Greedfall

Greedfall, an Action RPG from 2019, responds predictably to hardware scaling, but the specific interaction between the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti reveals a distinct performance ceiling. The measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets show a system that is consistently capable of high refresh rates, yet the balance between CPU and GPU load shifts dramatically as settings change.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal preset depends entirely on the target resolution, but the data points to High as the most balanced choice for most scenarios. At 1920x1080, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 131.9 FPS, which is respectable, but the High preset jumps to 210.6 FPS—a 60% improvement in headroom for high-refresh-rate monitors. The Medium preset offers 232.4 FPS, and Low reaches 289.4 FPS, but these lower presets sacrifice visual fidelity for marginal gains over High, which already exceeds the refresh rate of typical 144Hz displays. For 1080p, High is the clear recommendation.

Moving to 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. High produces 146.8 FPS, comfortably above 144Hz, while Medium hits 162 FPS and Low 205 FPS. Ultra, however, drops to 93.9 FPS, which is still playable but no longer aligns with high-refresh panels. Here, High remains the sweet spot, offering a substantial visual upgrade over Medium without the performance penalty of Ultra. At 3840x2160, the situation changes entirely. High averages 83.9 FPS, which is smooth for a single-player RPG, but Ultra falls to 58.1 FPS—noticeably less fluid. Medium at 96.5 FPS and Low at 123 FPS show that the GPU becomes the limiting factor at 4K, so the recommendation is High for a balance of quality and responsiveness, or Medium if frame pacing is a higher priority than texture detail.

The data suggests that High is the universally safe preset, as it never falls below 83.9 FPS at any tested resolution. Ultra is only viable at 1080p, where the 131.9 FPS average is still respectable, but at higher resolutions, the substantial FPS drop—from 93.9 at 1440p to 58.1 at 4K—makes it a poor trade-off for the visual gains.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the 5000 series, built on the Zen 3 architecture with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.60 GHz. It has 32 MB of L3 cache and a 65 W TDP. In Greedfall, which is a title that does not heavily utilize multi-threading, this CPU’s performance is more than adequate. The single-threaded score of 917 in 3DMark and 2622 in Cinebench R23 single-core indicates strong per-core performance, which is crucial for games that rely on a few main threads.

The benchmark results show that the CPU is not the bottleneck at 1080p, where the 5600X can push frame rates up to 289.4 FPS on Low settings. However, the gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is significant: 289.4 FPS down to 131.9 FPS. This drop is not due to CPU limitations but rather the increasing GPU load. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 20680 places it at the 78th percentile among all CPUs, and its nearest rivals show it performs within 0.7% of the Intel Xeon 6325P and within 0.5% of the Intel Core i5-12490F. This level of performance ensures that Greedfall’s engine is never starved for instructions, even in crowded combat scenarios.

The 5600X’s 6 cores and 12 threads are sufficient for this game, as evidenced by the 3DMark 16-thread score of 5582, which is only slightly higher than the 8-thread score of 4811, suggesting diminishing returns beyond 8 threads. In practical terms, the CPU provides a stable foundation, allowing the RTX 4070 Ti to be the primary driver of frame rate changes when settings are adjusted.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is a substantial GPU with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock is 2610 MHz, and it has 7680 shading units. This hardware is well-suited for Greedfall, as the game’s visuals are not overly demanding by modern standards, but the RTX 4070 Ti still shows clear scaling with resolution and settings.

At 1080p, the GPU is not fully utilized, as frame rates range from 131.9 FPS on Ultra to 289.4 FPS on Low. The 210.6 FPS on High suggests that the GPU could handle even higher settings without issue, but the CPU’s 6 cores may start to limit the absolute maximum. Moving to 1440p, the GPU begins to work harder, with High at 146.8 FPS and Ultra at 93.9 FPS. The 4K results are where the GPU’s capabilities are fully tested: High at 83.9 FPS and Ultra at 58.1 FPS. This 30% drop from High to Ultra at 4K indicates that the RTX 4070 Ti’s 12 GB VRAM and memory bandwidth are being pushed, but it remains playable.

The GPU’s average benchmark score of 44900 places it at the 85th percentile, with rivals like the RTX 5090 Mobile (45152) and Intel Arc A730M (45592) within 1.5% of its performance. This parity in synthetic benchmarks translates to consistent real-world results in Greedfall, where the GPU is the sole determinant of frame rate at higher resolutions. The 4K Ultra figure of 58.1 FPS is the only point where the system dips below 60 FPS, which is a clear sign that the GPU is the limiting component at that resolution and preset.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Ryzen 5 5600X and RTX 4070 Ti ranks 187th out of 1705 tested combos in Greedfall, placing it in the top 11% of all systems. This ranking is respectable, but it is not at the very top, which suggests that while this pairing is strong, there are faster combinations available. The data indicates that the CPU is not holding back the GPU significantly, as the combo’s performance is largely in line with what the GPU alone can deliver.

Given the CPU’s 78th percentile ranking and the GPU’s 85th percentile, the combo rank of 187 is slightly lower than what the GPU’s percentile might suggest. This could be due to the 5600X’s 6 cores, which may limit performance in scenarios where Greedfall’s engine occasionally spawns many AI agents, but the measured FPS data shows no such bottlenecks at 1080p High (210.6 FPS) or 1440p High (146.8 FPS). The rank is a holistic measure that includes other system configurations, and the data shows that this combo is well-balanced for the game, with no single component creating a severe imbalance.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate data across resolutions reveals a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling. At 1080p High, the system produces 210.6 FPS. At 1440p High, this drops to 146.8 FPS—a 30% reduction. At 4K High, it drops further to 83.9 FPS—a 43% reduction from 1440p. This steep decline is typical of a GPU-limited scenario, where the rendering load increases proportionally with pixel count.

The Low preset shows a similar trend: 289.4 FPS at 1080p, 205 FPS at 1440p (a 29% drop), and 123 FPS at 4K (a 40% drop from 1440p). These consistent percentage drops across presets confirm that the GPU is the primary scaling factor. The CPU’s performance remains constant regardless of resolution, so the 5600X is not a constraint in this analysis.

The Ultra preset exhibits the largest relative drops, from 131.9 FPS at 1080p to 93.9 FPS at 1440p (a 29% drop) and then to 58.1 FPS at 4K (a 38% drop). This suggests that at Ultra settings, the GPU’s memory bandwidth and shading power are the limiting factors, as the additional visual effects tax the RTX 4070 Ti more heavily at higher pixel counts. The data clearly shows that 4K Ultra is the only configuration where the system struggles, and that users seeking high frame rates at 4K should use High or Medium presets to maintain smooth gameplay.