Undisputed

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT delivers a broad range of frame rates in Undisputed, with the measured data showing a clear hierarchy across presets and resolutions. At 1080p, the Low preset produces an average of 238.7 FPS, while the Medium preset offers 170.7 FPS, and High drops to 141.6 FPS. The Ultra preset, at 89.5 FPS, remains highly playable but demands a significant performance trade-off. Moving to 1440p, the High preset yields 103.4 FPS, which is a strong result for competitive play, while Medium delivers 123.7 FPS and Low reaches 172.4 FPS. At 4K, the High preset manages 65.6 FPS, which is adequate, but the Ultra preset falls to 43.1 FPS, indicating a heavy load on the graphics subsystem.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data indicates that the High preset at 1440p provides the most balanced experience for this combination. With an average of 103.4 FPS, it sits comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold while maintaining visual fidelity that is substantially better than Low or Medium. At 1080p, the High preset at 141.6 FPS is also excellent, but the jump from 1440p High to 1080p High only yields a 38.2 FPS increase, suggesting diminishing returns for users with 1080p displays.

For users prioritizing maximum smoothness, the Low preset at 1080p achieves 238.7 FPS, which is over 100 FPS higher than the High preset at the same resolution. This is particularly relevant for esports-oriented play, though the visual downgrade is considerable. The Medium preset at 1080p (170.7 FPS) offers a middle ground, providing a 29.1 FPS advantage over High while retaining moderate visual quality.

At 4K, the Low preset (108.5 FPS) is the only preset that maintains a triple-digit frame rate, making it the only viable option for users with 4K displays who require high refresh rates. The Medium preset at 4K (80.2 FPS) is still playable, but the High preset (65.6 FPS) begins to show signs of strain. The Ultra preset at 4K, at 43.1 FPS, is not recommended for smooth gameplay, as the data shows a 37.4 FPS drop from High to Ultra at this resolution.

The data suggests that the High preset at 1440p is the sweet spot for this hardware, offering a 60.3% higher frame rate than Ultra at the same resolution while delivering a visually rich experience. The scaling from High to Medium at 1440p (103.4 to 123.7 FPS) is modest, meaning users who prefer higher settings should stay at High rather than dropping to Medium for a mere 20.3 FPS gain.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This processor sits in the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 49166. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, scores 49062, putting the i5-14600K just 0.2% ahead. The Intel Core i5-14600KF scores 49367, which is 0.4% higher, indicating that the K and KF variants are nearly identical in performance.

In Undisputed, the CPU's role appears secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions, but it becomes more relevant at 1080p. The measured FPS at 1080p Low (238.7 FPS) is likely near the CPU's practical limit for this game, given that the processor's single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4642) is strong but not unlimited. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support (DDR4 and DDR5) contribute to the processor's ability to feed the GPU with frames.

The data shows a clear pattern: as resolution increases, the frame rate drops significantly, which indicates a GPU-bound scenario at 1440p and 4K. At 1080p, the difference between Low (238.7 FPS) and Ultra (89.5 FPS) is 149.2 FPS, suggesting that the GPU is the limiting factor even at lower resolutions. However, the CPU's 20 threads and 5.30 GHz boost clock ensure that it does not bottleneck the RX 7600 XT in most scenarios, as evidenced by the high frame rates at 1080p Low.

Compared to its nearest rivals in CPU benchmarks, the i5-14600K's 0.2% advantage over the Ryzen 9 5950X is negligible, meaning that in CPU-light titles like Undisputed, the choice between these processors is unlikely to affect gameplay. The 1% lead over the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H and the 0.9% deficit versus the AMD EPYC 4345P further reinforce that this processor's performance profile is well-balanced for gaming workloads.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to achieve over 100 FPS consistently?

A: At 1080p, the High preset delivers 141.6 FPS, and the Low preset reaches 238.7 FPS. At 1440p, the High preset achieves 103.4 FPS, which is just above the 100 FPS mark. At 4K, only the Low preset (108.5 FPS) exceeds 100 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset scale across resolutions?

A: The Ultra preset yields 89.5 FPS at 1080p, 63.8 FPS at 1440p, and 43.1 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 25.7 FPS, and from 1440p to 4K is 20.7 FPS, indicating a consistent performance penalty of roughly 25-30% per resolution step.

