Red Dead Redemption 2

# Red Dead Redemption 2 with AMD Ryzen 7 9700F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 delivers a playable but not exceptional experience in Red Dead Redemption 2, according to measured benchmark data. This combination ranks 1760th out of 2902 tested combos for this game, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the field. The CPU is a strong performer in general workloads, sitting at the 94th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU ranks at the 66th percentile among all GPUs. The pairing produces frame rates that range from 22 FPS at 4K Ultra to 98 FPS at 1080p Low, with the most realistic gaming scenarios falling between 44 and 73 FPS depending on resolution and settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for smooth gameplay?

A: Based on the measured FPS data, 1080p High delivers 61 FPS average, which is the highest quality setting that maintains a 60+ FPS average. For higher resolutions, 1440p Low achieves 73 FPS, but 1440p High drops to 46 FPS. At 4K, even Low settings only reach 48 FPS, so 4K gaming requires accepting sub-60 FPS performance.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 9700F perform relative to other CPUs?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F has an average benchmark score of 69996, placing it at the 94th percentile of all CPUs. It sits within 0.9% of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515 score), 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875), and 0.2% behind the Intel Core i7-14700KF (70163). The Intel Core i7-14700K scores 69355, which is 0.9% lower than the 9700F.

Q: Is the RTX 5050 a strong GPU for this game?

A: The RTX 5050 ranks at the 66th percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 21035. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT, scores 20713, which is 1.6% lower. The AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL scores 21153 (0.6% higher), and the AMD Radeon HD 8970M scores 21237 (1% higher). The NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile scores 21379, which is 1.6% higher.

Q: How much does the CPU contribute to gaming performance?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F has 8 cores and 16 threads with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its PassMark single-thread score is 4691 and multithread score is 36470. For Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU's strong single-thread performance helps maintain frame rates at lower resolutions where the GPU is less stressed, but at 4K the GPU becomes the limiting factor.

Q: What frame rates can I expect at 1440p with medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the measured average FPS is 55, with a minimum of 46 and maximum of 63. This is the only 1440p setting that provides min/max data, indicating it was the primary test configuration. For comparison, 1440p High averages 46 FPS and 1440p Low averages 73 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 5050's memory configuration affect performance?

A: The RTX 5050 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 320.0 GB/s bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 2500 MHz with 20 Gbps effective speed. In Red Dead Redemption 2, this 8 GB capacity appears sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming at most settings, but at 4K Ultra the game demands more memory bandwidth, contributing to the low 22 FPS average.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of AMD Ryzen 7 9700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 ranks 1760th out of 2902 tested combos specifically for Red Dead Redemption 2. This places the pairing in the 39th percentile of all tested combinations for this title, meaning roughly 60% of tested combos perform better. The rank reflects the overall balance of CPU and GPU capabilities in this specific game.

The CPU alone is a high performer, sitting at the 94th percentile among all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 69996. This indicates the processor is not the bottleneck in most scenarios. The GPU, however, ranks at the 66th percentile among all GPUs with an average score of 21035, which is considerably lower. The gap between CPU and GPU percentile rankings suggests the graphics card holds back the system in GPU-intensive scenarios like 4K gaming.

Looking at the nearest rival CPUs, the Ryzen 7 9700F is essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875 score, 0.2% difference) and the Intel Core i7-14700KF (70163 score, 0.2% difference). The Ryzen 9 7950X trails by 0.7% (69515) and the Core i7-14700K by 0.9% (69355). This tight grouping means the CPU choice among these options makes little difference for gaming performance.

For the GPU, the RTX 5050's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT (20713, 1.6% lower) and the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL (21153, 0.6% higher). The performance deltas are small, indicating the RTX 5050 sits in a crowded performance tier. The NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile is 1.6% higher at 21379, and the AMD Radeon HD 8970M is 1% higher at 21237.

The combination rank of 1760 out of 2902 suggests that while both components are competent individually, their pairing doesn't excel in this particular game. The CPU's strong benchmark scores don't translate to proportionally strong gaming performance because the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using the GB207 chip, manufactured on TSMC's 5 nm process. The chip contains 16,900 million transistors on a 149 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 113.4M per mm². The GPU has 2560 shading units, 80 texture mapping units, 32 raster output units, 20 ray tracing cores, and 80 tensor cores.

Clock speeds are modest for the 50-series: base clock of 2317 MHz and boost clock of 2572 MHz. The memory runs at 2500 MHz with 20 Gbps effective speed across an 8 GB GDDR6 configuration on a 128-bit bus. This yields 320.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is a limiting factor in Red Dead Redemption 2 at high resolutions.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 13.17 TFLOPS for both FP32 and FP16 (1:1 ratio). Pixel rate is 82.30 GPixel/s and texture rate is 205.8 GTexel/s. These figures place the RTX 5050 as a mid-range card, which aligns with its 66th percentile ranking among all GPUs.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the GPU's 8 GB memory capacity becomes a constraint at 4K resolution. The measured FPS drops from 48 at 4K Low to 30 at 4K High to 22 at 4K Ultra, showing a steep decline as texture quality and other memory-intensive settings increase. The 128-bit memory bus and 320.0 GB/s bandwidth struggle with the large texture sets used at higher settings.

The RTX 5050's nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT, scores 20713 compared to the RTX 5050's 21035 average benchmark score. This 1.6% performance difference indicates the RTX 5050 is slightly faster than this older competitor on average, but in Red Dead Redemption 2 specifically, the measured results show the card produces playable frame rates only at 1080p and 1440p with adjusted settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160) and four settings levels (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). Only the Medium settings at each resolution include minimum and maximum FPS values, while other settings report only averages.

