Red Dead Redemption 2

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Red Dead Redemption 2 with the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 show a clear progression as resolution increases, but the scaling pattern reveals important details about which component is driving performance at each setting. At the High preset, the transition from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 drops the average frame rate from 126 FPS to 94 FPS, a reduction of approximately 25 percent. Moving further to 3840x2160 yields 62 FPS on average, which represents another 34 percent decrease from the 1440p result. This consistent decline as pixel count rises points toward the GPU becoming progressively more stressed at higher resolutions, though the RTX 5080 still maintains playable frame rates even at 4K with High settings.

The Low preset tells a different story. At 1920x1080, the combination achieves 158 FPS on average, but this only climbs to 144 FPS at 2560x1440 and then drops to 99 FPS at 3840x2160. The relatively small gap between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings—just 14 FPS—suggests that the CPU is beginning to limit performance at the lower resolutions when the graphical load is light. The Ryzen 7 3700X, with its 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 2 architecture, appears to be reaching its ceiling in this scenario, preventing the RTX 5080 from fully stretching its legs at 1080p Low.

The Medium preset shows a middle ground between these two extremes. Frame rates sit at 142 FPS at 1080p, decline to 112 FPS at 1440p, and settle at 74 FPS for 4K. The measured minimum and maximum values for Medium settings are informative as well: at 1080p the range spans from 121 FPS to 164 FPS, at 1440p it narrows to 95 FPS to 129 FPS, and at 4K the range compresses to 63 FPS to 85 FPS. This tightening of the frame time distribution at higher resolutions further indicates that the GPU is becoming the dominant bottleneck as pixel count increases, reducing the variability that CPU-driven scenes can introduce.

Ultra settings deliver the lowest frame rates across all resolutions, with 90 FPS at 1080p, 67 FPS at 1440p, and 45 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the baseline for smooth gameplay, though the other presets remain comfortably above that line. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Ultra represents a 50 percent reduction in average frame rate, which is a steeper drop than what the High preset shows, reinforcing that the most demanding settings place the heaviest burden on the GPU.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is a desktop processor from the 3000 series, built on the Zen 2 architecture with the Matisse codename using a 7 nm process from TSMC. It features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. The processor has a 32 MB L3 cache, with 64 KB of L1 and 512 KB of L2 per core, and supports DDR4 memory in a dual-channel configuration with 51.2 GB/s of memory bandwidth. Its general benchmark scores place it at the 84th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 34260. In the Cinebench R15 multi-core test it scores 2092, while the single-core result is 204; Geekbench yields 8899 multi-core and 1593 single-core figures.

The Ryzen 7 3700X sits close to several rivals in average benchmark score. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 scores 34222, which is 0.1 percent lower, while the AMD EPYC 4244P matches at 34220, also 0.1 percent below. The Intel Core i5-13450HX comes in at 34333, representing a 0.2 percent advantage, and the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H scores 34083, which is 0.5 percent lower. These narrow deltas indicate that the 3700X is positioned in a competitive mid-range tier, and in gaming scenarios the processor's multithreading capabilities from its 16 threads can help maintain consistent frame pacing when many game systems are active simultaneously.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU role becomes most apparent at lower resolutions and lighter settings. The data shows that at 1080p with Low settings, the combination reaches 158 FPS, which is the highest result across the entire measured set but still below what the RTX 5080 would likely deliver if it were fully unconstrained. The boost clock of 4.40 GHz provides adequate single-thread performance for the game's main simulation loop, while the 8 physical cores handle the various background tasks that Red Dead Redemption 2 runs, such as AI, physics, and streaming. The processor's 65 W TDP suggests it operates within a modest power envelope, but the measured frame rates do not indicate that thermal throttling is limiting performance in these tests.

The PassMark multithread score of 22458 and the PassMark physics score of 1181 offer additional context for how the processor handles computational workloads that games generate. While the game is not running these exact synthetic tests, the physics score in particular relates to the kind of rigid body and character simulation that Red Dead Redemption 2 uses extensively. The data compression score of 296379 and integer math score of 66399 reflect general processing capability that can influence how quickly game assets are decompressed during level streaming.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is the graphics card in this combination, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB203 chip using a 5 nm process from TSMC. It carries 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 960.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The GPU has 10752 shading units, 336 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output pipelines, along with 84 ray tracing cores and 336 tensor cores. Its base clock runs at 2295 MHz with a boost clock of 2617 MHz, while the memory operates at 1875 MHz with 30 Gbps effective speed. The card's raw compute capability is rated at 56.28 TFLOPS for FP32 operations, with a pixel rate of 293.1 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 879.3 GTexel/s.

The RTX 5080's benchmark performance places it at the 87th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 56083. Its nearest rivals in aggregate score include the AMD Radeon 8060S at 55757, which is 0.6 percent lower, and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB at 55698, also 0.7 percent lower. On the other side, the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54828, sitting 2.3 percent below, while the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE achieves 57367, representing a 2.2 percent advantage. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the card scores 8637, and it reaches 255450 in Geekbench Vulkan and 235901 in Geekbench OpenCL.

The 16 GB of VRAM is particularly relevant for Red Dead Redemption 2, a game that can consume significant memory at high resolutions and detail levels. The measured frame rates show that the GPU maintains playable performance across all tested settings, with the most demanding configuration—3840x2160 at Ultra—still producing 45 FPS on average. The memory bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s ensures that texture streaming and high-resolution assets do not become a bottleneck, which is evident in the relatively smooth scaling from 1440p to 4K compared to what a lower-bandwidth card might exhibit.

