Undisputed

The Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers a masterclass in high-refresh-rate performance in Undisputed, with benchmark results indicating that the combination is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions but begins to show its CPU muscle at 1080p. The measured frame rates are exceptionally high across the board, with the data showing a clear and predictable scaling pattern as resolution decreases and settings are adjusted.

Resolution Scaling

The performance delta between 1080p and 4K is dramatic, revealing a system that scales almost linearly with pixel count until it hits a wall at the lowest resolution. At Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops from 208 FPS at 1920x1080 to 150 FPS at 2560x1440, a 28% reduction, before settling at 95 FPS at 3840x2160, which represents another 37% drop. This steep decline from 1440p to 4K indicates that the RTX 5090 is being pushed to its limits by the sheer pixel throughput required at 4K Ultra, a workload that heavily taxes the GPU’s 176 ROPs and 32 GB of GDDR7 memory.

The scaling pattern shifts dramatically when looking at Low settings. Here, the 1080p result of 542 FPS is a staggering 119% higher than the 4K Low result of 248 FPS. Such a massive gap suggests that at 1080p Low, the system has moved firmly into CPU-bound territory. The Core i5-14600K, with its 14 cores and 20 threads boosting up to 5.30 GHz, becomes the limiting factor, as the GPU is fully capable of rendering far more frames than the processor can feed it. This is classic behavior for a high-end GPU paired with a mid-range CPU: the bottleneck shifts from the graphics card to the processor as resolution drops.

Medium settings provide the most balanced view of scaling. At 4K Medium, the average is 178 FPS with a minimum of 152 FPS and a maximum of 205 FPS. Dropping to 1440p Medium yields 282 FPS, a 58% improvement, and 1080p Medium hits 390 FPS, another 38% jump. The consistency of these gains—roughly 40-60% per resolution step—suggests that Medium settings are the sweet spot where neither component is entirely overwhelmed, though the GPU still carries the primary load.

The High settings row shows a similar trend to Medium, but with a notable compression at the top end. At 4K High, the average is 148 FPS, which rises to 233 FPS at 1440p and 323 FPS at 1080p. The 1080p High result is only 38% higher than 1440p High, a smaller gap than the 58% increase seen at Medium between those same resolutions. This narrowing suggests that at High settings, the CPU is beginning to assert itself more firmly at 1080p, limiting the gains that would otherwise be expected from the resolution drop.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting the highest refresh rates, the data clearly indicates that Low settings at 1080p are the only way to approach the 542 FPS ceiling, but this comes at the cost of visual fidelity. The measured rows show that Medium settings at 1080p, delivering 390 FPS, offer a far more compelling balance for competitive play. The 152 FPS gap between Low and Medium at 1080p is significant, but the jump from Medium to High at the same resolution, which drops to 323 FPS, represents a 17% performance penalty for what is likely a modest visual improvement in a sports title.

The most interesting recommendation emerges at 1440p Medium, where the 282 FPS average with a 240 FPS minimum provides a rock-solid experience for high-refresh-rate monitors. The minimum frame rate of 240 FPS is particularly noteworthy, as it ensures that even the most chaotic exchanges in the ring remain fluid. At 4K, Medium settings at 178 FPS are the clear choice for those prioritizing smoothness, as the jump to High at 148 FPS is a 17% reduction, while Ultra at 95 FPS is nearly half the Medium frame rate.

Ultra settings are difficult to justify from a pure performance standpoint. At every resolution, Ultra delivers the lowest frame rates: 208 FPS at 1080p, 150 FPS at 1440p, and 95 FPS at 4K. While these numbers are still playable, the data suggests that the visual gains from Ultra are not worth the steep performance cost, particularly when Medium settings at 4K provide 87% more frames per second. The benchmark results indicate that Medium or High settings offer the best experience per the measured rows, with Medium providing the most headroom for high-refresh displays.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090 is the undisputed star of this combination in Undisputed, with its 21,760 shading units and 680 texture mapping units providing enormous raw compute power. The GPU’s 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, is more than sufficient for this game, and the data shows no signs of memory capacity limiting performance even at 4K Ultra. The boost clock of 2407 MHz, running on a 5 nm TSMC process with 92,200 million transistors, allows the card to sustain high frame rates across all settings.

The GPU’s 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is clearly being utilized heavily at 4K resolutions. The drop from 178 FPS at Medium to 95 FPS at Ultra represents a 47% reduction, which is a substantial penalty for the increased visual complexity. This indicates that Ultra settings introduce rendering techniques that heavily tax the GPU’s compute units, likely including advanced shadow and lighting effects that are common in sports titles with dynamic arena environments.

At lower resolutions, the GPU’s role shifts from being the primary bottleneck to becoming a secondary consideration. The 542 FPS result at 1080p Low demonstrates that the RTX 5090 can output extreme frame rates when unconstrained, but the system is unable to maintain this performance due to CPU limitations. The GPU’s 176 ROPs, while capable of a 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate, cannot compensate for the processor’s inability to issue draw calls quickly enough at these frame rates.

