Greedfall

Greedfall, an Action RPG released in 2019, presents an interesting scalability study when paired with the AMD Ryzen 5 2600 and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. The benchmark data reveals a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions but begins to show its CPU limitations at 1080p. This analysis walks through the measured FPS across resolutions and settings, interprets what the numbers mean for the limiting component, and contextualizes this specific combo's standing against other tested configurations.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial, but the pattern is not uniform across all settings. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 246.4 FPS at 1920x1080 to 108.2 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of over half. This significant scaling indicates that the GPU is the primary driver of performance at the highest resolution, while the CPU has more headroom to feed frames at lower resolutions.

Moving to Medium settings, the drop is from 213.8 FPS at 1080p to 88.7 FPS at 4K. At High settings, the numbers go from 192.2 FPS down to 81.9 FPS. The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling, starting at 121.4 FPS at 1080p and plummeting to 52 FPS at 4K. The percentage decline from 1080p to 4K is steepest at Ultra, where the 4K result is less than half of the 1080p result, highlighting that the RX 7900 XT's raw compute is being taxed heavily by the combination of Ultra details and 4K resolution.

The data suggests that at 1080p, particularly with Low and Medium settings, the frame rates exceed 200 FPS, a region where the Ryzen 5 2600's six cores and twelve threads are likely becoming a more significant factor. The gap between 1080p and 1440p results is also notable. For instance, at High settings, the 1440p average of 135 FPS is a 57 FPS drop from the 1080p result. This indicates that while the GPU remains the bottleneck, the transition to 1440p begins to rebalance the load, giving the CPU less room to be the limiting factor. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is more consistent with a pure GPU workload, as the pixel count quadrupling demands significantly more from the Radeon RX 7900 XT.

Settings Recommendations

The measured rows provide a clear hierarchy for optimizing the experience. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, yielding 52 FPS at 4K, 85.3 FPS at 1440p, and 121.4 FPS at 1080p. While playable at 1440p, the 4K result is the only one below the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset offers a substantial performance uplift over Ultra, with the 4K average rising to 81.9 FPS, a 57% improvement. At 1440p, High delivers 135 FPS, and at 1080p it reaches 192.2 FPS.

For users targeting a smooth 4K experience, the High preset is the clear recommendation, as it maintains an average above 80 FPS. The Medium preset provides another step up, reaching 88.7 FPS at 4K, but the visual fidelity trade-off from High may not be worthwhile given how close the two results are. The Low preset is the least demanding, producing 108.2 FPS at 4K, but this comes at a significant cost to image quality, making it a poor choice for a GPU of this caliber.

At 1440p, all presets except Ultra deliver well above 100 FPS, with High at 135 FPS and Medium at 149.1 FPS. The Ultra preset, at 85.3 FPS, is still smooth and represents the best way to maximize visual quality at this resolution. At 1080p, even the Ultra preset achieves 121.4 FPS, meaning users can leverage maximum settings without concern. The data indicates that High is the sweet spot for 4K, while Ultra is viable for 1440p and 1080p, and Medium is a fallback for those prioritizing maximum frame rates on high-refresh-rate displays.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is the dominant component in this pairing. Its specifications, including 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus with 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth, are more than sufficient for Greedfall's demands. The GPU's 5376 shading units and 192 ROPs, running at a boost clock of 2394 MHz, provide the raw throughput necessary for the high frame rates observed. The 4K Ultra result of 52 FPS is the only instance where the GPU appears significantly challenged, suggesting that Greedfall's Ultra settings incorporate effects that heavily tax the RDNA 3.0 architecture.

The VRAM capacity of 20 GB is not a limiting factor in any measured scenario, as even at 4K Ultra, the game's memory footprint does not appear to cause stuttering or performance degradation beyond the expected drop in average FPS. The GPU's 82nd percentile ranking among all GPUs, alongside its nearest rivals like the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile and RTX 4080 Mobile, underscores its high-end positioning. The data shows that the RX 7900 XT can handle Greedfall's most demanding settings at 1080p and 1440p with ease, and only at 4K Ultra does it dip below the 60 FPS mark, indicating a well-balanced GPU for this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are exceptionally high. The Low preset leads with 246.4 FPS, followed by Medium at 213.8 FPS, High at 192.2 FPS, and Ultra at 121.4 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is over 125 FPS, showing a wide performance range. At 2560x1440, the averages are 184.9 FPS for Low, 149.1 FPS for Medium, 135 FPS for High, and 85.3 FPS for Ultra. The transition to 1440p reduces performance by roughly 25-30% across all presets compared to 1080p, which aligns with the increased pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates are more moderate. The Low preset produces 108.2 FPS, which is still very playable. Medium drops to 88.7 FPS, High to 81.9 FPS, and Ultra to 52 FPS. The 4K results show a clear performance cliff at the Ultra preset, where the average falls below 60 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 4K is 29.9 FPS, a larger gap than the 14.5 FPS difference between Medium and High. This suggests that the Ultra preset introduces a specific rendering feature, such as high-quality shadows or ambient occlusion, that significantly impacts the GPU's workload. The data shows a consistent pattern: the gap between presets widens as resolution increases, particularly at 4K, where the GPU becomes the sole bottleneck.

How This Combo Ranks

In the combined dataset of 1705 tested combos, the AMD Ryzen 5 2600 with AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT holds the 397th position. This places it in the top quarter of all configurations tested, which is a strong showing given the CPU's age relative to the GPU. The high rank is primarily driven by the GPU's massive performance headroom, as the Ryzen 5 2600 is a mid-range processor from 2018. The fact that this combo ranks above 76% of all other tested pairs indicates that the RX 7900 XT's capabilities can overcome the CPU's limitations in this particular game.

When compared to other combos, this pairing's position suggests that for Greedfall, the GPU is the most critical component for achieving high frame rates. The CPU's 77th percentile rank among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19616, is respectable but not top-tier. The GPU's 82nd percentile rank, with an average score of 38358, is higher, reinforcing that the graphics card is the performance leader in this pairing. The rank of 397 out of 1705 implies that there are many combos with faster CPUs that do not necessarily outperform this one in Greedfall, highlighting the game's reliance on GPU throughput at the resolutions tested.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 2600, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 3.90 GHz. Its benchmark scores, such as 11186 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1579 in single-core, place it in the 77th percentile of all CPUs. In the context of Greedfall, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p with lower settings, where frame rates exceed 200 FPS. At these levels, the CPU's per-core performance, which is lower than more modern processors, can become a limiting factor.

However, the measured data shows that even at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 246.4 FPS, meaning the CPU is still capable of feeding the GPU enough frames to avoid a severe bottleneck. The nearest CPU rivals, such as the Intel Core i5-1345U and AMD Ryzen 5 7530U, show similar average scores, but the Ryzen 5 2600's desktop design with higher sustained clocks likely helps in gaming. The 12 threads are beneficial for modern games that utilize multi-threading, and Greedfall, as an Action RPG, likely uses more than 4 cores. The CPU's 46.9 GB/s dual-channel memory bandwidth is adequate, though not exceptional, and the PCIe Gen 3 interface is a legacy feature that does not appear to hinder the RX 7900 XT's performance in this title, as the 4K results are still strong. The data indicates the CPU is a secondary factor, with the GPU doing the heavy lifting for visual fidelity and resolution scaling.