Greedfall

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

The measured frame rates across resolutions reveal a classic scaling pattern, but with some telling nuances. At 1080p Low, the combo delivers 328.6 FPS. Moving to 1440p Low drops that to 244.4 FPS, a 25.6% reduction. At 4K Low, the average falls to 147 FPS — roughly 55% below the 1080p Low figure. This steep decline as resolution climbs strongly suggests the GPU becomes the dominant constraint at higher pixel counts, while the CPU has enough headroom at lower resolutions to feed the frame pipeline.

The pattern holds across all settings presets. For High settings, the transition from 1080p (251.3 FPS) to 1440p (174.2 FPS) is a 30.7% drop, and then from 1440p to 4K (107 FPS) another 38.6% decline. The scaling is not perfectly linear, which indicates that memory bandwidth and pixel throughput — both abundant on this GPU — are being taxed more heavily as resolution increases. The RTX 4090's 1.01 TB/s memory bandwidth and 384-bit bus width become increasingly relevant at 4K, where the data demands per frame grow substantially.

Interestingly, the 1080p to 1440p gap for High settings (77.1 FPS difference) is larger than the 1440p to 4K gap (67.2 FPS difference). This suggests that at 1440p, the system is still partially CPU-limited in certain scenes, but by 4K the GPU is fully saturated. A purely GPU-bound scenario would typically show a more consistent percentage drop per resolution step. The data hints that the Ryzen 7 5700X3D's 8 cores and 16 threads are sufficient to keep the RTX 4090 well-fed at 1080p, but the GPU's workload scales faster than the CPU's as resolution rises.

The Ultra preset tells a different story. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 162.2 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 111.7 FPS (31.1% reduction), and at 4K Ultra it falls to 63.5 FPS — a 43.2% drop from 1440p. The Ultra preset's heavier shading and post-processing effects amplify the GPU workload disproportionately at 4K, confirming that the limiting component at maximum settings and 4K is unequivocally the graphics card.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 brings a substantial hardware foundation to Greedfall. Its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory is far beyond what this 2019 Action RPG would require, but the sheer bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s and the 384-bit bus width ensure that texture streaming and draw calls never become a bottleneck. The GPU's base clock runs at 2235 MHz with a boost clock of 2520 MHz, and benchmark results indicate the card sustains high throughput across all resolutions tested.

The RTX 4090's Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, delivers 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. In Greedfall, this raw compute translates into strong performance even at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS of 63.5 is still playable. The pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s are the key specifications driving the resolution scaling observed in the measured data — as resolution increases, the pixel workload grows, and these rates determine how many pixels can be filled per second.

The GPU's 512 TMUs and 176 ROPs are relevant for Greedfall's environment rendering. The game's outdoor scenes and complex geometry demand high texture filtering rates, and the data shows that even at 4K High, the system maintains 107 FPS. The 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores are present but Greedfall does not heavily utilize ray tracing, so these resources likely remain underutilized — the performance deltas between presets are more attributable to traditional rasterization workloads.

The RTX 4090's 450 W TDP and triple-slot design indicate a high-power part, and the measured FPS figures confirm that this power translates into real performance. Notably, the gap between 1080p Low (328.6 FPS) and 1080p Ultra (162.2 FPS) is a 50.6% reduction — this is a game where settings have a dramatic impact on frame rate, and the GPU's headroom at lower settings is enormous. The data suggests that Greedfall is not VRAM-limited at any resolution, as even the lowest preset at 4K (147 FPS) does not show signs of memory pressure.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

Among 1,705 tested CPU-GPU combinations in Greedfall, this pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves rank 64. That places it in the top 3.8% of all tested configurations, a strong showing that reflects the high-end nature of both components. The percentile data for the CPU alone shows it sits at the 82nd percentile against all CPUs, while the GPU is at the 91st percentile against all GPUs — but their combined rank of 64 out of 1,705 suggests the pairing works synergistically rather than one component holding the other back.

The CPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks provide context for its contribution. The Intel Core i7-1360P scores 24,627 (0.2% higher), the AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D scores 24,605 (0.3% higher), and the Intel Core i5-11600 scores 24,559 (0.5% higher). These deltaPct values are all within 0.5%, indicating the 5700X3D's 24,673 average benchmark score is essentially matched by several mid-range and mobile processors. The fact that this CPU can achieve a top-64 game rank when paired with the RTX 4090 means Greedfall is not heavily CPU-constrained in most scenarios.

The GPU's nearest rivals show a different picture. The NVIDIA Tesla T4 scores 66,733 (0.4% higher), the Tesla P40 scores 66,127 (0.5% lower), and the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 scores 67,097 (0.9% higher). These are all professional or workstation cards, and the RTX 4090's 66,473 average score places it in a similar league. In Greedfall specifically, the combo's rank of 64 indicates that the RTX 4090's gaming performance exceeds what its synthetic average might suggest, given that the game's rasterization-focused workload plays to the card's strengths.

The rank also implies that roughly 1,641 other combinations tested slower in this game. That includes systems with faster CPUs but weaker GPUs, and vice versa. The data suggests that for Greedfall, the GPU is the more critical determinant of overall rank — a conclusion supported by the resolution scaling analysis, which showed the RTX 4090 becoming the limiting factor at 4K.

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

The measured data offers clear guidance for optimizing the experience in Greedfall with this hardware. At 4K, the High preset delivers 107 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The Medium preset at 4K yields 112.4 FPS, only slightly higher, while Low jumps to 147 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K falls to 63.5 FPS, which is playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. The data indicates that High at 4K is the sweet spot — it provides nearly the same frame rate as Medium (107 vs 112.4 FPS) while offering better visual quality.

At 1440p, the options are more generous. High settings produce 174.2 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors. The Ultra preset at 1440p yields 111.7 FPS, still very smooth, and the gap between High and Ultra (62.5 FPS) suggests that Ultra at 1440p is a viable choice for users prioritizing visual fidelity over raw frame rate. Low at 1440p reaches 244.4 FPS, but this sacrifices too much visual quality for a marginal benefit in smoothness.

At 1080p, the system is clearly CPU-bound at lower settings. Low delivers 328.6 FPS, Medium 279.3 FPS, and High 251.3 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1080p drops to 162.2 FPS — a significant reduction that indicates the Ultra preset's additional effects tax the GPU even at this resolution. For 1080p users, High settings at 251.3 FPS provide an ideal balance, as the drop from High to Ultra (35.5% reduction) is not justified by the visual improvements in most games.

The data supports a general recommendation: choose High settings for 4K and 1080p, and consider Ultra for 1440p if visual quality is paramount. The Medium preset offers marginal gains over High at 4K (5.4 FPS) but at 1440p the gap widens (20.6 FPS), making Medium a reasonable compromise for users with 1440p displays who want higher frame rates than High provides.

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

At 1920x1080, the measured averages are: Low 328.6 FPS, Medium 279.3 FPS, High 251.3 FPS, Ultra 162.2 FPS. The progression from Low to Medium represents a 15.0% reduction, from Medium to High a 10.0% reduction, and from High to Ultra a 35.5% reduction. The Ultra preset's dramatic drop suggests it enables effects that disproportionately increase GPU load, such as enhanced shadows or ambient occlusion.

At 2560x1440, the averages are: Low 244.4 FPS, Medium 194.8 FPS, High 174.2 FPS, Ultra 111.7 FPS. The scaling from Low to Medium is a 20.3% reduction, Medium to High is 10.6%, and High to Ultra is 35.9%. The consistency of the High-to-Ultra drop (around 35-36%) across 1080p and 1440p indicates that the Ultra preset's additional workload scales with resolution, rather than being a fixed cost.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 147 FPS, Medium 112.4 FPS, High 107 FPS, Ultra 63.5 FPS. The Low-to-Medium reduction is 23.5%, Medium-to-High is 4.8%, and High-to-Ultra is 40.7%. The Medium-to-High gap at 4K is notably smaller than at lower resolutions (4.8% vs 10.0% at 1080p and 10.6% at 1440p), suggesting that at 4K, the GPU is so heavily loaded that the difference between Medium and High settings becomes less impactful on frame rate.

