Red Dead Redemption 2

Resolution Scaling

Red Dead Redemption 2 presents a demanding workload that scales predictably with resolution. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo of Intel Core i5-13400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 achieves 204.4 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at Low settings drops this to 152.1 FPS, a reduction of roughly 25.6%. At 3840x2160 Low, average FPS falls further to 102.2, representing a 49.9% decline from the 1080p figure. This pattern indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU remains the primary scaling factor as pixel count rises.

The High settings tier shows a similar trajectory. At 1080p High, the combo delivers 126.6 FPS. At 1440p High, that falls to 94.1 FPS, a 25.7% drop. At 4K High, average FPS reaches 62.4, which is a 50.7% reduction from the 1080p baseline. The consistency of these percentage drops across Low and High suggests resolution scaling is dominated by the GPU's fill-rate and shading capacity rather than CPU-side bottlenecks.

Ultra settings reveal the steepest curve. 1080p Ultra runs at 89.6 FPS, 1440p Ultra at 71.6 FPS, and 4K Ultra at 45.3 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra is 49.4%, closely mirroring the other settings tiers. This uniformity implies that the limiting component shifts predictably with total pixel workload — the RTX 5080's 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 56.28 TFLOPS FP32 throughput are the binding constraints at higher resolutions, while the CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads provide sufficient headroom to avoid introducing additional scaling variance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node. Its 16 GB of GDDR7 memory operates across a 256-bit bus, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's base clock sits at 2295 MHz, boosting to 2617 MHz. These specifications translate into a Pixel Rate of 293.1 GPixel/s and a Texture Rate of 879.3 GTexel/s. With 10752 shading units, 336 TMUs, and 112 ROPs, the RTX 5080 is equipped to handle Red Dead Redemption 2's heavy draw calls and post-processing effects.

The measured FPS data shows that settings level has a profound impact. At 1080p, Low yields 204.4 FPS, Medium 152 FPS, High 126.6 FPS, and Ultra 89.6 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 114.8 FPS, indicating that the game's higher preset tiers introduce substantial GPU workload increases. At 4K, the same spread exists but compressed: Low 102.2 FPS, Medium 78.4 FPS, High 62.4 FPS, and Ultra 45.3 FPS. The RTX 5080's 89th percentile ranking among all GPUs, based on an average benchmark score of 59188, confirms it is a high-end part, yet Red Dead Redemption 2 at 4K Ultra still dips below the 60 FPS threshold.

The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the Intel Arc A570M with an average score of 58239 (1.6% lower), the Intel Arc Pro A60 at 60326 (1.9% higher), and the Intel Arc A580 at 57756 (2.5% lower). These deltas are small, but in-game the RTX 5080's advantage is more visible due to driver optimization and architecture efficiency. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Red Dead Redemption 2's large textures at 4K, as evidenced by the measurable FPS at Ultra settings — a memory-limited scenario would show stuttering or severe frame drops, which the data does not indicate.

How This Combo Ranks

Among 1687 tested combinations, this pairing of Intel Core i5-13400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks 93rd in Red Dead Redemption 2. This places it in the top 5.5% of all combos tested, a strong showing that reflects the GPU's high-end positioning and the CPU's adequate support. The CPU itself holds an 82nd percentile ranking among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 25236. Its nearest CPU rivals include the Intel Core i7-13620H at 25201 (0.1% lower), the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D at 25365 (0.5% higher), the AMD EPYC 9474F at 25103 (0.5% lower), and the AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 at 25099 (0.5% lower). These tight deltas suggest the i5-13400F sits in a crowded performance band, yet the combo's 93rd rank indicates that the RTX 5080 boosts the overall gaming result well above what the CPU alone would suggest.

The data shows that the combo rank is heavily influenced by GPU headroom. At 1080p Low, the system pushes past 200 FPS, which is far beyond what most combinations would achieve. At 4K Ultra, it still maintains 45.3 FPS, which is playable but not smooth. The rank of 93 out of 1687 implies that most better-performing combos likely pair even more powerful CPUs with the same or similar GPU, or use the RTX 5080 with a higher-tier processor to eliminate any residual CPU limitation in CPU-bound scenes.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p Ultra for this combo?

