Greedfall

Greedfall, an Action RPG released in 2019, shows distinct performance scaling with the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination. The measured data reveals a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher settings, with the CPU becoming a more significant factor only at the lowest preset and resolution. This analysis walks through the settings recommendations, component roles, and frame rate breakdowns based on the measured rows.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data clearly indicates that the High preset offers the most balanced experience across all resolutions. At 3840x2160, High delivers an average of 108.6 FPS, which comfortably exceeds the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. Stepping up to Ultra at the same resolution drops performance to 66.4 FPS, a substantial reduction that approaches the lower bound of playability for fast-paced action. The Medium preset at 4K provides 121 FPS, but the visual fidelity gain from High over Medium is typically more noticeable in an RPG's environments than the incremental performance difference.

At 2560x1440, the High preset achieves 182.7 FPS, which is more than sufficient for high-refresh-rate monitors. The Ultra preset at this resolution yields 112.6 FPS, still playable but representing a 38.4% decrease from High. For 1920x1080, High produces 257.4 FPS, making it the optimal choice for competitive or high-refresh scenarios. The Low preset at 1080p reaches 366.9 FPS, but the visual compromise is severe for a game that relies on atmospheric environments.

Across all resolutions, the Ultra preset consistently shows the largest FPS penalty relative to High, with reductions of 38.9% at 4K, 38.4% at 1440p, and 34.8% at 1080p. The data suggests that High is the sweet spot, providing a significant visual upgrade over Medium while avoiding the disproportionate cost of Ultra. For users prioritizing maximum frame rates, Low at 1080p is the only preset that pushes beyond 300 FPS, but this is a niche scenario.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700X features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 4.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. This Zen 4 architecture processor on the AMD Socket AM5 platform demonstrates strong single-threaded performance, as indicated by its 3DMark single-thread score of 1090 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4281. The processor's multi-threaded capabilities are equally robust, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 30325 and a Passmark multithread score of 35686.

In Greedfall, the CPU's role becomes apparent when examining the FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K. At the Low preset, the 1080p average of 366.9 FPS drops to 147.9 FPS at 4K, a decrease of 59.7%. This substantial drop at lower settings indicates that the CPU is capable of driving extremely high frame rates at lower resolutions, but the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases. The Ryzen 7 7700X's performance percentile of 89 versus all CPUs places it in the upper tier, and its nearest rival comparisons show it within 0.8% of the Intel Core Ultra 7 165H and AMD EPYC 4244P, with a 0.4% lead over the Intel Core i5-13500.

The processor's 32 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support with 83.2 GB/s bandwidth contribute to its ability to feed the RTX 5090 at high frame rates. The benchmark results show a 3DMark 16-thread score of 8859 and a 2-thread score of 2112, indicating that scaling from 2 to 16 threads yields a 4.2x improvement, which is typical for a well-balanced 8-core design. For Greedfall, which likely does not utilize all 16 threads efficiently, the strong single-core performance (Geekbench single-core score of 2985) is more critical for maintaining minimum frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a flagship Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU with 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a massive 1.79 TB/s of memory bandwidth. The GPU's base clock of 2017 MHz and boost clock of 2407 MHz, combined with 21760 shading units, deliver a peak FP32 performance of 104.8 TFLOPS. The 176 ROPs and 680 TMUs ensure high pixel and texture throughput, with a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s.

In Greedfall, the RTX 5090's dominance is evident from the FPS figures. At 1080p with Low settings, the GPU produces 366.9 FPS, which is likely beyond what most displays can show. The GPU's performance percentile of 94 versus all GPUs places it near the top, with its nearest rival being the RTX 5090 D with a negligible 0.1% delta. The GPU's 32 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for Greedfall at any resolution, as the game's memory requirements are modest compared to modern titles.

