Red Dead Redemption 2

# Resolution Scaling

Red Dead Redemption 2 exhibits pronounced resolution sensitivity with this AMD Ryzen 7 7700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination. The measured FPS data shows a clear progression: at 1080p Low, the system delivers 214 FPS, which drops to 160 FPS at 1440p Low, and further to 106 FPS at 4K Low. This represents a 50% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings, indicating that the GPU becomes increasingly dominant as pixel count rises.

At Medium settings, the scaling pattern tightens. The 1080p result of 161 FPS falls to 120 FPS at 1440p, then to 79 FPS at 4K. The 4K Medium figure represents a 51% drop from the 1080p Medium result. Notably, the 4K Medium measurement includes a minimum FPS of 67 and a maximum of 91, showing frame-time variance of roughly 24 FPS within the run.

High settings tell a similar story but with a steeper curve. The 134 FPS at 1080p High decreases to 100 FPS at 1440p High and bottoms out at 66 FPS for 4K High. The 4K High result is exactly half of the 1080p High figure, reinforcing the notion that pixel throughput is the primary constraint at higher resolutions.

Ultra settings compress the frame rates further. The 1080p Ultra result reaches 96 FPS, 1440p Ultra drops to 72 FPS, and 4K Ultra falls to 48 FPS. The 4K Ultra figure is precisely 50% of the 1080p Ultra score, matching the pattern seen at High. This consistent halving from 1080p to 4K across both High and Ultra presets suggests that the rendering pipeline scales nearly linearly with pixel count once settings are elevated.

The resolution scaling behavior indicates that at 1080p, the CPU has ample headroom to feed the RTX 4090, while at 4K, the GPU's shading and memory subsystems become the limiting factor. The gap between Low and Ultra at each resolution widens as resolution increases: at 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 118 FPS; at 1440p, it is 88 FPS; at 4K, it narrows to 58 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions implies that the GPU's fixed cost per frame dominates, leaving less room for settings-driven variation.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 serves as the primary performance driver in this configuration, particularly at higher resolutions. The GPU's 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus delivers a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s, which proves critical for Red Dead Redemption 2's large texture datasets. The memory clock runs at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective speed, providing the throughput necessary to sustain high-resolution rendering without stutter.

The Ada Lovelace architecture powers 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs. The GPU's base clock of 2235 MHz boosts to 2520 MHz, and the pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s combined with a texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s explains the strong 4K performance. The FP32 throughput of 82.58 TFLOPS allows the card to handle complex shader workloads in this game's open-world environment.

The RTX 4090's 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores are present, though Red Dead Redemption 2's rasterization-focused rendering means these features have limited direct impact on the measured results. The 82.58 TFLOPS FP16 performance mirrors the FP32 figure at a 1:1 ratio, indicating the card is not artificially limited in compute capability. The GPU's transistor count of 76,300 million on a 5 nm TSMC process with a die size of 609 mm² reflects the substantial hardware investment required for these frame rates.

The GPU's benchmark scores corroborate the gaming results. The PassMark G3D score of 38,194 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 271,631 place the RTX 4090 in the 88th percentile of all GPUs. The nearest rivals in the database include the Intel Arc Pro A60 with a delta of 0%, the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 at 0.3% higher, and the AMD Radeon PRO V710 at 2.9% higher, though these comparisons reflect synthetic workloads rather than direct gaming performance.

At 4K Ultra, the 48 FPS average suggests the GPU is fully utilized, as the settings demand maximum shader complexity and memory bandwidth. The 24 GB frame buffer ensures that even at Ultra settings, texture streaming does not exceed available VRAM, allowing the card to maintain consistent performance without swapping.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X provides the computational foundation for this combo, with 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 4 Raphael architecture. The base clock of 4.50 GHz boosts to 5.40 GHz, and the 32 MB shared L3 cache (along with 1 MB L2 per core) ensures that game logic and draw-call processing are handled without bottlenecking the GPU. The 5 nm process with 6,570 million transistors on a 71 mm² die demonstrates high efficiency per clock.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s via dual-channel DDR5 support (with ECC capability) feeds the GPU with data at a rate sufficient for the measured frame times. The 16 threads allow Red Dead Redemption 2 to distribute its simulation and rendering tasks across multiple cores, as indicated by the 3DMark 16-thread score of 8,859 versus the 2-thread score of 2,112 — a scaling factor of 4.2x, suggesting good multi-core utilization.

Synthetic benchmarks show the 7700X's capability: Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 19,088 and single-core score of 1,987, Geekbench multi-core of 12,451 and single-core of 2,289. The PassMark multi-thread score of 35,686 places the CPU in the 85th percentile of all processors. The nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 at 0.3% higher, Intel Core 7 250H at 0.5% higher, and AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 350 at 0.5% higher, showing the 7700X sits within a tight performance cluster.

At 1080p Low, the CPU's role becomes more apparent. The 214 FPS result indicates that the 7700X can process frames fast enough to keep the RTX 4090 busy even at low graphical load. However, the scaling from 1080p to 4K at Low settings (214 to 106 FPS) shows that the GPU, not the CPU, defines the ceiling once resolution increases. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1,090 and PassMark single-thread score of 4,190 confirm that the CPU has sufficient per-core performance for this game's primary thread, which typically handles player input and world-state updates.

