Greedfall

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 pairing delivers a playable but setting-sensitive experience in Greedfall. The data shows that the Ultra preset is largely out of reach at higher resolutions, while the Low and Medium presets provide the smoothest frame rates, making them the recommended starting points for most users.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS values indicate that the Low preset is the only setting tier that consistently delivers a 60+ FPS experience across all tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, Low produces an average of 124.9 FPS, which drops to 87.4 FPS at 2560x1440 and 52.3 FPS at 3840x2160. For users targeting a locked 60 FPS at 4K, Low is the sole viable option, though the frame rate still falls short of that threshold.

The Medium preset offers a strong balance between visual fidelity and performance. At 1080p, it achieves an average of 95.9 FPS, which is only 28.6% lower than Low but provides noticeably better image quality. At 1440p, Medium holds at 65.5 FPS, still above the 60 FPS target. However, at 4K, Medium drops to 41.0 FPS, which may be acceptable for slower-paced exploration but not for combat-heavy sequences.

The High preset is a reasonable middle ground for 1080p and 1440p users. It yields 87.8 FPS at 1080p and 63.8 FPS at 1440p, both comfortably playable. At 4K, High falls to 40.1 FPS, making it unsuitable for that resolution. The Ultra preset should be avoided except at lower resolutions: it manages 57.1 FPS at 1080p, but plummets to 39.9 FPS at 1440p and 22.8 FPS at 4K.

The optimal strategy is to use Medium at 1080p or 1440p for the best frame-rate-to-quality ratio. For 4K, only Low is worth considering, and even then, users should expect sub-60 FPS performance.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 is built on the Pascal architecture with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering a memory bandwidth of 256.3 GB/s. The GPU has a base clock of 1506 MHz and a boost clock of 1683 MHz, with 1920 shading units and 64 ROPs. These specifications place the GTX 1070 in the 51st percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 12331.

In Greedfall, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for the game's textures, as evidenced by the fact that Ultra at 1080p still produces 57.1 FPS. However, the GPU's raw compute power—6.463 TFLOPS FP32—struggles with the Ultra preset's additional effects. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 67.8 FPS, a 54% reduction, which highlights how heavily the GTX 1070's shading units and texture units are taxed by higher-quality settings.

The GTX 1070's nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 (0.7% faster) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M (1.3% slower), but these comparisons are synthetic. In real-world Greedfall performance, the GTX 1070's Pascal architecture shows its age when pushing 4K Ultra, where it barely reaches 22.8 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The data reveals a clear pattern of diminishing returns as resolution increases. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at High settings reduces average FPS from 87.8 to 63.8, a 27% drop. The jump from 1440p to 4K at High is more severe: from 63.8 to 40.1 FPS, a 37% reduction. This non-linear scaling indicates that the GTX 1070's pixel fill rate (107.7 GPixel/s) becomes the bottleneck at 4K.

At Low settings, the resolution scaling is more gradual: 124.9 FPS at 1080p, 87.4 FPS at 1440p (30% drop), and 52.3 FPS at 4K (40% drop from 1440p). The pattern is consistent across all settings: the 1080p to 1440p transition costs roughly 25-30% performance, while the 1440p to 4K transition costs 35-40%. This suggests that the GPU's memory bandwidth (256.3 GB/s) is increasingly insufficient as pixel count grows, forcing the memory subsystem to work harder.

