Undisputed

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti produces a fascinating scaling pattern in Undisputed. At 1080p, the combo is nearly unshackled, with Low settings hitting 326 FPS and High still delivering 264.7 FPS. Moving to 1440p, the frame rates remain exceptionally high, with Low at 293.2 FPS and Ultra at 120.5 FPS. At 4K, the picture changes dramatically: Ultra drops to 74.8 FPS, while Low stays at 199.5 FPS.

The scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic shift in bottleneck. At 1080p, the CPU is the primary limiter; the GPU has so much headroom that raising settings from Low to Ultra only costs about 49% of the frames (326 to 165.3 FPS). At 4K, the GPU becomes the dominant constraint, and the settings spread widens considerably—Ultra is 62% slower than Low (74.8 vs 199.5 FPS). This indicates that the RTX 4070 Ti is strong enough to push massive frame rates at lower resolutions, but the i5-9400 holds back the absolute ceiling, particularly in CPU-light scenes at 1080p.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for Undisputed, this specific pairing sits at rank 302 out of 1580 combos. That places it in the top 19% of all tested systems, a strong showing for a CPU that is now end-of-life. The i5-9400 itself lands at the 50th percentile among all CPUs in the broader benchmark suite, but the GPU does the heavy lifting here—the RTX 4070 Ti ranks at the 85th percentile among all GPUs. The data suggests the combo outperforms its CPU percentile by a wide margin, driven almost entirely by the graphics card.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the Intel Core i3-10305 (0.2% faster) and the Intel Core i3-1125G4 (0.2% faster), while the Intel Core i7-8809G is 0.6% ahead. These are negligible differences, confirming that the i5-9400 is a mid-pack processor. The GPU, however, sits near the top of its class, with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile just 0.6% ahead and the Intel Arc A730M 1.5% ahead. This imbalance—a 50th-percentile CPU with an 85th-percentile GPU—explains why the combo ranks at 302nd rather than lower: the GPU is carrying the performance load, especially at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 Ti is the star of this pairing. With 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, the memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s is substantial for a card in this class. The boost clock of 2610 MHz and base clock of 2310 MHz are high, and the 7680 shading units provide massive compute throughput—40.09 TFLOPS of FP32 performance. In Undisputed, this translates to playable 4K Ultra at 74.8 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

The GPU’s VRAM capacity is not stressed by this game’s measured settings. Even at 4K Ultra, the 12 GB allocation is sufficient; the data shows no signs of a VRAM bottleneck, as the frame rate drops from 4K High to 4K Ultra are consistent with the added graphical load. The Ada Lovelace architecture’s 60 RT cores and 240 tensor cores are present, though Undisputed is a sports title that likely relies more on rasterization than ray tracing. The GPU’s pixel rate of 208.8 GPixel/s and texture rate of 626.4 GTexel/s are high enough to handle the game’s character models and arenas without issue.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers a wide range of performance. Low settings produce 326 FPS, Medium 288.4 FPS, High 264.7 FPS, and Ultra 165.3 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra is 99.4 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset introduces heavy effects that cut into the frame rate. Even at Ultra, the 165.3 FPS average is far beyond what a 60 Hz or 144 Hz monitor needs, so 1080p is thoroughly dominated by this hardware.

At 2560x1440, the results remain robust. Low hits 293.2 FPS, Medium 230 FPS, High 187.1 FPS, and Ultra 120.5 FPS. The step from High to Ultra here costs 66.6 FPS, a smaller absolute drop than at 1080p but still significant. The Ultra preset at 1440p is the first setting where the frame rate dips below the 144 Hz refresh-rate sweet spot, though 120.5 FPS is still smooth for most users.

At 3840x2160, the scaling becomes more pronounced. Low runs at 199.5 FPS, Medium at 146.6 FPS, High at 122.5 FPS, and Ultra at 74.8 FPS. The drop from High to Ultra at 4K is 47.7 FPS, the largest relative penalty of any resolution. This suggests that the Ultra preset’s additional shadows and post-processing are particularly demanding at 4K, pushing the GPU to its limits. The 4K Low result of 199.5 FPS shows that the GPU has plenty of raw power; the CPU is not a major factor at this resolution.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience, the data points to 1440p High as the sweet spot. It delivers 187.1 FPS, which is well above the refresh rate of most high-end monitors, while still offering better visual fidelity than Medium (230 FPS) or Low (293.2 FPS). The jump from High to Ultra at 1440p costs 66.6 FPS, and the visual improvement in a sports game like Undisputed is unlikely to justify that loss for most players.

At 4K, High settings at 122.5 FPS is the recommended choice. It provides a comfortable margin above 60 FPS, and the 47.7 FPS drop to Ultra (74.8 FPS) is steep. If you have a 120 Hz 4K display, High is the only preset that clears 120 FPS; Medium (146.6 FPS) is even safer but reduces visual quality. For competitive play, 1080p Low at 326 FPS is ideal for maximizing response times, but the game’s sports genre typically favors visuals over raw frame rates, making 1440p High the balanced pick.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor from the Coffee Lake generation, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. It has 9 MB of shared L3 cache and supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. In the broader benchmark suite, it scores 7969 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1125 in single-core, placing it at the 50th percentile of all CPUs—a squarely mid-range result.

In Undisputed, the CPU’s role is most evident at 1080p. The frame rate difference between Low (326 FPS) and Medium (288.4 FPS) is only 37.6 FPS, and between Medium and High (264.7 FPS) it’s 23.7 FPS. These smaller gaps, compared to the 99.4 FPS drop from High to Ultra, indicate that the CPU is limiting the GPU’s output at lower settings. The i5-9400’s six threads are sufficient for the game’s physics and AI, but they cannot feed the RTX 4070 Ti fast enough to maintain the GPU’s maximum potential at 1080p.

At 4K, the CPU becomes less relevant. The frame rate differences between settings are much larger (e.g., 52.9 FPS between Low and Medium), showing that the GPU is now the bottleneck. The i5-9400’s 4.10 GHz boost clock is adequate for keeping frame pacing stable at 4K, but the combo’s overall rank of 302 out of 1580 suggests that a stronger CPU would push this GPU even higher in the rankings, particularly for 1080p esports-style play. For most users, however, this pairing delivers excellent results across all resolutions, with the CPU only showing its age in the most extreme low-settings, high-FPS scenarios.