Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload for the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and AMD Radeon RX 570 combination. The benchmark data indicates that this pairing ranks at 3548 out of 3703 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 5% of all tested configurations. This system, while featuring a modern 6-core processor, is held back significantly by the older Polaris-based graphics card, resulting in a frame rate profile that is only suitable for 1080p gaming at lower settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU and GPU combo in Greedfall?

A: The data shows that only at 1920x1080 does the system achieve playable frame rates above 50 FPS on Low and High settings, with Medium at 57 FPS. At 2560x1440, all settings drop to 51 FPS or lower, and at 3840x2160, the frame rate falls below 31 FPS on every preset.

Q: How much faster is the Low preset compared to Ultra at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset yields an average of 73 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages only 33 FPS. This represents a performance uplift of 40 FPS, or roughly 121% higher frame rate for the Low preset.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: The data suggests the GPU is the primary limiting factor. The Ryzen 5 9600X has a high single-thread score of 1253 in 3dmark and a multi-thread score of 7590, which is more than sufficient for Greedfall. The sharp FPS drop from 1080p to 4K (e.g., from 52 to 22 FPS on High) indicates that the RX 570's rendering throughput, not the CPU's processing power, is the bottleneck.

Q: What is the average FPS difference between the High and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset averages 36 FPS, while the Ultra preset averages 23 FPS. The difference is 13 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset's additional graphical demands are too heavy for this GPU at this resolution.

Q: Is the RX 570's 4 GB VRAM a limiting factor?

A: While the fact pack does not list VRAM usage, the GPU's memory configuration of 4 GB GDDR5 on a 256-bit bus with 224.0 GB/s bandwidth is a likely contributor to the poor performance at higher resolutions. The significant performance drop at 4K suggests the card is struggling to manage the memory and rendering load required by Greedfall's larger textures and scenes.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 9600X compare to its nearest rivals in average benchmark score?

A: The Ryzen 5 9600X has an average benchmark score of 29713. This is nearly identical to its nearest rivals, with the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE being just 0.2% faster, the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H being 0.5% slower, and the AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT being 0.6% slower. The performance is effectively a statistical tie among these processors.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570 is the decisive component in this pairing's performance. With a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost clock of 1244 MHz, the card's GCN 4.0 architecture is tasked with rendering Greedfall. Its 4 GB of GDDR5 memory, while adequate for its 2017 release, is a limiting factor for a 2019 title at higher resolutions. The 224.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 256-bit bus width are the pathways for texture and geometry data, and the data suggests they are insufficient for the demands of 1440p and 4K.

The GPU's compute capabilities, rated at 5.095 TFLOPS FP32, are directly reflected in the measured FPS. At 3840x2160, the card can only manage an average of 22 FPS on High, 24 FPS on Medium, and 14 FPS on Ultra. These figures are well below the threshold for comfortable gameplay, showing that the RX 570's raw processing power is overwhelmed by the pixel count at 4K. Even at 1440p, the card is pushed to its limits, with only the Low preset exceeding 50 FPS. The GPU's 32 ROPs and 128 TMUs are likely the hardware resources that are saturated, causing the frame rate to scale poorly with resolution. The card's performance percentile of 74 versus all GPUs indicates it is a mid-range part, and Greedfall's requirements push it to its breaking point.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data provides a clear hierarchy for settings at each resolution, with the goal of maintaining a playable frame rate above 30 FPS. At 1920x1080, the best experience is found on the High preset, which delivers an average of 52 FPS. This provides a significant visual upgrade over the Low preset's 73 FPS while maintaining a smooth frame rate. The Medium preset at 57 FPS is also viable, but High offers a better balance of visual fidelity and performance. The Ultra preset is not recommended, as it drops to 33 FPS, which is noticeably less fluid.

