Undisputed

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Undisputed with the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and Intel Arc B390 reveals a steep performance cliff as resolution increases, which points firmly at the integrated graphics as the bottleneck. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces 76 FPS average. Dropping to 2560x1440 at the same settings reduces that to 55 FPS, a 27.6% decline. Moving to 3840x2160 at High settings yields just 35 FPS, which is 53.9% lower than the 1080p result. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU that is running out of fillrate and shading capacity long before the CPU becomes relevant.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens dramatically at higher resolutions, which further confirms the GPU-limited nature of this pairing. At 1080p, the spread from Low (127 FPS) to Ultra (49 FPS) is 78 FPS. At 1440p, that spread narrows to 57 FPS (92 FPS Low versus 35 FPS Ultra). At 4K, the spread is 36 FPS (58 FPS Low versus 22 FPS Ultra). The shrinking absolute delta at higher resolutions indicates that even the lowest settings cannot escape the GPU's ceiling — the Arc B390 simply cannot push more frames when pixel count rises.

The 4K Medium preset offers a brief plateau with 42 FPS average and a minimum of 36 FPS, suggesting that this is near the practical limit for playable performance at that resolution. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 22 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay in a sports title. Benchmark results indicate that the Core Ultra 5 225's ten cores and 4.90 GHz boost clock are never the limiting factor here; the data shows a consistent pattern where resolution scaling follows the GPU's compute and memory characteristics, not the CPU's capabilities.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Undisputed at 4K Ultra settings?

A: No. The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 22 FPS, which is not smooth for a sports game. The 4K High preset reaches 35 FPS, while Medium hits 42 FPS with a minimum of 36 FPS.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combination?

A: The data indicates 1920x1080 is the sweet spot. At High settings, it delivers 76 FPS average; at Medium, 91 FPS with a minimum of 78 FPS. The 2560x1440 High preset drops to 55 FPS, which is still playable but noticeably less fluid.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Arc B390 scores 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. It sits 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% ahead of the GeForce 800M (1460), 2.5% ahead of the GT 625 OEM (1446), and 2.7% ahead of the GT 710 (1443). Its percentile rank is 9, meaning it outperforms only 9% of all GPUs tested.

Q: Is the Core Ultra 5 225 a strong CPU for this game?

A: Yes, the CPU is more than sufficient. It scores 25891 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 3655 in single-core. Its average benchmark score of 36938 places it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs. With 10 cores and 10 threads, it is not the bottleneck in Undisputed.

Q: Does the shared memory configuration affect performance?

A: The Arc B390 uses System Shared memory with System Dependent bandwidth. This means the GPU relies on the same DDR5 memory as the CPU, with a system bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. This architecture contributes to the GPU's low percentile rank (9) and explains why resolution scaling is so pronounced.

Q: What frame rates can players expect at 1440p with Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with Medium settings, the combo produces 66 FPS average with a minimum of 56 FPS and a maximum of 76 FPS. This is a viable configuration for players who want higher resolution than 1080p without sacrificing too much fluidity.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is the dominant factor in this gaming combo, and the benchmark results make its limitations clear. This integrated GPU, built on the Xe3-LPG architecture with a Panther Lake chip, operates at a base clock of 300 MHz and boosts to 2500 MHz. It has 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster output pipelines. The pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 7.680 TFLOPS.

The memory configuration is the most unusual aspect: the GPU uses System Shared memory, meaning there is no dedicated VRAM. The memory type, bus width, and bandwidth are all listed as System Dependent. This is a critical constraint because the GPU must compete with the CPU for memory bandwidth on the dual-channel DDR5 bus, which has a theoretical maximum of 102.4 GB/s. In practice, this shared arrangement limits how quickly the GPU can access texture data and frame buffers, which directly impacts performance at higher resolutions where memory pressure increases.

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 puts the Arc B390 at the 9th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals are all older NVIDIA parts. The GT 520MX scores 1463 (1.3% behind), the GeForce 800M scores 1460 (1.5% behind), the GT 625 OEM scores 1446 (2.5% behind), and the GT 710 scores 1443 (2.7% behind). This positions the Arc B390 at the very bottom of the discrete GPU hierarchy, which explains why it struggles to maintain high frame rates in a modern sports title like Undisputed.

