Greedfall

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

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D sits at the heart of this configuration, built on the Zen 5 architecture with a Granite Ridge codename. This 8-core, 16-thread processor operates with a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, placing it among the higher-clocked desktop parts in AMD's 9000 series lineup. The CPU's 96 MB of shared L3 cache is particularly relevant for gaming workloads, as it allows frequently accessed data to remain physically closer to the cores, reducing memory latency in scenarios where the same assets are repeatedly referenced.

In synthetic benchmarks, this processor demonstrates strong multi-threaded capability. Its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 22807 and single-core score of 2228 indicate a balanced design that excels in both heavily threaded and latency-sensitive tasks. The PassMark multi-thread score of 41318 further corroborates this, while the single-thread score of 4704 suggests the CPU can keep up with per-core demands. The 9850X3D's percentile ranking of 92 among all tested CPUs places it in the upper tier of processors, with an average benchmark score of 58386.

The nearest rivals in aggregate CPU performance highlight the competitive landscape. The Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M scores 58323, a mere 0.1% delta from the 9850X3D, while the Intel Xeon w5-2545 scores 58504, representing a -0.2% difference. The Intel Core i9-14900 scores 58115, 0.5% behind, and the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 scores 58826, 0.7% ahead. These tight margins show that the 9850X3D is squarely in a performance cluster where no single part dominates by a significant margin.

For Greedfall, an Action RPG released in 2019, the CPU's role is primarily to maintain consistent frame pacing and handle game logic, AI, and physics calculations. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p with Low settings, the system reaches 291 average FPS, a figure that is far beyond what the GPU alone could sustain at higher settings. This indicates that at lower resolutions and settings, the CPU is not the limiting factor; rather, the headroom exists because the GPU has less work to do per frame. The 8-core, 16-thread configuration is more than sufficient for a game of this era, which was designed around the console hardware of its time.

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

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with the AD104 chip, manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. This GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 1313 MHz, which translates to 21 Gbps effective. These specifications are notable for a game like Greedfall, which features open-world environments with dense foliage and detailed textures that can place significant demands on VRAM capacity and bandwidth.

The RTX 4070 Ti's compute capabilities are substantial. With 7680 shading units, 240 texture mapping units, and 80 raster operation units, the GPU can process geometry and pixels at high rates. The 60 RT cores and 240 tensor cores provide hardware acceleration for ray tracing and AI-enhanced features, though Greedfall does not heavily utilize these technologies. The pixel rate of 208.8 GPixel/s and texture rate of 626.4 GTexel/s indicate the raw throughput available for traditional rasterization. The FP32 performance of 40.09 TFLOPS is the key figure for standard game rendering.

In GPU benchmarks, the RTX 4070 Ti scores 31624 in PassMark G3D, with a percentile ranking of 84 among all GPUs. The PassMark GPU compute score of 18396 shows its general-purpose compute performance. The average benchmark score of 44795 places it near several rivals. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile scores 45152, a -0.8% delta; the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT scores 45384, a -1.3% delta; the NVIDIA RTX A6000 scores 44075, a 1.6% delta; and the Intel Arc A730M scores 45592, a -1.7% delta. These comparisons show that the desktop RTX 4070 Ti's raw score is competitive with mobile and professional parts that consume different power envelopes.

The GPU's role in Greedfall becomes evident when examining the resolution scaling. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 55, while at 1080p Ultra, it rises to 133. This scaling pattern indicates that Greedfall is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions and settings, as the CPU has ample headroom at 1080p Low (291 FPS) but the GPU becomes the bottleneck as pixel count and shading complexity increase.

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

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how this system scales across resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 291 average FPS. Moving to 1440p Low, the frame rate drops to 202, a reduction of 89 FPS or approximately 30.6%. At 4K Low, the average FPS is 120, which is a further drop of 82 FPS from 1440p, or about 40.6%. From 1080p Low to 4K Low, the total reduction is 171 FPS, or about 58.8%.

