Red Dead Redemption 2

The Intel Core i5-14600KF paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers top-tier performance in Red Dead Redemption 2, but the data reveals that settings selection is critical to balancing visual fidelity with frame rate. Across all three tested resolutions, the "Ultra" preset incurs a severe performance penalty, while "High" offers the most balanced experience. At 1080p, High produces 134.2 FPS, which is a substantial 36.3 FPS advantage over Ultra’s 97.9 FPS, making the visual upgrade to Ultra arguably not worth the frame rate loss for competitive or high-refresh-rate displays. At 1440p, High yields 97.3 FPS, which is 26.3 FPS higher than Ultra’s 71 FPS, and remains well within the territory of smooth gameplay. The story is similar at 4K, where High achieves 64.6 FPS against Ultra’s 45.8 FPS—the latter dipping below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for a fluid experience. Therefore, the High preset is the recommended starting point, providing a strong combination of visual quality and performance. For users prioritizing maximum frame rates, the Low preset at 1080p delivers 214.6 FPS, but the visual compromise is significant; the Medium preset, while offering a middle ground, still lags behind High by 24.2 FPS at 1080p and 21.1 FPS at 1440p, suggesting that the extra visual fidelity of High is worth the performance cost.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for a consistent 60+ FPS experience at 4K resolution?

A: The High preset is the only tested option that maintains an average FPS above 60 at 3840x2160, achieving 64.6 FPS. The Ultra preset falls short at 45.8 FPS, while Medium (78.2 FPS) and Low (108.8 FPS) are also viable but come with lower visual fidelity.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-core performance compare to its closest rivals, and does it matter here?

A: The Core i5-14600KF has an average benchmark score of 49,367, which is 0.4% higher than the Intel Core i5-14600K (49,166) and 0.6% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (49,062). It trails the AMD EPYC 4345P by 0.5% (49,595). This margin is negligible in gaming, and the data indicates the RTX 4090 is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions.

Q: Is the RTX 4090's performance bottlenecked by the i5-14600KF at 1080p?

A: The benchmark data suggests a CPU limitation at 1080p. The FPS difference between Low (214.6 FPS) and High (134.2 FPS) at 1920x1080 is 80.4 FPS, indicating that the CPU is able to feed the GPU more frames when graphical load is reduced. This gap narrows as resolution increases, pointing to the GPU becoming the limiting factor.

Q: How does this specific CPU+GPU combination rank among all tested combos in this game?

A: This combination ranks 53rd out of 1,687 tested combos for Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the top 3.1% of all systems tested. This high percentile is consistent with the excellent frame rates observed across all settings.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Low preset achieves an average of 160.8 FPS, while the Ultra preset delivers 71 FPS. This represents a performance drop of 89.8 FPS when moving from Low to Ultra, highlighting the significant computational cost of the Ultra settings.

Q: Does the CPU support overclocking based on the data?

A: Yes, the Intel Core i5-14600KF has an unlocked multiplier, indicating it is designed for overclocking. Its base clock is 3.50 GHz and it can boost up to 5.30 GHz, providing headroom for manual tuning.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a clear and predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases, which provides insight into the system's balance. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces 134.2 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 reduces this to 97.3 FPS, a drop of 36.9 FPS (approximately 27.5%). At 3840x2160, the average FPS falls to 64.6, which is a further 32.7 FPS decrease from the 1440p result, representing a 33.6% reduction. This scaling pattern is more pronounced than what would be expected if the GPU were the sole bottleneck, suggesting that the CPU is contributing to performance at lower resolutions.

The FPS gap between Low and High settings also illustrates this dynamic. At 1080p, the gap is 80.4 FPS (214.6 vs 134.2 FPS), which indicates that the CPU can push the GPU harder when the pixel load is low. At 1440p, this gap narrows to 63.5 FPS (160.8 vs 97.3 FPS), and at 4K, it shrinks further to 44.2 FPS (108.8 vs 64.6 FPS). This trend confirms that as resolution increases, the GPU becomes the primary limiter, and the CPU's influence on frame rate diminishes. The data indicates that the i5-14600KF is more than capable of feeding the RTX 4090 at 1080p, but at 4K, the GPU's rendering workload is the dominant factor in determining overall performance. For users with high-refresh-rate 1080p monitors, the CPU is the critical component, while 4K users will see the GPU's raw power take over.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader context of the benchmark database, the combination of the Intel Core i5-14600KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves a rank of 53 out of 1,687 tested combos for Red Dead Redemption 2. This places the system in the 96.9th percentile, meaning it outperforms the vast majority of tested configurations. This high ranking is expected given the GPU's placement in the 91st percentile among all GPUs and the CPU's 93rd percentile among all CPUs. The combo's performance is particularly strong at 1440p and 1080p, where it delivers frame rates exceeding 97 FPS on High settings, making it suitable for high-refresh-rate displays.

The rank also reflects the synergy between the two components. While the RTX 4090 is a top-tier GPU, its performance is not fully utilized at 1080p, as evidenced by the large FPS difference between Low and High settings. However, the i5-14600KF's robust multi-core performance (Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32,889) ensures that it does not become a significant bottleneck, even with the RTX 4090's immense power. The system's rank of 53rd suggests that there are a handful of combinations with even higher-end CPUs or more specialized configurations that edge it out, but for a mainstream desktop setup, this pairing offers exceptional performance. The data confirms that this combo is a top-tier choice for achieving high frame rates in Red Dead Redemption 2 across all resolution classes.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, featuring 24 MB of shared L3 cache. Its multi-core capabilities are substantial, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32,889 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 15,636. These figures place it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 49,367 is slightly higher than the Intel Core i5-14600K (49,166) and the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X (49,062), while being 0.5% lower than the AMD EPYC 4345P (49,595).

In the context of Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU's role is to feed the RTX 4090 with draw calls and game logic data. The benchmark results show that at 1080p, the CPU is a significant factor, as the FPS scales dramatically with settings—from 214.6 FPS on Low to 97.9 FPS on Ultra. This indicates that the CPU can process frames faster than the GPU can render them at lower graphical loads. The boost clock of 5.30 GHz and high single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,643) are crucial for the game's main thread, which typically cannot be fully parallelized. The 14 cores and 20 threads provide ample headroom for background tasks and the game's multi-threaded rendering pipeline, ensuring that the CPU does not become a limiting factor at higher resolutions. The data suggests that the i5-14600KF is well-matched to the RTX 4090, offering enough processing power to avoid bottlenecking the GPU at 1440p and 4K, while providing exceptional performance at 1080p for high-refresh-rate gaming.