Greedfall

Greedfall, an Action RPG released in 2019, presents a demanding workload that clearly differentiates between CPU and GPU limits depending on the resolution and settings selected. This analysis examines the measured performance of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT across twelve distinct benchmark scenarios, ranging from 1080p Low to 4K Ultra. The data reveals a component pairing that is well-balanced at lower resolutions but becomes firmly GPU-bound as pixel count and graphical fidelity increase, with specific implications for the best settings to use on various display types.

Resolution Scaling

The performance trajectory from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 demonstrates a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern for this combination. At the High preset, the average frame rate falls from 107.5 FPS at 1080p to 73.1 FPS at 1440p, a drop of 34.4 FPS, and then further to 46.7 FPS at 4K. This represents a 56.6% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, which is a significant decline that points directly to the rendering pipeline being saturated by the RX 5700 XT's workload.

The scaling pattern becomes more extreme at the Ultra preset. Here, the average FPS drops from 67.8 at 1080p to 47.1 at 1440p, and finally to 29.8 at 4K. The gap between 1080p and 4K Ultra is a substantial 38 FPS, indicating that the GPU's compute resources are severely strained by the combination of maximum settings and high resolution. Conversely, the Low preset shows the most resilience, with 152.9 FPS at 1080p dropping to 102.7 FPS at 1440p and 64.2 FPS at 4K. The fact that even at Low settings the 4K frame rate is still above 60 FPS suggests that the GPU remains the primary limiter, as a CPU bottleneck would likely show less variation across these resolution changes.

The data suggests that at 1080p, the CPU still has headroom to push higher frame rates, but the GPU begins to cap performance. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 85.1 FPS, which shows the GPU's sensitivity to settings. However, at 4K, the difference between Low and Ultra narrows to 34.4 FPS, indicating that the GPU is working near its maximum capacity at all settings and the relative impact of graphical presets diminishes.

Settings Recommendations

For a 1920x1080 display, the High preset at 107.5 FPS is the recommended starting point, as it provides a smooth experience well above the 60 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset at 67.8 FPS is also playable and offers the highest visual quality without dropping below 60 FPS. The Low preset at 152.9 FPS is excessive for most displays and sacrifices visual fidelity for performance that is likely beyond the refresh rate of most monitors. Medium at 119.7 FPS is a reasonable middle ground but High provides a better balance of visual quality for a modest frame rate cost.

At 2560x1440, the High preset delivers 73.1 FPS, which remains comfortably above 60 FPS and is the optimal choice for a 1440p monitor. The Medium preset at 81.1 FPS is also viable if higher frame rates are desired, but the visual improvement from Medium to High is generally worth the 8 FPS loss. The Ultra preset at 47.1 FPS is below the 60 FPS target and may result in noticeable stuttering on a 144Hz display, making it less advisable for competitive play. The Low preset at 102.7 FPS is an option for high-refresh-rate 1440p monitors, but it comes with a significant reduction in graphical fidelity.

For 3840x2160, the picture changes dramatically. The High preset at 46.7 FPS is below 60 FPS, making it a marginal experience on a standard 60Hz display. The Medium preset at 50.6 FPS is slightly better but still sub-60. The Low preset at 64.2 FPS is the only one that breaks the 60 FPS barrier, making it the only truly smooth option at 4K. Ultra at 29.8 FPS is effectively unplayable for most users. The data indicates that for 4K gaming with this combo, users must sacrifice visual quality to achieve playable frame rates.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. Its benchmark results show a strong multi-threaded capacity, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16429 and a single-core score of 2319. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 5386 and max-thread score of 5411 indicate that the processor scales well with additional threads, which is relevant for modern game engines that can utilize multiple cores.

In Greedfall, the CPU's role appears to be sufficient to keep the GPU fed at 1080p, as evidenced by the high frame rates at Low and Medium settings. The processor's 16 MB of L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth are adequate for this title. The data suggests that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at 1080p, as frame rates vary significantly with GPU settings, but it does set an upper ceiling. The passmark multi-thread score of 19330 and single-thread score of 3058 place it in a competitive position among its peers, with its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-12500, showing a negligible average score difference of -0.1%.

