Red Dead Redemption 2

The Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination delivers exceptional performance in Red Dead Redemption 2, with the data showing a clear hierarchy across resolutions and presets. The benchmark results indicate that this pairing is capable of high refresh rate gameplay at 1080p and 1440p, while 4K remains demanding even for this flagship hardware. The measured FPS values reveal that settings selection is the primary lever for performance, with the gap between Low and Ultra presets being substantial at every resolution.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data for this combo in Red Dead Redemption 2 shows a consistent pattern where the Medium preset provides the most balanced experience. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers an average of 164 FPS, which is identical to the Low preset at the same resolution. This indicates that the Medium preset offers no performance penalty over Low at 1080p, making it the obvious choice for competitive or high-refresh-rate displays. The High preset at 1080p drops to 137 FPS, a decrease of 27 FPS from Medium, while Ultra falls to 99 FPS, a substantial 65 FPS reduction from Medium.

For 2560x1440, the Medium preset again stands out as the optimal choice. The measured average of 123 FPS with a minimum of 104 FPS and maximum of 141 FPS shows smooth performance that exceeds the refresh rate of most 1440p monitors. The Low preset at 1440p achieves 164 FPS, but the visual quality sacrifice is unnecessary given that Medium maintains excellent frame rates. High at 1440p delivers 102 FPS, which remains playable, but the 21 FPS gap between High and Medium suggests diminishing returns for the extra visual fidelity.

At 3840x2160, the situation changes significantly. The Medium preset produces an average of 81 FPS with a minimum of 69 FPS and maximum of 93 FPS, which is the only 4K preset that consistently stays above 60 FPS. Low at 4K achieves 108 FPS but represents a major visual downgrade. High at 4K drops to 68 FPS, which hovers near the edge of playability for demanding scenes, while Ultra at 4K falls to 49 FPS, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay. The data suggests that Medium is the recommended preset for 4K gaming with this combo, as it provides the best balance of visual quality and frame rate stability.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. This massive memory allocation and bandwidth are directly relevant to Red Dead Redemption 2's performance at high resolutions. The game's open-world environments and detailed textures place significant demands on VRAM, and the benchmark results show that the GPU is the limiting factor at 4K resolution. The transition from Medium to Ultra at 3840x2160 results in a frame rate drop from 81 FPS to 49 FPS, a 32 FPS decrease that highlights the GPU's workload scaling with settings.

The GPU's clock speeds are listed at a base of 2017 MHz and boost of 2407 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). These frequencies, combined with the 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 compute capability, enable the RTX 5090 to handle the game's rendering demands. The data shows that at 1080p, the GPU is not the primary bottleneck, as the frame rates across all presets remain high. However, at 4K, the GPU's performance becomes the determining factor, with the measured FPS dropping from 108 at Low to 49 at Ultra.

The RTX 5090's 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores suggest capability for advanced rendering features, though the measured data does not isolate these effects in Red Dead Redemption 2. The GPU's passmark G3D score of 39650 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18355 place it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, confirming its position as a top-tier performer. The nearest rival comparisons show a 0.3% delta against the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB, indicating the RTX 5090's benchmark scores are closely matched to that data center GPU.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K provides 24 cores and 32 threads based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.20 GHz and boost clock of 6.00 GHz. This processing power is more than sufficient for Red Dead Redemption 2, as the game's engine does not appear to be CPU-limited at any tested configuration. The CPU's L3 cache of 36 MB shared across the cores helps reduce memory latency for game data access, while the dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory support provides adequate bandwidth for the game's requirements.

Benchmark results for the i9-14900K show strong synthetic performance, including a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 39399.5 and single-core score of 2262.5. The Geekbench multicore score of 21697 and single-core score of 2655 further confirm the CPU's capabilities. In the context of Red Dead Redemption 2, the measured FPS data indicates that the CPU maintains sufficient performance headroom even at low resolutions where the GPU is less stressed. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 220 FPS, which suggests the CPU can handle high frame rate scenarios without becoming a bottleneck.

The CPU's percentile rank of 95 among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79097, places it in the top tier of processors. The nearest rival comparison shows the i9-14900K is 0.3% behind the i9-14900KF and 0.6% behind the Core Ultra 9 290HX Plus, while being 1.7% ahead of the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395. These small performance differences are unlikely to manifest in Red Dead Redemption 2's frame rates, as the game's CPU demands are modest relative to this processor's capabilities. The data suggests that the i9-14900K provides a stable foundation for the RTX 5090 to deliver its full graphical performance.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 with Medium settings provides the best experience, delivering 123 FPS average with a minimum of 104 FPS. This resolution offers a good balance between visual fidelity and performance, as 1080p does not fully utilize the GPU's capabilities while 4K requires significant settings compromises.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to Medium at 4K?

