Building a high-performance PC means navigating a world of cutting-edge components, each promising to deliver the ultimate gaming experience. In a recent video, we embarked on a unique challenge: constructing an “ultimate” Intel Core Ultra 9 gaming PC paired with an RTX 5090. The results, particularly in demanding titles like Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us Part I, revealed intriguing performance dynamics. Even at 4K resolution with DLSS enabled, the powerful RTX 5090 sometimes struggled to hit 100% utilization, pointing towards an unexpected CPU bottleneck from the Intel Core Ultra 9. This comprehensive build log and analysis dives deeper into what makes this system tick, where it excels, and the crucial considerations for enthusiasts aiming for top-tier gaming performance.
Evaluating the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K Performance
The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K processor represents a significant leap for Intel, especially in terms of efficiency and multi-core productivity tasks. It boasts a high core count, blending efficiency and performance cores to handle demanding applications with ease. However, when it comes to raw gaming power, particularly at lower resolutions or in games that are less GPU-bound, the picture becomes more complex.
Our tests showed that while the Core Ultra 9 delivers solid framerates, it occasionally acts as a limiting factor for the beastly RTX 5090. This phenomenon, known as CPU bottlenecking, is like having a powerful engine but a narrow fuel line; the engine can’t reach its full potential. The video highlights that for pure gaming prowess, especially at the highest competitive levels, AMD’s X3D series (like the 9800X3D or 9950X3D) currently holds an advantage due to its specialized 3D V-Cache technology, which significantly boosts gaming framerates.
For those considering an Intel Core Ultra processor, especially for a high-end gaming PC, the Core Ultra 7 265K emerges as a compelling alternative. It offers comparable gaming performance to its Ultra 9 counterpart, often at a more attractive price point. This makes it an excellent choice for a balanced productivity and gaming machine, particularly if you’re gaming at 4K where the GPU typically shoulders most of the workload.
The “Ultimate” Graphics Card: NVIDIA RTX 5090’s Role
The NVIDIA RTX 5090 is, without question, the pinnacle of consumer graphics card technology, offering unparalleled performance. It’s the ultimate choice for those who demand the highest frame rates, maximum fidelity, and an uncompromising experience, especially with features like ray tracing and path tracing enabled at 4K resolutions. This card is like a supercar in the world of GPUs; it’s incredibly fast, but to truly appreciate its power, you need the right “road” – a high-resolution, high-refresh-rate monitor, ideally an OLED panel.
However, the video raises a crucial point about value: Is the substantial investment in an RTX 5090 gaming PC always justifiable? If you’re choosing between this flagship GPU and a new, top-tier monitor, prioritizing the monitor often makes more sense. A stunning display can transform your gaming experience more profoundly than simply upgrading to the fastest GPU, especially if you’re leveraging upscaling technologies like DLSS or FSR with a slightly less powerful card. The 5090 truly shines when paired with a display that can fully showcase its capabilities, such as a 4K, 240Hz monitor, pushing out every single frame it can render.
Building the Foundation: Case, Motherboard, and Cooling
Every high-performance PC needs a solid foundation, starting with a well-designed case, a feature-rich motherboard, and efficient cooling solutions. Our Intel Core Ultra 9 gaming PC utilized a carefully selected trio to ensure both performance and aesthetics.
Haven BF360: A Case Study in Airflow and Aesthetics
The Haven BF360 case, a brand-new offering, stands out with its blend of quality, airflow, and a unique aesthetic. It successfully brings the premium build and excellent thermal performance of larger, more expensive chassis down to a more manageable size and price point. This makes it an ideal choice for a desk-friendly system that doesn’t compromise on cooling potential.
A key feature of the BF360 is its two thick 180-millimeter front fans, designed to pull in massive amounts of cool air. Larger fans move more air at lower RPMs, resulting in significantly quieter operation. The case also incorporates a clever “GPU air guide” that directs this fresh air directly to the graphics card, ensuring optimal GPU temperatures even under heavy load. The unique stone-effect front panel, while not actual stone, offers a distinctive look that sets it apart from typical mesh designs, proving that aesthetics and airflow can indeed coexist. Additionally, the case boasts excellent cable management features, including hybrid grommets and routing channels, making a tidy build surprisingly effortless.
