Red Dead Redemption 2

This combo pairs the 24-core Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus with the 8 GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 in Red Dead Redemption 2. The benchmark data shows a system that ranks 1760th out of 2902 tested combos, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database for this title. The measured frame rates reveal a configuration that can handle 1080p and 1440p gaming at medium settings, but struggles at 4K and with ultra presets across all resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1760 out of 2902 places this pairing in the 39th percentile of all tested combinations for Red Dead Redemption 2. This is a modest standing, reflecting a significant imbalance between the CPU and GPU components. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus sits in the 96th percentile among all CPUs, while the RTX 5050 lands in just the 66th percentile among GPUs. The data indicates that the processor is far more capable than the graphics card in this pairing, and the frame rates measured across all settings and resolutions confirm that the GPU is the primary constraint.

Looking at the CPU's synthetic benchmarks, the Ultra 9 290K Plus posts a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and a single-core score of 7303. Its average benchmark score of 84003 puts it 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, which scores 83807, and 1.1% ahead of the AMD EPYC 4584PX at 83090. The nearest rival on the other side is the AMD EPYC 7F72, which leads by 1.3% with an average score of 85072. These are essentially marginal differences, showing the Ultra 9 290K Plus is competitive with the best desktop and server processors in raw compute.

The RTX 5050, by contrast, shows a much weaker standing. Its average benchmark score of 21035 is 0.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL at 21153 and 1.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT at 20713. The NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile leads this GPU by 1.6% with a score of 21379. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, the RTX 5050 scores 2502, and in Geekbench OpenCL it reaches 90334. These numbers paint a picture of an entry-level GPU that is clearly outclassed by the CPU paired with it.

The gameplay data reflects this imbalance directly. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo reaches 98 FPS, but this drops to 61 FPS at High and 44 FPS at Ultra. The pattern repeats at 1440p, where Low yields 73 FPS, High drops to 46 FPS, and Ultra falls to 33 FPS. At 4K, the situation becomes untenable for smooth play, with Low producing 48 FPS, Medium 36 FPS, High just 30 FPS, and Ultra only 22 FPS. The rank of 1760 suggests that most other combos in the database deliver better overall performance in this specific game, which is expected given the GPU's low percentile standing.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data suggests that Medium settings provide the most balanced experience for this combo, offering playable frame rates with acceptable visual quality. At 1080p Medium, the system delivers 73 FPS average with a minimum of 62 FPS and a maximum of 84 FPS. This is a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 55 FPS with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 63 FPS, which remains playable but shows the GPU beginning to struggle.

High settings are playable only at 1080p, where the combo hits 61 FPS average. At 1440p High, the average falls to 46 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target and will show noticeable stutter in fast-paced scenes. At 4K High, the average drops to 30 FPS, which is borderline for action games. Low settings are the only way to achieve smooth frame rates at 4K, producing 48 FPS average, but this requires sacrificing nearly all visual fidelity.

Ultra settings are not recommended for this combo at any resolution. The best Ultra result is 44 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 33 FPS at 1440p and 22 FPS at 4K. The jump from Medium to Ultra costs roughly 40% of the frame rate at each resolution, while the visual improvement in Red Dead Redemption 2 is incremental. For users prioritizing smooth gameplay, Medium at 1080p or 1440p is the sweet spot. For those with a 4K display, Low is the only viable option, but the 48 FPS average indicates the GPU is not well-suited to that resolution in this title.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1080p Medium delivers 73 FPS average with a minimum of 62 FPS, making it the smoothest experience. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 55 FPS with a minimum of 46 FPS, which remains playable.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Red Dead Redemption 2?

A: The measured results indicate 4K is only playable at Low settings, producing 48 FPS average. Medium settings at 4K yield 36 FPS, High drops to 30 FPS, and Ultra falls to 22 FPS, all of which are below the 60 FPS target.

Q: How does the RTX 5050 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 5050's average benchmark score of 21035 is 0.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL, 1.6% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 5600 XT, and 1.6% behind the NVIDIA RTX A4000 Mobile.

Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus a bottleneck for the RTX 5050?

A: The CPU ranks in the 96th percentile among all processors, while the GPU ranks in the 66th percentile. The frame rate data shows the GPU is the limiting component, as the CPU's compute capabilities vastly exceed what the RTX 5050 can utilize in this game.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1440p High settings?

A: The measured average is 46 FPS with no reported minimum or maximum values. This is below the 60 FPS threshold, so you would experience some stutter during intense scenes.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from Low to Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, Low produces 98 FPS average, Medium 73 FPS, High 61 FPS, and Ultra 44 FPS. The drop from Low to Ultra represents a 55% reduction in average frame rate.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured frame rate data provides a clear picture of how this combo scales across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the lowest resolution tested, the system produces its best results. Low settings yield 98 FPS average, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this combo. Medium settings at 1080p deliver 73 FPS average with a minimum of 62 FPS and a maximum of 84 FPS. High settings drop to 61 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 44 FPS. The 1080p row shows a steady decline from Low to Ultra, with each step up in quality costing roughly 15-20% of the frame rate.

At 2560x1440, the pattern continues but with lower absolute numbers. Low settings produce 73 FPS average, Medium delivers 55 FPS with a minimum of 46 FPS and a maximum of 63 FPS, High drops to 46 FPS, and Ultra falls to 33 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 40 FPS, slightly less than the 54 FPS gap at 1080p. This suggests the GPU is becoming more of a limiting factor at the higher resolution, compressing the differences between settings.