A: At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset delivers 49 FPS average, which is unplayable for smooth gameplay, while the Medium preset achieves 81 FPS with a minimum of 69 FPS. The 32 FPS difference between these presets indicates that Ultra is too demanding for 4K on this hardware, whereas Medium maintains consistent frame rates above 60 FPS.

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

A: The GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the combo achieves 220 FPS on Low and 137 FPS on High, suggesting the CPU can handle high frame rates. However, at 4K, the GPU's performance drops significantly across all presets, indicating that the RTX 5090 is the primary constraint at that resolution.

Q: What frame rates can be expected at 1440p with High settings?

A: The measured data shows 102 FPS average at 2560x1440 with High settings. This is 21 FPS lower than the Medium preset at the same resolution, which achieves 123 FPS. Both are playable, but High offers a noticeable performance trade-off for increased visual quality.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: This combination ranks 88th out of 3714 tested combos in Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the top 2.4% of all configurations. This high ranking reflects the strong synergy between the i9-14900K and RTX 5090 for this game.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low settings achieve 220 FPS while Ultra settings drop to 99 FPS, a difference of 121 FPS. This substantial gap highlights the significant performance cost of Ultra settings, which reduces frame rates by more than half compared to Low.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how performance scales across the three tested resolutions for each preset. At Low settings, the frame rates are 220 FPS at 1080p, 164 FPS at 1440p, and 108 FPS at 4K. This represents a 25% decrease from 1080p to 1440p and a 34% decrease from 1440p to 4K, showing that even at minimal graphical settings, the GPU workload increases substantially with resolution.

The Medium preset shows similar scaling patterns: 164 FPS at 1080p, 123 FPS at 1440p, and 81 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 25% from 1080p to 1440p and 34% from 1440p to 4K, mirroring the Low preset's scaling. This consistency suggests that the resolution scaling factor is independent of the settings preset, indicating a GPU-bound workload where resolution directly affects rendering time.

For High settings, the frame rates are 137 FPS at 1080p, 102 FPS at 1440p, and 68 FPS at 4K. The drops are 26% from 1080p to 1440p and 33% from 1440p to 4K. The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling: 99 FPS at 1080p, 74 FPS at 1440p, and 49 FPS at 4K, with drops of 25% and 34% respectively. The consistent percentage decreases across all presets indicate that the limiting factor is the GPU's pixel throughput, which scales linearly with resolution, rather than any CPU or memory constraint.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates across all presets. The Low preset achieves 220 FPS average, while Medium produces 164 FPS with a minimum of 140 FPS and maximum of 189 FPS. High settings reach 137 FPS, and Ultra drops to 99 FPS. The minimum FPS data for Medium at 1080p shows a variation of 49 FPS between minimum and maximum, indicating some scene complexity fluctuations but overall smooth performance.

The 2560x1440 results show a step down in performance while maintaining high frame rates. Low delivers 164 FPS, Medium achieves 123 FPS with a minimum of 104 FPS and maximum of 141 FPS, High produces 102 FPS, and Ultra falls to 74 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p shows a 37 FPS range between minimum and maximum, which is slightly larger than at 1080p but still indicates stable performance for most gameplay scenarios.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops become more pronounced. Low delivers 108 FPS, Medium achieves 81 FPS with a minimum of 69 FPS and maximum of 93 FPS, High produces 68 FPS, and Ultra falls to 49 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K shows a 24 FPS range between minimum and maximum, which is the smallest variation among the Medium presets across resolutions, suggesting that the GPU is consistently loaded at this resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination ranks 88th out of 3714 tested combos in Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the top 2.4% of all configurations tested. This ranking reflects the exceptional performance demonstrated in the measured FPS data across all resolutions and settings.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 79097 places it in the 95th percentile of all processors, while the GPU's average benchmark score of 79842 places it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. The combination of two near-top-tier components results in a system that excels in this game, as evidenced by the high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p and the playable performance at 4K with appropriate settings.

The combo's rank relative to other configurations suggests that only 87 tested combinations outperform it in Red Dead Redemption 2. Given the GPU's nearest rival comparisons showing only 0.3% to 1.4% differences in average scores, the performance gap to higher-ranked combos is likely small. The data indicates that this pairing delivers a top-tier experience in Red Dead Redemption 2, with the RTX 5090's 32 GB VRAM and the i9-14900K's 24 cores providing ample headroom for the game's demands.