SYSTEM ANALYZER

Rate My PC: Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D

Get a comprehensive performance analysis of your gaming rig with detailed benchmarks, bottleneck detection, and upgrade recommendations

Build Configuration

Select your components

PROCESSOR (CPU)

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GRAPHICS CARD (GPU)

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98 Score

Top 2% Ranking

98 / 100

ULTIMATE READY

Apex Performer

Top 2% of systems. Capable of 4K Ultra gaming and advanced rendering.

4K 60+ FPSVR ReadyRay Tracing

System Balance Analysis

CPU vs GPU performance ratio

Well Balanced

CPU

98%

GPU

99%

PROCESSOR

Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus

84,003 Benchmark Score

Top 2% Market Ranking

View Full Specs →

GRAPHICS CARD

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D

178,050 Benchmark Score

Top 1% Market Ranking

View Full Specs →

Market Position

How your build compares to others

Budget

0-30

Mid-Range

30-60

High-End

60-85

Enthusiast

85-100

Your Build

Game Performance Benchmarks

Real-world 4K FPS in popular titles

View All Games →

Performance Insights

Tips to maximize your system

Optimal Performance

Your system is in the top tier. You can run any modern game at maximum settings.

4K Gaming Ready

Consider a 4K 144Hz monitor to fully utilize your hardware capabilities.

Compatible Games See what you can play Compare CPUs Find upgrades Compare GPUs Find upgrades

Performance Tiers Explained

90-100

Ultimate

4K Ultra gaming, VR ready, ray tracing enabled, professional workloads

4K 60+ FPS VR Ready

70-89

High-End

1440p Ultra or 4K High settings, excellent for modern AAA titles

1440p Ultra 4K High

50-69

Mid-Range

1080p Ultra or 1440p Medium, great value for most gamers

1080p Ultra 1440p Med

30-49

Entry Level

1080p Medium settings, suitable for eSports and older titles

1080p Med eSports

0-29

Legacy

Basic gaming, older titles, consider upgrading for modern games

720p-1080p Low Older Games

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D form a desktop pairing that sits at the absolute top tier of consumer hardware. The CPU holds a 96th percentile rank among all processors, while the GPU achieves a 98th percentile rank among all graphics cards, placing this combination in the 97th percentile overall. This is a flagship-class build designed for uncompromising performance in both productivity and gaming, though the absence of measured frame rate data means that specific gaming figures must be treated as estimates derived from the raw benchmark scores.

FAQ

Q: What are the core and thread counts of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus?

A: The processor features 24 cores and 24 threads, indicating a design without Hyper-Threading, paired with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rival, the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K?

A: The 290K Plus scores an average of 84003, which is a 0.2% improvement over the 285K's average score of 83807, making the performance difference nearly negligible in synthetic benchmarks.

Q: What kind of memory and expansion does the platform support?

A: The CPU supports DDR5 memory over a dual-channel bus with a bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s, includes ECC memory support, and provides 20 PCIe Gen 5 lanes from the CPU itself.

Q: What is the GPU's memory configuration and bandwidth?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D comes with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 384-bit bus, delivering a total bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s.

Q: How does the RTX 4090 D's benchmark score compare to its nearest rival?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score is 178050, which is 2.2% lower than the NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell's score of 182109, yet it still ranks in the 98th percentile of all GPUs.

Q: What is the power draw and PSU requirement for the GPU?

A: The RTX 4090 D has a TDP of 425 W and comes with a suggested power supply rating of 800 W, requiring a single 16-pin power connector.

Q: Is the CPU overclockable and what process node is it built on?

A: Yes, the multiplier is unlocked for overclocking, and the CPU is fabricated on a 3 nm process node by TSMC, housing 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die.

Benchmark Performance

The combined data reveals a pairing where both components are outliers at the top of their respective performance distributions. The CPU's average benchmark score of 84003 places it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs, with a multi-threaded Cinebench R23 score of 51731 and a single-core score of 7303. The Passmark multi-thread score of 60860 underscores its heavy multi-core lifting capability, while the single-thread score of 4823 confirms strong per-core performance. The GPU, meanwhile, posts an average benchmark score of 178050, ranking in the 98th percentile of all GPUs, with a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 8587, a Geekbench OpenCL score of 278621, and a Vulkan score of 246941.

The combined picture is one of exceptional balance at extreme performance levels. The CPU's 96th percentile and GPU's 98th percentile feed into a combined percentile of 97, indicating that neither component is dramatically holding back the other. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K at a 0.2% delta, and the AMD EPYC 4584PX at a 1.1% delta, showing it is within striking distance of top-tier server chips. For the GPU, the nearest rival is the NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell, which is 2.2% faster, but the 4090 D remains superior to the A100 SXM4 80 GB by 3.1% despite that card's data-center focus. This data suggests that in mixed productivity and gaming workloads, the 290K Plus does not bottleneck the 4090 D in synthetic tests, as the score deltas against rivals are minimal, and the absolute scores are so high that real-world application differences will be driven by software optimization rather than raw hardware limits.

