Red Dead Redemption 2

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and Intel Arc B580 combination delivers a highly variable experience in Red Dead Redemption 2, with performance dictated almost entirely by the graphics settings and resolution chosen. The data shows a system that can produce playable frame rates at lower presets but struggles to maintain smooth gameplay when graphical demands are maximized, revealing a clear bottleneck in the GPU under heavy loads.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, pointing directly at the Intel Arc B580 as the primary limiting factor. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 91 FPS at 1920x1080 to 46.1 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of roughly 49%. This near-halving of performance as pixel count quadruples demonstrates that the GPU is saturated even at the lowest quality preset when resolution increases.

The scaling pattern becomes more severe at higher settings. Moving from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings drops the average from 69.3 FPS to 35.7 FPS, while High settings see a decline from 57.4 FPS to 27.2 FPS. The most demanding preset, Ultra, shows the starkest result: 38.1 FPS at 1080p falls to just 22.1 FPS at 4K. These numbers indicate that the Arc B580’s 13.67 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 456.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth are insufficient to maintain fluid motion when the render resolution climbs, regardless of the quality preset.

At 2560x1440, the intermediate resolution, the frame rates sit between the 1080p and 4K extremes. Low settings deliver 67.9 FPS, which is playable, but Ultra drops to 29.5 FPS. The data suggests that 1440p is only viable for this combination at Low or perhaps Medium settings, with High already falling below the 60 FPS threshold at 41.7 FPS. The consistent drop across all settings—not just the highest ones—confirms that resolution scaling is the dominant variable, and the CPU’s role diminishes as pixel count increases.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested combinations for Red Dead Redemption 2, this pairing ranks 1297 out of 1687 total combos, placing it in the lower 23% of all tested systems. The percentileVsAllCpus for the Ryzen 5 9600X is 85, meaning it outperforms 85% of all CPUs in general benchmarks, yet the combo rank is dragged down significantly by the GPU’s performance ceiling. This discrepancy highlights that the Arc B580, which sits at the 66th percentile among all GPUs, is the limiting component in this specific game.

The combo rank of 1297 suggests that while the CPU is capable, the overall system performance is held back by the graphics card. The Arc B580’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 with an average score of 23181 and a deltaPct of -0.7, meaning the Arc B580 is just 0.7% slower on average. Similarly, the AMD Radeon 760M is 0.1% slower, and the NVIDIA P106-100 is 0.3% slower. These close margins indicate that the Arc B580 is competitive with these cards in synthetic benchmarks, but in Red Dead Redemption 2, the 12 GB of GDDR6 memory and 192-bit bus width may not be enough to overcome the game’s heavy reliance on GPU compute.

The CPU’s nearest rivals show a much tighter grouping. The Intel Core i5-13490F is 0.3% faster, and the AMD Ryzen 5 230 is also 0.3% faster, while the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS is 0.4% slower. These small deltas confirm that the Ryzen 5 9600X is well-positioned among its peers, but this strength is not reflected in the game’s combo ranking, further emphasizing the GPU’s role as the bottleneck.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 9600X is built on the Zen 5 architecture using a 4 nm process, featuring 6 cores and 12 threads. Its base clock of 3.90 GHz can boost up to 5.40 GHz, providing strong single-thread performance that is critical for game logic and frame pacing. The CPU’s L3 cache is 32 MB shared, which helps reduce memory latency, and its dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth ensures the GPU receives data without stalling.

In synthetic benchmarks, the 9600X scores 3603 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 25525 in multi-core, placing it in the 85th percentile among all CPUs. Its 3DMark single-thread score is 1253, and the max-thread score is 7590, showing that while multi-threaded performance is solid, the single-thread strength is where it excels. The Passmark single-thread score of 4570 further validates this, indicating the CPU can handle the per-core demands of Red Dead Redemption 2’s engine without becoming a limiting factor.

The data shows that at 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 91 FPS, which is the highest recorded frame rate in the measured set. This suggests that even at lower resolutions where CPU load is relatively higher, the 9600X is not holding back the Arc B580. However, as resolution increases, the CPU’s role diminishes, and the GPU takes over as the primary performance determinant. The CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient for this game, and its high boost clock ensures that the frame time variance remains low, contributing to consistent average FPS numbers rather than erratic spikes.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the lowest resolution tested, the system shows a wide range of performance depending on settings. Low settings yield 91 FPS, which is smooth and responsive. Medium settings produce 69.3 FPS, still comfortably above the 60 FPS target. High settings drop to 57.4 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for competitive play. Ultra settings, however, bring the average down to 38.1 FPS, indicating that the Arc B580 cannot handle the game’s highest quality preset even at 1080p.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates drop by roughly 26% to 30% compared to 1080p at the same settings. Low settings deliver 67.9 FPS, which is acceptable, but Medium falls to 50.8 FPS, and High drops to 41.7 FPS. Ultra settings at 1440p produce a meager 29.5 FPS, making this preset effectively unplayable for most users. The step from 1080p to 1440p shows that the GPU’s memory bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s is insufficient to maintain high frame rates as pixel count increases.

At 3840x2160, the results are poor across all settings. Low settings manage 46.1 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold, while Medium yields 35.7 FPS, High drops to 27.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 22.1 FPS. These numbers clearly illustrate that 4K gaming is not a viable option for this combination, even at the lowest quality settings. The 12 GB of VRAM is not the issue—rather, it is the GPU’s raw compute power of 13.67 TFLOPS that limits the fill rate needed for 4K resolution.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 is based on the Xe2-HPG architecture and manufactured on a 5 nm process. It features 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, with a boost clock of 2670 MHz. The GPU’s pixel rate is 213.6 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 427.2 GTexel/s, which are moderate figures for a card in this segment. The 12 GB of GDDR6 memory operates on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s.

In synthetic benchmarks, the Arc B580 scores 15748 in Passmark G3D and 3068 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, placing it in the 66th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060, has an average score of 23181, which is only 0.7% higher, indicating that the Arc B580 is broadly comparable in raw compute. However, in Red Dead Redemption 2, the card’s performance suggests that the game’s engine may not fully utilize the Xe2-HPG architecture’s strengths, or the driver overhead is higher than expected.

The GPU’s memory clock is 2375 MHz, with an effective speed of 19 Gbps, which is adequate for 1080p and 1440p gameplay but falls short for 4K. The frame rates at 4K Ultra (22.1 FPS) and 4K High (27.2 FPS) indicate that the card is severely bandwidth-limited at this resolution. The 80 ROPs are also a limiting factor, as the pixel fill rate of 213.6 GPixel/s is not sufficient to drive 4K at high quality settings. The data confirms that the Arc B580 is the primary constraint in this system, and its performance in Red Dead Redemption 2 is below what its synthetic benchmark scores might suggest, making it a better fit for 1080p gaming at medium to high settings rather than higher resolutions.