Red Dead Redemption 2

# Red Dead Redemption 2 — Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060

This pairing of a 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus with an 8 GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 produces a distinctly GPU-bound experience in Red Dead Redemption 2, with frame rates that scale predictably with resolution and settings but remain constrained by the graphics card's mid-range positioning. The combo ranks 1544th out of 2902 tested configurations, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database, yet the measured results reveal a playable setup at 1080p and 1440p with careful settings choices.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all four settings presets, confirming that the RTX 4060 is the limiting component at higher resolutions. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 110 FPS at 1920x1080 to 82 FPS at 2560x1440 — a 25% reduction — and then to 54 FPS at 3840x2160, which is another 34% drop from the 1440p figure. This progressive decline indicates that pixel throughput becomes the dominant constraint as resolution climbs, with the GPU's 272.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 128-bit bus struggling to feed the increased pixel workload.

At Medium settings, the scaling pattern is similar but with a smaller absolute range: 82 FPS at 1080p, 61 FPS at 1440p (a 26% drop), and 41 FPS at 4K (a 33% drop from 1440p). The High preset shows 69 FPS at 1080p, 51 FPS at 1440p (26% lower), and 34 FPS at 4K (33% lower than 1440p). Ultra settings produce the lowest floor: 49 FPS at 1080p, 37 FPS at 1440p (24% drop), and 24 FPS at 4K (35% drop). The near-uniform percentage drops across presets suggest that resolution scaling is largely independent of the quality level — the GPU's compute and memory subsystems are equally taxed regardless of whether the scene complexity is Low or Ultra.

The jump from 1080p to 1440p costs roughly one-quarter of the frame rate at every preset, while the jump from 1440p to 4K costs about one-third. This nonlinear degradation points to memory bandwidth saturation at 4K, where the 8 GB VRAM capacity and 272.0 GB/s bandwidth become insufficient for the higher-resolution framebuffers and texture demands. The data indicates that 4K gameplay is only viable at Low settings (54 FPS), and even then, the margin is thin; at Ultra, the 24 FPS average falls below the generally accepted playability threshold.

At 1080p, the scaling from Low to Ultra shows a 61 FPS spread (110 down to 49), which is a 55% performance penalty for maximum quality. This wide range suggests that the CPU has ample headroom at this resolution — the 24-core, 24-thread processor with a 5.80 GHz boost clock is not the bottleneck — and that the GPU's raw shading power (15.11 TFLOPS FP32) is the primary determinant of frame rate.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD107 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. Its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus delivers 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is modest by modern standards but adequate for 1080p and 1440p gaming. The GPU's 3072 shading units, 96 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs are configured to prioritize efficiency over raw throughput, and the measured results in Red Dead Redemption 2 reflect this design philosophy.

The card operates at a base clock of 1830 MHz and a boost clock of 2460 MHz, with memory running at 2125 MHz (17 Gbps effective). These clock speeds are relatively high, and the boost behavior appears to hold well under sustained load, given that the 4K Medium result (41 FPS average, 35 FPS minimum, 47 FPS maximum) shows a tight frame-time distribution rather than throttling-induced variance. The 115 W TDP is low for a discrete GPU, which means thermal constraints are unlikely to cause performance degradation in most chassis.

The RTX 4060's percentile ranking of 61 among all GPUs places it just above the median, and its average benchmark score of 17639 is nearly identical to its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon HD 7790, which scores 17666 (a 0.2% difference). This near-tie in synthetic benchmarks does not translate to identical gaming performance, but it does frame the RTX 4060 as a mainstream part rather than a high-end one. The GPU's 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2302 and Passmark G3D score of 19545 are consistent with this positioning.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the GPU's 8 GB VRAM capacity becomes a limiting factor at 4K Ultra, where the 24 FPS average suggests that the card is both bandwidth- and capacity-constrained. At 1080p, however, the same capacity is sufficient, and the frame rates scale more with settings than with resolution — the 110 FPS Low result versus 49 FPS Ultra result indicates that the GPU's compute units are the bottleneck, not the memory subsystem.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 2, based on the Arrow Lake Refresh codename and manufactured on a 3 nm process at TSMC. Its base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.80 GHz provide substantial single-thread performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7303 and Passmark single-thread score of 4823. The CPU's 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache (192 KB L1 per core) ensure that game logic and draw call processing are rarely starved for data.

In this game, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU at all measured resolutions. The 1080p Low result of 110 FPS is the highest frame rate in the dataset, and it is unlikely that the CPU is the limiting factor at this point — the GPU is still delivering over 100 FPS, which is well within the RTX 4060's capabilities for lower-fidelity scenes. The CPU's multi-threaded throughput, measured at 51731 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 60860 in Passmark multithread, is far beyond what Red Dead Redemption 2 requires, even with its open-world simulation and AI workloads.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 96 among all CPUs places it in the top 4% of tested processors, and its average benchmark score of 84003 is within 0.2% of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (83807), its closest rival. This is a high-end processor that is not being taxed by this game; the data shows that reducing resolution from 4K to 1080p at the same settings yields larger frame rate gains than reducing settings at the same resolution, which is the signature of a GPU-bound scenario.

The 24 threads may provide some benefit in Red Dead Redemption 2's background simulation, but the measured FPS data does not show any CPU-related hiccups — the 4K Medium result with a 35 FPS minimum against a 41 FPS average indicates stable frame pacing. The processor's 125 W TDP and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (115.2 GB/s bandwidth) are more than sufficient for this workload, and the data suggests that the CPU is effectively idle in this configuration.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 ranks 1544th out of 2902 tested combos in Red Dead Redemption 2, placing it in the 53rd percentile of all configurations. This rank is surprisingly low for a CPU that scores in the 96th percentile and a GPU in the 61st percentile, which indicates that the game's performance is heavily weighted toward the GPU's capabilities — and the RTX 4060 is not a top-tier part.

