Red Dead Redemption 2

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS for Red Dead Redemption 2 at 1920x1080 with High settings using the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Intel Arc B370?

A: At 1920x1080 with High settings, the measured average FPS is 29. This result is below the 30 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for smooth gameplay, indicating that the combo struggles even at the most common gaming resolution.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested combinations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 2670 out of 2902 tested combinations. This places it in the bottom 8% of all tested combos, showing that this pairing is far from optimal for Red Dead Redemption 2.

Q: What is the best measured FPS across all resolutions and settings?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 47, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only configuration that approaches playable territory, yet it still falls short of 60 FPS.

Q: What is the worst measured FPS across all resolutions and settings?

A: The lowest measured average FPS is 10, recorded at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. This represents a severely unplayable experience, with the game essentially becoming a slideshow at 4K with maximum quality presets.

Q: Does the Intel Arc B370 have dedicated VRAM?

A: No, the Intel Arc B370 uses System Shared memory. Its memory size, type, bus width, and bandwidth are all marked as System Shared or System Dependent, meaning it relies on the host system's RAM rather than having dedicated graphics memory.

Q: What is the CPU's percentile ranking among all tested CPUs?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X ranks in the 81st percentile among all CPUs tested. This indicates a strong processor overall, but the measured FPS in Red Dead Redemption 2 suggests the GPU is the limiting factor in this pairing.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel's 3 nm process node. It operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz, which is a substantial clock range for an integrated part. The GPU features 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 render output units, translating to a pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 96.00 GTexel/s. Its FP32 performance is rated at 6.144 TFLOPS.

The most critical aspect of this GPU is its memory configuration. The Arc B370 uses System Shared memory, meaning it has no dedicated VRAM of its own. Memory bandwidth is System Dependent, which ties performance directly to the host system's memory subsystem. In a game like Red Dead Redemption 2, which is known for its large open-world textures and detailed environments, the lack of dedicated VRAM creates a severe bottleneck. The GPU must constantly access system memory over the bus, competing with CPU operations for bandwidth.

Benchmark data shows the Arc B370 scores 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it in the 5th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (score 1186, 0.2% higher), the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (score 1190, 0.5% higher), and the AMD Radeon HD 7650M (score 1192, 0.7% higher). These are all legacy or low-end parts from over a decade ago, underscoring how far behind modern discrete GPUs the Arc B370 sits.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the GPU's limitations manifest clearly. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the measured average FPS is 47. Dropping to Medium yields 35 FPS, High yields 29 FPS, and Ultra drops to 21 FPS. These results demonstrate that even at the lowest resolution tested, the GPU cannot maintain 60 FPS, and any increase in quality settings causes significant performance degradation. The system shared memory design means that texture loading and geometry processing are severely hampered, making this GPU unsuitable for a game as demanding as Red Dead Redemption 2.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X paired with the Intel Arc B370 ranks 2670 out of 2902 tested combinations for Red Dead Redemption 2. This places the combo in the bottom 8% of all configurations tested, a position that reflects the GPU's fundamental inadequacy for this title.

It is important to contextualize this ranking against the individual components' standings. The CPU alone sits in the 81st percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 29713. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE (deltaPct 0.2%), AMD Ryzen 7 7840H (deltaPct -0.5%), AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT (deltaPct -0.6%), and AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS (deltaPct -0.8%). These are all competitive processors, and the 9600X's synthetic scores—such as 17528.5 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2183.5 in single-core—indicate a capable CPU.

In stark contrast, the GPU sits in the 5th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (deltaPct -0.2%), ATI Radeon HD 5770 (deltaPct -0.5%), AMD Radeon HD 7650M (deltaPct -0.7%), and AMD FirePro M2000 (deltaPct 1.4%). These rivals are all from an era predating modern game engines, and their performance levels are comparable to what the Arc B370 achieves.

The massive gap between the CPU's high percentile and the GPU's low percentile explains the combo's poor ranking. A top-tier processor paired with an entry-level integrated GPU creates a severely imbalanced system. The CPU is capable of feeding frames at a much higher rate than the GPU can render, meaning the system's overall performance is entirely dictated by the GPU's output. The combo rank of 2670 reflects this bottleneck, as nearly any discrete GPU from the past decade would outperform this integrated solution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Red Dead Redemption 2 with this combo spans four resolutions and four quality settings, providing a comprehensive picture of performance limitations.

At 1920x1080, the lowest resolution tested, the combo achieves 47 FPS on Low settings, 35 FPS on Medium settings, 29 FPS on High settings, and 21 FPS on Ultra settings. The Medium setting also records a minimum of 30 FPS and a maximum of 40 FPS, showing some frame-time variance. No configuration at 1080p reaches 60 FPS, and even the best case—47 FPS on Low—is below the standard for smooth gameplay.

