Red Dead Redemption 2

# Red Dead Redemption 2 with Intel Core i5-11400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070

The Intel Core i5-11400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 delivers a highly capable Red Dead Redemption 2 experience, with the data showing that the sweet spot sits at High settings across all resolutions, offering a strong balance between visual fidelity and frame rate. At 1080p, High settings produce 99.5 FPS average, which drops to 75.3 FPS at 1440p and 51.3 FPS at 4K; these figures indicate a system that can handle the game comfortably, though Ultra settings push the GPU hard enough that only 1080p remains fully fluid. The combo ranks 339th out of 1687 tested combinations, placing it in the top 20% of all systems benchmarked for this title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data clearly indicates that High settings provide the best overall experience for this combination. At 1080p, High delivers 99.5 FPS average, which is 33% faster than Ultra's 74.9 FPS while offering most of the visual quality benefits. The jump from Medium to High costs only 20% performance (124.4 to 99.5 FPS) but yields noticeably better image quality in a game as visually dense as Red Dead Redemption 2.

For 1440p users, High remains the recommended preset with 75.3 FPS average, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Ultra at this resolution falls to 53 FPS, making it borderline for fast-paced action sequences. The data shows that 4K is the only resolution where High settings struggle to maintain high frame rates, with 51.3 FPS average, but this still exceeds the 30 FPS console-style experience and remains playable.

Low settings offer the highest frame rates (162.8 FPS at 1080p, 122.6 FPS at 1440p, 80.6 FPS at 4K) but sacrifice too much visual quality for a game renowned for its atmosphere and detail. Medium settings serve as a middle ground, but the performance gain over High (25% at 1080p) does not justify the visual downgrade. Ultra settings, while technically the most demanding preset, only make sense at 1080p where 74.9 FPS remains acceptable, but the 33% performance penalty compared to High is difficult to recommend.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gameplay?

A: Low settings are required for smooth 4K performance, delivering 80.6 FPS average. Medium drops to 62.4 FPS, High to 51.3 FPS, and Ultra to 37.7 FPS, making Low the only preset that maintains high frame rates at this resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 5070 perform at 1440p with this CPU?

A: The data shows 75.3 FPS at High settings and 91.9 FPS at Medium, making High the recommended choice for 1440p gaming. Ultra falls to 53 FPS, which is still playable but not ideal for a game with fast horseback riding and gunfights.

Q: Is the Core i5-11400F a bottleneck for the RTX 5070 in this game?

A: Benchmark results indicate the CPU holds up well. The 6-core, 12-thread processor with 4.40 GHz boost clock produces 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth, which supports the GPU adequately. The 1080p Low setting result of 162.8 FPS suggests the CPU can feed the GPU at high frame rates without major limitations.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The measured average is 74.9 FPS, which is smooth for most players. This is significantly lower than the 162.8 FPS achieved at Low settings, showing the GPU is the primary performance limiter at this resolution when settings are maxed.

Q: How does this combo compare to other tested systems?

A: This configuration ranks 339th out of 1687 tested combinations, placing it in the top 20% of all systems benchmarked. The GPU sits in the 83rd percentile of all graphics cards, while the CPU is in the 75th percentile of all processors.

Q: Is the RTX 5070's 12 GB of VRAM sufficient for this game?

A: The data shows no VRAM-related performance anomalies across any resolution or settings combination. The 672.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 192-bit bus provide ample throughput, as evidenced by consistent frame rates across the tested presets.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K reveals a GPU-bound workload typical of Red Dead Redemption 2's open-world rendering demands. At High settings, average frame rates decline from 99.5 FPS at 1080p to 75.3 FPS at 1440p (a 24% reduction) and then to 51.3 FPS at 4K (a 32% reduction from 1440p). This scaling pattern indicates that the RTX 5070's 30.87 TFLOPS of compute power is the limiting factor as pixel count increases.

The scaling behavior across settings shows that lower presets reduce the GPU bottleneck more effectively at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the transition from 1080p to 1440p costs 25% performance (162.8 to 122.6 FPS), while from 1440p to 4K costs 34% (122.6 to 80.6 FPS). This suggests that even at Low settings, the GPU remains the primary constraint, as the RTX 5070's 2512 MHz boost clock and 482.3 GTexel/s texture rate are pushed harder as resolution increases.

Ultra settings exhibit the steepest scaling curve, with 74.9 FPS at 1080p dropping to 53 FPS at 1440p (29% loss) and then to 37.7 FPS at 4K (29% loss from 1440p). The consistent percentage drops indicate that the game's Ultra preset scales predictably with pixel count, and the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads do not introduce additional bottlenecks at higher resolutions. The 2029 single-core Cinebench R23 score and 14372 multi-core score provide sufficient headroom for the game's physics and AI systems.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings range produces playable frame rates. Low settings deliver 162.8 FPS, Medium achieves 124.4 FPS, High reaches 99.5 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 74.9 FPS. The 88 FPS spread between Low and Ultra demonstrates the GPU's scaling capability, with the RTX 5070's 6144 shading units handling the game's effects-heavy rendering efficiently.

