Red Dead Redemption 2

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 shows a predictable scaling pattern in Red Dead Redemption 2, with the most significant performance drop occurring between 1440p and 4K. At 1080p High settings, the combo delivers 74.3 FPS, which drops to 57 FPS at 1440p High—a 23% reduction. Moving to 4K High, the average falls to 35.2 FPS, representing a 38% decline from 1440p and a 53% drop from the 1080p baseline. This steep 4K penalty indicates the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the render load outstrips what the RTX 5060 can sustain.

The scaling pattern across presets at 4K reinforces this interpretation. At 4K Low, the system achieves 56.2 FPS, but stepping up to Medium drops the average to 44.2 FPS, and High further reduces it to 35.2 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K yields just 26.2 FPS, which is below playable thresholds for most users. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 30 FPS, a 53% performance swing that shows how sensitive this title is to preset changes at high resolution. At 1080p, the same Low-to-Ultra spread is 65.3 FPS (116.9 down to 51.6), indicating that the CPU can feed the GPU sufficiently at lower resolutions, but the GPU's raw throughput caps performance as pixel count rises.

The data suggests that 4K is not a viable target for this combo if the user expects smooth gameplay, as even the Low preset barely clears 60 FPS. The 1440p results are more promising, with Low hitting 85.6 FPS and Medium at 66.6 FPS, though High drops to 57 FPS. The 1080p results show the strongest performance, with Low reaching 116.9 FPS and Medium at 89.6 FPS, making this resolution the sweet spot for high refresh rate displays.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, featuring 21,900 million transistors on a 181 mm² die. Its clock speeds are listed at 2280 MHz base and 2497 MHz boost, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). The 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves adequate for most of the tested settings but shows strain at 4K Ultra.

The GPU's compute capabilities are substantial, with 3840 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. The FP32 throughput is rated at 19.18 TFLOPS, and the texture rate stands at 299.6 GTexel/s. These specifications place the RTX 5060 in the 73rd percentile among all GPUs in the benchmark database, with an average benchmark score of 30109. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (30097, 0% delta), the AMD Radeon RX 570 (30158, -0.2% delta), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile (29928, 0.6% delta). The performance parity with the RX 7700 XT suggests the RTX 5060 is a mid-to-upper tier card, but the 4K results indicate its 8 GB frame buffer is a limiting factor in this demanding title.

The 4K Ultra result of 26.2 FPS is particularly telling. The gap between Medium and Ultra at 4K (44.2 down to 26.2 FPS) is an 18 FPS drop, which is proportionally larger than the same transition at 1440p (66.6 down to 36.7 FPS, a 30 FPS drop). This suggests that the Ultra preset's additional visual effects—likely including higher texture quality and more demanding shadow and lighting calculations—push the GPU past its comfortable operating range at 4K. The 8 GB VRAM capacity may also contribute to stutter or texture thrashing at higher resolutions, though the measured average FPS does not capture frame-time consistency.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the Medium preset at 1440p offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance for this combo. The 66.6 FPS average is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and the visual upgrade from Low is meaningful. At 1080p, Medium delivers 89.6 FPS, which is excellent for high refresh rate monitors, while High at 74.3 FPS remains very playable and provides better image quality.

For users prioritizing frame rate over visuals, the Low preset at 1080p (116.9 FPS) is the clear choice, as it approaches 120 FPS and leaves headroom for other applications. However, the Low preset at higher resolutions is less compelling: 1440p Low (85.6 FPS) is still smooth, but 4K Low (56.2 FPS) falls below 60 FPS, making it marginal for competitive play. The High preset at 1440p (57 FPS) is just under the 60 FPS mark, so most users will prefer Medium there.

The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution for this combo. At 1080p, it produces 51.6 FPS, which is playable but does not justify the performance cost relative to High. At 1440p, Ultra drops to 36.7 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 26.2 FPS—both are below acceptable thresholds for an action-adventure game that benefits from smooth camera movement. The measured data shows diminishing returns from High to Ultra, with the performance penalty far outweighing any visual gain.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo of the Core i5-9400 and RTX 5060 ranks 817 out of 1687 tested combinations in Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the middle of the distribution. This rank reflects the balanced nature of the pairing: the GPU is capable enough to handle the game's demands at moderate settings, but the CPU's six cores and six threads without hyper-threading may hold back performance in CPU-bound scenarios.

The CPU's benchmark scores provide context for this ranking. In Cinebench R23, the i5-9400 scores 7969 in multi-core and 1125 in single-core, with an average benchmark score of 2305. This places it at the 50th percentile among all CPUs, meaning half of all tested processors outperform it. Its nearest rivals are closely matched: the Intel Core i3-10305 (2300, 0.2% delta), the Intel Core i3-1125G4 (2299, 0.2% delta), and the Intel Xeon E-2134 (2295, 0.4% delta), with the Intel Core i7-8809G slightly ahead at 2319 (-0.6% delta). These small deltas indicate that the i5-9400 is in a crowded performance tier, and the CPU's age (released in 2018) is evident in its lack of multi-threading.

The GPU's ranking is stronger, at the 73rd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 30109. The RTX 5060's nearest rivals are tightly clustered, with the RX 7700 XT at 30097 (0% delta) and the RX 570 at 30158 (-0.2% delta) showing near-identical average scores. This suggests that the GPU is not the bottleneck in most scenarios, and the combo's mid-pack ranking in-game is likely influenced by the CPU's modest single-threaded performance in a game that can be CPU-intensive in crowded scenes.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a Coffee Lake Refresh part with six cores and six threads, running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its 65 W TDP and 9 MB of shared L3 cache are typical for this generation, and it supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel configuration with 42.7 GB/s of bandwidth. The CPU's architecture, codenamed Coffee Lake, was manufactured on Intel's 14 nm process.

The CPU's benchmark results show a clear picture: it is a competent mid-range processor but not a powerhouse. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7969 and single-core score of 1125 reflect its six physical cores without hyper-threading. In Cinebench R20, the scores are 3346 multi-core and 472 single-core, while Cinebench R15 shows 803 multi-core and 113 single-core. The average benchmark score of 2305 places it at the 50th percentile, with nearest rivals within 0.6% performance delta.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU's role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions where the GPU has spare capacity. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 116.9 FPS, but the scaling from Low to Ultra at 1080p (116.9 down to 51.6 FPS) is primarily GPU-driven. However, the fact that the i5-9400 cannot push past 116.9 FPS at 1080p Low suggests a CPU ceiling around that frame rate. This is consistent with its six-thread limit, as the game likely spawns enough threads to saturate the CPU's capabilities. At 1440p and 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, as evidenced by the steep FPS drops with increased resolution, so the CPU's influence is less pronounced at higher settings.

The CPU's 4.10 GHz boost clock helps maintain adequate single-thread performance, but its age is a factor in the combo's 817th rank out of 1687. The lack of multi-threading means it cannot leverage additional logical cores that newer CPUs offer, which can matter in a game like Red Dead Redemption 2 that may offload background tasks to spare threads. The 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth is also modest by modern standards, though the dual-channel DDR4 support is sufficient for this game's requirements. Overall, the data indicates that this CPU is the weaker link in the pairing, but it does not prevent the combo from achieving playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p with appropriate settings.