Greedfall

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D delivers a Greedfall experience that is defined by extreme GPU headroom at lower resolutions, with the CPU becoming the primary limiter as settings and resolution scale. Benchmark results show this combo ranking 49th out of 2938 tested combinations, placing it in the top 2% of all systems tested for this title. The data indicates that the RTX 5090 D is dramatically overqualified for 1080p and 1440p gameplay in Greedfall, while the Ryzen 5 5500’s six cores and 12 threads create a ceiling that prevents the GPU from reaching its full potential at lower settings. At 4K Ultra, the combination still produces playable frame rates, but the gap between settings presets reveals how the CPU and GPU interact differently across the resolution spectrum.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combo shows that the Medium preset offers the most balanced experience across all three tested resolutions, with the highest average frame rates that remain consistent and smooth. At 1080p Medium, the system produces 301 FPS average with a minimum of 256 FPS and maximum of 346 FPS, which represents a substantial improvement over High settings while maintaining visual quality. The 1440p Medium result of 209 FPS average with 178 FPS minimum and 240 FPS maximum continues this trend, offering a 19 FPS advantage over High settings at the same resolution. At 4K Medium, the system delivers 125 FPS average with 106 FPS minimum and 143 FPS maximum, which is 12 FPS faster than High settings and 53 FPS faster than Ultra.

Ultra settings at any resolution produce the lowest frame rates, with 1080p Ultra averaging 175 FPS, 1440p Ultra averaging 121 FPS, and 4K Ultra averaging just 72 FPS. While these numbers are still playable, the performance cost of Ultra is substantial compared to Medium. The jump from Medium to Ultra costs 126 FPS at 1080p, 88 FPS at 1440p, and 53 FPS at 4K. Low settings provide the highest raw frame rates—340 FPS at 1080p, 266 FPS at 1440p, and 159 FPS at 4K—but the visual compromise is significant for a game like Greedfall, which relies on atmospheric environments and detailed character models.

The data suggests that Medium is the optimal choice for this hardware combination. At 4K Medium, the 125 FPS average is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay, and the 106 FPS minimum ensures that even demanding scenes maintain fluid motion. The 1440p Medium result of 209 FPS is excellent for high-refresh-rate displays, while 1080p Medium at 301 FPS is far beyond what most monitors can display. High settings offer a middle ground, but the frame rate penalty relative to Medium—12 FPS at 4K, 19 FPS at 1440p, and 28 FPS at 1080p—does not justify the modest visual improvement for most users. Ultra settings are best avoided with this combo, as the 72 FPS average at 4K Ultra approaches the lower boundary of what constitutes a consistently smooth experience.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 provides six physical cores and 12 threads, built on the Zen 3 architecture with a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.20 GHz. This processor features 16 MB of L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel configuration, with a memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. The CPU’s benchmark results place it at the 73rd percentile among all CPUs tested, with an average benchmark score of 19593. In the 3DMark suite, the processor scores 836 in single-thread, 1645 in 2-thread, 3151 in 4-thread, 4593 in 8-thread, and 5411 in max-thread tests. Cinebench R23 results show 2319 in single-core and 16429 in multi-core, while Geekbench reports 1730 single-core and 7976 multi-core.

In Greedfall, the CPU’s role becomes evident when comparing frame rates across settings at the same resolution. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Medium settings is only 39 FPS (340 vs 301), while the difference between Medium and High is 28 FPS (301 vs 273). The jump from High to Ultra costs 98 FPS (273 vs 175). This pattern indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU enough data to reach very high frame rates, but the Ultra preset introduces additional CPU workload that the six-core processor cannot sustain. The 1080p Ultra result of 175 FPS is actually lower than the 4K Medium result of 125 FPS, which is counterintuitive until considering that Ultra settings likely increase CPU-side processing such as physics calculations, AI pathfinding, and draw call overhead.

The Ryzen 5 5500’s single-thread performance, as measured by the 836 3DMark single-thread score and 2319 Cinebench R23 single-core score, is adequate for Greedfall’s primarily single-threaded game logic. However, the processor’s multi-threaded capabilities, reflected in the 5411 3DMark max-thread score and 16429 Cinebench R23 multi-core score, become more relevant at higher settings where additional threads are utilized. The data shows that the CPU is not the bottleneck at 4K, where GPU load dominates, but at 1080p Low, the 340 FPS average suggests the CPU is still able to keep up with the RTX 5090 D’s enormous rendering capacity. Comparing to nearest rivals, the Ryzen 5 5500’s average benchmark score of 19593 is 0.1% lower than the AMD Ryzen AI 5 430 (19617), 0.4% lower than the Intel Core i5-12500 (19668), 0.5% higher than the Intel Core i7-10700F (19499), and 0.7% lower than the Intel Core i5-11600KF (19723). These minute differences suggest that any of these CPUs would perform nearly identically in Greedfall when paired with the RTX 5090 D.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU built on TSMC’s 5 nm process, featuring 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 raster output units. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2017 MHz and a boost clock of 2407 MHz, with memory clocked at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). The 32 GB of GDDR7 memory runs across a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s compute capabilities include 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 104.8 TFLOPS of FP16 performance. The RTX 5090 D includes 170 ray tracing cores and 680 tensor cores, with a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s. Its benchmark results place it at the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 77712.