Upgrade Path and Platform

The foundation of this build is the Intel Socket 1851 platform, which pairs the 290K Plus with dual-channel DDR5 memory support and a theoretical memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s. The inclusion of ECC memory support is a notable feature for workstation tasks where data integrity is paramount, though it is not a standard requirement for gaming. The CPU provides 20 PCIe Gen 5 lanes, which is ample for a single flagship GPU like the RTX 4090 D, though it is worth remembering the GPU itself operates on a PCIe 4.0 x16 interface. This means the GPU will not saturate the newer Gen 5 lanes, but it also means that the existing PCIe 4.0 bandwidth is fully sufficient for the 4090 D's data throughput.

From a power delivery standpoint, the CPU's TDP is rated at 125 W, while the GPU's TDP is 425 W, and the GPU's suggested power supply is 800 W. When considering a full system load, an 800 W PSU is the baseline, but this leaves headroom for the CPU's boost behavior and other components. The GPU is a triple-slot card, measuring 304 mm in length and 137 mm in height, which mandates a spacious case with robust airflow. The power connectors consist of a single 16-pin for the GPU, which simplifies cable management. A sensible next upgrade path is less about replacing core components and more about capacity: adding more DDR5 memory (upgrading from the standard dual-channel configuration) or expanding storage via the available PCIe Gen 5 lanes to ensure that data transfer speeds keep pace with the processing power. The CPU's unlocked multiplier also offers a platform-level upgrade for enthusiasts who wish to push beyond stock clocks, though the 3 nm process and 125 W TDP suggest that thermal headroom will be the limiting factor rather than power delivery.

Usage Scenarios

For high-refresh gaming at 1440p or 4K, the RTX 4090 D's 98th percentile GPU score is the primary driver, with its 24 GB of memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth ensuring that texture-heavy scenes load quickly and maintain stable frame pacing. The CPU's single-core score of 7303 in Cinebench R23 and 4823 in Passmark single-thread tests provide the necessary instruction throughput for game logic, though the GPU will be the bottleneck in most scenarios.

Streaming benefits from the CPU's 24 cores and 24 threads, where the Passmark multi-thread score of 60860 allows for simultaneous game encoding and video encoding without a significant hit to frame rates, assuming the software is optimized for multi-threading. The data encryption score of 52563 also supports secure stream delivery protocols.

Video editing workloads, particularly in 4K or 8K timelines, will leverage the CPU's Cinebench R15 multicore score of 5214 and R20 score of 21727, which indicate strong rendering capabilities for effects and transitions. The GPU's FP32 performance of 73.54 TFLOPS accelerates GPU-accelerated effects and color grading, making this a dual-accelerator setup for editors.

3D rendering in applications like Blender or Maya will see near-linear scaling across the CPU's cores, with the 51731 Cinebench R23 multicore score suggesting that CPU-based ray tracing will be swift. The GPU's 114 RT cores and 456 tensor cores provide hardware acceleration for final-frame rendering and denoising, with the 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 8587 confirming robust DX12 performance.

Software development is a strong suit due to the high single-thread score of 4823 and the data compression score of 698346, which speeds up compilation and code repository operations. The integer math score of 166194 is particularly relevant for build pipelines that rely on hashing and sorting algorithms.

For student and office work, this build is massively over-provisioned. The CPU's performance is far beyond what is needed for document editing or web browsing, but the 24 threads and 36 MB of shared L3 cache ensure that virtual machines and data analysis tools run without any perceptible lag, and the GPU's 98th percentile ranking makes it future-proof for any graphics-intensive academic work.

Balance and Bottleneck

The data indicates a system where the GPU is the primary limiter in gaming workloads, but the CPU is the limiter in lightly-threaded productivity tasks. In gaming, the GPU's 98th percentile rank versus the CPU's 96th percentile suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU may occasionally limit frame rates due to its single-thread performance, but at higher resolutions like 4K, the GPU's rendering load will dominate. The lack of measured FPS data prevents a precise breakdown, but the raw scores imply that the CPU's 4823 Passmark single-thread score is strong enough to avoid severe bottlenecks, while the GPU's 73.54 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is the ceiling for pixel pushing.

In multi-threaded workloads, the CPU is the star, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 51731 that far exceeds what the GPU can contribute to general compute. This means that for 3D rendering tasks relying on CPU-based physics or simulation, the CPU will be the bottleneck, and the GPU's tensor cores will sit partially idle. Conversely, in GPU-accelerated encoding or rendering, the CPU will wait on the GPU's output. The FPS scaling between these two components is not linear; the GPU's 3DMark score of 8587 shows it can handle massive geometry, but the CPU's 24 cores ensure that background tasks like streaming or Discord do not interfere with game performance. The overall balance is 97th percentile, which suggests that while there are theoretical mismatches, the practical experience will be dominated by software optimization and the user's specific resolution and settings.

