Red Dead Redemption 2

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 delivers a solid 1080p and 1440p experience in Red Dead Redemption 2, but the data shows that 4K Ultra is out of reach for smooth gameplay. This combination ranks 752nd out of 1687 tested combos, placing it in the upper-middle tier of systems, and the measured FPS reveals a clear pattern: the RTX 3070 dominates at lower resolutions, while the game's demanding settings quickly expose its 8 GB VRAM and the CPU's limits at higher presets.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 126.3 FPS at 1920x1080 to 94.5 FPS at 2560x1440, then plunges to 62.6 FPS at 3840x2160. That is a 50.4% reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the GPU is the primary scaling factor at lower presets. The pattern holds at Medium: 95.7 FPS at 1080p, 72.2 FPS at 1440p, and 43.6 FPS at 4K—a 54.4% drop from the lowest to highest resolution.

High settings show a similar trend, with 75.4 FPS at 1080p, 59.9 FPS at 1440p, and 39.6 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset is the most punishing: 57.2 FPS at 1080p, 42.9 FPS at 1440p, and just 27.8 FPS at 4K. The scaling from 1440p to 4K at Ultra is a 35.2% loss, while the jump from 1080p to 1440p costs 25.0%. This indicates that at 4K, the game is entirely GPU-bound—the RTX 3070 cannot maintain playable frame rates at higher presets, regardless of the CPU's capabilities. The data suggests that 1440p is the sweet spot for this combo, where High settings deliver nearly 60 FPS, and Low settings reach 94.5 FPS.

GPU Role

The RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA104 chip and 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 1500 MHz with a boost of 1725 MHz, and it houses 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output units. The GPU's 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores are present, but in Red Dead Redemption 2, traditional rasterization performance is what matters most.

The 8 GB VRAM is a limiting factor at 4K Ultra, where the frame rate drops to 27.8 FPS. This is not a clock speed issue—the boost clock of 1725 MHz is adequate—but a memory capacity problem. The game's high-resolution textures and Ultra settings likely exceed the 8 GB buffer, causing stutters and reduced frame rates. At 1080p and 1440p, the VRAM is sufficient, as evidenced by the 57.2 FPS at Ultra 1080p and 42.9 FPS at Ultra 1440p. The GPU's PassMark G3D score is 22214, which places it in the 72nd percentile among all GPUs, and its average benchmark score of 28238 is just 0.9% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT and 1.0% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti. These rival scores confirm that the RTX 3070 is a strong performer, but not a top-tier card for 4K gaming.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific CPU-GPU combination ranks 752nd out of 1687 tested combos in Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the 44.6th percentile of all systems tested. That ranking reflects a balanced pairing—neither component is severely bottlenecking the other, but the combo is not exceptional either. The Ryzen 7 3700X has a percentile of 85 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 28631, while the RTX 3070 has a percentile of 72 and an average score of 28238. The CPU is slightly stronger relative to its peers than the GPU, which suggests the RTX 3070 is the more limiting factor in this game.

The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i5-12600, which scores 28654 (0.1% higher), and the AMD Ryzen 5 5600XT at 28591 (0.1% lower). These tiny deltas indicate that the 3700X is well-matched against modern mid-range processors. The GPU's nearest rivals include the AMD FirePro S7150 (28409, 0.6% higher) and the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT (27985, 0.9% higher than the 3070's score). The ranking of 752nd suggests that many combos outperform this one, likely due to newer CPUs or higher-tier GPUs, but the measured FPS data shows this combo still handles 1080p and 1440p admirably.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience per the measured rows, the data points to Medium settings at 1440p as the optimal balance. At 2560x1440 Medium, the combo delivers 72.2 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. High settings at 1440p drop to 59.9 FPS, still playable but borderline, while Ultra at 1440p falls to 42.9 FPS, which is too low for fast-paced action. At 1080p, Medium settings yield 95.7 FPS, and High gives 75.4 FPS—both excellent—but the visual fidelity gain from 1440p Medium over 1080p High is substantial.

At 4K, the only playable option is Low settings, which produce 62.6 FPS. Medium 4K drops to 43.6 FPS, High to 39.6 FPS, and Ultra to 27.8 FPS—none of these are ideal for a game that requires precise aiming and quick camera movements. The data suggests that for a 60 FPS target, 1440p Medium is the sweet spot, while 1080p Medium or High offers headroom for smoother frame rates. If 4K is a priority, the user must accept Low settings, which sacrifice significant visual quality.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 126.3 FPS on Low, 95.7 FPS on Medium, 75.4 FPS on High, and 57.2 FPS on Ultra. The jump from Low to Medium costs 24.3% of performance, while Medium to High costs 21.2%, and High to Ultra costs 24.1%. These are consistent drops, indicating that the GPU is handling the load well at this resolution, with no single setting causing a disproportionate hit.

At 2560x1440, the numbers are 94.5 FPS on Low, 72.2 FPS on Medium, 59.9 FPS on High, and 42.9 FPS on Ultra. The drop from Low to Medium is 23.6%, Medium to High is 17.0%, and High to Ultra is 28.4%. The larger drop at Ultra suggests the 8 GB VRAM is starting to feel pressure at this resolution. At 3840x2160, the results are 62.6 FPS on Low, 43.6 FPS on Medium, 39.6 FPS on High, and 27.8 FPS on Ultra. The scaling from Low to Medium is 30.4%, Medium to High is 9.2%, and High to Ultra is 29.8%. The small difference between Medium and High at 4K (43.6 vs 39.6 FPS) suggests the game is becoming bottlenecked by memory bandwidth or capacity rather than raw compute power.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, codenamed Matisse, built on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost of 4.40 GHz, with 32 MB of L3 cache. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 19087, and single-core is 2694, while Geekbench multi-core is 8083 and single-core is 1672. These scores indicate strong multi-threaded performance, which is relevant for Red Dead Redemption 2's open-world simulation.

The CPU's PassMark multithread score is 22458, and its physics score is 1181. In this game, the 3700X is not the limiting factor at 1080p—the GPU handles the load, as shown by the high frame rates at Low settings (126.3 FPS). However, at 4K Ultra, the CPU's role diminishes because the GPU is overwhelmed, but at 1080p Ultra (57.2 FPS), the CPU is still keeping up with the RTX 3070's output. The 3700X's 16 threads help maintain consistent frame pacing in busy scenes, and its 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms it is a capable processor. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-12600, scores only 0.1% higher, so there is no meaningful difference in compute power. The 3700X's TDP is 65 W, and it supports DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s, which is adequate for this game's demands. The data shows that the CPU is not a bottleneck until frame rates exceed 120 FPS, which only occurs at 1080p Low, so for most settings, the RTX 3070 is the deciding factor.