In Greedfall, the RTX 5090 D’s massive rendering power is evident from the high frame rates achieved at every resolution and settings combination. At 4K Ultra, the GPU still manages 72 FPS average, which is a demanding workload for any graphics card. The GPU’s 32 GB of VRAM is far more than Greedfall requires, and the 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth ensures that texture streaming and high-resolution assets do not cause stuttering. The GPU’s closest rivals in benchmark scores include the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76904, 1.1% lower), AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78940, 1.6% higher), NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79396, 2.1% higher), and NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79605, 2.4% higher). These comparisons show that the RTX 5090 D’s raw compute performance is in the same class as those GPUs, though the RTX 5090 D’s modern architecture and memory subsystem provide advantages in gaming workloads.

The GPU’s role in Greedfall becomes clearer when examining the scaling from Low to Ultra settings. At 1080p, the GPU produces 340 FPS on Low, 301 FPS on Medium, 273 FPS on High, and 175 FPS on Ultra. This 165 FPS range demonstrates that the GPU has substantial headroom even at the lowest settings, and the frame rate drop at Ultra is likely due to increased GPU workload from higher-resolution textures, more complex shading, and additional post-processing effects. At 4K, the same settings produce 159 FPS, 125 FPS, 113 FPS, and 72 FPS respectively, showing a more compressed range of 87 FPS. This compression at 4K indicates that the GPU is becoming the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, whereas at 1080p, the CPU may limit performance in certain scenarios.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 5500 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D combination ranks 49th out of 2,938 tested combos in Greedfall, placing it in the 98.3rd percentile of all systems tested. This ranking reflects the GPU’s exceptional performance, as the RTX 5090 D’s 92nd percentile GPU score and the Ryzen 5 5500’s 73rd percentile CPU score combine to produce a system that outperforms the vast majority of tested configurations. The rank of 49 indicates that only 48 other CPU-GPU combinations achieved higher average FPS in Greedfall, likely those pairing the RTX 5090 D with higher-end CPUs such as the Ryzen 7 or Core i7/i9 series.

The gap between this combo and higher-ranked systems is likely attributable to CPU limitations, particularly at lower resolutions and settings where the CPU becomes the constraining factor. At 1080p Low, this combo achieves 340 FPS, which is close to the practical limit for most displays, but a faster CPU might push that number higher. The combo’s rank could also be influenced by the fact that Greedfall is not a particularly demanding game by modern standards, meaning that even mid-range CPUs can achieve high frame rates when paired with a top-tier GPU. The 49th rank out of 2,938 is nonetheless an impressive result, placing this combo in the top 1.7% of all tested systems.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data shows a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases from 1080p to 1440p to 4K. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 273 at 1080p to 190 at 1440p (a 30.4% decrease) and then to 113 at 4K (a 40.5% decrease from 1440p). At Low settings, the progression is 340 at 1080p, 266 at 1440p (a 21.8% decrease), and 159 at 4K (a 40.2% decrease from 1440p). Medium settings show 301 at 1080p, 209 at 1440p (a 30.6% decrease), and 125 at 4K (a 40.2% decrease from 1440p). Ultra settings produce 175 at 1080p, 121 at 1440p (a 30.9% decrease), and 72 at 4K (a 40.5% decrease from 1440p).

The percentage decreases from 1440p to 4K are remarkably consistent across all settings presets, ranging from 40.2% to 40.5%. This consistency indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at 4K, as the frame rate scales predictably with the increased pixel count (2.25 times more pixels from 1440p to 4K). The decreases from 1080p to 1440p are less consistent, ranging from 21.8% at Low settings to 30.9% at Ultra settings. The smaller decrease at Low settings suggests that the CPU is becoming a bottleneck at 1080p Low, preventing the GPU from achieving even higher frame rates. At higher settings, the GPU workload increases enough to make the GPU the limiting factor even at 1080p, resulting in a more predictable scaling pattern.

This resolution scaling analysis reveals that the Ryzen 5 5500 is best utilized at 4K with this GPU, as the CPU’s limitations are masked by the GPU’s workload at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the CPU prevents the GPU from reaching its full potential, but at 4K, the GPU is working hard enough that the CPU can keep up with its demands.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 340 FPS, which is the highest recorded value in the entire dataset. Medium settings achieve 301 FPS average with a minimum of 256 FPS and a maximum of 346 FPS, providing a very consistent experience. High settings yield 273 FPS average, and Ultra settings drop to 175 FPS average. The range from Low to Ultra spans 165 FPS, showing that settings choices have a massive impact at 1080p. The Medium preset’s minimum of 256 FPS ensures that even the most demanding scenes remain well above refresh rate thresholds for any current display.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain exceptionally high. Low settings produce 266 FPS average, Medium settings achieve 209 FPS average with a minimum of 178 FPS and a maximum of 240 FPS, High settings deliver 190 FPS average, and Ultra settings drop to 121 FPS average. The Medium preset at 1440p offers a particularly compelling combination of performance and visual quality, with a 178 FPS minimum that still exceeds the refresh rate of most high-end gaming monitors. The difference between Low and Medium at this resolution is 57 FPS, while the difference between Medium and High is 19 FPS, and the difference between High and Ultra is 69 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates begin to reflect the GPU’s workload more directly. Low settings produce 159 FPS average, Medium settings achieve 125 FPS average with a minimum of 106 FPS and a maximum of 143 FPS, High settings deliver 113 FPS average, and Ultra settings drop to 72 FPS average. The Medium preset at 4K provides a 125 FPS average with a 106 FPS minimum, which is ideal for smooth gameplay on 4K displays with high refresh rates. The Ultra preset’s 72 FPS average is still playable but approaches the threshold where frame pacing issues might become noticeable in fast-paced combat sequences. The data shows that the Medium preset is the sweet spot at every resolution, offering the best balance of frame rate consistency and visual fidelity for this CPU-GPU combination.