The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1645 and 4-thread score of 3151 indicate that the processor has solid single and dual-core performance, which is crucial for games that rely on a few heavily loaded threads. The Cinebench R20 single-core score of 973 further confirms this. For Greedfall, the CPU's 12 threads are likely not fully saturated at lower resolutions, but the data implies that the processor can handle the game's logic and physics without introducing a significant frame rate penalty.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT achieves a rank of 1258 out of 1705 tested combos for Greedfall. This places it in the lower-middle tier of all possible pairings in the database. The percentile ranking indicates that while this combo is capable of running the game, it is outperformed by a majority of other tested system configurations.

This ranking is consistent with the measured FPS data. While the combo can deliver over 150 FPS at 1080p Low, its performance at higher resolutions and settings is limited by the GPU. The 4K Ultra result of 29.8 FPS is particularly low, dragging down the overall ranking when compared to systems with more powerful graphics cards. The combo's position suggests that it is a mid-range pairing that is best suited for 1080p gaming, with acceptable performance at 1440p, but it is not a top-tier setup for high-resolution, high-settings gaming.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT is based on the RDNA 1.0 architecture and features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. Its boost clock is 1905 MHz, with a game clock of 1755 MHz. The GPU's compute power is rated at 9.754 TFLOPS for FP32 operations. These specifications are central to understanding its performance in Greedfall.

The GPU's 8 GB of VRAM is a critical factor at 4K resolution, where the game's textures and geometry can consume significant memory. The fact that the 4K High preset achieves 46.7 FPS suggests that the GPU is not running out of memory but is instead limited by its raw compute throughput. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2134 and passmark G3D score of 16277 provide context for its relative performance. Its nearest rivals in the database, such as the NVIDIA RTX A5000 Mobile and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 Mobile, show average score deltas of -0.1% and 0.6% respectively, indicating that the RX 5700 XT is closely matched to these mobile parts in synthetic benchmarks.

The GPU's 2560 shading units and 64 ROPs are tasked with rendering Greedfall's environments. The pixel rate of 121.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 304.8 GTexel/s are adequate for 1080p and 1440p, but they become the limiting factor at 4K. The substantial drop from 73.1 FPS to 46.7 FPS when moving from 1440p to 4K at High settings is a direct consequence of the GPU's inability to maintain the same output at over 8 million pixels. The GPU's performance is clearly the defining component in this pairing for this game, particularly at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset of measured average FPS values for this combination is as follows:

At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset yields 67.8 FPS, High yields 107.5 FPS, Medium yields 119.7 FPS, and Low yields 152.9 FPS. The progression from Ultra to Low shows a 125.4% increase in performance, with the most significant jump occurring between Ultra and High (39.7 FPS).

At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset drops to 47.1 FPS, High yields 73.1 FPS, Medium yields 81.1 FPS, and Low yields 102.7 FPS. The gap between Ultra and High is 26 FPS, while the gap between High and Low is 29.6 FPS, showing a more consistent scaling pattern at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset falls to 29.8 FPS, High yields 46.7 FPS, Medium yields 50.6 FPS, and Low yields 64.2 FPS. The difference between Ultra and Low is 34.4 FPS, which is the smallest absolute spread across all resolutions, confirming the GPU-bound nature of the workload at 4K.

The data shows that the Ultra preset is consistently the most demanding, with a 43.8 FPS difference between 1080p and 1440p, and a 17.3 FPS difference between 1440p and 4K. The High preset shows a 34.4 FPS difference between 1080p and 1440p, and a 26.4 FPS difference between 1440p and 4K. These figures demonstrate that the GPU's performance scales in a non-linear fashion, with diminishing returns as resolution increases. For users seeking a consistent 60 FPS experience, the High preset at 1080p and 1440p are the only viable options, while the Low preset is required for 4K.