The GPU's boost clock of 2617 MHz and the high shading unit count contribute to the strong rasterization performance that Red Dead Redemption 2 requires. The game is not particularly ray tracing intensive in its default settings, so the 84 RT cores are less impactful here, but the sheer number of traditional shader units drives the fill rate needed for the game's dense vegetation and detailed character models. The 112 ROPs, combined with the 293.1 GPixel/s pixel rate, ensure that the final output stage keeps up with the rendering pipeline even at 4K resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

In the measured database of tested combinations, the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 achieves a rank of 354 out of 3714 total combos for Red Dead Redemption 2. This places the pairing in roughly the top 9.5 percent of all tested systems, indicating that this combination delivers strong performance relative to the broader field. The ranking reflects the entire system's capability in this specific game, accounting for both the CPU's Zen 2 architecture and the GPU's Blackwell 2.0 design working together.

The position at 354 out of 3714 suggests that while the RTX 5080 is a high-end graphics card, the Ryzen 7 3700X from the 3000 series is not the newest processor available, and this pairing sits below the absolute top configurations. The GPU's 87th percentile ranking among all GPUs is higher than the CPU's 84th percentile, which implies that the processor is the slightly weaker link in this pairing. However, the difference is small, and the overall combo rank of 354 demonstrates that the system still outperforms the vast majority of tested configurations.

Compared to the CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score, none of those processors appear in the measured FPS data for this game, so direct in-game comparisons are not available. What the data does show is that the Ryzen 7 3700X holds its own against newer processors in synthetic benchmarks, with deltas of less than one percent in either direction. This suggests that the combo's rank is primarily driven by GPU performance, with the CPU contributing enough headroom to avoid becoming a severe limiting factor at most settings.

Settings Recommendations

Examining the measured FPS rows, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 offers an average of 112 FPS with a minimum of 95 FPS and a maximum of 129 FPS. This configuration provides a strong balance between visual fidelity and performance, staying well above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining smooth frame delivery. At 3840x2160, the Medium preset delivers 74 FPS on average with a minimum of 63 FPS, which keeps the experience above the 60 FPS line even at 4K, making this the highest resolution that sustains a comfortable frame rate across all tested presets.

For players prioritizing maximum visual quality, the Ultra preset at 2560x1440 produces 67 FPS on average, which is playable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes. The High preset at 4K achieves 62 FPS on average, which is nearly identical to the 1440p Ultra result and provides a better visual experience due to the higher resolution. Comparing the High preset across resolutions, 1080p yields 126 FPS, 1440p yields 94 FPS, and 4K yields 62 FPS, showing that High settings at 1440p offers a particularly attractive combination of quality and speed.

The Low preset is not recommended for this hardware combination, as even at 4K it produces 99 FPS, which is higher than what most displays can show, and the visual sacrifices at Low settings are substantial. The data indicates that Medium at 1440p or High at 1440p are the sweet spots, with the former providing higher minimum frame rates and the latter offering better image quality at a modest FPS cost. For 4K displays, Medium is the safest choice to maintain 60 FPS, while High barely clears the threshold and Ultra falls short.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 158 FPS on average, the Medium preset reaches 142 FPS with a minimum of 121 FPS and maximum of 164 FPS, the High preset delivers 126 FPS, and the Ultra preset produces 90 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 68 FPS, demonstrating the significant performance cost of the highest quality settings at this resolution. The Medium preset's measured range of 121 to 164 FPS shows that even at 1080p, frame rates can vary considerably depending on scene complexity.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset yields 144 FPS, Medium delivers 112 FPS with a minimum of 95 FPS and maximum of 129 FPS, High achieves 94 FPS, and Ultra drops to 67 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 77 FPS, which is larger than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU's workload at higher resolutions amplifies the differences between quality presets. The Medium preset's minimum of 95 FPS at 1440p is the lowest minimum recorded across all Medium settings, but it remains well above the 60 FPS threshold.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset manages 99 FPS, Medium achieves 74 FPS with a minimum of 63 FPS and maximum of 85 FPS, High delivers 62 FPS, and Ultra falls to 45 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the only measured configuration that drops below 60 FPS, and it does so by a margin of 15 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K provides a minimum of 63 FPS, which just clears the 60 FPS line, but the high preset's average of 62 FPS leaves no room for frame drops without dipping below the threshold.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved by this combination in Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: The highest measured average is 158 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with the Low preset.

Q: Does this combo maintain 60 FPS at 4K resolution?

A: Yes, at 4K the Low preset averages 99 FPS, Medium averages 74 FPS with a minimum of 63 FPS, and High averages 62 FPS. Only the Ultra preset falls below 60 FPS with an average of 45 FPS.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in average benchmark score?

A: The Ryzen 7 3700X has an average score of 34260. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 scores 34222, which is 0.1 percent lower; the AMD EPYC 4244P scores 34220, also 0.1 percent lower; the Intel Core i5-13450HX scores 34333, 0.2 percent higher; and the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H scores 34083, 0.5 percent lower.

Q: What is the frame rate range for Medium settings at 2560x1440?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 produces an average of 112 FPS, with a measured minimum of 95 FPS and maximum of 129 FPS.

Q: How does the GPU's percentile ranking compare to the CPU's?

A: The RTX 5080 is at the 87th percentile among all GPUs, while the Ryzen 7 3700X is at the 84th percentile among all CPUs. The GPU also has a higher average benchmark score of 56083 compared to the CPU's 34260.

Q: What rank does this CPU and GPU combination achieve in the measured database for this game?

A: The combination ranks 354 out of 3714 tested combos for Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the top tier of tested systems.