The largest relative drop occurs at Ultra settings: from 57.1 FPS at 1080p to 39.9 FPS at 1440p (30% drop), then to 22.8 FPS at 4K (43% drop). This steep decline at 4K Ultra confirms that the combination of high resolution and maximum settings overwhelms both the GPU's compute units and its memory interface.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results show a wide spread across settings. Low delivers an average of 124.9 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this combo. Medium follows at 95.9 FPS, then High at 87.8 FPS, and Ultra at 57.1 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 67.8 FPS, indicating that the GTX 1070 has ample headroom at 1080p but the Ultra preset's demands are significant.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates compress. Low still leads with 87.4 FPS, while Medium and High are nearly identical at 65.5 and 63.8 FPS respectively. Ultra drops to 39.9 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold. The similarity between Medium and High suggests that the GPU is becoming pixel-bound rather than shader-bound at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, all settings fall below 60 FPS. Low manages 52.3 FPS, Medium 41.0 FPS, High 40.1 FPS, and Ultra 22.8 FPS. The performance difference between Medium and High at 4K is just 0.9 FPS, indicating that the GPU is fully saturated. Ultra at 4K is effectively unplayable, with frame rates below 25 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 ranks 1435th out of 1705 tested combos in Greedfall, placing it in the bottom 16% of all configurations. This low ranking is primarily attributable to the GPU's age, as the GTX 1070 sits in the 51st percentile of all GPUs. The combo's rank suggests that while it can handle the game at lower settings, it is outperformed by the vast majority of systems tested.

The ranking is consistent with the measured FPS data: at 1080p Ultra, the combo produces 57.1 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target that many modern systems achieve easily. At 4K, the combo's best result is 52.3 FPS at Low, which is far below what higher-ranked configurations deliver. The combo's position is likely dragged down by the GPU, as the Ryzen 5 5500 ranks in the 79th percentile of all CPUs, showing it is not the primary bottleneck in this pairing.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 5000 series, built on the Zen 3 architecture with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. It features 16 MB of L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with a dual-channel bus offering 51.2 GB/s bandwidth. The CPU's benchmark scores are strong: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16429 and a single-core score of 2319, placing it in the 79th percentile of all CPUs.

In Greedfall, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the fact that frame rates scale almost entirely with resolution and settings rather than CPU load. The Ryzen 5 5500's 12 threads are more than adequate for the game's threading model, and its single-core performance (3dmark_single_thread score of 836) ensures that the game's main thread is not a bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 124.9 FPS, which is likely CPU-limited in some scenes, but the CPU's nearest rivals—including the Intel Core i5-12500 (0.1% slower) and AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 4655GE (0.1% slower)—show that the processor is not holding back the GPU significantly.

The CPU's 65W TDP and 7nm process node contribute to efficient operation, and its 10,700 million transistors on a 180 mm² die provide ample compute resources. However, Greedfall is not a CPU-intensive title, and the data shows that the GPU is the clear limiting factor at all resolutions above 1080p. The Ryzen 5 5500 is performing its role adequately, but it cannot compensate for the GTX 1070's limitations at higher settings.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo capable of 60 FPS at 1080p?

A: Yes, at Low and Medium settings. The measured average FPS at 1920x1080 is 124.9 FPS on Low and 95.9 FPS on Medium. At High settings, it achieves 87.8 FPS, still above 60 FPS. Only Ultra falls below 60 FPS at 57.1 FPS.

Q: What is the best setting for 1440p gaming?

A: Medium is the recommended choice. It delivers 65.5 FPS at 2560x1440, which is above the 60 FPS target. Low achieves 87.4 FPS, but Medium offers better visual quality with only a 25% performance penalty. High is also viable at 63.8 FPS, but Ultra drops to 39.9 FPS.

Q: Can this system handle 4K resolution?

A: Only at Low settings, and even then it does not reach 60 FPS. The measured average at 3840x2160 on Low is 52.3 FPS. Medium and High both fall to approximately 41 FPS, while Ultra is unplayable at 22.8 FPS.

Q: How does the GTX 1070 compare to its closest rivals?

A: The GTX 1070 has an average benchmark score of 12331. The NVIDIA Quadro K4200 is 0.7% faster, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M is 1.3% slower and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER is 1.4% slower. These differences are small in synthetic tests but may be more pronounced in gaming.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 5500 a bottleneck for the GTX 1070?

A: No, the data indicates the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU ranks in the 79th percentile of all CPUs with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 16429, while the GPU ranks in the 51st percentile. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 124.9 FPS, suggesting the CPU can keep up with the GPU's output.

Q: What is the combo's overall ranking in Greedfall?

A: This combination ranks 1435th out of 1705 tested configurations. This places it in the bottom 16% of all systems tested, primarily due to the GTX 1070's age and performance level.