Greedfall

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER pairing delivers a strong showing in Greedfall, ranking 132nd out of 1705 tested CPU-GPU combinations. This places the combo firmly in the top tier of configurations, though the measured frame rates reveal a nuanced story about where the bottlenecks lie. The data shows a system capable of high-refresh 1440p play and solid 4K performance, but with settings management being critical to achieving the best experience.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Ryzen 5 9600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor built on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) using a 4 nm TSMC process. Its base clock is 3.90 GHz with a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, and it carries 32 MB of shared L3 cache. For a 2019 Action RPG like Greedfall, the CPU's single-thread strength is more relevant than raw multi-core muscle, and the benchmark data confirms this processor is well-suited for the task.

Looking at the synthetic results, the 9600X scores 3603 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 1253 in 3DMark single-thread. These are the scores that matter most for older game engines that rely heavily on a few strong threads. The multi-core scores are respectable too — 25525 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 7585 in 3DMark 16-thread — but Greedfall's engine was designed before the current wave of heavily-threaded titles, so the single-thread performance is the primary driver here.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 85 relative to all CPUs indicates it beats the vast majority of processors on the market. Its nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the Intel Core i5-13490F (0.3% faster) and AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS (0.4% faster), which shows the 9600X is right in the competitive mix for its performance class. The data suggests the CPU is not the limiting factor in this pairing; at 1080p with Low settings, the system reaches 313.4 FPS, which is far beyond what any display can show and well above what the GPU would be capable of in more demanding scenarios.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

The measured FPS data across settings presets provides clear guidance for Greedfall. At 1080p, the Ultra preset delivers 142.8 FPS, which is already excellent for smooth gameplay. However, the jump from Ultra to High is substantial: 223.5 FPS at High versus 142.8 at Ultra, a difference of 80.7 FPS. This suggests the Ultra preset includes effects that are disproportionately expensive for the visual gain in this older title.

At 1440p, the pattern shifts. High preset delivers 156.7 FPS while Ultra drops to 100.9 FPS. The Medium preset sits at 174.4 FPS, which is the highest of the non-Low presets at this resolution. For 4K, the High preset at 91.5 FPS is the sweet spot — it stays above the 60 FPS threshold comfortably while Ultra drops to 58.7 FPS, which is below that target.

The recommendation from the data is clear: choose High over Ultra for Greedfall. The High preset at 1440p (156.7 FPS) offers nearly 56 FPS more than Ultra (100.9 FPS) while likely looking very similar in practice. At 4K, High (91.5 FPS) is the only preset that keeps the frame rate comfortably above 60, as Ultra (58.7 FPS) dips just below. Medium is a viable alternative at 1440p (174.4 FPS) for those who want extra headroom, but High provides the best balance of visual fidelity and performance across all resolutions.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The FPS scaling across resolutions reveals where the bottleneck lies. At High settings, the progression is 223.5 FPS at 1080p, dropping to 156.7 FPS at 1440p (a 29.9% decrease), and then to 91.5 FPS at 4K (a 41.6% decrease from 1440p). At Low settings, the numbers are 313.4 FPS at 1080p, 220 FPS at 1440p (a 29.8% decrease), and 130 FPS at 4K (a 40.9% decrease from 1440p).

This scaling pattern is telling. The consistent percentage drops from 1080p to 1440p across settings (roughly 30%) suggest the GPU is the primary constraint as resolution increases. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the 1080p numbers to plateau regardless of settings, but they do not — they scale from 142.8 FPS at Ultra to 313.4 FPS at Low, indicating the GPU has headroom that is being limited by graphics load.

The 4K to 1440p drops are steeper (around 41%), which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario where pixel count increases by 2.25 times but the frame rate does not drop proportionally — indicating some other system component (likely memory bandwidth or driver overhead) is also coming into play. The RTX 4080 SUPER's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory with 736.3 GB/s bandwidth is clearly sufficient, but the game's engine efficiency at 4K is the limiting factor.

FAQ

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 9600X fast enough to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 4080 SUPER in Greedfall?

