Red Dead Redemption 2

# How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 lands at rank 32 out of 1,687 tested combos in Red Dead Redemption 2. That places this configuration in the top 1.9% of all tested pairings, a position that reflects the raw horsepower of both components. The ranking is not surprising given that the CPU sits at the 89th percentile among all processors, while the GPU is at the 91st percentile among all graphics cards.

However, the rank is more telling than a simple average of those percentiles would suggest. In a game like Red Dead Redemption 2, which is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, the RTX 4090's dominance should theoretically push this combo higher. The fact that it sits at 32 rather than, say, inside the top 10 indicates that the Ryzen 7 9700X, while excellent, may be the limiting factor in certain scenarios. The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads are substantial, but the game's engine may not fully utilize the Zen 5 architecture's strengths in every scene.

The delta between this combo and others in the database is worth examining. The Ryzen 7 9700X's nearest rivals in aggregate CPU benchmarks include the Intel Core i5-14500HX at a 0.2% higher average score, and the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 at 0.6% lower. These are razor-thin margins. In practical terms, swapping between these CPUs would yield almost no measurable difference in Red Dead Redemption 2's frame rates, which reinforces the notion that the RTX 4090 is doing the heavy lifting for this ranking.

FAQ

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested CPU-GPU pairs in Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination ranks 32nd out of 1,687 tested combos, placing it in the top 2% of all configurations.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in aggregate benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700X posts an average benchmark score of 36,029. The Intel Core i5-14500HX scores 35,940 (0.2% higher), while the Intel Core Ultra 9 185H scores 36,165 (0.4% lower). The margins are within noise.

Q: What is the highest measured frame rate for this combo?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 216.9 FPS. This is the only measured result above 200 FPS in the dataset.

Q: How much VRAM does the GPU have, and how does that relate to Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: The RTX 4090 features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus. For this game, even at 4K Ultra, the measured 48.1 FPS indicates the engine is not VRAM-limited, as the memory pool far exceeds what the game requires.

Q: What is the GPU's clock speed and how does it affect performance?

A: The RTX 4090 has a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz. The boost behavior is consistent across resolutions, suggesting the card sustains high clocks under load in this title.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more responsible for the frame rate differences between settings?

A: The data shows that dropping from Ultra to Low at 4K improves FPS from 48.1 to 103.8, a 116% gain. At 1080p, the same settings change goes from 96 to 216.9 FPS, a 126% gain. The GPU is the primary scaling factor.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound profile, but with some interesting nuance. At High settings, the drop from 137 FPS at 1920x1080 to 101.9 FPS at 2560x1440 is a 25.6% reduction, and then to 65.2 FPS at 3840x2160 is another 36% reduction. This progressive decline is steeper than linear, which is expected when pixel count quadruples from 1080p to 4K while the GPU's workload scales accordingly.

Looking at Low settings, the pattern shifts. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 216.9 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low yields 162 FPS, a 25.3% drop. At 4K Low, the result is 103.8 FPS, another 35.9% drop. The consistency of these percentage drops across different quality presets suggests that the RTX 4090's rendering pipeline is the bottleneck at every resolution, with the CPU never becoming the limiting factor even at 1080p Low.

The Ultra preset tells a more dramatic story. At 1080p Ultra, 96 FPS drops to 74 FPS at 1440p (22.9% reduction), then to 48.1 FPS at 4K (35% reduction). The 4K Ultra result of 48.1 FPS is the lowest measured in the entire dataset, indicating that this preset pushes the GPU to its absolute limits. The fact that 4K Ultra is nearly half the frame rate of 1080p Ultra highlights how resolution scaling in Red Dead Redemption 2 is disproportionately taxing on the RTX 4090's compute and memory bandwidth.

The data implies that at 1080p, there is headroom — the CPU could theoretically push higher frame rates if the GPU were faster, but the RTX 4090 is already near its practical ceiling. At 4K, the GPU is unequivocally the limiting component, as evidenced by the smooth scaling of FPS with pixel count.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce 216.9 FPS, Medium drops to 163.1 FPS, High yields 137 FPS, and Ultra settles at 96 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 120.9 FPS, a 55.7% reduction from the fastest preset. The Medium to High step is 26.1 FPS, while High to Ultra is 41 FPS, showing that Ultra is disproportionately expensive.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates compress. Low runs at 162 FPS, Medium at 123 FPS, High at 101.9 FPS, and Ultra at 74 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 88 FPS, which is narrower in absolute terms but similar in percentage (54.3% reduction). The Medium to High gap is 21.1 FPS, and High to Ultra is 27.9 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset's cost persists at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, performance drops significantly. Low achieves 103.8 FPS, Medium reaches 81.5 FPS, High manages 65.2 FPS, and Ultra falls to 48.1 FPS. The total range is 55.7 FPS, with Ultra costing 53.7% of Low's performance. Notably, 4K Low (103.8 FPS) is nearly identical to 1440p High (101.9 FPS), suggesting that users can trade resolution for quality with similar frame rates.

