Undisputed

# How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 246th out of 3,718 tested combos in Undisputed, placing it in the top 6.6% of all configurations benchmarked. This is a strong showing for a sports title that typically favors balanced systems over extreme hardware. The combo's percentile placement reflects its ability to sustain high frame rates across all settings, though the rank also indicates that several other combinations—likely those with more recent GPUs—edge it out in absolute performance.

When examining the CPU's broader standing, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus sits at the 96th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84,003. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, scores 83,807, a mere 0.2% difference, meaning the 290K Plus offers only marginal gains over its predecessor. The AMD EPYC 4584PX trails by 1.1% with a score of 83,090, while the EPYC 9135 is 1.2% behind at 82,980. Notably, the AMD EPYC 7F72 actually outperforms the 290K Plus by 1.3% with a score of 85,072, suggesting that workstation-class chips can still compete in this title's CPU-bound scenarios.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4080 holds the 86th percentile among all GPUs with an average benchmark score of 54,247. Its closest competitor, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores 54,209—only 0.1% behind—making the two effectively identical in raw compute. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X is 1.1% ahead at 54,828, while the Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB and Radeon 8060S lead by 2.6% and 2.7% respectively. This indicates that the RTX 4080, while aging, remains competitive; however, its end-of-life production status suggests newer alternatives have already surpassed it in the rankings.

In Undisputed, the combo's performance is characterized by consistency rather than extremes. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset delivers 184 FPS, which is far beyond the needs of most displays. The data reveals no bottleneck severe enough to drop frames below playable thresholds, even at 4K Ultra. This rank of 246 out of 3,718 is therefore proof of the hardware's balance, though it stops short of top-tier status due to the GPU's age relative to newer releases.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance for optimal settings. At 4K (3840x2160), the Ultra preset yields an average of 84 FPS, which is playable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes. The High preset at 4K jumps to 130 FPS, a 54.8% improvement over Ultra, while Medium reaches 158 FPS and Low spikes to 219 FPS. For players prioritizing smoothness over visual fidelity, High at 4K offers the best balance—it maintains 130 FPS, well above the 60 FPS threshold, without sacrificing the visual quality that makes the game's boxer models and arenas pop.

At 1440p (2560x1440), the choices become more forgiving. Ultra averages 133 FPS, which is already excellent for competitive play. High delivers 206 FPS, Medium 249 FPS, and Low 346 FPS. Given that 1440p High nearly doubles the refresh rate of most standard monitors, there is little reason to drop below High unless targeting 240Hz displays, in which case Medium's 249 FPS is a safer bet. The minimum FPS recorded for Medium at 1440p is 212, ensuring no drops below that threshold.

For 1080p, the data shows diminishing returns. Ultra averages 184 FPS, Medium 345 FPS, and Low 479 FPS. The jump from Ultra to Medium is substantial (87.5% faster), but from Medium to Low it tapers to 38.8%. Since even Ultra at 1080p exceeds 144Hz refresh rates, players with high-refresh monitors should consider Medium for the extra margin—the minimum FPS at Medium is 293, which still exceeds most display capabilities. Low at 1080p is overkill unless chasing 500Hz panels, which are rare and largely unnecessary for a sports title.

The optimal preset depends on resolution. At 4K, High is recommended for a 130 FPS average with no recorded minimums below 100. At 1440p, Medium or High both work, with Medium providing a 249 FPS average and a 212 FPS minimum. At 1080p, Medium's 345 FPS average and 293 FPS minimum offer the best safety margin for high-refresh displays. Ultra settings are viable at all resolutions but only truly necessary at 1080p, where 184 FPS remains competitive. The data suggests that the RTX 4080's 16 GB VRAM is sufficient for Ultra at 4K, as the 84 FPS average indicates the GPU is not VRAM-limited but rather compute-bound at that setting.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K reveals how the system scales under increasing pixel load. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 285 at 1080p to 206 at 1440p (a 27.7% decrease) and then to 130 at 4K (a 36.9% further decrease). This nonlinear scaling suggests that the RTX 4080 begins to hit its compute limits as resolution increases, with the 4K High result showing a more pronounced drop relative to 1440p.

At Low settings, the pattern is steeper: 479 FPS at 1080p falls to 346 at 1440p (27.8% drop) and then to 219 at 4K (36.7% drop). The similarity in percentage drops between Low and High indicates that the GPU is the primary limiter across all settings, not the CPU. If the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus were the bottleneck, we would expect the 1080p results to plateau regardless of settings, but the 479 FPS at Low versus 285 FPS at High shows the GPU is still dictating performance even at lower resolutions.