The 3840x2160 results show the combo's limits. Low settings at 4K yield 48 FPS average, Medium produces 36 FPS with a minimum of 31 FPS and a maximum of 41 FPS, High drops to 30 FPS, and Ultra falls to 22 FPS. The minimum frame rate of 31 FPS at Medium 4K indicates the system can dip below 30 FPS during demanding scenes, which would cause noticeable hitches. The 4K Ultra result of 22 FPS is effectively unplayable for a fast-paced action game.

Comparing across resolutions at the same settings reveals the scaling pattern. At Medium, 1080p produces 73 FPS, 1440p produces 55 FPS, and 4K produces 36 FPS. At High, the numbers are 61, 46, and 30 FPS respectively. The consistent drop from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 25%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K is roughly 35%. This increasing penalty at higher resolutions confirms that the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute resources are being saturated.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 320.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU runs at a base clock of 2317 MHz with a boost clock of 2572 MHz, and the memory operates at 2500 MHz with 20 Gbps effective speed. The card has 2560 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, delivering 13.17 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. These specifications place the RTX 5050 firmly in the entry-level segment of the GeForce 50-series.

The 8 GB memory capacity is the most significant limitation for Red Dead Redemption 2 at higher resolutions. The game's open-world environments and detailed textures require substantial video memory, and the measured frame rates at 4K suggest the GPU is hitting memory bandwidth constraints. The 320.0 GB/s bandwidth is modest by modern standards, and the data shows a sharp performance drop when moving from 1440p to 4K, which is consistent with memory bandwidth becoming a bottleneck.

The RTX 5050's benchmark results reinforce its entry-level positioning. In 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, it scores 2502, and in Geekbench OpenCL it reaches 90334. The Passmark G3D score of 17326 places it in the 66th percentile among all GPUs, which is a mediocre standing for a current-generation card. The nearest rival comparisons show it trading blows with older mobile and desktop parts, indicating that the RTX 5050 is not a high-performance part by any measure.

The pixel rate of 82.30 GPixel/s and texture rate of 205.8 GTexel/s are modest figures that align with the measured gaming performance. In Red Dead Redemption 2, the GPU's fill rate limits its ability to handle high-resolution rendering with anti-aliasing and other pixel-heavy effects. The 8 GB VRAM also limits texture quality settings, as the game can exceed this capacity at 1440p and 4K with high-quality textures, forcing the system to swap data and causing frame rate drops.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. It runs at a base clock of 3.70 GHz with a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, and has a TDP of 125 W. The CPU features a large cache hierarchy: 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. It supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration with 115.2 GB/s of bandwidth.

The CPU's benchmark results demonstrate exceptional compute capability. The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and single-core score of 7303 place it among the fastest processors in the database. The Passmark multi-thread score of 60860 and single-thread score of 4823 further confirm its strength. The CPU ranks in the 96th percentile among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 84003. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, scores 83807, a mere 0.2% difference, showing the 290K Plus is essentially tied with its predecessor in raw performance.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls, physics calculations, and game logic. The game is not known for being particularly CPU-intensive at moderate settings, and the 24 cores of the Ultra 9 290K Plus are far more than the game can utilize. The measured frame rates show that the GPU is the limiting factor at all resolutions, as the CPU's massive multi-threaded performance is never the bottleneck.

The CPU's high boost clock of 5.80 GHz and strong single-core performance of 7303 in Cinebench R23 ensure that even the most demanding CPU-bound scenarios in the game will not cause frame rate drops. The 36 MB of shared L3 cache helps with game asset streaming, and the DDR5 memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s provides ample data throughput for the GPU. The data shows that the CPU is essentially idle relative to its capabilities, with the RTX 5050 holding back the system's potential.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the system's behavior under increasing GPU load. At Low settings, 1080p produces 98 FPS, 1440p produces 73 FPS, and 4K produces 48 FPS. This represents a 25.5% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 34.2% drop from 1440p to 4K. At Medium settings, the numbers are 73, 55, and 36 FPS, with drops of 24.7% and 34.5% respectively. The consistent pattern shows that moving to 4K costs roughly a third of the frame rate at any given setting.

The scaling pattern indicates that the GPU is the limiting component across all resolutions. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see smaller frame rate differences between resolutions, as the CPU's workload does not scale linearly with pixel count. Instead, the data shows sharp drops at 4K, which is characteristic of a GPU that is saturated by the increased pixel throughput and memory bandwidth demands.

The minimum frame rates recorded at Medium settings show additional insight. At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 62 FPS, at 1440p Medium it is 46 FPS, and at 4K Medium it is 31 FPS. The minimum frame rate drops more steeply than the average, indicating that the GPU experiences more severe frame time spikes at higher resolutions. This is typical of memory bandwidth limitations, where sudden texture or geometry loads cause the GPU to stall.

The resolution scaling data also shows that the RTX 5050's 8 GB memory is a hard limit at 4K. The 4K results across all settings are clustered in the 22-48 FPS range, which is far below the 60 FPS target. Even at Low settings, where the game reduces texture quality and draw distance, the 4K result of 48 FPS suggests the GPU is still struggling with the sheer number of pixels. For users with a 4K display, the data strongly suggests that this combo is not suitable for Red Dead Redemption 2 at acceptable quality levels.