The GPU's TDP is 80 W, and it uses no power connectors, confirming its integrated nature. It supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, which means it has the API feature set for modern games but lacks the raw compute throughput to leverage those features at high settings. The 12 RT cores are present but their impact is negligible given the overall performance envelope. In Undisputed, the data shows that the GPU is the limiting component across all resolutions and settings, as evidenced by the steep FPS drops when moving from 1080p to 4K.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 with Arc B390 produces its best results. With Low settings, the average FPS is 127, which provides a fluid experience. Medium settings drop the average to 91 FPS with a minimum of 78 FPS and a maximum of 105 FPS. High settings yield 76 FPS average. Ultra settings fall to 49 FPS average, which is noticeably less smooth but still technically playable.

Moving to 2560x1440, performance degrades significantly. Low settings deliver 92 FPS average, which is a 27.6% drop from the 1080p Low result. Medium settings average 66 FPS with a minimum of 56 FPS and a maximum of 76 FPS. High settings drop to 55 FPS average. Ultra settings fall to 35 FPS average, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay in a fast-paced sports sim.

At 3840x2160, the results are marginal for playability. Low settings produce 58 FPS average, just barely above 60 FPS territory but not consistent. Medium settings average 42 FPS with a minimum of 36 FPS and a maximum of 48 FPS. High settings drop to 35 FPS average. Ultra settings bottom out at 22 FPS average, which is not a playable experience for most users.

The pattern across all resolutions is consistent: Low settings are the only tier that maintains close to 60 FPS at 4K, and even that is borderline. The Medium preset at 1080p offers the best balance with 91 FPS average and a minimum of 78 FPS, ensuring no significant frame dips during gameplay. The Ultra preset at any resolution above 1080p falls below 50 FPS, indicating that this combo is not suited for maximum quality settings in Undisputed.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and Intel Arc B390 ranks 2491 out of 2813 tested combos in Undisputed. This places it in the bottom 11.5% of all configurations tested, which aligns with the GPU's low percentile rank of 9. The combo's ranking is driven almost entirely by the Arc B390's performance ceiling, as the CPU is in the 85th percentile of all processors.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks provide context for how much headroom the processor has. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600F scores 36945 on average, which is exactly 0% different from the Core Ultra 5 225's 36938. The AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D scores 37018, which is 0.2% higher. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 scores 37093, 0.4% higher. The Intel Core i9-12900T scores 37112, 0.5% higher. These are all essentially equivalent scores, meaning the CPU is not a differentiating factor in this ranking.

The GPU's nearest rivals are all far older and weaker parts, which underscores how much the Arc B390 holds back the combo. The GT 520MX, GeForce 800M, GT 625 OEM, and GT 710 are all legacy parts from nearly a decade ago. The fact that the Arc B390 only edges them out by 1-3% in synthetic benchmarks means it is not competitive with even entry-level modern discrete GPUs. In a game like Undisputed, which is not particularly demanding on CPU resources, the combo's rank of 2491 reflects the GPU's inability to push frame rates at higher settings and resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 is a 10-core, 10-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. The cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 cache. This is a modern desktop CPU with a 85th percentile ranking, and its average benchmark score of 36938 places it in line with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F and Ryzen 5 5500X3D.

In synthetic workloads, the Core Ultra 5 225 shows strong multi-threaded performance. It scores 25891 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 3655 in single-core. In PassMark, it achieves 30459 in multithread, 4412 in single-thread, 92038 in floating point math, and 65345 in integer math. These numbers indicate a well-rounded CPU that can handle gaming workloads without breaking a sweat.

For Undisputed specifically, the CPU's role is secondary. The game is a sports title that relies more on GPU rendering than complex AI or physics simulations. The data shows that at 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 127 FPS, which suggests the CPU can feed the GPU with enough frames at lower resolutions. However, as resolution increases, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, and the CPU's performance headroom goes unused. At 4K Ultra, the 22 FPS result is entirely a GPU limitation, not a CPU one.

The processor's memory support for DDR5 with a dual-channel bus and 102.4 GB/s bandwidth provides adequate bandwidth for the system, but the shared memory arrangement with the Arc B390 means the GPU can siphon off bandwidth when needed. This is not a significant issue at 1080p but becomes more pronounced at 4K, where the GPU needs more memory throughput. The CPU's 20 MB of shared L3 cache helps mitigate some of the latency from shared memory access, but it cannot compensate for the GPU's fundamental compute limitations.

The Core Ultra 5 225's integrated graphics (Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 16EU) are not relevant here since the Arc B390 is a separate integrated GPU in the Panther Lake chip. However, the CPU's 20 PCIe Gen 5 lanes and 243 mm² die size indicate a robust platform. The 17,800 million transistors on the CPU die suggest a complex design that is well-suited for productivity tasks, but in Undisputed, its performance is capped by the GPU. Players looking for higher frame rates should consider pairing this CPU with a more powerful discrete GPU, as the processor clearly has the headroom to support it.