ASRock Z870 Steel Legend: Balancing Features and Value
For the motherboard, the ASRock Z870 Steel Legend in white was chosen, not only to match the build’s aesthetic theme but also for its strong feature set at an affordable price point for an overclockable Z870 board. This motherboard provides essential capabilities for a high-end system, including support for PCI Express Generation 5 SSDs, ensuring future-proof storage options. It also comes equipped with Wi-Fi 7 and a generous array of USB ports, covering connectivity needs for both current and future peripherals.
While perhaps not loaded with every conceivable bells and whistles, the Z870 Steel Legend focuses on delivering core performance and modern connectivity. This balanced approach allows builders to allocate more of their budget towards performance-critical components like the CPU and GPU, rather than paying for features they might not utilize. Its robust power delivery and cooling for critical components ensure stable operation, even with an overclocked Core Ultra 9.
Cooling the Beast: Montech HyperFlow Digital 360
Cooling an Intel Core Ultra 9, especially when paired with an RTX 5090, is paramount to maintaining performance and system longevity. The Montech HyperFlow Digital 360 AIO liquid cooler proved to be an effective and cost-efficient solution. Priced under £100, this 360mm radiator cooler offers a smart digital display that shows real-time CPU temperatures without the added cost of a full LCD screen. This provides crucial information at a glance, allowing users to monitor their system’s thermal performance without needing software overlays.
The HyperFlow Digital 360’s all-white design perfectly complements the build’s aesthetic. Its efficient heat dissipation keeps the Core Ultra 9 within optimal temperature ranges, even during intense gaming sessions. Easy installation, including a convenient backplate system and clearly labeled mounting hardware, simplifies the building process, allowing for a swift and secure fit.
Memory, Storage, and Power: Completing the Build
Beyond the core components, thoughtful selection of memory, storage, and power supply ensures a well-rounded, high-performance system capable of handling any task.
The build utilized 48GB of DDR5 RAM running at 7200 megatransfers per second (MT/s). While 32GB is typically more than sufficient for most gaming scenarios, 48GB provides ample headroom for heavy multitasking and productivity workloads, aligning with the idea of an “ultimate productivity and gaming machine.” Fast RAM is particularly beneficial for Intel CPUs, often leading to noticeable performance gains in various applications and games.
For storage, a FireCuda 530R NVMe SSD was chosen. This PCIe Generation 4 drive offers blistering speeds that are more than adequate for current gaming and general use. While PCIe Generation 5 SSDs are available, their current price premium often outweighs the real-world performance benefits for most users, particularly gamers. Investing in a faster GPU or CPU cooler often provides a more tangible upgrade to the overall experience than bleeding-edge storage technology that rarely gets fully utilized outside of specific professional workloads.
Powering this high-end system is a Corsair HXi 1500W power supply, an admittedly overkill choice for the components, but selected for its compatibility with white braided cables, enhancing the build’s clean aesthetic. A 1000W or 1200W unit would likely suffice, but the 1500W PSU offers extreme headroom for future upgrades and ensures stable power delivery even under maximum load. The modular design of the HXi series, combined with the Haven BF360’s excellent cable management, made routing even bulky braided cables surprisingly simple and tidy.
Real-World Gaming Benchmarks: Pushing 4K Limits
To truly evaluate the Intel Core Ultra 9 gaming PC with an RTX 5090, extensive real-world gaming benchmarks were conducted across a variety of demanding titles at 4K resolution, leveraging NVIDIA’s DLSS and ray tracing technologies.
Cyberpunk 2077: Ray Tracing and Bottlenecks
In Cyberpunk 2077, without ray tracing, the system achieved impressive frame rates of 170-180 FPS at 4K with DLSS set to performance. However, in denser city areas, GPU usage dropped, indicating a CPU bottleneck. This means the Core Ultra 9 couldn’t feed the RTX 5090 enough data to keep it fully utilized. When ray tracing was enabled (Ultra/Psycho settings), frame rates dropped to around 100 FPS. Enabling full path tracing saw performance settle around 80 FPS. Intriguingly, even with path tracing, the GPU load often remained below 100%, suggesting that even at 4K with the most demanding visual settings, the Core Ultra 9 was still the limiting factor, preventing the RTX 5090 from fully stretching its legs. This highlights the substantial CPU demands of ray tracing and the sheer power of the 5090.
Horizon Forbidden West: DLAA vs. DLSS Balance
Horizon Forbidden West showcased strong performance, hitting 170-175 FPS at 4K with DLSS on “Balance.” This provides a smooth, visually stunning experience. When DLSS was turned off and DLAA (Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing) was enabled – essentially DLSS for native resolution – frame rates dropped to 120-125 FPS. Crucially, at this point, the GPU utilization finally reached near 100%, indicating the bottleneck shifted entirely to the GPU. This demonstrates that while DLSS can dramatically increase frame rates, turning it off can push the GPU to its limit, making it less CPU-bound. For a 4K display, this is often the desired scenario, maximizing visual fidelity without compromising too much on FPS.
