Red Dead Redemption 2

FAQ

Q: What is the combo's overall standing in Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 combination ranks 1031 out of 3714 tested combos in this game, placing it in the top 27.8% of all tested systems.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 9 8945HX scores 76,212 on average, which is 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (76,155) and 0.6% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (75,779). It trails the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P by 0.4% (76,492).

Q: What is the GPU's percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The RTX 5080 sits in the 87th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 56,083. Its closest rival, the AMD Radeon 8060S, scores 55,757, which is 0.6% lower.

Q: Which resolution yields the highest frame rate at Low settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system achieves 149 FPS average. This drops to 111 FPS at 2560x1440 and 74 FPS at 3840x2160, showing a clear scaling pattern.

Q: Does the system maintain 60 FPS at 4K with any settings preset?

A: Yes, only with Low settings. At 3840x2160, Low produces 74 FPS average, while Medium drops to 55 FPS, High to 46 FPS, and Ultra falls to 33 FPS.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 5080 than the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE?

A: The RTX 5080's average benchmark score of 56,083 is 2.2% higher than the RX 9070 GRE's 57,367 — wait, that means the RX 9070 GRE is actually 2.2% higher. The delta is listed as -2.2% for the RTX 5080, meaning the RX 9070 GRE outperforms it in this metric.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB203 chip, produced on TSMC's 5 nm process with 45,600 million transistors on a 378 mm² die. It carries 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 1875 MHz, translating to 30 Gbps effective. The GPU's base clock is 2295 MHz with a boost clock of 2617 MHz, and it houses 10,752 shading units, 336 TMUs, and 112 ROPs.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the GPU's role becomes evident when examining the frame rate deltas between settings presets at each resolution. At 1080p, moving from Low (149 FPS) to Medium (112 FPS) costs 37 FPS, then High drops another 19 FPS to 93, and Ultra falls further to 67. This 82 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p indicates the GPU is heavily taxed by the game's visual features, particularly at the higher presets. The RTX 5080's 84 RT cores and 336 tensor cores are relevant here, though Red Dead Redemption 2 primarily uses traditional rasterization. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is ample for this title, and the 960 GB/s bandwidth supports high-resolution texture streaming without bottlenecking the frame pipeline.

The GPU's raw compute throughput of 56.28 TFLOPS FP32 helps explain why even at 4K Ultra, the system still produces a playable 33 FPS average. The data shows the RTX 5080 is the dominant component in this combo, as frame rates scale almost linearly with resolution when settings are held constant. The 87th percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms this is a high-tier part, though its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE, which actually scores 2.2% higher in average benchmarks.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how this combo responds to pixel-count increases. At Low settings, the progression is 149 FPS at 1080p → 111 FPS at 1440p → 74 FPS at 4K. That represents a 25.5% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 33.3% additional drop from 1440p to 4K. At Medium settings, the pattern is 112 FPS → 83 FPS → 55 FPS, with drops of 25.9% and 33.7% respectively. The High preset shows 93 FPS → 70 FPS → 46 FPS, which is 24.7% and 34.3% drops. Ultra settings produce 67 FPS → 50 FPS → 33 FPS, with 25.4% and 34.0% drops.

The consistent ~25% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and ~34% reduction from 1440p to 4K across all settings presets indicates the GPU is the primary limiting factor. The pixel count increases by 77.8% from 1080p to 1440p (2,073,600 to 3,686,400 pixels), and by another 125% from 1440p to 4K (3,686,400 to 8,294,400 pixels). If the CPU were the bottleneck, we'd expect frame rates to remain more stable as resolution increases, since the CPU's workload stays relatively constant. Instead, the frame rates drop proportionally with pixel throughput, confirming the RTX 5080 is working at near its full capacity.

Interestingly, the 4K Medium row includes min/max readings of 47/63 FPS, while 1440p Medium shows 71/96 FPS and 1080p Medium shows 95/129 FPS. The narrowing of the min-max range as resolution increases — from 34 FPS spread at 1080p to 16 FPS at 4K — suggests that at lower resolutions, CPU-side frame pacing introduces more variance, while at 4K, the GPU becomes so saturated that frame times stabilize. This is a subtle but telling sign that the Ryzen 9 8945HX is sufficient to feed the GPU at lower resolutions, but the GPU's limits dominate at higher pixel counts.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy for optimal settings selection. At 1080p, Medium offers the best balance at 112 FPS average with a 95-129 FPS range, while High drops to 93 FPS and Ultra to 67. For players targeting 60+ FPS, the High preset at 1080p remains viable, but Medium provides a comfortable margin above the 100 FPS threshold. Low settings at 149 FPS is only useful for competitive scenarios that this game doesn't really need, given its single-player focus.

At 1440p, Medium is again the sweet spot at 83 FPS (71-96 range), while High sits at 70 FPS and Ultra at 50. The 1440p Medium preset achieves 83 FPS, which is 24.6% above the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay. High at 70 FPS is still playable, but the 13 FPS difference between Medium and High at this resolution may not justify the visual fidelity gains, depending on the user's display refresh rate.