Who Should Build It

This build is targeted at enthusiasts and professionals who require the absolute highest performance available. Gamers playing at 4K resolution with maximum settings and ray tracing enabled are the primary audience, as the GPU's 98th percentile ranking and 24 GB memory buffer are designed for this workload. Content creators working with 8K video or complex 3D scenes will benefit from the CPU's 24 threads and the GPU's 456 tensor cores for AI-accelerated effects. Software developers building large codebases will appreciate the CPU's 166194 integer math score and 698346 data compression score, which reduce compile times. Students in STEM fields running simulations or machine learning models will find the ECC memory support and 115.2 GB/s bandwidth useful, though the power requirements may be excessive for dorm rooms. Small business workstations that need to handle CAD, financial modeling, or server virtualization will find the CPU's 96th percentile ranking and the GPU's 1.01 TB/s bandwidth sufficient for demanding multi-user scenarios, though the 425 W GPU TDP means these systems will require dedicated cooling and power infrastructure.

Gaming Performance

No measured FPS rows exist for this exact combination, so all frame rate figures are estimates derived from the benchmark scores. The data shows that the RTX 4090 D has a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 8587, which is a strong indicator of DX12 gaming performance, while the CPU's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7303 ensures that game physics and draw call submission will not be a major hindrance. Based on these scores, the estimated FPS at 1080p ultra settings would be extremely high, likely exceeding 200 FPS in most esports titles, but the CPU's single-thread performance may cap the maximum frame rate in older or less optimized games. At 1440p ultra, the GPU's 73.54 TFLOPS FP32 throughput will be the primary driver, with estimates suggesting 150-200 FPS in AAA titles. At 4K ultra, the GPU's 24 GB memory and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth become critical, and the estimated FPS drops to 80-120 FPS for demanding titles, with ray tracing enabled reducing that further. The Vulkan score of 246941 and OpenCL score of 278621 also indicate strong performance in Vulkan-based titles like Doom Eternal and compute-heavy games, but these are estimates and actual performance will vary based on game engine and driver optimization.

Build Overview

This is a desktop-class build that pairs the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D, both of which are flagship components in their respective categories. The CPU is part of the Core Ultra Series 2, based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, and is fabricated on a 3 nm process. The GPU is from the GeForce 40-series, based on the Ada Lovelace architecture. The combined percentile rank of 97 places this system in the top 3% of all possible configurations, making it a top-tier choice for any workload that can utilize the hardware. The CPU's 96th percentile and GPU's 98th percentile indicate that this is a balanced system where the GPU holds a slight edge in relative performance, but both are far above the average.

CPU Analysis

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.80 GHz. It is built on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, which is a refinement of the previous generation, and is fabricated on a 3 nm process by TSMC, containing 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die. The cache hierarchy consists of 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 36 MB of shared L3 cache. The lack of Hyper-Threading (24 threads for 24 cores) is a design choice that prioritizes thermal efficiency and single-core latency over multi-threaded throughput. The benchmark scores reflect this: the Cinebench R23 multicore score of 51731 is excellent, but it trails the Passmark multithread score of 60860 in relative terms, suggesting that the 24 physical cores are highly efficient but not as aggressive as a comparable 32-thread design. The single-core Cinebench R23 score of 7303 and Passmark single-thread score of 4823 are top-tier, indicating that this CPU excels in tasks like web browsing, office applications, and gaming where single-thread performance is paramount. The Passmark data compression score of 698346 and integer math score of 166194 show that the CPU is a monster for file archiving and code compilation, while the floating point math score of 214760 confirms strong scientific computing capabilities. The 115.2 GB/s memory bandwidth is sufficient for the 24 cores, but it is not a standout feature, and the ECC memory support is a professional-grade addition that sets it apart from mainstream desktop CPUs. Overall, this CPU is a high-end workstation part that also serves as a gaming CPU, and its 96th percentile ranking solidifies its status as one of the fastest processors available.

Rate My PC: Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D

Apex Performer

System Balance Analysis

Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 D

Market Position

Game Performance Benchmarks

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

Performance Insights

Optimal Performance

4K Gaming Ready

Performance Tiers Explained

Ultimate

High-End

Mid-Range

Entry Level

Legacy

FAQ

Benchmark Performance

Upgrade Path and Platform

Usage Scenarios

Balance and Bottleneck

Who Should Build It

Gaming Performance

Build Overview

CPU Analysis

4K Gaming Performance

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

1440p Gaming Performance

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

1080p Gaming Performance

Cyberpunk 2077

Red Dead Redemption 2

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Control

Call of Duty: Warzone

Fortnite

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