For High settings, the scaling is similar but with lower absolute numbers. At 1080p High, the system achieves 208 FPS. At 1440p High, it drops to 144 FPS, a 64 FPS reduction (30.8%). At 4K High, the average is 86 FPS, a 58 FPS drop from 1440p (40.3%). The percentage drops are nearly identical between Low and High settings, suggesting that the scaling factor is primarily resolution-driven rather than settings-driven.

The Medium settings show a slightly different pattern due to the availability of min and max FPS data. At 1080p Medium, the average is 229 FPS with a min of 194 and max of 263. At 1440p Medium, the average is 159 FPS with a min of 135 and max of 182. At 4K Medium, the average is 95 FPS with a min of 80 and max of 109. The frame time consistency, as indicated by the min-to-max spread, remains relatively stable across resolutions, which suggests that the GPU is maintaining consistent rendering times rather than experiencing sporadic spikes.

Ultra settings present the steepest scaling curve. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 133 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 92 FPS, a 41 FPS reduction (30.8%). At 4K Ultra, the average falls to 55 FPS, a 37 FPS drop from 1440p (40.2%). The percentage reductions are remarkably consistent across all settings presets, indicating that Greedfall's rendering pipeline scales predictably with pixel count.

The data indicates that this system is GPU-limited at all resolutions and settings tested. The CPU is capable of far higher frame rates than the GPU can deliver, as evidenced by the 291 FPS at 1080p Low. The GPU becomes progressively more saturated as resolution increases, and the frame rate drops accordingly. At 4K Ultra, the 55 FPS average suggests the GPU is fully utilized and the system is operating at its practical limit for this game.

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

The complete measured FPS dataset for Greedfall with the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 291 average FPS
• Medium: 229 average FPS, with min 194 and max 263
• High: 208 average FPS
• Ultra: 133 average FPS

2560x1440:

• Low: 202 average FPS
• Medium: 159 average FPS, with min 135 and max 182
• High: 144 average FPS
• Ultra: 92 average FPS

3840x2160:

• Low: 120 average FPS
• Medium: 95 average FPS, with min 80 and max 109
• High: 86 average FPS
• Ultra: 55 average FPS

At 1080p, the system delivers exceptionally high frame rates across all settings. The jump from Ultra to High at 1080p is 75 FPS (from 133 to 208), which is a substantial gain of 56.4%. Moving from High to Medium adds 21 FPS (to 229), and from Medium to Low adds 62 FPS (to 291). The largest incremental gain comes from dropping from Ultra to High, suggesting that Ultra settings impose a significant rendering cost.

At 1440p, the pattern shifts slightly. The gap between Ultra (92 FPS) and High (144 FPS) is 52 FPS, a 56.5% improvement. High to Medium adds 15 FPS (to 159), and Medium to Low adds 43 FPS (to 202). The absolute gains are smaller than at 1080p, but the relative improvements are similar.

At 4K, the system remains playable but the frame rates tighten. Ultra delivers 55 FPS, which is marginally above the 50 FPS threshold. High improves to 86 FPS, a 31 FPS gain (56.4%). Medium reaches 95 FPS, and Low achieves 120 FPS. The consistency of the percentage gains across resolutions (approximately 56% from Ultra to High) indicates that the Ultra preset adds a fixed amount of per-pixel work that scales linearly with resolution.

# FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achievable with this system in Greedfall?

A: The highest average FPS is 291, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: Does the system maintain 60 FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: No, the average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 55, which is below the 60 FPS threshold. However, at 4K High settings, the average is 86 FPS, which comfortably exceeds 60 FPS.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K at the same settings?

A: At Low settings, the drop is from 291 FPS to 120 FPS, a reduction of 171 FPS (58.8%). At Ultra settings, the drop is from 133 FPS to 55 FPS, a reduction of 78 FPS (58.6%). The percentage loss is nearly identical across all settings.

Q: Which settings preset provides the largest single-step performance gain?

A: At all resolutions, dropping from Ultra to High provides the largest gain. At 1080p, this yields an increase of 75 FPS (from 133 to 208). At 1440p, the gain is 52 FPS (from 92 to 144). At 4K, the gain is 31 FPS (from 55 to 86).

Q: Are the min FPS values significantly lower than the average FPS?