The resolution scaling within each preset shows: Low settings drop from 328.6 FPS at 1080p to 244.4 FPS at 1440p (25.6% reduction) and then to 147 FPS at 4K (39.9% reduction from 1440p). Medium settings drop from 279.3 to 194.8 (30.3%) and then to 112.4 (42.3%). High settings drop from 251.3 to 174.2 (30.7%) and then to 107 (38.6%). Ultra settings drop from 162.2 to 111.7 (31.1%) and then to 63.5 (43.2%). The consistent pattern of larger percentage drops from 1440p to 4K compared to 1080p to 1440p confirms that the GPU's workload becomes increasingly dominant at higher resolutions.

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

The AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D provides 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 3 architecture, with a base clock of 3.00 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its 96 MB of shared L3 cache is the defining feature of the X3D line, and this large cache is particularly beneficial for games that reuse data across frames. The CPU's synthetic benchmarks show a single-thread score of 804 in 3DMark and 3,157 in Cinebench R23, while multi-thread scores reach 6,764 in 3DMark and 22,366 in Cinebench R23.

In Greedfall, the CPU's role becomes evident when examining the 1080p Low results. At 328.6 FPS, the frame time is approximately 3.04 ms, which pushes the CPU's per-thread processing limits. The 5700X3D's boost clock of 4.10 GHz on 8 cores is sufficient to maintain this frame rate, but the data shows diminishing returns — the gap between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings (84.2 FPS difference) is larger than the gap between 1440p and 4K (97.4 FPS difference), but both are substantial, indicating the CPU is still keeping pace even at 4K.

The CPU's 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth and DDR4 support are adequate for this game, as Greedfall does not appear to be memory-bandwidth sensitive. The 7 nm process node and 8,850 million transistors in a 74 mm² die size indicate a power-efficient design with a 105 W TDP. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, where the GPU is clearly the limiting factor at 63.5 FPS, the CPU has significant headroom — the frame rate is constrained by the GPU's pixel throughput rather than the CPU's processing capabilities.

The percentile ranking of 82 against all CPUs means the 5700X3D outperforms the majority of processors in synthetic tests, and its nearest rivals are all within 0.5% in average score. This tight clustering suggests that in Greedfall, the CPU choice matters less than the GPU choice, as long as the CPU has at least 8 modern cores. The 16 threads handle the game's background tasks and physics without bottlenecking, even at 1080p where frame rates exceed 300 FPS.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1440p High settings provide 174.2 FPS, which balances visual quality and frame rate. At 4K High, the average is 107 FPS, still smooth, but 1440p offers a substantial frame rate buffer.

Q: How much faster is Low settings compared to Ultra at 4K?

A: At 4K, Low settings achieve 147 FPS while Ultra achieves 63.5 FPS. This represents a 131.5% performance increase for Low, but the visual quality trade-off is significant.

Q: Does the RTX 4090 bottleneck the Ryzen 7 5700X3D?

A: At 1080p Low, the system reaches 328.6 FPS, which approaches CPU limitations. At 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, with Ultra settings capping at 63.5 FPS. The data indicates the CPU is sufficient for this game at all tested settings.

Q: What is the CPU's multi-thread performance relative to its rivals?

A: The 5700X3D scores 24,673 on average, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core i7-1360P (24,627) and 0.5% higher than the Intel Core i5-11600 (24,559). The AMD Ryzen 5 7600X3D scores 24,605, 0.3% lower.

Q: Is this combo ranked highly among all tested systems in Greedfall?

A: Yes, this combo ranks 64th out of 1,705 tested combinations, placing it in the top 3.8% of all configurations tested for this game.

Q: What preset gives the most consistent frame rate across all resolutions?

A: High settings show the most consistent scaling, with 251.3 FPS at 1080p, 174.2 FPS at 1440p, and 107 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 30.7% and 38.6% respectively, which is moderate compared to Ultra's 31.1% and 43.2% drops.