Red Dead Redemption 2

FAQ

Q: How does the Intel Core i9-14900K + Intel Arc B390 combo rank in Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: The combo ranks 2568 out of 2902 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 11.5% of all tested system configurations. This is a low ranking driven almost entirely by the GPU's limited performance ceiling.

Q: What is the best performance this combo achieves at 1080p?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 51 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. At 1080p Medium, it drops to 39 FPS, and at 1080p High, it falls to 32 FPS. Ultra settings yield only 23 FPS at this resolution.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data strongly indicates the GPU is the bottleneck. The Intel Core i9-14900K has a percentile ranking of 95 against all CPUs, while the Intel Arc B390 sits at only the 9th percentile against all GPUs. The GPU's compute score of 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad is near the bottom of the hardware spectrum.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to its closest GPU rivals?

A: The Intel Arc B390 scores 1482, which is 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce 800M (1460), 2.5% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM (1446), and 2.7% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 (1443). These are all very low-end parts.

Q: What are the CPU's multi-core and single-core strengths?

A: The i9-14900K scores 39399.5 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2262.5 in Cinebench R23 single-core. It also achieves a Geekbench multi-core score of 21697 and a single-core score of 2655. These are top-tier results, confirming the CPU is not the performance limiter.

Q: Does the game's performance scale with resolution as expected?

A: Yes, but the scaling is severe. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 32 at 1080p to 24 at 1440p (a 25% drop) and then to 16 at 4K (a 50% drop from 1080p). This pattern shows the GPU is overwhelmed as pixel count increases.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is the dominant constraint in this system. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 places it at the 9th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, GeForce 800M, GT 625 OEM, and GT 710 — all of which are entry-level or legacy parts. The benchmark results in Red Dead Redemption 2 confirm this positioning.

The GPU's specifications explain why. It features 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output units. Its base clock is 300 MHz, boosting to 2500 MHz. The memory configuration is "System Shared," meaning there is no dedicated VRAM; the GPU borrows from system memory, with bandwidth described as "System Dependent." This architecture is fundamentally unsuited for a demanding open-world title like Red Dead Redemption 2.

The GPU's pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s. Its FP32 compute is 7.680 TFLOPS. These figures are modest for a modern game, and the shared memory subsystem adds further latency and bandwidth pressure. In practice, this translates to average FPS figures that never exceed 51 at any resolution or setting combination tested.

The Arc B390 is built on Intel's Xe3-LPG architecture, using the Panther Lake chip on a 3 nm process. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, so API compatibility is not the issue. The problem is raw throughput. With only 12 ray tracing cores and a TDP of 80 W, the GPU is designed for low-power integrated use, not high-refresh gaming.

Because the GPU is the bottleneck, the i9-14900K's capabilities are largely untapped in this game. The CPU's 24 cores and 32 threads are ready for heavy workloads, but they cannot compensate for the GPU's inability to render frames quickly. The data shows that even at 1080p Low, the combo only reaches 51 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target most gamers consider smooth. At higher settings or resolutions, the GPU's limitations become even more pronounced.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling across resolutions reveals a GPU that is severely overmatched. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 51 at 1080p to 38 at 1440p (a 25.5% decrease) and then to 25 at 4K (a 51% decrease from 1080p). This is a steep decline, indicating that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are exhausted quickly as pixel count rises.

At High settings, the pattern is similar but with lower absolute numbers. The average FPS is 32 at 1080p, 24 at 1440p (a 25% drop), and 16 at 4K (a 50% drop from 1080p). The consistent ~25% penalty from 1080p to 1440p and the ~50% penalty from 1080p to 4K suggest that the GPU is scaling in a predictable, linear fashion — but from a very low baseline.

Medium settings show the same trend: 39 FPS at 1080p, 29 at 1440p, and 19 at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 25.6%, and the 1080p-to-4K drop is 51.3%. Ultra settings are the worst case: 23 FPS at 1080p, 17 at 1440p, and 11 at 4K. The percentage drops are 26.1% and 52.2%, respectively.

These numbers indicate that the limiting component is the GPU. A CPU-bound scenario would show flatter FPS across resolutions, especially at lower settings where the CPU has more work relative to the GPU. Here, the opposite is true: the FPS falls sharply with each resolution increase, which is the signature of a GPU that is running out of pixel processing power and memory bandwidth.