Medium settings tell a similar story: 345 FPS at 1080p, 249 at 1440p (27.8% drop), and 158 at 4K (36.5% drop). The consistent ~28% drop from 1080p to 1440p and ~37% drop from 1440p to 4K across all three settings strongly indicates a GPU-bound scenario. The CPU's 24 cores and 24 threads, running at a boost clock of 5.80 GHz, are more than sufficient to feed the RTX 4080 at any resolution; the data shows no evidence of a CPU ceiling, as even the 4K Low result of 219 FPS is far above what a CPU-limited system would produce.

The Ultra preset exhibits the largest relative drop: from 184 FPS at 1080p to 133 at 1440p (27.7% drop) and then to 84 at 4K (36.8% drop). This consistency across presets—all showing near-identical percentage drops—confirms that resolution scaling is purely GPU-driven. The RTX 4080's 716.8 GB/s memory bandwidth and 48.74 TFLOPS FP32 performance are the determining factors, and the data shows these resources are exhausted progressively as pixel count rises. Players seeking higher 4K frame rates would need to lower settings, as the CPU cannot compensate for the GPU's resolution scaling.

FAQ

*Q: Is the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus a good match for the RTX 4080 in Undisputed?*

A: Yes, the data shows no CPU bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 479 FPS, and even at 4K Low it maintains 219 FPS, indicating the CPU's 24 cores and 5.80 GHz boost clock are more than adequate to keep the GPU fed across all resolutions.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its closest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER?

A: The RTX 4080 scores 54,247 in average benchmarks, while the RTX 4080 SUPER scores 54,209, a delta of only 0.1%. In practical terms, the two are indistinguishable in Undisputed, and the measured FPS data for the 4080 would likely apply to the SUPER within a single frame per second.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a 4K display?

A: The High preset at 4K yields 130 FPS average, which is 54.8% faster than Ultra's 84 FPS. Given that High still provides strong visual quality, it is the recommended choice for 4K to maintain smooth gameplay without the performance penalty of Ultra.

Q: Can this combo handle 1440p at 240Hz?

A: Yes, at 1440p Medium, the average FPS is 249 with a minimum of 212. This exceeds the 240Hz threshold, though the High preset's 206 FPS average falls short. Players targeting 240Hz should select Medium settings.

Q: Does the CPU's 96th percentile ranking translate to better gaming performance?

A: Not necessarily in Undisputed. The CPU's nearest rival, the Core Ultra 9 285K, is within 0.2% in average benchmark score, but the game's FPS data shows the GPU is the limiting factor at all resolutions. The CPU's high percentile is more relevant for productivity tasks like the Cinebench R23 multicore score of 51,731.

Q: Is the RTX 4080's 16 GB VRAM sufficient for Ultra settings?

A: Yes, the 4K Ultra preset runs at 84 FPS average, which indicates the 16 GB GDDR6X memory is not being exhausted. If VRAM were insufficient, the frame rate would crater due to texture swapping; the data shows a smooth, if lower, performance at Ultra.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this combo for Undisputed. Its AD103 chip, built on a 5 nm process by TSMC, contains 45,900 million transistors across a 379 mm² die. The GPU's base clock of 2205 MHz boosts to 2505 MHz, and its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory runs at 22.4 Gbps effective, delivering 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth over a 256-bit bus. These specifications directly influence the game's performance: the 48.74 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 761.5 GTexel/s texture rate are what allow High settings at 4K to reach 130 FPS.

The RTX 4080's nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, is only 0.1% ahead in average benchmark score, meaning the 4080 is effectively a current-generation performer despite its end-of-life status. The GPU's 86th percentile ranking among all GPUs reflects its staying power, but the data also shows it is not top-tier—the Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB leads by 2.6%, indicating that newer AMD parts have surpassed it in raw compute. However, in Undisputed, the RTX 4080's ray tracing cores (76) and tensor cores (304) are not heavily utilized, as this is a sports title that relies more on rasterization.

The measured FPS data shows the GPU scaling predictably with settings. At 1080p, the RTX 4080 delivers 479 FPS at Low, 345 at Medium, 285 at High, and 184 at Ultra. This wide spread—from 184 to 479 FPS—demonstrates the GPU's ability to handle both esports-level settings and maxed-out visuals. At 4K, the range narrows to 84–219 FPS, with the Ultra preset's 84 FPS indicating the GPU is compute-limited rather than memory-limited. The 16 GB VRAM is never a constraint, as evidenced by the smooth performance even at 4K Ultra.

