Undisputed

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT paired with the Intel Core i5-9400 delivers a highly playable experience in Undisputed, with the performance ceiling varying dramatically based on the settings preset selected. The data shows a clear hierarchy where the GPU is the primary scaling factor across resolutions, but the CPU’s influence becomes apparent at the highest frame rates. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 240 FPS, which drops to 65 FPS at 4K High, representing a 73% reduction in throughput. This scaling pattern indicates that while the RX 7600 XT is capable of driving high refresh rates at lower resolutions, the demands of 4K quickly overwhelm the graphics pipeline, making resolution the single most important variable in this configuration.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a steep and consistent drop-off across all settings, demonstrating that Undisputed is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions. At the Low preset, the transition from 1080p to 1440p reduces the average FPS from 240 to 174, a 27.5% decline. Moving from 1440p to 4K Low further reduces performance to 110 FPS, another 36.8% drop. This results in a total reduction of 54.2% when scaling from 1080p Low to 4K Low, highlighting the exponential cost of pixel count on the Radeon RX 7600 XT.

The High preset shows a similar but slightly less severe pattern. At 1080p High, the combo produces 143 FPS, which falls to 103 FPS at 1440p High (a 28% decrease) and then to 65 FPS at 4K High (a 36.9% decrease from 1440p). The overall scaling from 1080p to 4K High is a 54.5% reduction, nearly identical to the Low preset’s scaling. This consistency suggests that the relative cost of resolution is uniform regardless of the graphical complexity, pointing to a fixed bottleneck in the rendering pipeline rather than a settings-dependent limitation.

The Medium preset provides the only data with minimum and maximum frame times, offering insight into frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the average is 173 FPS with a minimum of 147 and maximum of 199, indicating a tight frame delivery window. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 125 FPS with a minimum of 106 and maximum of 144, maintaining a similar relative spread. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 79 FPS with a minimum of 67 and maximum of 91. The consistency of the delta between minimum and average (around 15%) across resolutions suggests that the game’s frame pacing remains stable even as the GPU load increases, a positive sign for competitive play where consistency matters more than raw peaks.

The Ultra preset exhibits the most dramatic scaling, starting at 92 FPS at 1080p, dropping to 67 FPS at 1440p (a 27.2% decrease), and then plunging to 42 FPS at 4K (a 37.3% decrease from 1440p). The total reduction from 1080p Ultra to 4K Ultra is 54.3%, again matching the other presets. This uniformity across all four settings presets is notable: regardless of whether the game is running at Low or Ultra, the resolution scaling penalty remains nearly constant, reinforcing that the RX 7600 XT’s memory bandwidth and pixel fill rate are the limiting factors at higher resolutions, not the CPU or the game’s visual complexity.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, the data indicates that the High preset at 4K is the optimal choice, delivering 65 FPS average. This is the only 4K configuration that exceeds the 60 FPS threshold, making it the recommended preset for 4K displays. The Medium preset at 4K falls short at 79 FPS, which is actually higher than High, but the Ultra preset at 42 FPS is unplayable for smooth motion. Interestingly, the Medium preset at 4K outperforms High by 14 FPS, suggesting that the High preset may include effects that disproportionately tax the GPU without providing a proportional visual benefit.

At 1440p, the Medium preset offers the best balance, delivering 125 FPS with a minimum of 106 FPS. This provides a comfortable margin above 100 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. The High preset at 1440p reaches 103 FPS, also crossing the 100 FPS threshold, but with less headroom for demanding scenes. The Ultra preset at 1440p drops to 67 FPS, which is playable but does not take full advantage of 144Hz displays. For competitive players, the Low preset at 1440p (174 FPS) offers the highest frame rate, but the visual sacrifices may be significant for a sports title where character models and arena details matter.

At 1080p, the Medium preset is the clear winner for most users, providing 173 FPS with a minimum of 147 FPS. This ensures no frame drops below 144Hz, making it perfect for high-refresh-rate gaming. The High preset at 143 FPS is also viable but sits just below the 144Hz threshold, potentially causing occasional screen tearing on 144Hz monitors without V-Sync. The Low preset at 240 FPS is the maximum achievable, but the jump from Medium to Low only yields a 38.7% improvement while significantly reducing visual fidelity. Given that the Medium preset at 1080p already maintains a minimum above 140 FPS, there is little practical benefit to dropping to Low for most players.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, operating at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its benchmark scores place it in the 47th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 2254. This positions it as a mid-range processor that is neither a bottleneck nor a performance highlight in most gaming scenarios. In Undisputed, the CPU’s role appears to be secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the consistent resolution scaling patterns that remain uniform across all settings.

The CPU’s multi-core performance, as measured by Cinebench R23, is 6629 points, while single-core performance is 935 points. These scores suggest that the i5-9400 can handle the game’s physics and AI calculations without issue, but it may struggle to feed the GPU at extremely high frame rates. The 240 FPS result at 1080p Low is likely near the CPU’s practical limit for this title, as the frame rate ceiling appears to be capped by the processor’s single-thread performance rather than the GPU’s capabilities. The Geekbench single-core score of 1389 and multi-core score of 5141 reinforce this interpretation, indicating that the CPU can sustain high instruction throughput but may not have the headroom to push beyond 240 FPS.