A: Yes. The CPU scores 3603 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 4570 in PassMark single-thread, which places it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs. The 1080p Low result of 313.4 FPS shows the CPU can feed the GPU far beyond what most displays require.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gaming?

A: High is the recommended preset at 4K, delivering 91.5 FPS. Ultra drops to 58.7 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold. Medium offers 100.4 FPS, but High provides a better visual quality-to-performance ratio.

Q: How much performance is lost when upgrading from 1080p to 1440p?

A: At High settings, the drop is from 223.5 FPS to 156.7 FPS, a reduction of approximately 30%. This is consistent across Low and Medium presets, indicating the GPU is the scaling factor.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 SUPER have enough VRAM for Greedfall at 4K?

A: The GPU has 16 GB of GDDR6X memory with a 256-bit bus and 736.3 GB/s bandwidth. The measured 4K Ultra result of 58.7 FPS suggests memory capacity is not a constraint, as the frame rate drop from High to Ultra is more likely due to compute-heavy effects.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its nearest rivals in the database?

A: The Ryzen 5 9600X scores 28246 average, which is 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core i5-13490F (28173) and AMD Ryzen 5 230 (28164), and 0.4% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS (28369). It is essentially tied with all of them.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU more important for this game's performance?

A: The GPU is the dominant factor. Evidence comes from the resolution scaling: at 1080p, the frame rate varies from 142.8 FPS (Ultra) to 313.4 FPS (Low), a 170.6 FPS spread that can only be caused by graphics settings. The CPU stays constant.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture using TSMC's 5 nm process, with a die of 45,900 million transistors. Its base clock is 2295 MHz with a boost clock of 2550 MHz, and memory runs at 1438 MHz (23 Gbps effective) across 16 GB of GDDR6X on a 256-bit bus. The memory bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s is more than sufficient for a 2019 title like Greedfall, which was designed for GPUs with far less capacity.

The GPU's pixel rate of 285.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 816.0 GTexel/s are the raw throughput figures that matter for fill-rate-bound scenes. The FP32 performance of 52.22 TFLOPS provides ample compute for the game's DirectX 12 rendering path, which is supported via the 12 Ultimate API. The 10240 shading units and 80 RT cores are far beyond what Greedfall requires, as the game does not use ray tracing.

The RTX 4080 SUPER scores 34245 in PassMark G3D and 246994 in Geekbench OpenCL, putting it in the 88th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT (0.2% faster), AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (0.4% faster), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti (2.9% slower). The GPU's 16 GB VRAM ensures that even the highest texture settings at 4K will not exceed memory capacity, confirmed by the measured 4K Ultra result of 58.7 FPS being compute-limited rather than memory-limited.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

1920x1080:

• Low: 313.4 FPS average
• Medium: 251.6 FPS average
• High: 223.5 FPS average
• Ultra: 142.8 FPS average

At 1080p, every preset exceeds 140 FPS, making this resolution trivial for the RTX 4080 SUPER. The gap between High and Ultra is the largest single-setting jump (80.7 FPS), reinforcing that Ultra applies effects with diminishing returns.

2560x1440:

• Low: 220 FPS average
• Medium: 174.4 FPS average
• High: 156.7 FPS average
• Ultra: 100.9 FPS average

1440p remains highly playable across all presets. The High preset at 156.7 FPS is ideal for high-refresh displays, while even Ultra stays above the 100 FPS mark. The drop from Low to Ultra is 119.1 FPS, showing the GPU has significant headroom even at this resolution.

3840x2160:

• Low: 130 FPS average
• Medium: 100.4 FPS average
• High: 91.5 FPS average
• Ultra: 58.7 FPS average

4K is where the GPU starts to feel the load. Low and Medium presets deliver excellent results (130 and 100.4 FPS respectively), and High remains above 90 FPS. Ultra is the only preset that dips below 60 FPS, making it unsuitable for smooth 4K gameplay. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at High settings (223.5 to 91.5 FPS) represents a 59% reduction, consistent with the increased pixel workload.