Red Dead Redemption 2 at 8K deals some serious damage to the $2,499 Nvidia Titan RTX graphics card

Still just about playable, though

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

One of the best things aboutRed Dead Redemption 2 on PCis its ability to run at ultra-high resolutions that games consoles can only dream of, so we ran it at8Kresolution to see how it runs.

PC built byChillbast

Motherboard:Asus ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMINGCPU Cooler:Noctua NH-U14SCase fans:Noctua NF-A14 PWM Chromax 140mmProcessor:Intel Core i9-9900K, 8 Cores / 16 ThreadsGPU:Nvidia GeForce Titan RTXStorage:500GB Samsung 970 EVO Plus M.2 PCIeSecondary Storage:2TB Samsung 860 QVOPower:Corsair RM850x 80 PLUS Gold 850W PSUCase:Fractal Design Vector RS Tempered GlassRAM:G.Skill Trident Z RGB 32GB DDR4 3200MHzMonitor:Dell UltraSharp UP3218K

The results aren’t entirely surprising: a powerful gaming rig with a $2,499 (around £2,000, AU$3,600)NvidiaTitan RTX graphics card struggling to run the game at a playable frame rate.

However considering just how much of a visual treatRed Dead Redemption 2is, we were expecting a lot worse performance, with the game at 8K essentially being a (very) pretty slideshow. In fact, the game wasn’t too far off being playable at the huge 7,680 × 4,320 resolution.

We played the game using a very powerful gaming PC provided byChillbast, along withDell’sUltraSharp UP3218Kmonitor. Checkout the boxout on the right for the full spec of the PC we used.

Taxing performance

The PC Chillblast built for us is an absolute beast, and includes the RTX Titan GPU, currently the most powerful consumer graphics card you can buy. We say ‘consumer’, but with a huge 24GB of GDDR6 video memory and a whopping $2,499 price tag on its own, it’s not a GPU that you’ll find in many rigs.

At 8K resolution with all the settings whacked up to full, Red Dead Redemption hit 18.65 frames per second on average in the benchmark. While it looked good, it also resulted in very choppy performance, and well below the 60 frames per second (or above) we’ve come to expect – nay demand – of thebest PC games.

We also played it for a while at 8K, and while it wasn’t the complete horror show we were expecting, it did feelverysluggish. But it really did look fantastic.

Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.

Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.

We then set all the graphical settings to low, and the game ran at a much better 26FPS, but still well below what we would want to play at for long – even though we did see a few spikes where the framerates hit 60FPS.

4K performance

So, once again 8K proves to be too taxing for even some of the most powerful hardware in the world right now.

However, playing the game at4Kat Ultra settings we got 52.64FPS. This is much more like it, and way above what thePS4 ProandXbox One Xare capable of.

While it’s still a bit below the magical 60FPS mark, it’s not that far off, and with a bit of tweaking to some of the more intensive graphical effects, we hit 4K at 60FPS pretty easily.

It’s also worth noting that the visual fidelity didn’t improve much going from 4K to 8K – certainly not enough to warrant the drop in performance. This is because while Red Dead Redemption 2 has been made with 4K in mind, with textures aimed at that resolution, because people playing it at 8K will be so rare, the assets haven’t been created to take advantage of 8K.

So, even by ‘dropping’ down to 4K, we still got one of the best looking PC titles ever. But playable 8K still remains a dream at this point.

Check out our otherRed Dead Redemption 2 PC performance teststo see how the game fared on more realistic hardware.

Matt is TechRadar’s Managing Editor for Core Tech, looking after computing and mobile technology. Having written for a number of publications such as PC Plus, PC Format, T3 and Linux Format, there’s no aspect of technology that Matt isn’t passionate about, especially computing and PC gaming. He’s personally reviewed and used most of the laptops in our best laptops guide - and since joining TechRadar in 2014, he’s reviewed over 250 laptops and computing accessories personally.

I’m a Nintendo Switch expert, here are the best early Black Friday deals right now

Best Dragon Age games in 2024 - every series entry ranked

Black Friday is here: Sony XM5 over-ears drop to their lowest-seen price – act fast!