Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 Action RPG, shows a fascinating performance profile when paired with the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090. The data reveals a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, with the CPU only becoming a significant factor at 1080p. This combination ranks 5th out of 1705 tested combos in this game, placing it in the top percentile for real-world performance.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a classic pattern of diminishing returns as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves a staggering 362.2 FPS average. This drops to 252.7 FPS at 1440p and further to 147.9 FPS at 4K. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p represents a 30.2% performance drop, while moving from 1440p to 4K results in a 41.5% reduction. This is a significant decline, indicating that the RTX 5090 is being pushed much harder at higher resolutions.

The transition from 1080p to 4K at Low settings shows a total performance reduction of 59.2%, which is substantial. When looking at Ultra settings, the drop from 165.9 FPS at 1080p to 71.4 FPS at 4K is a 57% decrease. This pattern suggests that at 1080p, the Ryzen 5 5600 is likely the limiting factor, as the GPU has headroom to render far more frames than the CPU can feed it. At 1440p, the balance shifts slightly toward the GPU, and by 4K, the RTX 5090's raw compute power becomes the primary bottleneck. The data indicates that for players targeting 4K, the CPU choice becomes less critical, while for 1080p competitive play, the CPU's single-thread performance is crucial.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. It features a 32 MB shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 18309 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2584 in single-core, demonstrating solid performance for its class. Its average benchmark score of 21765 places it in the 79th percentile among all CPUs.

In Greedfall, the CPU's impact is most visible at 1080p. The difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p is 196.3 FPS (362.2 vs 165.9), which is a massive gap. This suggests that the CPU is not the sole bottleneck at low settings, but as the GPU load increases with higher settings, the frame rate drops significantly. The data implies that the Ryzen 5 5600 can push over 360 FPS in lighter scenes, but its 6 cores and 12 threads may struggle to maintain that pace when the game's draw calls and physics calculations increase with Ultra settings. Compared to its nearest rivals, the Ryzen 5 5600 is within 0.9% of the Intel Core i7-11700F, showing that its multi-threaded performance is competitive for gaming workloads.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a monster of a graphics card, featuring 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a staggering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock of 2407 MHz and 21760 shading units deliver an immense 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The card scores 39650 in Passmark G3D and ranks in the 94th percentile of all GPUs.

The GPU's role in Greedfall becomes evident when examining the scaling between settings at a fixed resolution. At 4K, moving from Low (147.9 FPS) to Medium (121 FPS) is a 18.2% drop, from Medium to High (105.2 FPS) is a 13.1% drop, and from High to Ultra (71.4 FPS) is a 32.1% drop. This pattern shows that the Ultra preset is particularly demanding, likely due to heavy use of post-processing and shadow effects. The RTX 5090's massive memory bandwidth and compute power are clearly being utilized, but the game's engine appears to have a significant performance cliff at the highest settings. The GPU's VRAM capacity of 32 GB is more than sufficient for Greedfall at any resolution, meaning the performance drops are purely due to compute and shader complexity, not memory limitations.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Greedfall at 4K smoothly?

A: Yes, at High settings the average FPS is 105.2, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. At Ultra settings, it drops to 71.4 FPS, which is still playable but may show stutters in heavy scenes.

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU-GPU combo?

A: The data shows that 1440p High (180.8 FPS) offers an excellent balance, providing high frame rates without pushing the CPU to its limits. At 1080p, the CPU becomes a bottleneck, preventing the GPU from reaching its full potential.

Q: How much of a performance hit is the Ultra preset compared to High?

A: At 4K, Ultra is 32.1% slower than High. At 1440p, the difference is 36.3% (115.1 vs 180.8 FPS), and at 1080p, it is 36.9% (165.9 vs 263.1 FPS). The Ultra preset consistently costs roughly a third of the frame rate.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 5600 holding back the RTX 5090?

A: The data suggests it does at 1080p. At 1080p Low, the system hits 362.2 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's limit. At 4K, the GPU is the clear bottleneck, as evidenced by the 147.9 FPS at Low settings.

Q: What is the difference between Low and Medium settings at 1440p?

A: The jump from Low (252.7 FPS) to Medium (199.6 FPS) is a 21% reduction in average FPS. This indicates that Medium settings add a moderate amount of GPU load without a massive performance penalty.

Q: How does this combo rank against other systems for Greedfall?

A: This specific combination of Ryzen 5 5600 and RTX 5090 ranks 5th out of 1705 tested combos, placing it in the top 0.3% of all configurations tested for this game.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and refresh rate. For 4K owners with a 60 Hz display, High settings (105.2 FPS) are the clear choice, as they provide a comfortable margin above 60 FPS while delivering better visual fidelity than Medium (121 FPS). Ultra at 4K (71.4 FPS) is playable but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes, making it a risky choice for consistent smoothness.

For 1440p users with high refresh rate monitors (144 Hz or higher), High settings (180.8 FPS) are the sweet spot, providing excellent visual quality without dipping below the refresh rate. Medium (199.6 FPS) is also viable for those seeking extra frame rate headroom, while Ultra (115.1 FPS) will still feel smooth on most displays but may not fully utilize a 144 Hz monitor. At 1080p, the CPU bottleneck becomes apparent, so even Low settings (362.2 FPS) offer no benefit over Medium (289.9 FPS) for most users, as both exceed typical 240 Hz refresh rates. High (263.1 FPS) is the best choice for 1080p as it balances visual quality with frame rates that exceed 240 Hz.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset of measured FPS averages is as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 362.2 FPS
• Medium: 289.9 FPS
• High: 263.1 FPS
• Ultra: 165.9 FPS

2560x1440:

• Low: 252.7 FPS
• Medium: 199.6 FPS
• High: 180.8 FPS
• Ultra: 115.1 FPS

3840x2160:

• Low: 147.9 FPS
• Medium: 121 FPS
• High: 105.2 FPS
• Ultra: 71.4 FPS

These numbers illustrate a consistent pattern across all resolutions: the performance cost of each settings tier is non-linear. The jump from High to Ultra is consistently the most expensive, costing roughly 35-37% of the frame rate at every resolution. Conversely, the jump from Low to Medium costs approximately 18-21%, and from Medium to High costs about 13-15%. This suggests that the Ultra preset enables a few specific, highly demanding effects that disproportionately impact performance, making High the most efficient settings tier for this game on this hardware.