Comparing the i5-9400 to its nearest rivals, it sits within 0.4% of the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500 and 0.3% of the Intel Core i7-10710U. The performance delta to the Intel Core i7-1068NG7 is -0.2%, meaning the i5-9400 is essentially equivalent to these processors in synthetic benchmarks. This suggests that upgrading to any of these rivals would not meaningfully change Undisputed performance, as the game appears to be GPU-bound in most scenarios. The CPU’s 9 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support provide adequate bandwidth for the game’s data streaming, but the 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth is not a limiting factor given the GPU’s 288.0 GB/s bandwidth.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system achieve 60 FPS at 4K in Undisputed?*

A: Yes, but only at the High preset, which delivers 65 FPS average. The Medium preset at 4K produces 79 FPS, while the Low preset reaches 110 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to 42 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 144Hz 1080p monitor?

A: The Medium preset is recommended, delivering 173 FPS average with a minimum of 147 FPS. This ensures the frame rate never dips below the 144Hz refresh rate, providing a smooth experience without the visual downgrade of the Low preset.

Q: How does the CPU affect performance at 1080p Low?

A: The 240 FPS result at 1080p Low is likely CPU-limited, as the Intel Core i5-9400’s single-core performance (935 in Cinebench R23) may cap the maximum frame rate. The GPU is capable of higher output, but the processor’s instruction throughput becomes the bottleneck.

Q: Is the RX 7600 XT sufficient for Ultra settings?

A: At 1080p Ultra, the card delivers 92 FPS, which is playable. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 67 FPS, still acceptable for casual play. However, at 4K Ultra, the 42 FPS result is too low for smooth motion, making Ultra settings impractical at that resolution.

Q: What is the frame pacing like across resolutions?

A: The Medium preset shows consistent frame pacing, with the minimum FPS staying approximately 15% below the average at all resolutions. At 1080p, the minimum is 147 FPS versus 173 average; at 1440p, it is 106 versus 125; and at 4K, it is 67 versus 79.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: The combination of the Core i5-9400 and RX 7600 XT ranks 2359 out of 3718 total combinations for Undisputed, placing it in the upper-middle tier of all possible system configurations.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT is the dominant component in this pairing, featuring 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus with 288.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units provide substantial raw compute power, reflected in its 22.57 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. The GPU’s boost clock of 2755 MHz and game clock of 2470 MHz allow it to maintain high throughput under sustained load, which is evident in the consistent frame rates observed across different settings.

The GPU’s benchmark scores further contextualize its performance. With a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2348 and a Passmark G3D score of 17132, the RX 7600 XT sits in the 60th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, scores 17208, a delta of -0.7%, meaning the RX 7600 XT is within 1% of the RTX 3070’s average benchmark performance. This close parity is reflected in Undisputed, where the card handles 1440p High at 103 FPS and 4K High at 65 FPS, demonstrating that it is well-suited for modern sports titles at mainstream resolutions.

The 16 GB VRAM capacity is a significant asset for Undisputed, as the game’s high-resolution textures and detailed character models can consume substantial memory. At 4K Ultra, the GPU is likely VRAM-limited, as the 42 FPS result suggests the render output units are saturated. However, the 288.0 GB/s memory bandwidth appears sufficient for the game’s data requirements, as frame rates scale predictably with resolution rather than exhibiting sudden drops indicative of memory swapping. The GPU’s 64 ROPs and 176.3 GPixel/s pixel rate are the likely limiting factors at 4K, as the pixel fill rate directly impacts resolution scaling.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured frame rates range from 240 FPS at Low to 92 FPS at Ultra. The Medium preset delivers 173 FPS average with a minimum of 147 FPS and maximum of 199 FPS. The High preset produces 143 FPS average. This indicates that the 1080p resolution is well within the GPU’s comfort zone, with even the most demanding Ultra preset maintaining nearly 100 FPS.

At 2560x1440, performance scales down proportionally. The Low preset achieves 174 FPS, Medium delivers 125 FPS (minimum 106, maximum 144), High produces 103 FPS, and Ultra drops to 67 FPS. The 1440p Medium result is particularly strong, maintaining a minimum above 100 FPS, which is ideal for competitive play on 144Hz monitors.

At 3840x2160, the GPU begins to show its limits. The Low preset still manages 110 FPS, which is impressive for 4K. Medium delivers 79 FPS (minimum 67, maximum 91), High drops to 65 FPS, and Ultra falls to 42 FPS. The 4K results demonstrate that the RX 7600 XT can handle 4K gaming, but only at lower settings presets. The High preset at 4K is the highest quality setting that maintains playable frame rates above 60 FPS.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset provides the most consistent frame delivery, with the minimum FPS never dropping more than 15% below the average. This suggests that the game’s engine handles the medium settings efficiently, avoiding the frame time spikes that can occur with higher quality effects. The Ultra preset, by contrast, shows no minimum FPS data, but the significant drops in average FPS from Medium to Ultra (from 79 to 42 at 4K, a 46.8% reduction) indicate that the extra visual features come at a steep performance cost. For players seeking the best balance of visual quality and performance, the data clearly points to the Medium preset as the sweet spot across all three resolutions.