Red Dead Redemption 2

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination delivers a solid 1080p experience in Red Dead Redemption 2, but the data shows that chasing maximum visual quality comes at a steep performance cost. Based on the measured average frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets, the optimal way to play this title is at 1440p with High settings, where the game achieves a smooth 57.7 FPS average. This strikes the best balance between visual fidelity and fluidity, as the jump to Ultra at the same resolution drops performance to 40.6 FPS, while dropping to Medium only yields a modest improvement to 69.4 FPS. At 1080p, High settings produce a comfortable 79 FPS, but the upgrade to 1440p High is more impactful for image quality than the frame rate loss suggests. The Ultra preset is simply too demanding for this hardware pairing, producing only 58.8 FPS at 1080p and falling below 40 FPS at 1440p.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy of playable presets for this CPU-GPU combination. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 123 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors, but the visual compromise is substantial for a game as detailed as Red Dead Redemption 2. Medium at 1080p yields 92.7 FPS, still comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, while High drops to 79 FPS — all three are viable depending on user preference for refresh rate versus image quality. However, the Ultra preset at 1080p crashes to 58.8 FPS, indicating that the RTX 3070's 8 GB VRAM and the game's demanding effects push the system past its comfortable limit.

The sweet spot emerges at 2560x1440 with High settings, producing 57.7 FPS. This is very close to the 60 FPS target and represents a significant visual upgrade over 1080p. The Medium preset at 1440p offers 69.4 FPS, which is smoother but less visually rich, while Low at 1440p hits 95.1 FPS for those prioritizing speed. The Ultra preset at 1440p is nearly unplayable at 40.6 FPS, making it a poor choice. At 4K, all presets fall short of ideal smoothness: High produces 39.6 FPS, Medium 47 FPS, Low 63.7 FPS, and Ultra a slideshow-like 30.5 FPS. For the best overall experience, 1440p High is recommended, as it maintains near-60 FPS performance while preserving the game's atmospheric lighting and draw distances. Users with 1080p panels should select High for a 79 FPS experience that still looks impressive, avoiding Ultra entirely.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for this hardware in Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: According to the measured frame rates, 2560x1440 with High settings is the optimal choice, delivering 57.7 FPS average. This provides a near-60 FPS experience with strong visual quality, outperforming the 1080p High result of 79 FPS in terms of overall image clarity while remaining playable.

Q: How does the Ultra preset affect performance compared to High?

A: The Ultra preset causes a significant frame rate drop across all resolutions. At 1080p, it falls from 79 FPS (High) to 58.8 FPS (Ultra), a reduction of over 25%. At 1440p, the drop is from 57.7 FPS to 40.6 FPS, and at 4K it plummets to 30.5 FPS from 39.6 FPS. The data suggests Ultra is not viable for smooth gameplay on this system.

Q: Is this CPU-GPU combo capable of 4K gaming in this title?

A: Only with significant compromises. At 4K Low, the system achieves 63.7 FPS, which is playable, but Medium drops to 47 FPS and High to 39.6 FPS. The visual fidelity at Low is notably reduced, so 4K gaming is technically possible but not recommended for a quality experience.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 8400F's performance compare to its closest rivals?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score of 25064 places it nearly identical to the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, which scores 25057 (0% delta). It is 0.3% faster than the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F and 0.1% slower than the AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340. This indicates the 8400F is well-matched for gaming workloads, sitting in the 82nd percentile of all CPUs.

Q: What is the RTX 3070's standing among GPUs based on its benchmarks?

A: The GPU has an average benchmark score of 28238, placing it in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs. It outperforms the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT by 0.9% and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti by 1%, while trailing the AMD FirePro S7150 by 0.6%. This shows solid mid-range to upper-mid-range performance for the card.

Q: Does the game benefit more from CPU or GPU performance at higher resolutions?