The GPU’s benchmark scores reinforce its position in the hierarchy. A Passmark G3D score of 39,650 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18,355 place it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79,842. The nearest rivals in synthetic tests, such as the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB with a delta of 0.3%, are data center parts with different design goals, but in Undisputed, the RTX 5090’s gaming-focused architecture with dedicated RT and tensor cores provides a clear advantage.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the data shows a clear hierarchy across settings. Low settings deliver 248 FPS, Medium delivers 178 FPS with a minimum of 152 FPS and a maximum of 205 FPS, High delivers 148 FPS, and Ultra delivers 95 FPS. The progression from Low to Medium is a 28% drop, Medium to High is a 17% drop, and High to Ultra is a 36% drop. The Ultra result of 95 FPS is the only 4K figure below 100 FPS, indicating that this setting is the first to push the GPU to its limits.

At 2560x1440, the results are substantially higher. Low settings achieve 392 FPS, Medium achieves 282 FPS with a minimum of 240 FPS and a maximum of 324 FPS, High achieves 233 FPS, and Ultra achieves 150 FPS. The 1440p Medium minimum of 240 FPS is a standout figure, providing a consistent experience that matches the refresh rate of many high-end gaming monitors. The gap between High and Ultra at 1440p is 83 FPS, a 36% penalty that mirrors the 4K pattern.

At 1920x1080, the frame rates reach their peak. Low settings produce 542 FPS, Medium produces 390 FPS with a minimum of 332 FPS and a maximum of 449 FPS, High produces 323 FPS, and Ultra produces 208 FPS. The 1080p Medium minimum of 332 FPS is exceptionally high, ensuring that even the most demanding moments in a match never drop below the refresh rate of any consumer monitor. The 1080p Low result of 542 FPS is the highest measured figure in the entire dataset, but it comes with the caveat of being CPU-limited.

Comparing the same settings across resolutions reveals the scaling efficiency. At Low, 1080p is 119% faster than 4K. At Medium, 1080p is 119% faster than 4K as well. At High, 1080p is 118% faster than 4K. At Ultra, 1080p is 119% faster than 4K. This near-constant percentage across all settings is remarkable, suggesting that the game’s rendering pipeline scales predictably with resolution and that the RTX 5090’s architecture handles the increased pixel load uniformly.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 90th out of 3,718 tested combos in Undisputed, placing it in the top 2.4% of all configurations. This ranking reflects the sheer performance of both components, but it also reflects the fact that many of the combos ahead of it likely feature higher-end CPUs that can better feed the RTX 5090 at 1080p. The 90th rank is impressive, but it is not the absolute top, indicating that there is still headroom for improvement with a more powerful processor.

The CPU’s average benchmark score of 48,618 places it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals including the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H at a delta of -0.2% and the AMD EPYC 4345P at a delta of 0.3%. These rivals are enterprise-class processors, which highlights the i5-14600K’s strength in single-threaded tasks that are critical for gaming. In Undisputed, the CPU’s 14 cores and 20 threads are more than sufficient, but the 90th combo rank suggests that the 1080p results are being held back by the CPU’s limits.

The GPU’s average benchmark score of 79,842 places it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals like the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB at a delta of 0.3% and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT at a delta of 1.1%. These are workstation and mobile parts, respectively, which underscores the RTX 5090’s dominance in the consumer desktop space. The GPU’s high percentile ranking is reflected in the 4K results, where it is the primary driver of performance.

The combo rank of 90 out of 3,718 is particularly noteworthy when considering that the data is measured, not estimated. This means the results are empirical and reflect real-world performance. The rank indicates that while this combo is exceptionally fast, there are 89 other configurations that achieve higher frame rates in this game, likely due to more powerful CPUs that can unlock the RTX 5090’s full potential at 1080p.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K plays a crucial but secondary role in Undisputed, with its influence becoming most apparent at 1080p and Low settings. The processor’s 14 cores (with 6 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores) and 20 threads provide ample parallelism for the game’s simulation logic, but the single-threaded performance is what matters most for frame rate generation. With a boost clock of 5.30 GHz and a Raptor Lake architecture on a 10 nm process, the i5-14600K delivers strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,064 and Geekbench single-core score of 2,491.

The CPU’s 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache help reduce memory latency, which is critical for maintaining high frame rates in a fast-paced sports game. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the CPU becomes the bottleneck, as the 542 FPS result is likely near the maximum that the processor can sustain. The fact that the 1080p Medium result of 390 FPS is significantly lower than Low, while the 4K Medium result of 178 FPS is proportionally similar, confirms that the CPU’s limit is only reached at the lowest resolutions.

The CPU’s Passmark single-thread score of 4,270 and multithread score of 38,682 indicate a balanced processor that excels in both single and multi-threaded workloads. In Undisputed, the game’s physics and AI calculations likely benefit from the 20 threads, but the frame rate is ultimately determined by how quickly the CPU can process draw calls and game state updates. The 5.30 GHz boost clock is particularly important here, as higher clock speeds directly translate to higher frame rate ceilings in CPU-bound scenarios.

At 1440p and 4K, the CPU’s role diminishes significantly. The data shows that the frame rate drops are almost entirely attributable to GPU load, as the i5-14600K is more than capable of feeding the RTX 5090 at these resolutions. The 392 FPS result at 1440p Low is still CPU-bound to some extent, but the 282 FPS at 1440p Medium and 233 FPS at 1440p High suggest that the GPU is now the primary constraint. The CPU’s percentile ranking of 90 and average benchmark score of 48,618 place it in the top tier of processors, but the combo rank of 90 indicates that there are CPUs with higher single-threaded performance that could push the 1080p results even higher.