Across all resolutions, the Low to Medium transition is the smallest FPS hit, while the High to Ultra transition is the largest. This pattern holds true at every resolution, indicating that Ultra settings in Red Dead Redemption 2 introduce disproportionately heavy rendering effects that the RTX 4090 struggles to maintain smoothly.

GPU Role

The RTX 4090's specifications read like a benchmark card: 24 GB of GDDR6X memory, a 384-bit bus, 16,384 shading units, and 512 texture mapping units. Its memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s is critical for Red Dead Redemption 2's open-world streaming, which constantly loads textures and geometry as the player moves through the environment. The measured frame rates suggest that this bandwidth is more than sufficient, as even the lowest performance (48.1 FPS at 4K Ultra) does not indicate texture thrashing or pop-in.

Clock speeds for the GPU are listed as base 2235 MHz and boost 2520 MHz. The boost clock, which determines sustained performance under load, is relatively modest compared to some AIB partner cards, but the data shows consistent performance across resolutions. The RTX 4090's 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is leveraged heavily by this game's advanced lighting and shadow systems, particularly at Ultra settings where the 176 ROPs are tasked with outputting 4K frames.

The GPU's 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores are present but likely underutilized, as Red Dead Redemption 2 does not feature aggressive ray tracing. Instead, the card's raw rasterization power drives the results. The nearest rivals in GPU benchmark scores are professional cards like the Tesla T4 (0.4% lower) and Quadro P6000 (1.3% lower), but those are not gaming-oriented. The 91st percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms that this is one of the fastest consumer cards available.

The relationship between VRAM and game settings is telling. Even at 4K Ultra with 24 GB available, the game does not appear to exceed the memory pool, as performance scales smoothly with compute load rather than hitting a memory wall.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 7 9700X contributes 8 cores and 16 threads, built on the Zen 5 architecture at a 4 nm process node. Its base clock of 3.80 GHz and boost clock of 5.50 GHz are respectable, but in Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU. The 32 MB of shared L3 cache helps with game logic and draw call processing, but the title's engine is not particularly thread-hungry.

Benchmark scores place the CPU at the 89th percentile among all processors. Its 3DMark 16-thread score of 9,824 and max-thread score of 9,771 indicate strong multi-threaded performance, while the single-thread score of 1,280 is more modest. Cinebench R23 results show 31,588 multi-core and 4,459 single-core, which are solid numbers but not class-leading. The nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-14500HX, is within 0.2% in average score, underscoring that the 9700X is competitive but not dominant.

In this game, the CPU's 65W TDP suggests efficient power delivery, but the bottleneck analysis points to the GPU being saturated before the CPU at all tested settings. The evidence is in the scaling: at 1080p Low, the combo hits 216.9 FPS, which approaches the practical ceiling for many game engines. If the CPU were limiting, we would expect to see a plateau in FPS regardless of resolution, but the data shows clear resolution-based scaling.

The CPU's memory support for DDR5 with dual-channel bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s is sufficient for feeding the GPU's frame buffer. In practice, the 9700X's role here is to keep up with the RTX 4090's output without becoming a bottleneck — and the data suggests it succeeds, though the margin narrows at 1080p Low where frame rates exceed 200 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience, the data points to 2560x1440 with High settings as the sweet spot. This combination delivers 101.9 FPS, which is above the 100 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay on high-refresh monitors, while retaining the visual fidelity that High settings provide. The 1440p High result is only 4.7% lower than 1080p High, but the resolution boost is significant.

If maximum visual quality is the priority, 4K Ultra at 48.1 FPS is playable but marginal for fast-paced action. The better compromise is 4K High at 65.2 FPS, which stays above the 60 FPS target while offering most of the visual benefits. For competitive or high-refresh play, 1080p Low at 216.9 FPS is the clear choice, though the visual downgrade is substantial.

The Medium presets present an interesting middle ground. At 1440p Medium, 123 FPS is 20.7% faster than High at the same resolution, but the visual difference between Medium and High in Red Dead Redemption 2 is often subtle. The 4K Medium result of 81.5 FPS is arguably the best 4K option, as it stays above 80 FPS while outperforming High by 25%.

Avoid the Ultra preset unless visual fidelity trumps all else. The jump from High to Ultra costs 36% performance at 1080p, 27.4% at 1440p, and 26.2% at 4K, with only marginal improvements in image quality. The measured data strongly favors High as the optimal preset across all resolutions, balancing frame rate and visuals.