A: The data indicates the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases. From 1080p to 1440p High, frame rates drop from 79 to 57.7 FPS (a 27% reduction), and from 1440p to 4K High, they fall to 39.6 FPS (a 31% reduction). This steep scaling suggests the RTX 3070's 8 GB VRAM and memory bandwidth are strained at higher resolutions, while the CPU's 6-core, 12-thread configuration remains sufficient.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 plays a decisive role in Red Dead Redemption 2's performance, particularly as resolution and quality settings increase. The GPU features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its GA104 chip, built on Samsung's 8 nm process, contains 17,400 million transistors and offers 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output pipelines. The card's boost clock of 1725 MHz enables 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 compute, which is adequate for this game's demanding shaders and post-processing effects.

The measured frame rates reveal that the RTX 3070's memory capacity becomes a bottleneck at higher settings. At 4K Ultra, the game only achieves 30.5 FPS, indicating that the 8 GB frame buffer is insufficient for the highest texture and shadow quality at that resolution. The transition from High to Ultra at 1080p causes a 20.2 FPS drop (from 79 to 58.8 FPS), suggesting that Ultra settings require more than the card can efficiently deliver. In contrast, the CPU's role is less critical: the Ryzen 5 8400F's 16 MB of shared L3 cache and 83.2 GB/s memory bandwidth are ample for feeding the GPU at 1080p, where the system still achieves 123 FPS on Low settings. The GPU's 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores are present but not heavily utilized in this title's traditional rasterization pipeline, so the card's raw shader throughput and memory subsystem are the primary performance drivers.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 ranks 757th out of 1687 tested combos in Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the upper-middle tier of all systems. This ranking reflects a balanced pairing where neither component is severely over- or under-powered relative to the other. The CPU's 82nd percentile standing among all processors (with an average benchmark score of 25064) is complemented by the GPU's 72nd percentile ranking (with an average score of 28238), suggesting the combo is slightly CPU-heavy in terms of raw compute potential but well-matched for this game's requirements.

The ranking data shows that this combo sits in a crowded field, as the CPU's nearest rivals — the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and AMD Ryzen 5 7500F — have nearly identical average scores, with deltas of 0% and 0.3% respectively. This means the 8400F is not a performance outlier, but rather a dependable mid-range processor. Similarly, the RTX 3070's closest GPU rivals, such as the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (0.9% slower) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (1% slower), are all within a narrow performance band. The 757th position out of 1687 indicates that the majority of tested combos are either weaker or stronger, but this pairing offers a predictable, mid-pack experience that aligns with its component specifications. For users upgrading from older systems, the data confirms this combo will handle 1080p and 1440p gaming with high settings, but it will not compete with top-tier configurations that rank in the top 100.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals clear insights into which component limits performance in Red Dead Redemption 2. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 79 at 1920x1080 to 57.7 at 2560x1440, a 27% reduction, and then to 39.6 at 3840x2160, a further 31% reduction. This linear decline pattern is characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios, where the rendering load increases exponentially with pixel count. The RTX 3070's 448.0 GB/s bandwidth and 8 GB memory capacity are the primary constraints, as the game's texture streaming and shading requirements outpace what the card can deliver at 4K.

The scaling behavior differs across presets, offering more detail on the limiting component. At Low settings, the frame rate drops from 123 FPS at 1080p to 95.1 FPS at 1440p (a 23% reduction) and then to 63.7 FPS at 4K (a 33% reduction). This indicates that even at Low, the GPU remains the bottleneck, though the CPU's 6-core, 12-thread configuration with 4.70 GHz boost clock helps maintain high frame rates at lower resolutions. At Ultra settings, the drop is more severe: from 58.8 FPS at 1080p to 40.6 FPS at 1440p (a 31% reduction) and then to 30.5 FPS at 4K (a 25% reduction). The diminishing percentage drop from 1440p to 4K at Ultra suggests the game is hitting a hard performance floor, likely due to VRAM limitations at higher resolutions.

The data supports the conclusion that the RTX 3070 is the limiting component across all tested settings. The CPU's average benchmark score of 25064, which places it in the 82nd percentile, is more than sufficient to feed the GPU even at 1080p Low where 123 FPS is achieved. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect frame rates to plateau or scale less predictably with resolution changes. Instead, the consistent double-digit percentage drops at each resolution step point squarely at the GPU's rendering capabilities. For users seeking higher 4K performance, the data suggests that reducing settings to Low (63.7 FPS) is the only viable path, while accepting that visual quality will be significantly compromised compared to the High preset at 1440p.