Red Dead Redemption 2

FAQ

Q: How does the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F compare to its nearest CPU rivals in average benchmark score?

A: The Ryzen 5 8400F scores 25,005 on average, which puts it 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F (24,964), 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core i7-11850H (24,935), and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Core i7-13620H (24,911). It trails the AMD EPYC 9474F (25,103) by 0.4%, showing an extremely tight cluster of performance among these four processors.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested CPU-GPU combinations for Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D combination ranks 32nd out of 2,902 tested combos, placing it in the top 1.1% of all configurations tested for this game.

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all GPUs?

A: The RTX 5090 D sits in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 77,712. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT, scores 76,904 (1.1% lower), while the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT scores 78,940 (1.6% higher).

Q: What are the CPU's core and thread counts?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F has 6 cores and 12 threads, based on the Zen 4 (Phoenix) architecture built on a 4 nm process. It has a base clock of 4.20 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 5090 D have, and what memory type does it use?

A: The GPU features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of memory bandwidth. Its memory clock runs at 1750 MHz, which translates to 28 Gbps effective.

Q: What is the lowest average FPS recorded for this combo, and at which settings?

A: The lowest average FPS recorded is 52 at 3840x2160 (4K) with Ultra settings. The highest average is 220 at 1920x1080 (1080p) with Low settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU built on TSMC's 5 nm process, featuring 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory across a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth — a figure that becomes critical in Red Dead Redemption 2's open world, where large textures and draw distances demand substantial memory throughput. The GPU's 21760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs scale with the game's rendering workload, delivering pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s.

Clock behavior matters here. The base clock of 2017 MHz and boost clock of 2407 MHz reflect the GPU's sustained operating range; benchmark results show the card maintaining playable framerates even at 4K Ultra, though the gap between Low and Ultra presets reveals how much headroom exists. The 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 compute figure (matching FP16 at 1:1 ratio) indicates raw shader throughput that Red Dead Redemption 2's lighting and particle effects can exploit, particularly at higher resolutions where pixel work dominates.

The GPU's benchmark profile shows a PassMark G3D score of 44,065 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 376,915, with 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 at 14,326. These numbers, combined with the 92nd percentile ranking, indicate a GPU that is not the limiting factor in most scenarios tested. The 575 W TDP and 950 W suggested PSU hint at the power envelope required to sustain these clocks, though the data shows the card delivering consistent results across all measured settings.

How This Combo Ranks

Out of 2,902 tested combinations for Red Dead Redemption 2, this pairing of AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D holds the 32nd position. That top-1.1% placement reflects a system where neither component dramatically bottlenecks the other — though the measured FPS data suggests the CPU begins to constrain performance at lower resolutions while the GPU takes over at 4K.

The CPU's 77th percentile ranking among all processors places it well above average, while the GPU's 92nd percentile ranking is even higher. This imbalance typically means the CPU becomes the limiting factor in less GPU-intensive scenarios. The nearest CPU rivals — the Ryzen 5 7500F, Core i7-11850H, and Core i7-13620H — all sit within 0.4% of the 8400F's average score, suggesting that swapping among these would produce nearly identical results. The GPU's nearest rivals, however, are mobile-oriented parts (RX 6650M XT, RX 6850M XT) and datacenter Tesla P100 variants, which underlines how far ahead the RTX 5090 D sits in the consumer desktop space.

The combination's high rank implies that for Red Dead Redemption 2, this setup is near the top of what any tested user can achieve. The game's 2018 release date means it does not push the absolute limits of modern hardware, but the data shows this combo still lands in the upper tier of all configurations, with only 31 other combinations outperforming it.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080 (1080p), the combo delivers 220 FPS on Low, 175 FPS on Medium, 146 FPS on High, and 105 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset shows a minimum of 149 FPS and maximum of 202 FPS, indicating some frame-time variance but consistently high performance. The progression from Low to Ultra spans 115 FPS, showing that even at 1080p, the settings presets have a massive impact on output.

Moving to 2560x1440 (1440p), the numbers drop to 175 FPS on Low, 131 FPS on Medium (min 111, max 150), 109 FPS on High, and 79 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 96 FPS — still substantial, but the relative percentage drop from 1080p is noticeable. At 1440p, even the High preset maintains above 100 FPS, which is smooth for this game's action sequences.

At 3840x2160 (4K), the results fall to 115 FPS on Low, 86 FPS on Medium (min 74, max 99), 72 FPS on High, and 52 FPS on Ultra. The Low-to-Ultra spread here is 63 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 74 FPS is still comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, while the Ultra preset dips to 52 FPS average, suggesting that even this flagship GPU cannot fully max out the game at 4K without compromises.

