Red Dead Redemption 2

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus paired with the Intel Arc B390 integrated graphics produces a severely GPU-bound experience in Red Dead Redemption 2, with performance that places this combo in the bottom 12% of all tested configurations. The data shows that this system is only viable at 1080p with Low settings if you target playable frame rates, as the integrated GPU’s limited throughput becomes the overwhelming bottleneck at higher resolutions and quality presets.

FAQ

Q: What is the best frame rate this combo can achieve in Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: The highest average FPS recorded is 51 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This is the only configuration in the measured data that approaches standard playability, though it still falls short of the 60 FPS threshold.

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

A: The Arc B390’s average benchmark score of 1482 places it just 1.3% above the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, 1.5% above the GeForce 800M, and 2.7% above the GeForce GT 710. This indicates performance in the entry-level legacy GPU segment, with the Arc B390 ranking in the 9th percentile of all GPUs.

Q: What is the CPU’s standing compared to other processors?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus ranks in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 93785. It is statistically tied with the Intel Xeon 6520P (deltaPct of 0), while sitting 1.5% behind the AMD EPYC 4564P and 1.9% behind the AMD EPYC 9175F.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: No. The data indicates the opposite: the GPU is the limiting factor. For instance, at 1080p High the combo delivers 32 FPS, but the CPU is capable of far more, as evidenced by its strong multi-threaded benchmark scores like 44253 in Cinebench R23 multi-core.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: At Low settings, average FPS drops from 51 at 1080p to 25 at 4K, a loss of 51%. At High settings, the drop is from 32 FPS at 1080p to 16 FPS at 4K, a 50% reduction. The scaling is nearly linear, confirming the GPU’s pixel-throughput limits.

Q: What is the combo’s overall rank among tested systems for this game?

A: The combo ranks 2568 out of 2902 tested combinations in Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the bottom 11.5% of all configurations. This low ranking is driven almost entirely by the integrated GPU’s weak performance.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is the decisive factor in this combo’s Red Dead Redemption 2 performance, and the numbers paint a clear picture of an integrated graphics solution that is out of its depth. The GPU operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz, but its memory configuration is the critical weakness: it uses System Shared memory with System Dependent bandwidth. This means the GPU relies on the CPU’s DDR5 memory bus, which, while rated at 115.2 GB/s for the processor, introduces latency and bandwidth contention that dedicated graphics memory avoids.

The Arc B390’s raw compute specifications confirm its entry-level positioning. It has 1536 shading units, 48 TMUs, and 24 ROPs, producing a pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s. Its FP32 throughput is 7.680 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 15.36 TFLOPS (2:1). These figures translate directly into the measured frame rates: the GPU simply cannot fill the framebuffer fast enough at higher resolutions. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482, placing the GPU in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, is a strong predictor of the low FPS seen in this game.

The GPU’s 12 ray tracing cores and support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) are technically present, but they are irrelevant at the performance levels observed. In Red Dead Redemption 2, the GPU’s bottleneck manifests clearly: at 1080p Low, the system achieves 51 FPS, but raising the resolution to 1440p Low drops the average to 38 FPS, and at 4K Low it falls to 25 FPS. This scaling pattern shows that the Arc B390’s fixed-function units (ROPs and TMUs) are the limiting resource, not the CPU or memory subsystem.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling across resolutions in Red Dead Redemption 2 reveals a textbook example of a GPU-bound system. Moving from 1080p to 1440p to 4K at identical settings produces nearly proportional drops in performance, indicating that the Arc B390’s rendering throughput is the sole constraint.

At Low settings, the average FPS progression is 51 at 1080p, 38 at 1440p, and 25 at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is a 25.5% reduction, and from 1440p to 4K is a 34.2% reduction. The total loss from 1080p to 4K is 51%. This is consistent with a GPU that is pixel-bound: doubling the pixel count halves the frame rate, as seen in the near-exact 50% reduction.

High settings follow the same pattern: 32 FPS at 1080p, 24 FPS at 1440p, and 16 FPS at 4K. The 1080p to 4K drop is again 50%. Medium settings show 39 FPS at 1080p, 29 FPS at 1440p, and 19 FPS at 4K, with a 51.3% total loss. Ultra settings are the most demanding, yielding 23 FPS at 1080p, 17 FPS at 1440p, and 11 FPS at 4K, a 52.2% drop.

