Undisputed

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER delivers a dominant performance profile in Undisputed, a sports title that clearly favors high refresh rates. The data shows a combination capable of maxing out nearly any display on the market, with performance headroom that shifts the bottleneck between the CPU and GPU depending on the resolution and quality preset selected. This analysis breaks down the measured frame rates to illustrate exactly where this combo excels and where its limits lie.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic transition from a CPU-bound scenario at lower resolutions to a GPU-bound scenario at higher ones. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces a staggering 476 FPS average. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 344 FPS, and at 4K Low it falls further to 218 FPS. This steep decline—a 54% reduction from 1080p to 4K—indicates that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU far more frames than it can render at higher pixel counts. The i5-14600K, with its 14 cores and 20 threads, is not the limiting factor here; the RTX 4080 SUPER is being pushed progressively harder as resolution increases.

The pattern holds across all settings. On High settings, the average FPS drops from 284 at 1080p to 205 at 1440p, then to 130 at 4K. The percentage drops are consistent—roughly 28% from 1080p to 1440p and another 37% from 1440p to 4K. This linear scaling suggests the game is well-optimized for resolution changes, with no sudden cliffs or anomalies. The gap between Low and High settings also widens with resolution: at 1080p the difference is 192 FPS (476 vs 284), while at 4K it narrows to 88 FPS (218 vs 130). This narrowing is a clear signal that at 4K, the GPU's rendering workload dominates, and CPU-side gains from lower settings have diminishing returns.

The most telling data point for bottleneck analysis is the Medium preset, which includes min and max FPS readings. At 1080p Medium, the average is 343 FPS with a minimum of 291 FPS, showing excellent frame pacing. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 248 FPS with a 211 FPS minimum. At 4K Medium, the average is 157 FPS with a 133 FPS minimum. The minimum FPS scales proportionally with the average, indicating no sudden stutters or CPU hitches. The 4K Ultra preset, however, shows the biggest drop to 83 FPS average, suggesting that the Ultra preset introduces effects that heavily tax the GPU's shading units and ray tracing cores, even at lower resolutions where the average only reaches 183 FPS at 1080p.

How This Combo Ranks

In the grand scheme of tested combinations, this specific pairing sits at rank 315 out of 3718 combos in Undisputed. That places it in the top 8.5% of all tested configurations, which is an elite standing for a sports game that typically does not scale as aggressively with hardware as AAA shooters or simulators. The percentile positioning reflects the raw power of both components, but the rank relative to other combos indicates that there are 314 configurations that perform better, likely featuring higher-end CPUs or GPUs like the RTX 4090 or overclocked flagship processors.

The combo's rank is particularly impressive given the CPU's position in the broader market. The i5-14600K sits at the 90th percentile versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 48618. Its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks are the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (0.2% lower score), AMD EPYC 4345P (0.3% higher), Intel Core Ultra 5 245HX (0.7% higher), and Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (0.8% lower). These are server or workstation-class chips or newer mainstream parts, meaning the i5-14600K is punching well above its weight in gaming workloads. The RTX 4080 SUPER, meanwhile, sits at the 86th percentile versus all GPUs with an average score of 54209, and its nearest rival is the non-SUPER RTX 4080 at 0.1% lower performance.

When interpreting the rank of 315, it is crucial to understand that this is not a reflection of weakness but rather the sheer volume of high-end combos in the database. The data shows that this combo outperforms the vast majority of systems, and in a game like Undisputed, where high refresh rates matter for competitive play, the combination of a strong single-threaded CPU and a fast GPU is ideal. The 0.7% delta to the Core Ultra 5 245HX and 0.8% delta to the Core Ultra 5 245 in CPU benchmarks suggest that the 14600K is still competitive with newer architectures, which is notable given its 2023 release.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is the primary driver of frame rates in Undisputed, and its specifications explain the measured results. With 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, the card offers 736.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for the textures and effects in this sports title at any resolution. The 4K Ultra preset's 83 FPS average is not a memory capacity issue—16 GB is more than sufficient—but rather a compute limitation. The GPU's 10240 shading units, 320 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output pipelines are tasked with rendering the character models and arena environments, and the Ultra preset's additional effects push the FP32 performance of 52.22 TFLOPS to its limits.

The clock speeds are also a factor. The base clock of 2295 MHz and boost clock of 2550 MHz are relatively high for the Ada Lovelace architecture, and the card maintains these frequencies well under load, as evidenced by the consistent frame times in the Medium preset measurements. The 80 ray tracing cores and 320 tensor cores are present but likely underutilized in Undisputed, which is not a ray tracing-heavy title; the data shows that the game's performance is more dependent on traditional rasterization throughput. The GPU's 86th percentile ranking versus all GPUs, with a Passmark G3D score of 34245, confirms that it is a top-tier part, but the data also shows it is not the absolute fastest, which aligns with the 4K Ultra results.

The GPU's memory configuration deserves attention. The 16 GB frame buffer is future-proof for this game, and the 256-bit bus width provides sufficient bandwidth to avoid bottlenecks at 4K. The measured FPS at 4K High (130 FPS) and 4K Medium (157 FPS) show that the card has headroom for high refresh rates at 4K, but the Ultra preset's 83 FPS indicates that the most demanding settings will require a G-Sync or FreeSync display to smooth out frame pacing. The GPU's power delivery, via a single 16-pin connector and a 320 W TDP, is consistent with its performance class, and the triple-slot cooler is necessary to dissipate the heat generated by the 45,900 million transistors on the 379 mm² die.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive picture of performance across all presets and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the combo is almost absurdly fast: Low settings produce 476 FPS, Medium produces 343 FPS with a 291 FPS minimum, High produces 284 FPS, and Ultra produces 183 FPS. These numbers are far beyond the refresh rate of any mainstream monitor, meaning that at 1080p, the CPU is the limiting factor. The 476 FPS at Low confirms the i5-14600K's single-thread performance, as the game engine likely relies on a few fast cores for physics and AI calculations.