At 1920x1080, the RTX 5050 delivers its best results. Low settings average 98 FPS, which is the highest measured frame rate in the entire dataset. Medium settings average 73 FPS with a minimum of 62 and maximum of 84. High settings average 61 FPS, which is exactly at the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered smooth. Ultra settings drop to 44 FPS average, indicating the card cannot maintain high refresh rates at maximum quality even at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, performance decreases noticeably. Low settings average 73 FPS, which matches the 1080p Medium result. Medium settings average 55 FPS with a range of 46 to 63 FPS. High settings average 46 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 33 FPS. The step from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly 25% of the frame rate at each setting level.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 5050 struggles. Low settings average 48 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target. Medium settings average 36 FPS with a minimum of 31 and maximum of 41. High settings average 30 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 22 FPS. None of the 4K settings achieve playable frame rates for most users, though Low settings might be acceptable for slower-paced gameplay.

The Medium settings data provides the most complete picture. At 1080p Medium, the card delivers 73 FPS average with a minimum of 62, ensuring smooth performance. At 1440p Medium, the 55 FPS average with 46 FPS minimum is borderline playable. At 4K Medium, the 36 FPS average with 31 FPS minimum is below comfortable playability for most action sequences.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU as the primary limiting component. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 61 at 1080p to 46 at 1440p (25% reduction) and further to 30 at 4K (51% reduction from 1080p). This steep decline indicates the GPU's rendering throughput and memory bandwidth are insufficient for higher resolutions.

At Low settings, the scaling is different: 98 FPS at 1080p drops to 73 at 1440p (26% reduction) and 48 at 4K (51% reduction from 1080p). The percentage reductions are similar to High settings, suggesting the GPU is consistently the bottleneck across all settings levels. If the CPU were limiting performance, we would expect smaller percentage drops at lower resolutions where the GPU has less work to do.

The Medium settings data provides additional insight. The minimum FPS values scale from 62 at 1080p to 46 at 1440p (26% reduction) and 31 at 4K (50% reduction from 1080p). The maximum FPS values scale from 84 to 63 (25% reduction) and 41 (51% reduction from 1080p). These consistent percentage reductions across minimum, average, and maximum FPS values confirm that resolution scaling is uniform and GPU-bound.

At Ultra settings, the FPS drops from 44 at 1080p to 33 at 1440p (25% reduction) and 22 at 4K (50% reduction from 1080p). The identical percentage drops across all four settings levels (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) strongly suggest the RTX 5050 is the limiting factor at every configuration. The CPU's strong single-thread performance (4691 PassMark score) is sufficient to feed the GPU at all resolutions tested.

The 4K performance is particularly telling. With only 48 FPS at Low settings and 22 FPS at Ultra, the card cannot deliver a smooth 4K experience in Red Dead Redemption 2. The 8 GB memory capacity and 320.0 GB/s bandwidth are likely insufficient for the game's large open-world textures at 4K resolution, causing the GPU to become the bottleneck even at the lowest settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a desktop processor from the 9000 series, built on the Zen 5 architecture with the Granite Ridge codename. It uses the AMD Socket AM5 and is manufactured on TSMC's 4 nm process. The chip contains 8,315 million transistors on a 70.6 mm² die, with 8 cores and 16 threads.

The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. This configuration provides a total of 8 MB L2 and 32 MB L3 across all cores. The processor supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration with 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth, and it supports ECC memory.

Clock speeds are a strong point: the base clock runs at 3.80 GHz with a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. This high boost clock contributes to the excellent single-thread performance measured at 4691 in PassMark. The multithread score of 36470 reflects the 8-core/16-thread configuration's ability to handle parallel workloads. The 65 W TDP is modest for an 8-core processor, indicating efficient power management.

The CPU's benchmark results show strengths in various workloads. Integer math scores 120788, floating point math scores 77955, and extended instructions score 33688. Data compression scores 421988, data encryption scores 21488, and random string sorting scores 45890. Find prime numbers scores 183, physics scores 2122, and the average benchmark score is 69996.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions. At 1080p Low, the 98 FPS average suggests the CPU can handle the game's simulation and AI workloads without becoming a bottleneck. The high single-thread score of 4691 is particularly relevant for this game, which relies heavily on single-thread performance for its open-world simulation.

The nearest rival CPUs demonstrate that the 9700F is well-positioned. The AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX scores 69875 (0.2% lower), the Intel Core i7-14700KF scores 70163 (0.2% higher), the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X scores 69515 (0.7% lower), and the Intel Core i7-14700K scores 69355 (0.9% lower). These small deltas mean the 9700F is essentially performance-equivalent to these alternatives for gaming purposes.

At 4K resolution, the CPU's performance becomes less relevant because the GPU is clearly the limiting factor. The consistent FPS scaling across resolutions and settings indicates the RTX 5050 cannot keep up with the CPU's ability to feed frames. The 9700F's 32 MB L3 cache and high boost clock ensure it can maintain minimum frame rates without CPU-related stuttering, as evidenced by the Medium settings minimum FPS values of 62 at 1080p, 46 at 1440p, and 31 at 4K.

The CPU's 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it has significant headroom for future GPU upgrades. If paired with a stronger graphics card, the 9700F would likely deliver higher frame rates in Red Dead Redemption 2, as the current pairing appears GPU-limited at all tested configurations. The 65 W TDP and AM5 socket compatibility make it an efficient platform choice, though the measured data for this specific pairing shows the GPU is the limiting component.