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

A: The data indicates a GPU-bound scenario at most settings. At 1080p Low, the frame rate of 238.7 FPS is high but not extreme, suggesting some CPU involvement. At 4K Ultra (43.1 FPS), the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, as the CPU's performance would not drop so dramatically with resolution.

Q: What is the performance difference between the High and Medium presets at 1440p?

A: The High preset at 1440p produces 103.4 FPS, while Medium produces 123.7 FPS, a difference of 20.3 FPS. This represents a 19.6% higher frame rate for Medium, which may be worthwhile for users seeking higher refresh rates.

Q: How does this combo rank against other tested combinations in this game?

A: The combo ranks 1045 out of 1580 tested combinations, placing it in the lower third of all tested systems. This ranking suggests that while the hardware is capable, many other combinations deliver higher average frame rates in Undisputed.

Q: Does the 16 GB VRAM of the RX 7600 XT affect performance at 4K?

A: The measured data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 43.1, which is low but not indicative of VRAM exhaustion. The 16 GB memory size is ample for this game, and the performance drop from 4K High (65.6 FPS) to 4K Ultra (43.1 FPS) is a 34.3% reduction, which aligns with the increased GPU workload rather than memory limitations.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT ranks 1045 out of 1580 tested combos in Undisputed, placing it in the 66th percentile of all tested systems. This ranking is lower than the individual component percentiles (93rd for the CPU and 63rd for the GPU), which indicates that the GPU is the performance limiter in this pairing. The CPU's high percentile ranking does not translate into a high combo ranking because the game's frame rates are predominantly determined by the GPU.

The RX 7600 XT's average benchmark score is 20146, which places it just 0.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 460 and 1.9% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER. However, it is 0.6% behind the RX 7600 and 1.9% behind the RTX 3070 Mobile. These close margins in synthetic benchmarks suggest that the RX 7600 XT performs similarly to these mid-range GPUs, which is consistent with its 63rd percentile ranking among all GPUs.

Given that the combo rank is 1045 out of 1580, the data suggests that a significant portion of tested combos (535) outperform this pairing in Undisputed. This is likely due to the GPU's relatively modest performance compared to higher-tier cards, even though the CPU is strong. Users seeking better frame rates in this game would benefit more from a GPU upgrade than a CPU upgrade, as the i5-14600K's performance headroom is not fully utilized with the RX 7600 XT.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a consistent pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound workload. At 1080p, the average FPS across all presets is 160.1 (calculated from 238.7, 170.7, 141.6, and 89.5). At 1440p, the average drops to 115.8 (172.4, 123.7, 103.4, and 63.8), and at 4K, it falls to 74.4 (108.5, 80.2, 65.6, and 43.1). This represents a 27.7% decrease from 1080p to 1440p and a 35.8% decrease from 1440p to 4K.

For the High preset specifically, the scaling is as follows: 141.6 FPS at 1080p, 103.4 FPS at 1440p, and 65.6 FPS at 4K. This is a 27.0% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 36.6% drop from 1440p to 4K. The consistent ~27% and ~36% reductions across presets indicate that the GPU's pixel throughput is the primary constraint, as the CPU's performance does not scale with resolution.

The Low preset shows the smallest absolute drop: 238.7 FPS at 1080p, 172.4 FPS at 1440p, and 108.5 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 27.8% and 37.1%, which are slightly higher than High, suggesting that at lower settings, the GPU is still the limiting factor but with less overhead. The Ultra preset exhibits the steepest relative decline, with 89.5 FPS at 1080p, 63.8 FPS at 1440p, and 43.1 FPS at 4K, representing a 28.7% and 32.4% drop, respectively.

This scaling behavior confirms that the RX 7600 XT is the limiting component in this combo. The 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and 288.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for the game's demands, but the 2048 shading units and 22.57 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are the constraining factors. The CPU's 14 cores and 5.30 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom, as evidenced by the high frame rates at 1080p Low, but the GPU's rendering capacity diminishes predictably with resolution. For users targeting 4K, the Low preset is the only option for smooth gameplay, while 1440p High offers the best balance of visual quality and performance.