The fact that even 1080p Low cannot reach 60 FPS is telling. It means the GPU is not just struggling at high resolutions; it is struggling at the lowest possible settings and the most common gaming resolution. The 4K results are effectively unplayable, with averages ranging from 11 to 25 FPS depending on settings. The system's shared memory architecture likely compounds the problem, as the GPU must compete with the CPU for memory bandwidth.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of this combo's performance in Red Dead Redemption 2. Starting at 1920x1080, the lowest resolution tested, the combo achieves 51 FPS on Low settings. This is the only configuration that comes close to playable frame rates. Medium settings drop the average to 39 FPS, with a minimum of 33 and a maximum of 44. High settings yield 32 FPS, and Ultra settings fall to 23 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance degrades further. Low settings produce 38 FPS, Medium drops to 29 FPS (min 24, max 33), High falls to 24 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 17 FPS. None of these are acceptable for smooth gameplay, and even the Low setting struggles to maintain 40 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the results are marginal at best. Low settings average 25 FPS, Medium averages 19 FPS (min 16, max 22), High averages 16 FPS, and Ultra averages 11 FPS. These numbers are well below playable thresholds for a fast-paced action game, where 30 FPS is often considered the bare minimum.

The data shows a consistent pattern: each settings tier costs roughly 20-25% of the FPS at a given resolution. For example, at 1080p, Low is 51 FPS, Medium is 39 FPS (a 23.5% drop), High is 32 FPS (a 37.3% drop from Low), and Ultra is 23 FPS (a 54.9% drop from Low). At 1440p, the drops are 23.7%, 36.8%, and 55.3% respectively. At 4K, they are 24%, 36%, and 56%.

The minimum and maximum FPS values, where available, show that frame pacing is also inconsistent. At 1080p Medium, the range is 33 to 44 FPS, a spread of 11 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the range is 24 to 33 FPS, also a spread of 9 FPS. At 4K Medium, the range is 16 to 22 FPS, a spread of 6 FPS. This indicates the GPU is struggling to maintain consistent frame delivery, which can lead to stutter and judder even when the average FPS is technically playable.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 2568 out of 2902 tested combinations places this system in the bottom 11.5% of all configurations tested in Red Dead Redemption 2. This is a poor result, and the reasons are clear from the component-level data.

The CPU, Intel Core i9-14900K, is a top-tier processor. Its percentile ranking of 95 against all CPUs means it outperforms 95% of CPUs in the benchmark database. Its average benchmark score is 79097, and it sits close to rivals like the Intel Core i9-14900KF (79371, a 0.3% difference), the Intel Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus (79574, a 0.6% difference), and the AMD EPYC 7413 (80041, a 1.2% difference). The AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 scores 77740, which is 1.7% lower than the i9-14900K.

The GPU, however, is at the opposite end of the spectrum. The Intel Arc B390 has a percentile ranking of 9 against all GPUs, meaning it performs better than only 9% of GPUs. Its average benchmark score is 1482, and its nearest rivals are all low-end NVIDIA parts: the GT 520MX (1463, 1.3% lower), the GeForce 800M (1460, 1.5% lower), the GT 625 OEM (1446, 2.5% lower), and the GT 710 (1443, 2.7% lower).

When a 95th-percentile CPU is paired with a 9th-percentile GPU, the combo's ranking is destined to be low. In this game, the GPU is the sole determinant of performance, and its limitations drag the entire system down. The rank of 2568 reflects this imbalance: the CPU is capable of far more, but the GPU cannot deliver the frame rates needed to leverage that capability.

The data also shows that this combo's performance is not a fluke of a single benchmark. Across all resolutions and settings, the FPS figures are consistently low, confirming that the GPU is the bottleneck in every scenario. The combo rank is a fair representation of the system's overall gaming capability in this title.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K is a 24-core, 32-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.20 GHz and a boost clock of 6.00 GHz, with a TDP of 125 W. Its cache configuration includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, and it has PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i9-14900K excels. It scores 39399.5 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2262.5 in single-core. In Geekbench, it scores 21697 multi-core and 2655 single-core. Its PassMark multi-thread score is 58674, and its single-thread score is 4697. These are outstanding numbers that place it in the 95th percentile of all CPUs.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, however, the CPU's role is almost entirely passive. The game is GPU-bound in this system, as evidenced by the FPS scaling across resolutions and settings. The CPU has more than enough raw power to handle the game's simulation and AI workloads, but it cannot help the GPU render frames faster.

The CPU's 24 cores and 32 threads are far more than this game requires. Red Dead Redemption 2 is not known for being heavily threaded, and even if it were, the GPU would still be the limiting factor. The CPU's high single-core performance (2262.5 in Cinebench R23 single-core) ensures that it is not causing any frame drops due to slow game logic or draw call processing.

The data shows that the CPU's performance is effectively wasted in this configuration. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 51 FPS, which is likely close to the GPU's maximum output regardless of what CPU is paired with it. A weaker CPU would probably produce similar results, as long as it could keep up with the GPU's modest frame delivery. The i9-14900K is overkill for this GPU, but that is not a criticism of the CPU — it is a reflection of the GPU's limitations.

The CPU's memory support for DDR4 and DDR5, along with its dual-channel memory bus, provides a solid foundation for system memory bandwidth. However, since the GPU uses "System Shared" memory, the CPU and GPU compete for the same memory resources. This shared memory arrangement is likely a contributing factor to the GPU's poor performance, as it cannot access dedicated high-speed VRAM.