The 8-core/16-thread configuration proves adequate for Red Dead Redemption 2's multi-threaded subsystems, including physics, NPC AI, and streaming. The L3 cache of 32 MB shared across cores helps reduce memory latency, which is beneficial for the game's open-world data access patterns.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum average FPS achievable with this combo?

A: The highest measured average FPS is 214, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This drops to 134 FPS at 1080p High and 96 FPS at 1080p Ultra.

Q: Does the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM cause any issues in Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: The 24 GB GDDR6X frame buffer is more than sufficient for this game. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 48, and the 1.01 TB/s bandwidth ensures texture streaming remains consistent without VRAM-related frame drops.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 7700X compare to its nearest CPU rivals in synthetic tests?

A: The 7700X has an average benchmark score of 35,909, which is 0.3% lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845, 0.5% lower than the Intel Core 7 250H, and 0.7% lower than the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H. These deltas are minimal, showing near-parity.

Q: What is the frame-time variance at 4K Medium?

A: At 3840x2160 with Medium settings, the average FPS is 79, with a minimum of 67 and maximum of 91. This 24 FPS spread indicates some frame pacing variation under load.

Q: Is the combo better suited for 1080p or 4K gaming?

A: The data shows 1080p delivers 96-214 FPS depending on settings, while 4K delivers 48-106 FPS. The combo handles both well, but 1440p offers a balanced middle ground with 72-160 FPS across settings.

Q: How does the GPU's synthetic performance compare to its gaming results?

A: The RTX 4090's PassMark G3D score of 38,194 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 271,631 place it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs. The gaming results align with this, as Ultra settings at 4K still produce a playable 48 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

This AMD Ryzen 7 7700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination ranks 134th out of 3,714 tested combos for Red Dead Redemption 2. This places the combo in the top 3.6% of all configurations in the database, a strong showing given the game's demanding nature.

The rank reflects the balance between the CPU's 85th percentile standing and the GPU's 88th percentile standing. The 3,714 total combos include both lower-end and higher-end pairings, and the 134th position indicates that only 133 other configurations deliver higher average frame rates in this title. The ranking suggests that while this is a high-end setup, there are still faster combinations available, likely featuring newer generation hardware or more specialized configurations.

The delta between this combo's rank and its component percentiles highlights that Red Dead Redemption 2 rewards both strong single-threaded CPU performance and massive GPU throughput. The 7700X's single-core score of 1,987 in Cinebench R23 and the RTX 4090's 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 combine to produce the measured results, and the rank of 134 validates that this pairing is well-matched for the game's workload characteristics.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 214 FPS average
• Medium: 161 FPS average, 136 FPS minimum, 185 FPS maximum
• High: 134 FPS average
• Ultra: 96 FPS average

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 160 FPS average
• Medium: 120 FPS average, 102 FPS minimum, 138 FPS maximum
• High: 100 FPS average
• Ultra: 72 FPS average

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 106 FPS average
• Medium: 79 FPS average, 67 FPS minimum, 91 FPS maximum
• High: 66 FPS average
• Ultra: 48 FPS average

The complete dataset shows a consistent pattern: each settings tier up reduces FPS by roughly 20-30%, and each resolution step up reduces FPS by a similar magnitude. The Medium preset is the only tier with full min/max data, showing that the frame time variance is modest at 1440p (36 FPS spread) and slightly larger at 4K (24 FPS spread).

The transition from Low to Medium at each resolution costs approximately 25% of the frame rate: 214 to 161 FPS at 1080p, 160 to 120 FPS at 1440p, and 106 to 79 FPS at 4K. The jump from Medium to High incurs a similar penalty, with 1080p dropping from 161 to 134 FPS, 1440p from 120 to 100 FPS, and 4K from 79 to 66 FPS. The Ultra preset takes the largest toll, with 1080p falling from 134 to 96 FPS, 1440p from 100 to 72 FPS, and 4K from 66 to 48 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

For 4K displays, the High preset at 66 FPS average offers the best balance of visual fidelity and smoothness. The Ultra preset at 48 FPS is playable but dips below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for fluid gameplay. Medium at 79 FPS provides a safer margin for action sequences, but the visual downgrade from High is noticeable given the RTX 4090's capabilities. The 4K Low preset at 106 FPS is excessive for most users, as the graphical compromises outweigh the frame rate gains.

At 1440p, the High preset at 100 FPS is the recommended choice. It maintains a comfortable frame rate while preserving the game's detailed environments. The Ultra preset at 72 FPS is also viable for users who prioritize maximum image quality over frame rate, as 72 FPS remains above the 60 FPS smoothness threshold. Medium at 120 FPS suits competitive or fast-paced play, while Low at 160 FPS is unnecessary unless chasing maximum responsiveness.

For 1080p users, the Ultra preset at 96 FPS delivers the full visual experience without sacrificing playability. The High preset at 134 FPS is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors (144Hz class), and Medium at 161 FPS exceeds the refresh rate of most standard displays. The Low preset at 214 FPS is only relevant for esports-style play or extreme refresh rate panels.

The data indicates that the Medium preset is the most consistent across all resolutions, with the only complete min/max measurements showing stable frame delivery. The 4K Medium minimum of 67 FPS ensures that even the heaviest scenes remain above 60 FPS, making it the safest choice for 4K gaming on this combo. For 1440p, High strikes the best balance, while 1080p users can push to Ultra without concern.