The GPU's role as the primary bottleneck is clear when examining the scaling from Medium to Ultra at each resolution. At 4K, Medium achieves 121 FPS, but Ultra drops to 66.4 FPS, a 45.1% reduction. This steep curve suggests that the Ultra preset introduces settings that heavily tax the GPU's shading units and memory subsystem. The RTX 5090's 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores are present, but Greedfall's implementation may leverage these features unevenly, contributing to the performance cliff at Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 7700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 12th out of 1705 tested combos in Greedfall. This placement in the top 0.7% of all combinations tested indicates that this pairing is exceptionally well-suited for this game. The rank of 12 suggests that only 11 other CPU-GPU pairings outperform this setup, likely involving even higher-end CPUs or specialized configurations.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 34313 places it in the 89th percentile, while the GPU's average score of 84306 places it in the 94th percentile. The GPU's relative strength is more pronounced, which aligns with the observation that Greedfall is more GPU-intensive at higher settings. The combo's rank of 12 out of 1705 is impressive, but it is importantly the delta between the Ryzen 7 7700X and its nearest CPU rivals is minimal, with the strongest rival (AMD EPYC 4244P) being only 0.8% faster on average. Similarly, the GPU's nearest rival is just 1.6% faster (NVIDIA CMP 40HX), indicating that this combo's ranking is not heavily dependent on winning individual component benchmarks.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the balance between CPU and GPU limitations. At the High preset, the average FPS decreases from 257.4 at 1080p to 182.7 at 1440p (a 29.0% drop) and then to 108.6 at 4K (a 40.6% drop from 1440p). The progressive decline indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions, as the CPU's ability to feed frames remains constant.

At the Low preset, the scaling is more dramatic: 366.9 FPS at 1080p drops to 254.2 FPS at 1440p (a 30.7% drop) and then to 147.9 FPS at 4K (a 41.8% drop from 1440p). The Low preset reduces GPU load, allowing the CPU to push higher frame rates at lower resolutions, but the GPU still becomes the bottleneck at 4K. The Ultra preset shows similar proportional drops: 167.9 FPS at 1080p, 112.6 FPS at 1440p (a 32.9% drop), and 66.4 FPS at 4K (a 41.0% drop from 1440p).

The consistency of the 4K-to-1440p ratio (approximately 0.59-0.60 across all presets) suggests that the GPU's rendering load scales predictably with resolution, and the CPU is not introducing additional bottlenecks at higher resolutions. The fact that the 1080p-to-1440p drop is consistently around 30% across presets indicates that the RTX 5090's memory bandwidth and compute resources scale linearly with pixel count, a sign of a well-balanced GPU design.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are: 366.9 for Low, 284.3 for Medium, 257.4 for High, and 167.9 for Ultra. The jump from Low to Medium is a 22.5% decrease, while Medium to High is a 9.5% decrease, and High to Ultra is a 34.8% decrease. This pattern shows that the Ultra preset at 1080p imposes a severe performance penalty, likely due to advanced lighting or shadow effects that are disproportionately expensive at lower resolutions where the GPU has surplus capacity.

At 2560x1440, the FPS values are 254.2 for Low, 199.9 for Medium, 182.7 for High, and 112.6 for Ultra. The relative decreases from Low are 21.4% for Medium, 28.1% for High, and 55.7% for Ultra. The Ultra preset's penalty is even more pronounced at 1440p, suggesting that the additional GPU load from higher resolution compounds with the Ultra settings' demands. The High preset at 1440p maintains 182.7 FPS, which is only 28.1% below Low, making it the most efficient preset for this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the FPS values are 147.9 for Low, 121 for Medium, 108.6 for High, and 66.4 for Ultra. The decreases from Low are 18.2% for Medium, 26.6% for High, and 55.1% for Ultra. The 4K Ultra result of 66.4 FPS is just above the 60 FPS threshold, but the 38.9% drop from High to Ultra at 4K is the largest absolute penalty of any preset transition in the dataset. The Medium preset at 4K provides 121 FPS, which is 11.4% faster than High, making it a viable alternative for users who prefer smoother motion over visual fidelity.

The data shows that the High preset at 1440p (182.7 FPS) offers the best balance of resolution and settings for this combo, while 4K High (108.6 FPS) remains playable for users prioritizing resolution. The Ultra preset is consistently the worst performer, and its use is only recommended if the visual improvements are deemed essential.