Greedfall

Greedfall on the AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and AMD Radeon RX 9070 combination delivers a wide performance envelope, ranging from highly playable at 4K to exceptionally fast at 1080p. The measured data shows a clear hierarchy across presets, with the system providing 60+ FPS at 4K on High settings, while the Ultra preset demands a significant performance cost that may not be worth the visual gain. The sweet spot for this pairing depends heavily on your display's resolution, but the data suggests that High settings offer the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate for most scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this specific CPU-GPU pair reveals that the High preset is the recommended starting point for the best overall experience. At 3840x2160, the High preset achieves an average of 69 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. In contrast, the Ultra preset at the same resolution drops to an average of 44 FPS, which is a substantial 36% reduction in performance compared to High. This indicates that the jump from High to Ultra places a heavy load on the system, likely due to demanding effects that the RX 9070 cannot fully compensate for at this resolution.

Stepping down to the Medium preset at 4K yields an average of 76 FPS, which is only 7 FPS higher than High, but the High preset typically includes better texture filtering and shadow quality. Therefore, High offers a superior visual experience for a minimal performance penalty compared to Medium. The Low preset at 4K reaches 97 FPS, but the visual compromises are generally too steep for a game like Greedfall, which relies on atmospheric environments.

For 2560x1440, the High preset achieves an average of 116 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. The Ultra preset at this resolution drops to 74 FPS, which is still playable but misses the 100+ FPS mark that many gamers prefer. The data shows that 1440p High is the optimal configuration for a smooth and visually rich experience. At 1920x1080, even the Ultra preset manages 107 FPS, making it a viable option for competitive play or for those who prioritize maximum detail over raw speed. However, the High preset at 1080p (167 FPS) is more balanced, providing a significant frame rate buffer that ensures consistency in demanding scenes. Benchmark results indicate that High is the most efficient preset across all resolutions, as it avoids the steep performance cliff seen with Ultra while delivering a substantial visual upgrade over Medium.

FAQ

Q: Can this system handle Greedfall at 4K resolution?

A: Yes, with caveats. Measured data shows an average of 69 FPS on High settings at 3840x2160, which is playable. However, the Ultra preset averages only 44 FPS, indicating that maxing out settings at 4K will result in a sub-optimal experience.

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

A: At 2560x1440, the High preset averages 116 FPS, while the Medium preset averages 127 FPS. The difference is only 11 FPS (roughly 9% faster for Medium), making High the better choice given the expected visual quality improvement.

Q: Is the Ultra preset ever recommended for this GPU/CPU combo?

A: Yes, but only at 1920x1080. The Ultra preset at 1080p averages 107 FPS, which is fully playable. At 1440p and 4K, the Ultra preset's averages of 74 FPS and 44 FPS respectively are less compelling, especially when High offers significantly better frame rates.

Q: How does the RX 9070's performance here compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RX 9070's average benchmark score is 23877, which places it 0.6% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN Z and 1.1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile. It trails the AMD Radeon RX 6800S by 0.8% and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER by 1.2%.

Q: What frame rate can I expect with the Low preset at 1080p?

A: The measured average is 234 FPS, which is exceptionally high. This suggests the system is not heavily bottlenecked by the CPU at lower settings and resolutions.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 3700X a bottleneck for the RX 9070 in this game?

A: The data does not directly measure bottleneck, but the high frame rates at 1080p (234 FPS on Low) and the consistent scaling from 1080p to 4K suggest the CPU is keeping up. The CPU's benchmark scores, such as a Passmark multithread score of 22458, indicate strong multi-threaded capability for an 8-core, 16-thread processor.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is the primary driver of frame rates in Greedfall, given the game's heavy reliance on graphical rendering. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s. This large memory pool and high bandwidth are crucial for handling high-resolution textures and complex scenes at 4K without stuttering. The GPU's base clock is 1330 MHz, with a boost clock of 2520 MHz and a game clock of 2070 MHz, which represents the typical clock speed during gaming workloads.

The RX 9070's architecture is RDNA 4.0, built on a 4 nm process at TSMC. It has 3584 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 128 render output units. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s, which are directly relevant to filling pixels and applying textures in Greedfall's environments. The GPU's FP32 performance of 36.13 TFLOPS indicates robust compute capability, which can be leveraged for advanced shading effects.

