Red Dead Redemption 2

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates for Red Dead Redemption 2 with the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 show a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and playability. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers an average of 61.1 FPS, which represents the optimal balance for smooth gameplay. This score sits comfortably above the 50.9 FPS High preset while remaining within reach of the 86.9 FPS Low preset. The Medium setting provides a substantial improvement over Low without the steep cost seen when moving to High.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset is the only configuration that maintains a playable average at 66.1 FPS. The Medium preset drops to 44.8 FPS, and High falls further to 42.1 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at this resolution is 21.3 FPS, suggesting that the RTX 2060's 6 GB VRAM and 192-bit memory bus become significant factors when texture quality increases. For users prioritizing frame rate at 1440p, Low is the recommended preset.

The 3840x2160 results are uniformly below playable thresholds, with the highest average being 39.6 FPS on Low. Even the Medium preset, which offers 34.1 FPS, fails to reach a smooth 60 FPS target. The Ultra preset at this resolution produces only 21.5 FPS, which is best avoided entirely. Users with 4K displays should consider lowering resolution or accepting significantly reduced visual quality.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, providing 336.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's base clock runs at 1365 MHz with a boost clock of 1680 MHz, and it houses 1920 shading units alongside 120 texture mapping units and 48 render output units. The Turing architecture includes 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores, though Red Dead Redemption 2's traditional rasterization workload primarily stresses the CUDA cores and memory subsystem.

The benchmark data indicates that the RTX 2060's memory configuration is a limiting factor at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the GPU can maintain 86.9 FPS on Low settings, but the frame rate drops to 61.1 FPS on Medium and 50.9 FPS on High. The 6 GB VRAM capacity appears sufficient for 1080p Medium, but the 192-bit bus width struggles when texture data expands at higher presets. The 336.0 GB/s bandwidth becomes a bottleneck when the game's open-world streaming requires rapid texture swaps.

The GPU's passmark G3D score of 14111 places it in the 58th percentile among all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the AMD Radeon RX 7600S at 15996 (0.5% higher) and the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M at 16351 (1.7% higher). These close margins suggest the RTX 2060 is competitive with mid-range mobile and workstation parts, but its 12 nm process node and 160 W TDP limit its headroom for demanding titles like Red Dead Redemption 2.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals how the i5-9400 and RTX 2060 interact under increasing resolution loads. At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 86.9 FPS at 1080p to 66.1 FPS at 1440p, a reduction of 20.8 FPS, then further to 39.6 FPS at 4K, another 26.5 FPS decline. This pattern suggests the GPU becomes progressively more dominant as a bottleneck, since the CPU workload remains relatively constant across resolutions.

The High preset shows a similar trend but with steeper absolute losses: 50.9 FPS at 1080p falls to 42.1 FPS at 1440p (8.8 FPS drop) and then to 26.2 FPS at 4K (15.9 FPS drop). The Medium preset follows with 61.1 FPS at 1080p, 44.8 FPS at 1440p, and 34.1 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset, which starts at 40.8 FPS at 1080p, drops to 28.4 FPS at 1440p and 21.5 FPS at 4K.

The relative scaling indicates that at 1080p, the i5-9400's six cores and six threads provide adequate support, but the RTX 2060 begins to saturate as pixel count increases. The 4K results, which are all below 40 FPS except for Low, demonstrate that neither component can sustain high-frame-rate gameplay at this resolution, with the GPU's memory bandwidth and shading throughput being the primary constraints.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the complete set of measured averages shows a clear hierarchy: Low delivers 86.9 FPS, Medium provides 61.1 FPS, High reaches 50.9 FPS, and Ultra falls to 40.8 FPS. The transition from Low to Medium costs 25.8 FPS, which is the largest single-step reduction among all presets at this resolution. Moving from Medium to High costs 10.2 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 10.1 FPS. This pattern indicates diminishing returns as settings increase, with the most significant performance impact occurring when moving from Low to Medium.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 66.1 FPS for Low, 44.8 FPS for Medium, 42.1 FPS for High, and 28.4 FPS for Ultra. The gap between Low and Medium widens to 21.3 FPS, while the difference between Medium and High narrows to 2.7 FPS. The Ultra preset represents a 13.7 FPS drop from High, suggesting that the highest settings impose a disproportionate load on the GPU's memory subsystem.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 39.6 FPS for Low, 34.1 FPS for Medium, 26.2 FPS for High, and 21.5 FPS for Ultra. The spread between Low and Ultra is 18.1 FPS, which is smaller than at lower resolutions, indicating that the GPU is nearing its absolute limits at 4K regardless of settings. All 4K results fall below 40 FPS, confirming that this combination is not suited for 4K gaming in Red Dead Redemption 2.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 combination ranks 1361 out of 1687 tested combos for Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the lower half of the database. This percentile position reflects the measured performance data, which shows playable frame rates only at 1080p Medium and below, with 1440p requiring Low settings for smooth gameplay.

The CPU's benchmark scores provide context for its role in this ranking. The i5-9400 achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 7969 and a single-core score of 1125, with an average benchmark score of 2305. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i3-10305 (2300, 0.2% higher) and the Intel Core i3-1125G4 (2299, 0.2% higher), while the Intel Core i7-8809G (2319, 0.6% higher) and Intel Xeon E-2134 (2295, 0.4% lower) bracket it closely. This places the i5-9400 at the 50th percentile among all CPUs, indicating mid-pack processing capability.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 16074 puts it at the 58th percentile among all GPUs, with nearest rivals including the AMD Radeon RX 7600S (15996, 0.5% higher) and AMD Radeon Pro W5500 (15786, 1.8% lower). The RTX 2060's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1242 and Passmark G3D score of 14111 reinforce its mid-range positioning.

The combination's low rank in this specific game stems from the demanding nature of Red Dead Redemption 2, which requires substantial GPU memory bandwidth and shading throughput. While the i5-9400's six cores handle the game's CPU tasks adequately, the RTX 2060's 6 GB VRAM and 192-bit bus limitation prevent it from achieving high frame rates at higher presets and resolutions. The data shows that this combo is best suited for 1080p Medium or 1440p Low, and it falls far short of competitive rankings in the database.