered below the threshold for comfortable gaming. The spread between Low and Ultra at 4K is 45.2 FPS, the largest gap of any resolution, highlighting the GPU’s sensitivity to settings at high pixel counts.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 7600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, built on the Zen 4 architecture using a 5 nm process. Its 32 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (83.2 GB/s bandwidth) provide ample bandwidth for gaming workloads. The CPU’s benchmark results show strong single-thread performance, with a 3DMark single-thread score of 1,060 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3,406, which are critical for games that rely on a few threads for physics and logic.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU’s influence is most evident at 1080p Low, where the 150.6 FPS result is likely near the CPU’s maximum frame delivery capability. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 6,879 and max-thread score of 6,845 indicate that the CPU can handle multi-threaded workloads, but the game’s engine may not scale perfectly with 12 threads. The PassMark multithread score of 28,390 and single-thread score of 4,135 confirm that the CPU is balanced, but its nearest rivals show no significant advantage: the Ryzen 7 PRO 6850U, 7735U, and 5700X all score within 0.2% of the 7600X. This means that swapping the CPU for a nearby alternative would yield negligible FPS changes in this title.

The CPU’s 83rd percentile rank among all CPUs is slightly higher than the GPU’s 81st percentile, but the combo rank of 421/1687 suggests that the game is more sensitive to GPU performance. At 4K, the CPU’s role diminishes entirely, as the GPU becomes the bottleneck. At 1080p, the CPU can push frame rates above 150 FPS at Low settings, but the GPU limits Ultra to 69.4 FPS. This indicates that for this specific game, the RTX 4070 is the more critical component, and users seeking higher frame rates at 4K would need a more powerful GPU rather than a faster CPU.