In the context of Greedfall, the GPU's performance is the main factor in the differences between presets. The measured data shows that moving from High to Ultra at 4K results in a 25 FPS drop (from 69 to 44 FPS). This suggests that the Ultra preset introduces effects that heavily tax the GPU's raw compute and memory bandwidth. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is likely sufficient for all presets, as Greedfall is a 2019 title with moderate VRAM demands, but the RX 9070's overall throughput is what determines the frame rates. The GPU's benchmark percentiles place it at the 69th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 23877. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER, has a score of 24170, which is 1.2% higher, indicating the RX 9070 is a solid performer in this class.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a detailed look at how the system performs across different resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 234 FPS, which is the highest recorded. The Medium preset averages 184 FPS, with a minimum of 156 FPS and a maximum of 211 FPS. High settings at 1080p yield an average of 167 FPS, while the Ultra preset drops to an average of 107 FPS. This shows that at 1080p, the system has ample headroom, and even the most demanding preset remains fully playable.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 162 FPS, which is still very high. Medium settings at 1440p average 127 FPS, with a min-max range of 108 to 147 FPS. The High preset averages 116 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 74 FPS. The data shows a clear progression, with each preset step costing a meaningful number of frames at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 97 FPS, which is impressive for 4K. Medium settings average 76 FPS, with a min of 65 FPS and a max of 87 FPS. The High preset averages 69 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 44 FPS. This is the most demanding scenario, and the Ultra preset's 44 FPS average falls below the 60 FPS target, making it less desirable for smooth gameplay. The measured data indicates that the system is capable of delivering playable frame rates at 4K, but only when settings are managed appropriately.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the system's bottleneck characteristics. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 167 at 1920x1080 to 116 at 2560x1440, and then to 69 at 3840x2160. This represents a 31% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 41% drop from 1440p to 4K. The overall reduction from 1080p to 4K is 59%, which is a significant performance penalty.

For the Ultra preset, the scaling is even steeper. The FPS drops from 107 at 1080p to 74 at 1440p, and then to 44 at 4K. This is a 31% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 41% drop from 1440p to 4K, mirroring the High preset's relative scaling. However, the absolute numbers are lower, indicating that the Ultra preset is more demanding on the GPU.

The scaling pattern suggests that the GPU is the primary limiting component at higher resolutions. The RX 9070's performance is heavily dependent on pixel throughput, and as the resolution increases, the demand on the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth grows proportionally. At 1080p, the frame rates are high enough (167 FPS on High) that the CPU might start to become a factor, but the data shows that the Ryzen 7 3700X's 8 cores and 16 threads are capable of feeding the GPU efficiently. The fact that the FPS drops consistently with resolution indicates that the system is not CPU-bound at 1440p or 4K, and the GPU is doing the heavy lifting.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 3700X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, codenamed Matisse. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with a TDP of 65W. The CPU features 32 MB of L3 cache, which is shared across all cores, and 512 KB of L2 cache per core. This configuration provides strong multi-threaded performance, as evidenced by its Cinebench R15 multi-core score of 2092 and its Passmark multithread score of 22458.

In Greedfall, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, physics, and AI, while the GPU handles rendering. The measured data shows that at 1080p with Low settings, the system achieves 234 FPS, which is well above what most displays can show. This high frame rate suggests that the CPU is not a significant bottleneck at lower resolutions, as the GPU is not fully saturated. However, at 4K with Ultra settings, the frame rate drops to 44 FPS, which is clearly GPU-limited.

The Ryzen 7 3700X's benchmark results show it is a capable processor, with a percentile ranking of 84 among all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-13450HX, has a similar average score of 34333, which is 0.2% higher. The AMD Ryzen AI 7 350 has an average score of 34222, which is 0.1% higher than the 3700X. This indicates that the 3700X is still competitive in general compute tasks, and in Greedfall, it provides enough single-thread and multi-thread performance to keep up with the RX 9070. The CPU's single-core performance, measured by its Cinebench R15 single-core score of 204 and Geekbench single-core score of 1593, is sufficient for the game's main thread, ensuring that frame pacing remains consistent even at high frame rates.