Undisputed

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination delivers exceptionally high frame rates in Undisputed, making it a top-tier setup for competitive play. The data shows that this pairing is capable of pushing far beyond standard 60Hz displays at nearly all settings, with the primary consideration being how to balance visual fidelity against the diminishing returns of ultra-high refresh rates. This analysis breaks down the measured performance, component roles, and scaling behavior to determine the optimal configuration.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows for this combo reveal a clear hierarchy in settings presets, but the "best" choice depends entirely on the target display refresh rate. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 530 FPS, which is an extraordinary figure, but such performance is only meaningful on 360Hz or faster panels. For the vast majority of users, the High preset is the recommended starting point. At 1080p High, the combo averages 315 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any current high-refresh monitor and still leaves substantial headroom above 240Hz displays. Moving up to Medium at 1080p yields 381 FPS, but the visual jump from High to Medium is not worth the FPS gain for most players, as the former provides a better balance of image quality and speed.

At 2560x1440, the High preset again stands out as the sweet spot, delivering an average of 228 FPS. This is comfortably above 144Hz and even surpasses 200Hz thresholds, making it ideal for competitive play on QHD monitors. The Ultra preset at this resolution drops to 147 FPS, which is still playable on high-refresh panels but represents a significant 35% performance hit compared to High. The Medium preset at 1440p produces 275 FPS, which is excessive for most displays and suggests that the GPU is not the limiting factor at this resolution. For 4K gaming at 3840x2160, the High preset is the only sensible choice, averaging 144 FPS. This is perfect for 144Hz 4K displays, while the Ultra preset at 93 FPS is viable for 90Hz panels but not ideal for fast-paced sports titles.

The data strongly suggests avoiding the Ultra preset unless visual fidelity is the absolute priority, as the FPS penalty is steep across all resolutions. The Medium preset offers a middle ground but does not provide a meaningful advantage over High on this hardware. Therefore, High settings are the recommended configuration for this combo, as they provide the best balance of frame rate headroom and graphical quality across 1080p, 1440p, and 4K resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. This is a high-core-count desktop part with a 30 MB shared L3 cache, designed for heavy multi-threaded workloads. In the context of Undisputed, which is a sports title that typically does not scale perfectly with unlimited core counts, the 265’s strength lies in its high boost clock and efficient architecture rather than its sheer core count.

Benchmark results show that the 265 achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42216 and a single-core score of 5960. This single-core performance is crucial for game logic and physics, where the boost clock of 5.30 GHz ensures that the primary game thread is handled with minimal latency. The processor’s PassMark single-thread score of 4689 further confirms its strength in lightly-threaded tasks. The 265 sits at the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, indicating that it outperforms the vast majority of processors in general computational tasks.

Looking at the nearest rivals, the 265 has an average benchmark score of 64640, which is only 0.3% lower than the AMD EPYC 4464P (64823) and 0.7% higher than the AMD EPYC 7343 (64202). This places it in the same performance tier as server-class EPYC parts, which is notable for a desktop processor. In Undisputed, this level of CPU performance ensures that the processor is not a bottleneck at any resolution. The data shows that even at 1080p with Low settings, where the GPU is heavily loaded, the CPU still manages to feed the RTX 4090 enough data to achieve 530 FPS. This indicates that the 265 has ample headroom for this game, and its role is primarily to maintain consistent frame pacing rather than to push raw FPS.

The 20 threads are more than sufficient for Undisputed’s engine, and the high boost clock ensures that single-threaded performance remains a non-issue. The processor’s 65W TDP is modest for a 20-core part, which suggests that thermal throttling is unlikely under gaming loads. The combination of high single-core performance and adequate multi-core capabilities makes the 265 an excellent match for this game, as it provides a stable foundation for the GPU to operate at its full potential.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the flagship of the GeForce 40-series, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with 16384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs. It features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing a massive 1.01 TB/s of memory bandwidth. The GPU’s boost clock is 2520 MHz, and it has a substantial 450W TDP, which explains its triple-slot design and 16-pin power connector. This is an end-of-life product, but it remains a top performer, as indicated by its 88th percentile ranking among all GPUs.

In Undisputed, the RTX 4090 is the dominant component, and its performance is directly tied to the settings preset and resolution. The GPU’s memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s is particularly important for high-resolution textures, and the 24 GB VRAM capacity ensures that there is no memory pressure even at 4K Ultra settings. The measured FPS numbers show that the GPU scales predictably with resolution, but the settings preset has a significant impact on the frame rate, indicating that the game’s rendering pipeline is heavily GPU-bound at higher quality levels.

The RTX 4090’s 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 9223 and PassMark G3D score of 38194 highlight its raw compute power. Its nearest rival, the Intel Arc Pro A60, has an identical average score of 60326, which is surprising given the massive difference in hardware specifications, but this is likely due to the specific benchmark suite used. The RTX 4090’s GPixel/s rate of 443.5 and texture rate of 1290.2 GTexel/s are among the highest ever recorded, and these translate directly to the high frame rates seen in the measured data.

The GPU’s role in this combo is to provide a massive FPS buffer, even at 4K. At 4K High, the average FPS of 144 demonstrates that the RTX 4090 can handle the game’s demands at the most common high-refresh 4K resolution. The 4K Low preset at 242 FPS shows that the GPU has significant headroom, but this is not a practical setting for most users due to the visual quality reduction. The RTX 4090’s performance is so strong that it effectively moves the bottleneck to the CPU at lower resolutions and settings, as seen in the 1080p Low result of 530 FPS. This suggests that the GPU is not the limiting factor in most scenarios, but its raw power ensures that it can push through any graphical workload the game presents.