The consistency of these reductions—all hovering around 50% to 52% from 1080p to 4K—demonstrates that the CPU is not a factor in this scaling. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS drop would flatten at higher resolutions as the GPU work increased. Instead, the linear scaling confirms that the Arc B390’s fill rate is the limiting component, and no settings adjustment can overcome this hardware ceiling.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Red Dead Redemption 2 with the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Intel Arc B390 spans four resolutions and four quality presets, with only Medium settings providing minimum and maximum frame data.

At 1920x1080, the best result is 51 FPS average on Low settings. High settings yield 32 FPS average, Medium produces 39 FPS average with a range of 33 to 44 FPS, and Ultra drops to 23 FPS average. The spread from Low to Ultra is 28 FPS, showing that quality presets have a significant impact at this resolution, but even the best case falls short of 60 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, performance degrades across the board. Low settings average 38 FPS, High averages 24 FPS, Medium averages 29 FPS with a range of 24 to 33 FPS, and Ultra averages 17 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra narrows to 21 FPS, indicating that the GPU is becoming more saturated and settings have diminishing returns.

At 3840x2160, the results are largely unplayable. Low settings average 25 FPS, High averages 16 FPS, Medium averages 19 FPS with a range of 16 to 22 FPS, and Ultra averages 11 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread is 14 FPS, the smallest of all resolutions, confirming that the GPU is fully saturated and even the lowest settings cannot provide a playable experience.

The Medium preset data is the only set with min and max FPS figures. At 1080p Medium, the range is 33 to 44 FPS, a variance of 11 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the range is 24 to 33 FPS, also an 11 FPS spread. At 4K Medium, the range narrows to 16 to 22 FPS, a 6 FPS variance. This tightening range at higher resolutions further supports the GPU-bound analysis, as frame time consistency improves when the GPU is constantly maxed out.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2568 out of 2902 tested combos in Red Dead Redemption 2. This places the system in the bottom 11.5% of all configurations, a position that is almost entirely attributable to the GPU. The CPU’s own benchmark percentile (96th) is a stark contrast to the GPU’s 9th percentile, creating a massive imbalance in this pairing.

The combo rank of 2568 means that only 334 tested combinations performed worse in this game. Given the CPU’s high standing, the conclusion is unambiguous: the Arc B390 drags the entire system down. A system with a top-tier CPU and an entry-level iGPU is a mismatch for a graphically demanding title like Red Dead Redemption 2, which was released in 2018 but still stresses modern hardware at higher settings.

The practical implication of this rank is that the combo is only suitable for low-resolution, low-quality gaming. The measured FPS data shows that the system can barely maintain 51 FPS at 1080p Low, which is the minimum viable configuration. Any attempt to increase visual fidelity or resolution results in sub-30 FPS performance, making the game effectively unplayable at 1440p or 4K with this hardware.

The rank also reflects the GPU’s position relative to its nearest rivals. The Arc B390’s 1.3% lead over the GT 520MX and 2.7% lead over the GT 710 are negligible in real-world gaming, and those rival GPUs are from a much older generation. This confirms that the Arc B390 is not a gaming-oriented part, and its inclusion in this combo is the primary reason for the low rank.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, built on a 3 nm process at TSMC. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz with a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, and it has a 125 W TDP. The CPU supports DDR5 memory on a dual-channel bus with 115.2 GB/s bandwidth, and it features 36 MB of shared L3 cache, with 192 KB L1 and 3 MB L2 per core.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU’s role is entirely secondary to the GPU’s limitations. The benchmark results show a processor that is more than capable of handling the game’s simulation and AI workloads: Cinebench R23 multi-core score is 44253, and single-core is 2439. PassMark multithread score is 68574, with single-thread at 5068. These scores place the CPU in the 96th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 93785.

The nearest CPU rivals confirm its positioning: it is within 0% of the Intel Xeon 6520P, 1.5% behind the AMD EPYC 4564P, and 1.9% behind the AMD EPYC 9175F. This is a professional-grade, high-core-count processor that would typically be paired with a discrete GPU. In this combo, its capabilities are wasted, as the Arc B390 cannot push enough frames to stress the CPU.

The data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck in any measured scenario. If it were, the FPS would remain constant across different resolutions at the same settings. Instead, the FPS drops by roughly half when moving from 1080p to 4K, which is purely a GPU limitation. The CPU’s 24 cores and high boost clock are irrelevant to the final frame rate because the GPU is only capable of delivering 11 to 51 FPS depending on settings. The CPU’s memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s is also sufficient, as the GPU’s shared memory usage does not saturate the bus at these low frame rates. Ultimately, the Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a high-end processor that is completely underutilized in this pairing, and its performance headroom offers no benefit in Red Dead Redemption 2 without a more powerful GPU.