The data reveals an interesting pattern: at every resolution, the step from Low to Medium costs roughly 40-45 FPS, while the step from High to Ultra costs roughly 30-40 FPS. The Medium-to-High step is the smallest penalty in most cases, making it a potentially sweet spot for visual fidelity versus performance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F is a 6-core, 12-thread Zen 4 (Phoenix) processor with a base clock of 4.20 GHz and boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its 16 MB shared L3 cache and 1 MB L2 per core provide the memory hierarchy needed for game logic, physics, and NPC AI that Red Dead Redemption 2 simulates. The CPU's 65 W TDP and 4 nm process node indicate efficiency, but the benchmark scores tell the story of its capability.

In Cinebench R23, the CPU scores 20,851 multi-core and 2,943 single-core. The single-core score is particularly relevant for this game, as Red Dead Redemption 2's engine often relies on a few heavily loaded threads for main loop processing. The 3DMark scores show scaling from 951 single-thread to 6,165 max-threads, with 8-thread score at 5,275 — indicating that thread scaling flattens beyond 8 threads, which aligns with the 6-core/12-thread design.

The PassMark multi-thread score of 24,389 and single-thread score of 3,685 place this CPU at the 77th percentile. The nearest rivals, all within 0.4%, suggest that for this game, any of these CPUs would perform nearly identically. The data implies that at 1080p where the GPU is less stressed, the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads may create a ceiling — the 220 FPS Low preset result is high, but the 105 FPS Ultra result at 1080p could reflect CPU limitation rather than GPU capability, given how much headroom the RTX 5090 D shows at higher resolutions.

The CPU's 4.70 GHz boost clock and DDR5 memory support (83.2 GB/s bandwidth) help feed the GPU with draw calls and asset streams. The 20 PCIe Gen 4 lanes provide adequate bandwidth for the RTX 5090 D's PCIe 5.0 interface, though the GPU's bus interface is forward-compatible.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that the Medium preset offers the best balance across all resolutions. At 4K, Medium delivers 86 FPS average with a 74 FPS minimum — well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and only 14 FPS below the High preset's average while likely offering substantial visual improvements over Low. At 1440p, Medium hits 131 FPS (min 111), which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors, and at 1080p, Medium's 175 FPS (min 149) keeps the experience fluid even during intense action.

For users prioritizing maximum visual fidelity, High at 4K provides 72 FPS, which is playable but not locked to high-refresh displays. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 52 FPS, which sacrifices smoothness for marginal visual gains — the data does not support this trade-off. At 1440p, High at 109 FPS is a strong choice for those who want better visuals without sacrificing responsiveness, while Ultra at 79 FPS remains viable.

The Low preset produces the highest frame rates (220 FPS at 1080p, 175 FPS at 1440p, 115 FPS at 4K) but likely sacrifices too much visual quality for a game known for its atmosphere and detail. The Medium preset consistently provides the best performance-per-visual-footprint based on the measured rows, with the 1440p Medium result (131 FPS) standing out as particularly well-balanced for modern displays.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K reveals how the bottleneck shifts. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 220 at 1080p to 175 at 1440p (a 20.5% decrease) and further to 115 at 4K (a 47.7% decrease from 1080p). At Ultra settings, the drop is from 105 at 1080p to 79 at 1440p (24.8% decrease) and 52 at 4K (50.5% decrease from 1080p).

These percentages tell a story about the limiting component. At Low settings, the GPU has less work per pixel, so the CPU's ability to feed frames becomes more significant — the 220 FPS at 1080p suggests the CPU is near its limit, as the GPU could theoretically render more. As resolution increases, the GPU's pixel throughput becomes the constraint, which is why the 4K Ultra result of 52 FPS aligns with the GPU's raw compute limits.

The spacing between resolutions is not linear. The jump from 1440p to 4K costs more FPS (roughly 40-50% loss) than the jump from 1080p to 1440p (roughly 20-25% loss), which is expected given the pixel count increase: 4K has 2.25x the pixels of 1440p, while 1440p has 1.78x the pixels of 1080p. The data shows this scaling holds across all settings presets, indicating that the RTX 5090 D's 32 GB memory buffer and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are sufficient to avoid memory-related stutters, but the GPU's shading units still become the limiting factor as pixel counts rise.

The Medium preset's minimum FPS values (149 at 1080p, 111 at 1440p, 74 at 4K) show that frame-time consistency degrades with resolution, but even at 4K, the minimum stays above 60 FPS. This suggests that for this combo, the 4K Medium experience is the most reliable high-resolution option, while 1440p High offers a near-perfect balance for high-refresh displays. The CPU's role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions and settings, where frame rates exceed what 6 cores and 12 threads can sustain, explaining why the 1080p Low result of 220 FPS is the ceiling for this configuration regardless of further GPU headroom.