How This Combo Ranks

In the overall ranking for Undisputed, this combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 123rd out of 2813 tested combos. This places it in the top 4.4% of all tested configurations, which is an excellent result for a desktop setup. The rank is influenced by the CPU’s strong performance and the GPU’s dominance, but it is not the absolute top, which suggests that there are a few combinations with even more powerful processors or specific tuning that achieve higher frame rates.

The combo’s rank of 123 is particularly impressive considering that the RTX 4090 is an end-of-life product, and the Core Ultra 7 265 is a relatively new release. The data indicates that this pairing is well-balanced, with neither component significantly bottlenecking the other. The CPU’s 93rd percentile ranking and the GPU’s 88th percentile ranking combine to produce a system that is consistently in the upper echelon of performance. In practical terms, this means that users can expect a top-tier experience in Undisputed, with the ability to run the game at high settings and high resolutions without compromise.

The rank also reflects the fact that the RTX 4090 is a monstrously powerful GPU, and its performance is not easily matched by other cards. The nearest GPU rival, the Intel Arc Pro A60, has a similar average benchmark score, but in gaming scenarios, the RTX 4090’s driver optimization and feature set likely provide an edge. The CPU’s rivals, such as the AMD EPYC 4464P, are server parts that are not typically used in gaming rigs, so this combo represents a sensible high-end desktop choice. Overall, the 123rd rank out of 2813 is a strong indicator of this combo’s capability, placing it well ahead of the vast majority of systems tested.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows clear scaling patterns as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, which helps identify the limiting component at each stage. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 315 at 1080p to 228 at 1440p, a 27.6% decrease, and then to 144 at 4K, a further 36.8% decrease. This scaling is typical of a GPU-bound scenario, where the RTX 4090’s pixel throughput becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases.

At Low settings, the scaling is more dramatic: 530 FPS at 1080p drops to 383 FPS at 1440p (a 27.7% decrease) and then to 242 FPS at 4K (a 36.8% decrease). The fact that the percentage drops are similar across settings suggests that the GPU is consistently the limiting factor, even at Low settings where the CPU has more headroom. The 1080p Low result of 530 FPS is exceptionally high, but it is clear that the RTX 4090’s rendering capabilities are still the primary constraint, as the CPU is not able to push beyond this point without a faster GPU.

The Medium preset shows a drop from 381 FPS at 1080p to 275 FPS at 1440p (a 27.8% decrease) and then to 174 FPS at 4K (a 36.7% decrease). This pattern reinforces that the GPU is the bottleneck, as the frame rate scales almost linearly with the number of pixels. The Ultra preset follows the same trend: 203 FPS at 1080p, 147 FPS at 1440p (a 27.6% decrease), and 93 FPS at 4K (a 36.7% decrease). These consistent percentage drops indicate that the RTX 4090’s performance is directly tied to resolution, and the CPU’s role is secondary.

The data suggests that at 4K, the GPU is heavily loaded, and the frame rate is determined almost entirely by the RTX 4090’s fill rate and compute power. At 1080p, the frame rates are so high that they approach the limits of what the CPU can feed, but the fact that the GPU still shows a significant drop from 1080p to 1440p indicates that it is still the primary bottleneck. This means that users with high-refresh 1080p monitors will see the most benefit from this combo, but those with 4K 144Hz displays will also be satisfied, as the High preset delivers exactly 144 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The detailed FPS measurements for this combo are as follows:

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: 530 FPS average
• Medium: 381 FPS average, with a minimum of 324 FPS and a maximum of 438 FPS
• High: 315 FPS average
• Ultra: 203 FPS average

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: 383 FPS average
• Medium: 275 FPS average, with a minimum of 234 FPS and a maximum of 317 FPS
• High: 228 FPS average
• Ultra: 147 FPS average

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: 242 FPS average
• Medium: 174 FPS average, with a minimum of 148 FPS and a maximum of 200 FPS
• High: 144 FPS average
• Ultra: 93 FPS average

These numbers show a clear and consistent pattern. The Medium preset is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum FPS values, which indicates that it has the most stable frame pacing, with a tight range of 108-117 FPS between the minimum and maximum at each resolution. The Low and High presets do not have recorded minimums or maximums, suggesting that they are either less variable or the data was not captured, but the averages are the key figures.

At 1080p, the jump from Low to Medium is 149 FPS, which is substantial, but the jump from Medium to High is 66 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 112 FPS. This indicates that the Ultra preset is particularly demanding, and the performance hit is not proportional to the visual quality gain. At 1440p, the same pattern holds, with a 108 FPS drop from Low to Medium, a 47 FPS drop from Medium to High, and an 81 FPS drop from High to Ultra. At 4K, the drops are 68 FPS from Low to Medium, 30 FPS from Medium to High, and 51 FPS from High to Ultra.

The minimum FPS values for the Medium preset at 1440p (234) and 4K (148) are still well above 60 FPS, ensuring a smooth experience even in the most demanding scenes. The maximum FPS values at 4K Medium (200) are particularly impressive, showing that the RTX 4090 has headroom to spare. Overall, these measured FPS figures confirm that this combo is capable of delivering a high-refresh experience at any resolution, with the High preset being the most balanced choice. The data shows that the RTX 4090 is a dominant force in this game, and the Core Ultra 7 265 provides ample CPU support, resulting in a top-tier performance that ranks 123rd out of 2813 combos.