Moving to 2560x1440, the results remain extremely high. Low settings hit 344 FPS, while Medium averages 248 FPS with a 211 FPS minimum. High settings drop to 205 FPS, and Ultra falls to 132 FPS. The 1440p results are ideal for high-refresh-rate gaming, with even the Ultra preset exceeding 120 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 211 FPS shows that the combination maintains a smooth experience even during intense gameplay moments, such as when multiple fighters are on screen or when crowd animations kick in.

At 3840x2160, the GPU begins to show its limits. Low settings still produce a playable 218 FPS, but the gap to lower resolutions widens. Medium settings average 157 FPS with a 133 FPS minimum, which is still excellent for 4K gaming. High settings drop to 130 FPS, and Ultra falls to 83 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the only sub-100 FPS reading in the entire dataset, and it indicates that the Ultra preset's effects are disproportionately heavy at this resolution. The min FPS data for Medium at all resolutions (291 at 1080p, 211 at 1440p, 133 at 4K) shows a consistent scaling pattern, suggesting no thermal throttling or driver-level hitches.

The delta between Low and Medium settings is consistent across resolutions: 133 FPS at 1080p, 96 FPS at 1440p, and 61 FPS at 4K. This narrowing gap confirms that the GPU's workload increases more rapidly with resolution than the CPU's, and that Low settings are primarily reducing GPU load rather than CPU load. The High to Ultra delta is even more dramatic: 101 FPS at 1080p, 73 FPS at 1440p, and 47 FPS at 4K, indicating that Ultra introduces effects that are exponentially more demanding on the GPU.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K plays a supporting role in Undisputed, but the data shows it is more than adequate for the task. With 14 cores (6 performance and 8 efficiency) and 20 threads, the CPU has a boost clock of 5.30 GHz and a base clock of 3.50 GHz. The Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process, delivers strong single-thread performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2064 and Geekbench single-core score of 2491. In a game like Undisputed, where the simulation of fighter physics and AI decisions likely runs on a few threads, this single-core strength is critical.

The CPU's multi-threaded performance is also robust, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 24491 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 16673. This ensures that background tasks, such as streaming or recording, do not interfere with frame rate stability. The Passmark data shows a single-thread score of 4270 and a multi-thread score of 38682, placing the CPU at the 90th percentile overall. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache is sufficient for the game's data sets, and the dual-channel memory support for both DDR4 and DDR5 gives builders flexibility.

The data indicates that the CPU is not the bottleneck at any resolution in Undisputed. The proof lies in the 1080p Low result of 476 FPS; if the CPU were a constraint, we would see frame rates plateau regardless of GPU load. Instead, the FPS scales with resolution, showing that the GPU is the limiting factor once pixel count rises. The CPU's 125 W TDP is modest for its performance class, and the launch MSRP of $319 positions it as a high-value part, though pricing is not the focus here. The nearest CPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks—the Xeon Gold 5318H and EPYC 4345P—are server chips that would likely perform worse in this game due to lower clock speeds, while the Core Ultra 5 parts are newer but not significantly faster.

Settings Recommendations

Given the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the display's refresh rate and resolution. For 1080p and 1440p displays with 144 Hz or 165 Hz refresh rates, the Ultra preset is the best choice. At 1080p Ultra, the 183 FPS average exceeds any refresh rate, and at 1440p Ultra, the 132 FPS average is just below a 144 Hz cap but still above a 120 Hz cap. The visual fidelity of the Ultra preset, which likely includes higher-quality shadows, textures, and crowd detail, is worth the FPS trade-off because the frame rates remain high.

For 4K displays, the recommendation shifts. A 60 Hz 4K display can handle any preset, but for a 120 Hz or 144 Hz 4K panel, the High preset is the sweet spot. At 4K High, the 130 FPS average provides a smooth experience with minimal visual compromise. The Medium preset at 4K offers 157 FPS, which is better for competitive play, but the visual downgrade may be noticeable. The 4K Ultra preset, with its 83 FPS average, is best avoided unless the user prioritizes absolute visual quality over frame rate, as it falls below the 90 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for fluid gameplay.

For players who prioritize competitive advantage over visuals, the Low preset is not recommended due to its jarring visual downgrade, but the data shows it still delivers 476 FPS at 1080p and 344 FPS at 1440p. The Medium preset is a balanced choice for high-refresh-rate 4K gaming, as the 157 FPS average with a 133 FPS minimum ensures no frame drops below the refresh rate of most 4K 144 Hz monitors. The data also shows that the Medium preset's min FPS is consistently above 130 FPS at all resolutions, making it the safest choice for maintaining a locked frame rate.

In summary, the best experience per the measured rows is the Ultra preset at 1080p or 1440p, and the High preset at 4K. This combination leverages the CPU's strong single-thread performance and the GPU's raw power to deliver frame rates that exceed the refresh rates of nearly all displays. The data does not suggest any settings combination that would result in an unplayable experience, as even the most demanding 4K Ultra preset maintains an 83 FPS average, which is still smoother than what many consoles achieve.