Moving to 2560x1440, performance drops further. Low settings yield 35 FPS, Medium yields 26 FPS (with a minimum of 22 and maximum of 30), High yields 22 FPS, and Ultra drops to 16 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at this resolution is 19 FPS, representing a 54% decrease in performance when maxing out quality settings.

At 3840x2160, the results become largely unplayable. Low settings produce 23 FPS, Medium produces 17 FPS (minimum 15, maximum 20), High produces 14 FPS, and Ultra drops to 10 FPS. The Ultra result of 10 FPS represents a 79% decrease from the 1080p Low result of 47 FPS, illustrating the severe performance hit at 4K resolution.

Across all resolutions, the pattern is consistent: each step up in quality settings costs roughly 6-8 FPS at 1080p, 6-9 FPS at 1440p, and 4-6 FPS at 4K. The relative performance penalty of Ultra versus Low becomes more pronounced at higher resolutions, reflecting the GPU's inability to handle increased pixel counts and texture loads simultaneously.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals critical insights about the limiting component in this pairing. At Low settings, performance decreases from 47 FPS at 1920x1080 to 35 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 23 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 51% reduction from 1080p to 4K. At Medium settings, the drop is from 35 FPS to 26 FPS to 17 FPS, a 51% reduction as well. High settings go from 29 FPS to 22 FPS to 14 FPS, a 52% reduction. Ultra settings drop from 21 FPS to 16 FPS to 10 FPS, a 52% reduction.

The consistency of these percentages—hovering around 51-52% from 1080p to 4K—is notable. A purely GPU-bound scenario would typically show a larger relative drop at higher resolutions, as the pixel count increases by roughly 2.25x from 1080p to 4K. The fact that the drop is only about half suggests that the GPU is already so limited at 1080p that the additional resolution scaling has a somewhat muted effect.

This pattern indicates that the system is heavily GPU-limited at all resolutions. The GPU's system shared memory architecture means that even at 1080p, the rendering pipeline is starved for memory bandwidth. When resolution increases, the GPU must access even more texture data and geometry, but since it is already operating at its memory bandwidth ceiling, the additional resolution does not cause a proportional increase in frame time.

The data strongly suggests that the Intel Arc B370 is the limiting component. The CPU, with its 81st percentile ranking and strong synthetic scores, is not the constraint. Instead, the GPU's integrated nature and system shared memory design create a hard ceiling on performance that cannot be overcome by reducing resolution alone. Even at 1080p Low, the system only achieves 47 FPS, which is far below what the CPU could feed to a discrete GPU.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, codenamed Granite Ridge. It operates on the AMD Socket AM5 platform and uses a 4 nm process node from TSMC. The CPU has a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a TDP of 65 watts. Its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache.

The CPU's synthetic benchmark results indicate a strong processor. In Cinebench R23, it scores 17528.5 in multi-core and 2183.5 in single-core. Geekbench shows 14438 in multi-core and 2923 in single-core. Passmark results include a multi-thread score of 30027 and a single-thread score of 4570. The 3DMark scores scale from 2456 with 2 threads to 7590 with max threads, showing good thread scaling. The CPU's 81st percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms its position as a solid mid-range to upper-mid-range processor.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls, physics calculations, and AI logic. Given the game's 2018 release date and its optimization for multi-core processors, the 9600X's 6 cores and 12 threads should provide adequate processing power. The CPU's high single-thread performance, evidenced by the 2183.5 Cinebench R23 single-core score, is particularly relevant for a game that still relies on a primary game thread for much of its simulation logic.

However, the measured FPS data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in this system. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 47 FPS, which is far below what the CPU could support. If the CPU were the limiting factor, we would expect to see similar FPS across different quality settings at the same resolution, since the CPU workload does not scale dramatically with graphics quality. Instead, we see a clear decline from 47 FPS at Low to 21 FPS at Ultra, indicating that the GPU is the constraint.

The mismatch between CPU capability and GPU performance is stark. A processor in the 81st percentile paired with a GPU in the 5th percentile creates a system where the CPU is essentially idle-waiting for the GPU to complete rendering tasks. The CPU's strong benchmark scores—such as the 17528.5 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 14438 in Geekbench multi-core—suggest it could handle far more demanding graphics workloads if paired with a discrete GPU. In this configuration, the CPU's potential is entirely wasted, as the integrated GPU cannot utilize the frames the CPU is capable of preparing.