A: The data includes min and max FPS only for Medium settings. At 1080p Medium, the min is 194 versus an average of 229, a 15.3% deviation. At 1440p Medium, the min is 135 versus an average of 159, a 15.1% deviation. At 4K Medium, the min is 80 versus an average of 95, a 15.8% deviation. The consistency suggests stable frame delivery.

Q: How does this system rank among all tested combinations for Greedfall?

A: The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti ranks 373 out of 2938 tested combos for Greedfall, placing it in the top 12.7% of all configurations.

# Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings preset depends on the target resolution and the user's frame rate preference.

For 4K gaming, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 55 FPS, which is below the commonly desired 60 FPS threshold. The High preset at 4K achieves 86 FPS, providing a comfortable margin above 60 FPS while maintaining higher visual fidelity than Medium or Low. The data shows that the jump from Ultra to High yields a 56.4% performance increase, which is the most significant single-step improvement available. Given that 4K Ultra only produces 55 FPS, the High preset is the recommended choice for 4K, as it balances visual quality with smooth performance.

For 1440p gaming, the Ultra preset achieves 92 FPS, which is above 60 FPS but below 100 FPS. The High preset at 1440p delivers 144 FPS, which aligns well with 144 Hz displays. The data indicates that at 1440p, users can comfortably run High settings for high-refresh-rate monitors, while those with 60 Hz displays could opt for Ultra to maximize visual quality. The Medium preset at 159 FPS offers a smaller gain over High (15 FPS) but is still viable for competitive play.

For 1080p gaming, all settings presets deliver frame rates above 133 FPS. The Ultra preset at 133 FPS is suitable for 120 Hz displays, while the High preset at 208 FPS exceeds 200 FPS, making it ideal for 240 Hz monitors. The Low preset at 291 FPS provides the maximum frame rate for esports-style play, though the visual trade-off may not be worth the additional 83 FPS over High. The Medium preset at 229 FPS serves as a middle ground.

The best experience per the measured rows is achieved with the High preset at 1440p, which delivers 144 FPS with a 1440p resolution that offers a clear visual upgrade over 1080p. This combination provides a substantial frame rate that exceeds most high-refresh-rate displays while maintaining visual fidelity that is only marginally below Ultra. For users prioritizing visual quality above all else, 4K High at 86 FPS is the strongest option, as it delivers near-Ultra visuals with a playable frame rate.

# How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti combination ranks 373 out of 2938 tested combos for Greedfall, placing it in the 87.3rd percentile of all configurations tested. This is a strong showing, though not at the absolute top of the leaderboard.

The CPU's individual percentile ranking of 92 among all CPUs demonstrates that the processor is a high-end part, but the GPU's percentile ranking of 84 is slightly lower. This discrepancy suggests that the GPU is the more limiting component in this pairing for Greedfall, which is consistent with the resolution scaling analysis showing GPU-bound behavior at all settings.

In the context of the overall combo ranking, this system performs admirably for a game released in 2019. The 373rd position out of 2938 means that a significant number of combinations outperform it, but those systems likely feature more powerful GPUs such as higher-tier RTX 40-series cards or comparable AMD offerings. The RTX 4070 Ti's position in the GPU hierarchy, with an 84th percentile ranking, is the primary factor preventing a higher overall rank.

The CPU's performance relative to its rivals shows that the 9850X3D is well-matched to the RTX 4070 Ti. The nearest CPU rivals all score within 0.7% of the 9850X3D's average benchmark score, indicating that swapping to any of those processors would likely produce negligible changes in Greedfall's frame rates, since the game is GPU-bound. Similarly, the GPU's nearest rivals are all within 1.7% of its average score, meaning that the specific model choice among these adjacent parts would not substantially alter the gaming experience.

For Greedfall specifically, this combo delivers playable performance at all resolutions and settings, with the only caveat being 4K Ultra, which falls just below 60 FPS. The system's ranking in the top 12.7% of all tested combos for this game reflects its balanced performance, though users seeking the absolute highest 4K Ultra frame rates would need to look toward higher-tier GPUs to improve upon the 55 FPS measured at that configuration.