At 2560x1440, the options are more limited. The Low preset is the only one that provides a consistently playable experience, with an average of 51 FPS. The High preset at 36 FPS is playable but may feel less smooth in action-heavy scenes, and the Medium preset at 40 FPS is a compromise. The Ultra preset at 23 FPS is not recommended for gameplay. For 3840x2160, no settings are recommended, as all presets fail to reach 31 FPS, making the game effectively unplayable at this resolution. The data strongly suggests that 1080p is the target resolution for this combo, with High settings offering the optimal balance.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and AMD Radeon RX 570 combination ranks 3548 out of 3703 tested combos in Greedfall. This places it in the 96th percentile of the worst-performing systems, indicating that this is a severely underpowered pairing for this specific game. The CPU itself is not the cause; its average benchmark score of 29713 places it in the 81st percentile of all CPUs, and it is within 1% of rivals like the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H and AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT. The bottleneck is the GPU.

The RX 570's average benchmark score of 28766 places it in the 74th percentile of all GPUs, but its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 470, which is only 0.8% faster. This shows that the GPU is a mid-tier part from its generation. When paired with a modern, high-performance CPU, the GPU's age and limited VRAM become the glaring weakness. The ranking of 3548 out of 3703 combos is a direct consequence of this imbalance, where a strong processor is paired with a graphics card that cannot keep up with the demands of Greedfall at higher resolutions. This is a classic case of a system being held back by its weakest link, which is unequivocally the RX 570.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a steep and consistent drop as resolution increases, which is a clear indicator of a GPU-bound system. At 1080p with High settings, the combo achieves 52 FPS. Moving to 1440p, the frame rate falls to 36 FPS, a drop of 16 FPS or roughly 31%. Scaling further to 4K, the frame rate plummets to 22 FPS, a further drop of 14 FPS from the 1440p result, and a total decrease of 30 FPS from the 1080p result.

This pattern is consistent across all settings. For instance, on Low, the frame rate goes from 73 FPS at 1080p to 51 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 30 FPS at 4K. The proportional decrease from 1080p to 4K is about 59% for Low and 58% for High. This near-linear scaling with pixel count is the hallmark of a GPU that is completely saturated. The CPU, with its high single-core performance, is not the limiting factor because the workload is not increasing in a way that stresses the processor. Instead, the RX 570's pixel fill rate and memory bandwidth are being exhausted, demonstrating that the graphics card is the definitive performance bottleneck in this configuration.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following data is derived directly from the measured FPS table. The table shows average FPS, with minimum and maximum values provided for the Medium settings at each resolution.

3840x2160 (4K)

• Ultra: Average 14 FPS.
• High: Average 22 FPS.
• Medium: Average 24 FPS, with a minimum of 20 FPS and a maximum of 27 FPS.
• Low: Average 30 FPS.

2560x1440 (1440p)

• Ultra: Average 23 FPS.
• High: Average 36 FPS.
• Medium: Average 40 FPS, with a minimum of 34 FPS and a maximum of 46 FPS.
• Low: Average 51 FPS.

1920x1080 (1080p)

• Ultra: Average 33 FPS.
• High: Average 52 FPS.
• Medium: Average 57 FPS, with a minimum of 49 FPS and a maximum of 66 FPS.
• Low: Average 73 FPS.

The data shows a consistent hierarchy where the Low preset is the fastest, followed by High, then Medium, and finally Ultra is the slowest. The performance gap between Low and Ultra is substantial, with a 40 FPS difference at 1080p and a 16 FPS difference at 4K. The minimum FPS values for the Medium settings also indicate that frame pacing can be inconsistent, with the 1% lows at 1080p (49 FPS) being a significant drop from the average (57 FPS), which could lead to noticeable stutters.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X is a modern 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture. Its core configuration, with a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, provides substantial computational power. Its benchmark scores, such as a 3dmark single-thread score of 1253 and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 17528.5, place it in the 81st percentile of all CPUs. This demonstrates that the processor has ample headroom for gaming workloads.

In Greedfall, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, AI, and draw calls. The data suggests that the Ryzen 5 9600X is more than capable of fulfilling this role. The fact that the frame rate scales so heavily with resolution and graphics settings points to a GPU bottleneck, not a CPU one. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the frame rates would be more consistent across resolutions, as the CPU workload would remain similar. Instead, the FPS drops proportionally with pixel count, which is a clear sign that the processor is waiting on the GPU to finish rendering each frame. The CPU's high performance is effectively wasted in this configuration, as it is never given the chance to be the primary driver of game performance. The combo's rank of 3548 out of 3703 is therefore almost entirely attributable to the graphics card.