At 4K, only Low settings (74 FPS) exceed 60 FPS. Medium drops to 55 FPS, which is borderline for adaptive sync displays, while High at 46 FPS and Ultra at 33 FPS are below the smoothness threshold. The 4K Medium row's 47 FPS minimum means there will be noticeable drops during heavy action sequences. The data suggests that for 4K, users should either accept Low settings for smooth performance or use upscaling technology (not measured here) to bridge the gap between the 55 FPS of Medium and the 74 FPS of Low.

The overall recommendation based purely on measured data is: 1080p Medium for high-refresh displays, 1440p Medium for the best quality-to-performance ratio, and 4K Low for playable frame rates. The High preset at any resolution provides a 17-20% reduction in FPS compared to Medium, while Ultra costs another 28-33% on top of that.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 1031 out of 3714 tested combinations places it in the 72.2nd percentile of all systems tested in Red Dead Redemption 2. This means it outperforms roughly 2,683 other combos while trailing about 1,030. Given the RTX 5080's 87th percentile GPU ranking and the CPU's 95th percentile ranking, one might expect a higher game-specific rank. The discrepancy suggests that Red Dead Redemption 2's engine may not fully utilize the combo's strengths, or that the mobile CPU's 55 W TDP limits sustained performance in gaming workloads.

The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (0.1% lower score), the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P (0.4% higher), the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX (0.4% higher), and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (0.6% lower). These are all high-end desktop or workstation parts, which highlights that the 8945HX is competing above its mobile classification. The GPU's nearest rivals are more varied: the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE is 2.2% faster, while the Radeon 8060S, RX 6750 GRE 12 GB, and Radeon Pro W5700X are 0.6-2.3% slower.

The game-specific rank being lower than the component percentiles indicates that other factors beyond raw CPU and GPU scores influence in-game performance. The 16 GB VRAM is sufficient, and the 960 GB/s bandwidth is generous, so the bottleneck likely lies in the game's optimization for this particular architecture combination. The 1031st rank out of 3714 is still respectable, but users should temper expectations based on synthetic benchmarks alone.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS table is as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 149 FPS average
• Medium: 112 FPS average (min 95, max 129)
• High: 93 FPS average
• Ultra: 67 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 111 FPS average
• Medium: 83 FPS average (min 71, max 96)
• High: 70 FPS average
• Ultra: 50 FPS average

3840x2160:

• Low: 74 FPS average
• Medium: 55 FPS average (min 47, max 63)
• High: 46 FPS average
• Ultra: 33 FPS average

Analyzing the ratios: at 1080p, Medium achieves 75.2% of Low's frame rate, High achieves 62.4%, and Ultra achieves 45.0%. At 1440p, the ratios are 74.8% (Medium/Low), 63.1% (High/Low), and 45.0% (Ultra/Low). At 4K, they are 74.3% (Medium/Low), 62.2% (High/Low), and 44.6% (Ultra/Low). The consistency of these ratios across resolutions confirms that the settings presets impose a predictable performance cost regardless of pixel count.

The only rows with min/max data are the Medium presets. At 1080p Medium, the 95-129 range spans 34 FPS, indicating significant frame time variation. At 1440p Medium, the 71-96 range spans 25 FPS. At 4K Medium, the 47-63 range spans only 16 FPS. This tightening of the frame rate distribution as resolution increases suggests that CPU-bound frame pacing at lower resolutions introduces more variance, while at 4K the GPU's consistent workload produces more stable frame delivery.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX is a 16-core, 32-thread processor from the 8000 series, built on Zen 4 architecture with the Dragon Range codename. It operates at a 2.50 GHz base clock and boosts up to 5.40 GHz, with a 55 W TDP. The chip uses TSMC's 5 nm process with 13,140 million transistors across a dual-die layout of 2x 71 mm². Its cache hierarchy includes 64 KB L1 per core, 1 MB L2 per core, and 64 MB of shared L3. Memory support is dual-channel DDR5 with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU's role is most apparent in the scaling behavior between resolutions. The fact that frame rates drop consistently with resolution increases indicates the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at any setting. However, the frame time variance data suggests the CPU does influence performance at lower resolutions. The 1080p Medium row's 34 FPS min-max spread, compared to 16 FPS at 4K Medium, implies that at 1080p, the CPU occasionally stalls the GPU, causing frame rate dips that are smoothed out at higher resolutions where the GPU takes longer per frame.

The CPU's synthetic benchmarks show a strong single-thread score of 6,030 in Cinebench R23 and a multi-thread score of 42,713. Its 95th percentile ranking among all CPUs indicates it's a top-tier part. The nearest rival data shows it sits within 0.6% of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D, a desktop flagship, which is remarkable for a mobile chip. The PassMark multi-thread score of 51,405 and single-thread score of 3,907 further confirm its capabilities.

For this game specifically, the 16 cores and 32 threads are more than sufficient, as Red Dead Redemption 2 typically scales well to 8-12 threads. The 64 MB L3 cache helps with open-world data streaming, though the game's engine may not fully exploit it. The 5.40 GHz boost clock provides the single-thread headroom needed for game logic and physics calculations. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s pairs adequately with the GPU's 960 GB/s, ensuring no starvation of texture data at higher resolutions. The data overall indicates the 8945HX is a capable partner for the RTX 5080, not holding back the GPU in most scenarios, with the 55 W TDP being the only potential limitation for sustained loads in a mobile chassis.