The GPU's 320 W TDP and triple-slot design suggest it is a power-hungry component, but the benchmark data does not include thermal or power measurements. What the data does show is that the RTX 4080, while aging, still offers excellent performance in Undisputed, with no setting combination dropping below the 60 FPS playability threshold. The 22.4 Gbps effective memory speed is particularly relevant for high-resolution textures, and the 716.8 GB/s bandwidth ensures that even the most detailed boxer models load without stutter.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus serves as the supporting component in this combo, and the data shows it performs this role admirably. With 24 cores and 24 threads (no hyperthreading), the CPU runs at a base clock of 3.70 GHz and boosts to 5.80 GHz. Its 36 MB of shared L3 cache and 115.2 GB/s dual-channel DDR5 memory bandwidth provide ample data throughput for feeding the RTX 4080. The CPU's 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84,003, places it near the top of consumer processors, though its nearest rival, the Core Ultra 9 285K, is nearly identical at 83,807 (0.2% difference).

In Undisputed, the CPU's role is to maintain high frame rates without becoming a bottleneck. The evidence is clear: at 1080p Low, the combo hits 479 FPS, which is far beyond what any CPU-limited scenario would produce. If the 290K Plus were the limiting factor, we would expect the 1080p results to cluster around a single value regardless of GPU settings, but the data shows a wide spread from 184 to 479 FPS, indicating the GPU is the primary driver. The CPU's 24 cores are likely underutilized in this sports title, which typically uses fewer threads, but the high boost clock of 5.80 GHz ensures single-threaded performance is sufficient for the game's physics and AI calculations.

The CPU's benchmark results provide context for its gaming performance. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 51,731 and single-core score of 7,303 suggest strong overall compute, while the PassMark single-thread score of 4,823 confirms excellent per-core performance. These numbers are not directly used by Undisputed, but they indicate the CPU has headroom for background tasks while gaming. The 290K Plus's nearest rivals include workstation-class EPYC processors, which score higher (the EPYC 7F72 leads by 1.3%), but these chips are not typically used in gaming rigs.

The data reveals no scenario where the CPU limits FPS. Even at 4K Ultra, where the GPU is clearly stressed (84 FPS average), the CPU is not responsible for the lower frame rate—it is the RTX 4080's compute limits. The 290K Plus's 24 threads and 36 MB L3 cache are more than adequate for Undisputed's demands, and the CPU's 96th percentile ranking ensures it will not become a bottleneck in future titles either. For players upgrading from older Intel chips, the 290K Plus offers a 0.2% improvement over the 285K, which is negligible in gaming but significant for productivity workloads as shown by its PassMark multithread score of 60,860.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce an average of 479 FPS, which is the fastest recorded in the entire dataset. Medium settings drop to 345 FPS, with a minimum of 293 and maximum of 396, providing a wide safety margin for any display. High settings average 285 FPS, while Ultra averages 184 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 134 FPS (38.8% decrease), while Medium to High drops 60 FPS (17.4%), and High to Ultra falls 101 FPS (35.4%). This pattern suggests that Ultra imposes a significant load increase over High, likely due to advanced lighting and shadow effects.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show the expected resolution penalty. Low averages 346 FPS, Medium 249 FPS (minimum 212, maximum 286), High 206 FPS, and Ultra 133 FPS. The percentage drops from 1080p are consistent: Low falls 27.8%, Medium 27.8%, High 27.7%, and Ultra 27.7%. This uniformity indicates that the GPU's pixel throughput is the limiting factor, scaling linearly with resolution. The 1440p Medium result of 249 FPS is particularly notable for its 212 FPS minimum, which ensures no dips below the 200 FPS mark even in busy scenes.

At 3840x2160, the performance is still playable but shows the GPU's limits. Low averages 219 FPS, Medium 158 FPS (minimum 134, maximum 181), High 130 FPS, and Ultra 84 FPS. The drop from 1440p to 4K is steeper: Low falls 36.7%, Medium 36.5%, High 36.9%, and Ultra 36.8%. This increased penalty at 4K is expected, as the pixel count quadruples from 1080p and doubles from 1440p. The Ultra preset's 84 FPS is the only result below 100 FPS in the entire dataset, and it remains above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

The data shows a clear hierarchy: 1080p Low is the fastest configuration at 479 FPS, while 4K Ultra is the slowest at 84 FPS. The Medium preset at each resolution provides the best balance of performance and visual quality, with minimum FPS values of 293 at 1080p, 212 at 1440p, and 134 at 4K. These minimums are critical for understanding real-world performance, as they represent the worst-case frame rates during intense action. The 4K Medium minimum of 134 FPS is particularly impressive, indicating that even the most demanding scenes in Undisputed will not cause noticeable stuttering. Overall, the measured FPS breakdown confirms that this combo is capable of high-refresh-rate gaming at 1080p and 1440p, with solid 4K performance for players willing to adjust settings.