Indiana Jones: Path Tracing Challenges
In Indiana Jones, the system achieved 120-130 FPS at 4K with DLSS set to performance and standard ray tracing enabled. While mostly smooth, occasional stutters were observed, which could be attributed to game optimization, the specific area, or the Core Ultra CPU. Activating full path tracing saw frame rates drop to 70-72 FPS, and GPU usage again fell to around 80%. This reinforces the observation from Cyberpunk 2077: while the game remained playable and visually impressive, the Intel Core Ultra 9 RTX 5090 PC was still leaving some performance on the table, unable to fully utilize the GPU’s potential due to CPU limitations.
The Last of Us Part I: Efficiency and High FPS
The Last of Us Part I proved to be highly optimized on this system, delivering around 280 FPS at 4K with DLSS performance and high settings (Nanite disabled). However, the GPU utilization hovered around 75-80%, once again pointing to a CPU bottleneck. This implies that a slightly less powerful GPU, like an overclocked RTX 5080, might yield similar frame rates in this specific scenario, saving considerable cost. It also highlights that enabling features like Nanite can drastically impact performance, reducing frame rates by nearly 100 FPS in some cases. Despite the bottleneck, the game felt incredibly smooth, with no noticeable frame time spikes, ensuring an exceptional gameplay experience. During these demanding tests, both the CPU and GPU maintained excellent temperatures, around 55-60°C for the CPU and 62°C for the GPU, demonstrating the effectiveness of the cooling solution and case airflow.
The Intel vs. AMD X3D Debate: A Look at Longevity
The recurring theme of CPU bottlenecking with the Intel Core Ultra 9, particularly when paired with an RTX 5090, brings the discussion back to the comparison with AMD’s X3D series. While the Core Ultra 9 is a formidable processor, its gaming performance in this specific high-end context often lags behind the X3D chips. This difference becomes more pronounced at lower resolutions, where the CPU’s ability to process game logic and draw calls becomes the primary limiting factor.
A significant long-term consideration is platform longevity. AMD’s AM5 socket, used by the X3D processors, promises multi-generational CPU upgrades. This means you could potentially buy an AM5 motherboard today and upgrade to a newer, more powerful AMD CPU in a few years without needing a new motherboard. In contrast, the current Intel socket is not expected to support future CPU generations beyond potential refreshes. This implies that if you invest in an Intel Core Ultra 9 PC and later desire a significant CPU upgrade, you would likely need to replace both the CPU and the motherboard, incurring additional cost and effort. This factor can be crucial for enthusiasts who value upgrade paths and future-proofing their high-end investments. Ultimately, the choice depends on your priorities: raw gaming performance and long-term upgradeability (AMD X3D) versus strong productivity performance with competent, but not always leading, gaming (Intel Core Ultra).
ULTIMATE PC Q&A: RTX 5090 & Core Ultra Edition
What is this article about?
This article discusses building a high-performance gaming PC using an Intel Core Ultra 9 processor and an NVIDIA RTX 5090 graphics card. It analyzes the system’s performance, component choices, and potential limitations.
What is a CPU bottleneck in a gaming PC?
A CPU bottleneck happens when your processor (CPU) isn’t fast enough to keep up with your graphics card (GPU), preventing the GPU from working at its full potential. This means the powerful graphics card can’t deliver its maximum performance.
Is the Intel Core Ultra 9 processor good for gaming?
While the Intel Core Ultra 9 is a powerful processor, especially for productivity tasks, the article shows it can sometimes limit the top-tier RTX 5090 graphics card in demanding games. For pure gaming performance, AMD’s X3D series is often highlighted as having an advantage.
What is the NVIDIA RTX 5090?
The NVIDIA RTX 5090 is described as the pinnacle of consumer graphics card technology, offering unparalleled performance. It’s designed for the highest frame rates and visual quality, especially at 4K resolution with advanced features like ray tracing.
Why is a high-quality monitor important for a powerful gaming PC?
A high-quality monitor is crucial because it allows you to truly see and experience the high frame rates and visual quality that a powerful graphics card can produce. The article suggests a stunning display can sometimes transform your gaming experience more profoundly than just getting the fastest GPU.