Moving to 2560x1440, the data shows Low at 122.6 FPS, Medium at 91.9 FPS, High at 75.3 FPS, and Ultra at 53 FPS. The 1440p results represent a 25% average performance reduction across all presets compared to 1080p, which aligns with the 78% pixel count increase. The RTX 5070's 80 ROPs and 201.0 GPixel/s pixel rate keep rasterization throughput consistent.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly the limiting component. Low settings produce 80.6 FPS, which is still fluid, while Medium drops to 62.4 FPS and High to 51.3 FPS. Ultra settings at 4K yield only 37.7 FPS, making this preset impractical for competitive or fast-paced gameplay. The 12 GB GDDR7 memory capacity proves sufficient even at 4K, as no VRAM-related frame rate collapse is observed across any settings combination.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core i5-11400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 achieves a rank of 339 out of 1687 tested combos in Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the top 20% of all systems benchmarked. This ranking reflects the balanced nature of the pairing: the CPU's 75th percentile performance (with an average benchmark score of 17181) complements the GPU's 83rd percentile standing (with an average score of 41687).

The CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (deltaPct 0), Intel Core i7-1260P (deltaPct -0.2), Intel Core Ultra 7 164U (deltaPct -0.2), and Intel Core i5-1240U (deltaPct 0.2). These scores show the i5-11400F sits in a competitive mid-range performance tier. The GPU's nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (deltaPct 0.2), NVIDIA Tesla M40 (deltaPct -0.5), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 (deltaPct 0.6), and AMD Radeon Pro 580X (deltaPct -0.7), indicating the RTX 5070 outperforms previous flagship cards.

The rank of 339 suggests that many higher-scoring combos use more powerful CPUs, but the data shows this pairing delivers excellent frame rates in practice. The 1080p High result of 99.5 FPS exceeds what most systems achieve in this demanding title, and the 4K Low result of 80.6 FPS demonstrates the GPU's strength at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F provides 6 cores and 12 threads, running at a 2.60 GHz base clock with a 4.40 GHz boost clock. This Rocket Lake architecture processor, built on Intel's 14 nm process, delivers strong single-thread performance with a 3DMark single-thread score of 868 and a PassMark single-thread score of 2981. These single-thread capabilities matter for Red Dead Redemption 2's game logic and physics calculations.

The CPU's multi-threaded performance is equally solid, with Cinebench R23 multicore scoring 14372 and PassMark multithread scoring 16908. The 12 MB of shared L3 cache and 512 KB L2 cache per core help maintain smooth frame pacing during open-world traversal. The 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth from dual-channel DDR4 support provides sufficient data throughput for the game's streaming assets.

In this benchmark, the CPU demonstrates it can keep pace with the RTX 5070 even at high frame rates. The 162.8 FPS result at 1080p Low settings shows the processor is not a limiting factor at lower resolutions, while the consistent frame rates across settings presets indicate balanced workload distribution. The 75th percentile ranking among all CPUs (average benchmark score 17181) places it ahead of 25% of processors while trailing more expensive options, but the measured game performance shows this is adequate for Red Dead Redemption 2.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 forms the backbone of this system's gaming performance, with 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus providing 672.0 GB/s bandwidth. The Blackwell 2.0 architecture, fabricated on TSMC's 5 nm process, contains 31,100 million transistors across a 263 mm² die. The GPU's 2325 MHz base clock boosts to 2512 MHz, delivering 30.87 TFLOPS of FP32 compute.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the GPU's 6144 shading units and 192 texture mapping units handle the game's detailed environments, while 80 ROPs ensure efficient pixel output (201.0 GPixel/s). The 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores provide additional processing capability, though the game's traditional rasterization workload primarily exercises the CUDA cores. The 83rd percentile ranking among all GPUs (average benchmark score 41687) confirms this is a high-end part.

The measured frame rates show the GPU scales predictably with settings and resolution. At 1080p, the frame rate ranges from 162.8 FPS at Low to 74.9 FPS at Ultra, a 54% reduction that reflects the game's increasing shader complexity and draw calls. The 4K results (80.6 FPS Low to 37.7 FPS Ultra) demonstrate the GPU's raw throughput capabilities, though Ultra settings at this resolution push the card beyond comfortable headroom. The 12 GB VRAM capacity proves adequate for all tested configurations, with no memory-related stutters or frame drops observed in the data.