Red Dead Redemption 2

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 delivers a playable but demanding 1080p experience in Red Dead Redemption 2, with performance scaling predictably as resolution and settings increase. The data shows this combo ranks in the 45th percentile of tested configurations, indicating a mid-pack position where the GPU’s 8 GB VRAM and the CPU’s strong single-thread performance create a balanced bottleneck profile.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 1080p gaming with this combo?

A: The High preset at 1920x1080 delivers 76.4 FPS average, which is the most balanced choice. It provides a smoother experience than Ultra’s 55.4 FPS while maintaining higher visual fidelity than Medium’s 94.7 FPS.

Q: How does this combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset produces only 26.9 FPS average, which is below playable thresholds. The Low preset at 4K achieves 64.1 FPS, showing that significant settings reductions are required for 4K gaming.

Q: Is the RTX 3070’s 8 GB VRAM sufficient for this game?

A: The 8 GB GDDR6 memory with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth appears adequate for the measured presets, but the 4K Ultra result of 26.9 FPS suggests memory pressure may contribute to performance degradation at the highest settings.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 9700X compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The CPU’s average benchmark score of 36029 places it 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i5-14500HX and 0.6% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845, while sitting 0.4% behind the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H.

Q: What is the GPU’s standing among all tested graphics cards?

A: The RTX 3070 has a percentile rank of 72, meaning it outperforms 72% of all GPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score of 28238 is 0.9% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT and 1% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti.

Q: Does the CPU’s 65W TDP limit performance in this game?

A: The data does not indicate thermal throttling issues. The CPU’s benchmark scores, including a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 31588 and single-core score of 4459, suggest adequate computational headroom for this title.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal settings preset depends on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1920x1080, the High preset provides the best balance of visual quality and performance, yielding 76.4 FPS average. This is 21.0 FPS higher than Ultra’s 55.4 FPS, making High the recommended choice for smooth gameplay without sacrificing significant visual detail.

For 2560x1440, the Medium preset at 72.9 FPS is the most sensible option. It offers a substantial improvement over High’s 57.1 FPS, and the gap to Ultra’s 45.1 FPS is too large to justify the visual upgrade. Medium provides the closest experience to a locked 60 FPS target at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset at 64.1 FPS is the only playable option, as Medium drops to 46.3 FPS and High falls to 40.5 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K reaches only 26.9 FPS, rendering it impractical. Low settings are required for 4K gaming, but the data indicates this combo is better suited to lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a clear GPU-bound scenario. At High settings, performance drops from 76.4 FPS at 1920x1080 to 57.1 FPS at 2560x1440, a decline of 19.3 FPS. Moving to 3840x2160 further reduces the average to 40.5 FPS, representing a 46.9% decrease from the 1080p baseline.

The scaling pattern at Low settings is even more pronounced. The 124.9 FPS at 1080p falls to 91.3 FPS at 1440p and then to 64.1 FPS at 4K. This consistent drop across resolutions indicates that the RTX 3070’s rendering throughput is the primary limiting factor, as the Ryzen 7 9700X’s 16 threads and 5.50 GHz boost clock are unlikely to bottleneck at these frame rates.

Interestingly, the gap between Low and Ultra settings widens at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the difference is 69.5 FPS (124.9 vs 55.4), but at 4K, it narrows to 37.2 FPS (64.1 vs 26.9). This suggests that at 4K, the GPU’s raw compute limits become the dominant constraint, reducing the impact of settings changes.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 ranks 764th out of 1687 tested combos in Red Dead Redemption 2. This places it in the middle of the distribution, indicating that while it is not a top-tier configuration, it outperforms a majority of alternatives.

The CPU’s percentile rank of 89 among all processors is notably higher than the GPU’s percentile rank of 72, suggesting the processor is relatively stronger in the overall hardware landscape. However, the combo’s mid-pack ranking in this game implies that the GPU is the more significant determinant of in-game performance, as the game’s requirements align more closely with the GPU’s capabilities.

The nearest rival comparisons for both components reinforce this view. The CPU’s scores are within 0.8% of its closest competitors, showing that the 9700X is not a differentiating factor. The GPU’s performance is similarly clustered, with the RTX 3070 sitting just 0.9% above the RX 6600 XT. This combo’s rank reflects a balance of components that neither excel nor fall behind in this specific title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a critical factor for Red Dead Redemption 2’s large open-world textures. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 26.9, a figure that suggests the VRAM capacity may be strained at the highest settings.

The GPU’s boost clock of 1725 MHz and base clock of 1500 MHz support its 20.31 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. This compute capability directly influences the measured frame rates, with the card achieving 124.9 FPS at 1080p Low but only 55.4 FPS at 1080p Ultra. The 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores provide hardware acceleration for ray tracing and DLSS, though the measured data does not isolate these features.

The RTX 3070’s average benchmark score of 28238 places it in the 72nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT, scores 27985, a 0.9% difference that translates to nearly identical real-world performance. This close competition suggests that the GPU is not a standout performer in this generation but remains capable for this game’s requirements.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 124.9 FPS average, which is the highest measured result across all configurations. The Medium preset achieves 94.7 FPS, High reaches 76.4 FPS, and Ultra drops to 55.4 FPS. This progression shows that each settings tier costs approximately 20 FPS, with the gap from Medium to High being the most significant at 18.3 FPS.

The 2560x1440 results follow a similar pattern but with lower absolute values. Low produces 91.3 FPS, Medium yields 72.9 FPS, High manages 57.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 45.1 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p reduces performance by 26.9% at Low settings and 18.5% at Ultra, indicating that the GPU’s fill rate becomes more constrained at higher pixel counts.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops are substantial. Low achieves 64.1 FPS, Medium reaches 46.3 FPS, High produces 40.5 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 26.9 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 37.2 FPS, which is the smallest absolute gap across all resolutions, underscoring the GPU’s diminishing returns as pixel count increases.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X’s 8 cores and 16 threads, based on the Zen 5 architecture, provide robust multi-threaded performance for Red Dead Redemption 2’s simulation and AI workloads. The CPU’s boost clock of 5.50 GHz and base clock of 3.80 GHz deliver strong single-thread performance, as evidenced by a Geekbench single-core score of 3353.

The CPU’s benchmark results show consistent scaling across thread counts, with the 3DMark 16-thread score of 9824 closely matching the max-thread score of 9771. This indicates that the 9700X efficiently utilizes all available threads, which is beneficial for a game that can leverage multiple cores for background processes.

The processor’s 32 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth provide sufficient data throughput to avoid starving the GPU. The CPU’s percentile rank of 89 and average benchmark score of 36029 place it ahead of the Intel Core i5-14500HX by 0.2%, confirming that it is not the limiting component in this combo. The measured FPS data, particularly the consistent scaling from Low to Ultra settings, supports this conclusion, as frame rates respond primarily to GPU workload rather than CPU constraints.