The pairing's rank of 1544 suggests that many combos with weaker CPUs but stronger GPUs outperform it, which is consistent with the GPU-bound nature of the game. A hypothetical combo with a mid-range CPU and an RTX 4080-class GPU would likely rank higher, despite the CPU's inferior synthetic scores, because the GPU would dominate in this title. Conversely, this combo outperforms configurations where the GPU is weaker, even if those systems have comparable or better CPUs.

The gap between the CPU's percentile (96) and the combo's rank (1544/2902, or 53%) highlights the mismatch between the processor's capabilities and the GPU's limitations. The 24-core CPU is overkill for a game that cannot utilize more than a fraction of its threads, while the RTX 4060's 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit bus are the constraining factors. This is not a balanced pairing for Red Dead Redemption 2, but it is a functional one at 1080p and 1440p with appropriate settings.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Red Dead Redemption 2 at 4K?

A: Yes, but only at Low settings, where it achieves a 54 FPS average. At Medium, the average drops to 41 FPS, and at High it falls to 34 FPS. Ultra settings produce a 24 FPS average, which is below playable thresholds.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in this game?

A: The data shows 1920x1080 is the sweet spot, with all settings presets achieving at least 49 FPS. At 2560x1440, only Low (82 FPS) and Medium (61 FPS) remain comfortably playable, while High (51 FPS) is borderline and Ultra (37 FPS) is marginal.

Q: How does the RTX 4060 compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4060's average benchmark score is 17639, which is 0.2% lower than the AMD Radeon HD 7790 (17666). It is 0.3% higher than the AMD Radeon 780M (17588) and 0.5% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro 560 (17551).

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus a bottleneck in this configuration?

A: No. The CPU's 96th percentile ranking and high single-thread scores (7303 in Cinebench R23 single-core) indicate it is not limiting frame rates. The measured FPS scaling with resolution and settings confirms the GPU is the bottleneck.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1080p with Medium settings?

A: The measured average is 82 FPS, with a minimum of 70 FPS and a maximum of 95 FPS. This provides a smooth experience with headroom for occasional dips.

Q: How does the 4K Medium result compare to the 1440p Ultra result?

A: At 4K Medium, the average is 41 FPS (minimum 35, maximum 47). At 1440p Ultra, the average is 37 FPS. The 4K Medium setting actually delivers slightly higher frame rates than 1440p Ultra, despite the higher resolution, due to the lower quality preset.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings range is available and playable. Low settings produce an average of 110 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. Medium settings yield 82 FPS average with a 70 FPS minimum and 95 FPS maximum, providing a stable experience. High settings drop to 69 FPS average, and Ultra settings bottom out at 49 FPS average. The 61 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at this resolution indicates that the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU has ample headroom.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease uniformly. Low settings achieve 82 FPS average, which is identical to the 1080p Medium result — a clear sign of GPU scaling. Medium settings produce 61 FPS average (minimum 52, maximum 71), which remains playable. High settings fall to 51 FPS average, and Ultra settings drop to 37 FPS average. The 45 FPS spread between Low and Ultra is slightly narrower than at 1080p, suggesting that resolution is starting to dominate over settings.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly overburdened. Low settings deliver 54 FPS average, which is the only playable result at this resolution. Medium settings produce 41 FPS average with a 35 FPS minimum and 47 FPS maximum, which is borderline. High settings fall to 34 FPS average, and Ultra settings drop to 24 FPS average. The 30 FPS spread between Low and Ultra is the smallest of the three resolutions, confirming that pixel throughput is the primary constraint at 4K.

The Medium settings rows are the only ones with complete min/max data. At 1080p Medium, the 70-95 FPS range shows a 25 FPS variance, indicating consistent frame pacing. At 1440p Medium, the 52-71 FPS range shows a 19 FPS variance, which is tighter. At 4K Medium, the 35-47 FPS range shows a 12 FPS variance, the narrowest of all — suggesting that at higher resolutions, the GPU is more consistently saturated and frame times are more uniform.

Settings Recommendations

For 1080p gameplay, the High preset at 69 FPS average offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. The Ultra preset at 49 FPS is still playable but provides diminishing returns for a 29% frame rate penalty. Medium at 82 FPS is the choice for higher refresh rates, but High is recommended for the visual experience.

At 1440p, Medium settings at 61 FPS average (minimum 52) are the best option, as they maintain a playable frame rate while providing moderate visual fidelity. High at 51 FPS is playable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes. Low at 82 FPS is viable for competitive play, but the visual compromise is substantial. Ultra at 37 FPS is not recommended.

For 4K, Low settings at 54 FPS average are the only viable option. Medium at 41 FPS is borderline and may result in noticeable stutter in dense scenes, given the 35 FPS minimum. High and Ultra are not playable at this resolution. If 4K is a requirement, the data suggests that the RTX 4060 is inadequate for this game at higher quality presets, and users should consider lowering resolution or upgrading the GPU.

The overall recommendation is to target 1080p High or 1440p Medium for the best experience with this combo. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient at these settings, and the measured frame rates provide smooth gameplay. For users prioritizing frame rate over visuals, 1080p Low at 110 FPS is the maximum performance option, while 1080p Medium at 82 FPS offers a strong middle ground with its documented 70 FPS minimum ensuring no major dips.