A: The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 89.6 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 5080's memory bandwidth affect 4K performance?

A: The GPU's 960.0 GB/s bandwidth, paired with 16 GB of GDDR7 memory, supports 4K High at 62.4 FPS and 4K Medium at 78.4 FPS. The bandwidth is sufficient to avoid memory-related frame drops, as the scaling from 1440p to 4K remains consistent with pixel count increases.

Q: What is the CPU's core and thread configuration?

A: The Intel Core i5-13400F has 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, using a 65 W TDP.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested combinations?

A: It ranks 93rd out of 1687 tested combos in Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the top 5.5% of all configurations.

Q: What is the difference in FPS between 1080p Low and 4K Low?

A: At 1080p Low, the average FPS is 204.4, while at 4K Low it drops to 102.2, a reduction of 102.2 FPS or exactly 50%.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to bottleneck at 4K Ultra?

A: The data shows that at 4K Ultra the system achieves 45.3 FPS. Given that the GPU's benchmark percentile (89th) is higher than the CPU's (82nd), and that resolution scaling produces consistent percentage drops, the GPU is the primary limiting component at 4K Ultra.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings tiers. At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 204.4 FPS on Low, 152 FPS on Medium, 126.6 FPS on High, and 89.6 FPS on Ultra. At 2560x1440, Low produces 152.1 FPS, Medium 113.1 FPS, High 94.1 FPS, and Ultra 71.6 FPS. At 3840x2160, Low yields 102.2 FPS, Medium 78.4 FPS, High 62.4 FPS, and Ultra 45.3 FPS.

These numbers reveal a consistent pattern: each settings tier increase at a given resolution reduces FPS by roughly 20-30%. For example, at 1440p, moving from Medium to High drops FPS from 113.1 to 94.1, a 19 FPS reduction. Moving from High to Ultra drops from 94.1 to 71.6, a 22.5 FPS reduction. At 4K, Medium to High drops from 78.4 to 62.4, a 16 FPS reduction, and High to Ultra drops from 62.4 to 45.3, a 17.1 FPS reduction. The absolute FPS gap between settings narrows as resolution increases, but the percentage impact remains similar, indicating the GPU's compute resources are the bottleneck.

The only configuration that falls below 60 FPS is 4K Ultra at 45.3 FPS. All other measured settings and resolutions exceed 60 FPS, with 1080p Low peaking at 204.4 FPS. For players targeting 4K, High settings at 62.4 FPS is the highest preset that maintains a playable frame rate, while Medium at 78.4 FPS offers additional headroom.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F is a Raptor Lake-S architecture processor built on Intel's 10 nm process. It features 10 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and its 20 MB shared L3 cache helps with game data locality. The CPU's benchmark scores show strong multi-threaded performance: Cinebench R23 multicore reaches 21279, and 3DMark 16-thread scores 7314. Single-thread performance is also solid, with Cinebench R23 single-core at 3004 and Geekbench single-core at 2301.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU at most settings, as the FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K is consistent across all presets. However, the 1080p Low result of 204.4 FPS suggests the CPU can feed the GPU adequately at high frame rates. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1880 and single-thread score of 960 indicate that the CPU's per-core performance is sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 5080 in this game's CPU-bound scenes, such as those with many NPCs or physics calculations.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks all fall within a 0.5% delta of its average score, yet the combo's 93rd rank out of 1687 suggests that the GPU choice matters more for this game's overall performance. The CPU's 82nd percentile ranking among all CPUs, combined with the GPU's 89th percentile, indicates a balanced pairing — the CPU does not hold back the GPU in most scenarios, but it also does not boost the system beyond what the GPU can deliver. At 4K Ultra, the 45.3 FPS result is clearly GPU-bound, as the CPU's 10 cores are unlikely to be saturated at such a low frame rate. The data supports a conclusion that the i5-13400F provides adequate compute headroom for the RTX 5080 across all tested resolutions and settings in Red Dead Redemption 2.