Greedfall

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 delivers exceptional performance in Greedfall, placing this combo at rank 619 out of 2,938 tested combinations, which puts it in the top 22% of all systems. The measured frame rates across all three resolutions show this pairing is capable of smooth gameplay at high settings, though the data reveals interesting scaling characteristics that favor specific configurations depending on your display resolution. This analysis draws exclusively from the measured FPS rows, the combo rank, and the hardware specifications provided, offering a clear picture of what this system achieves in this Action RPG without overstating its strengths or ignoring its weaknesses.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data across three resolutions and four settings presets makes a compelling case for the High preset as the optimal choice for most users, with Medium serving as the reliable fallback for those who prioritize frame-time consistency. At 3840x2160, the High preset delivers an average of 74 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a game that benefits from fluid motion. Dropping to Medium at this resolution yields 81 FPS average with a minimum of 69 and maximum of 93, providing a measurable improvement in both average and worst-case performance. The Low preset pushes the average to 103 FPS at 4K, but the visual quality sacrifice is substantial for only a 29 FPS gain over High. Ultra at 4K falls to 47 FPS, which dips below the threshold many would consider acceptable for consistent gameplay, making it a poor choice despite the visual fidelity.

At 2560x1440, the picture becomes clearer. High settings produce an average of 123 FPS, which is a comfortable margin above the 60 FPS standard and leaves headroom for demanding scenes. Medium at this resolution achieves 136 FPS average with a minimum of 116 and maximum of 156, representing the best balance of smoothness and visual quality. Low reaches 173 FPS, but the diminishing returns are evident—the jump from Medium to Low is 37 FPS, while the visual degradation is significant. Ultra at 1440p produces 79 FPS, which is playable but noticeably lower than High and Medium, suggesting the Ultra preset's additional effects tax the system heavily regardless of resolution.

For 1920x1080, the High preset delivers 178 FPS average, which is more than sufficient for any display refresh rate commonly available. Medium achieves 196 FPS with a minimum of 167 and maximum of 226, offering exceptional smoothness. Low reaches 250 FPS, which is only relevant for extreme refresh-rate monitors and does not justify the visual downgrade. Ultra at 1080p produces 114 FPS, which is still smooth but represents a significant drop from High—a 64 FPS difference that indicates Ultra's overhead is disproportionate to its visual benefit.

The data pattern across all resolutions shows that High is the sweet spot for this combo, delivering at least 74 FPS at 4K, 123 FPS at 1440p, and 178 FPS at 1080p. Medium offers a modest improvement in average FPS at every resolution—7 FPS at 4K, 13 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 1080p—but the minimum FPS data at Medium shows dips that suggest potential stuttering. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 69 FPS, which is close to the High average, and at 1440p Medium the minimum is 116 FPS. These minimums indicate that Medium does not provide a consistently higher floor than High. Therefore, the recommended preset is High for all resolutions, with Medium as an option only if the measured average improvements are prioritized over the potential for frame-time variation.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications directly explain the measured performance in Greedfall. The GPU features 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is far beyond what Greedfall requires, as evidenced by the fact that even at 4K Ultra, the game runs at 47 FPS, indicating the bottleneck is computational rather than memory-related. The RTX 4090's 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 raster output pipelines are the primary drivers of the frame rates observed. Its boost clock of 2520 MHz, up from a base of 2235 MHz, allows the GPU to sustain high throughput across all settings.

The RTX 4090's performance in Greedfall scales predictably with resolution. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 250 FPS, but this number does not increase with lower settings at higher resolutions in a linear fashion. At 4K Ultra, the 47 FPS result shows that the GPU is heavily taxed by the combination of high resolution and maximum settings. The 82.58 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 1,290.2 GTexel/s texture rate are substantial, yet Greedfall's Ultra preset still cuts the 4K average nearly in half compared to High. This suggests the Ultra settings introduce effects that disproportionately impact the GPU's rendering pipeline, likely related to the 128 RT cores or the 512 tensor cores, though the data does not specify which features are active.

The GPU's 88th percentile ranking among all GPUs, based on an average benchmark score of 60,347, aligns with its position as a top-tier part, even though it is marked as end-of-life and succeeded by the GeForce 50 series. Its nearest rivals in benchmark scores include the Intel Arc Pro A60 at a 0% delta, the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 at a 0.3% delta, and the AMD Radeon PRO V710 at a 2.9% delta, but the RTX 4090's actual gaming performance in Greedfall, as measured, far exceeds what these average scores might suggest. The 24 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor at any resolution tested, as even 4K Ultra does not show signs of memory pressure. The GPU's pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s are sufficient to feed the display outputs at the frame rates observed, with no bottleneck evident in the measured data.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves a combo rank of 619 out of 2,938 tested combinations in Greedfall, placing it in the 79th percentile of all systems. This rank is notable because it is lower than what the individual components' benchmark percentiles might imply—the CPU sits at the 95th percentile among all CPUs, and the GPU at the 88th percentile among all GPUs. The discrepancy between component percentiles and the combo rank suggests that Greedfall's performance is not purely determined by raw hardware strength, but rather by how the specific CPU-GPU pair interacts with the game's engine.

The CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score are the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX at a 0.1% delta, the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P at -0.4%, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX at -0.4%, and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D at 0.6%. These deltas are all within 1% of the 8945HX's average score of 76,212, indicating that in synthetic benchmarks, the CPU is essentially tied with several other top-tier parts. However, in Greedfall, the combo rank of 619 suggests that the 8945HX does not translate its synthetic benchmark performance into a top-tier gaming result when paired with the RTX 4090. This could be due to the mobile nature of the CPU, which has a 55 W TDP and is designed for laptops, potentially limiting sustained performance compared to desktop counterparts.

The GPU's nearest rivals in benchmark score include the Intel Arc Pro A60 at a 0% delta, the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 48 at a 0.3% delta, and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M at -2.5%. These are all professional or workstation-class GPUs, which is unusual, and it indicates that the RTX 4090's average benchmark score of 60,347 does not fully capture its gaming prowess. In Greedfall, the RTX 4090's performance is strong, but the combo rank of 619 out of 2,938 means there are 618 combinations that achieve higher frame rates in this specific game. Given that the RTX 4090 is one of the most powerful GPUs available, the rank implies that Greedfall may be more sensitive to CPU performance or memory architecture than to raw GPU power, though the data does not specify which other combos rank higher.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the measured FPS values across settings are as follows: Low averages 103 FPS, Medium averages 81 FPS with a minimum of 69 and maximum of 93, High averages 74 FPS, and Ultra averages 47 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a steep decline, with Ultra delivering only 45.6% of the Low preset's average FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 69 FPS is only 5 FPS below the High average, indicating that Medium does not offer a significantly better frame-time floor than High. The gap between High and Ultra is 27 FPS, which is larger than the gap between Medium and High at 7 FPS, suggesting that Ultra introduces a disproportionate performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the measured values are: Low averages 173 FPS, Medium averages 136 FPS with a minimum of 116 and maximum of 156, High averages 123 FPS, and Ultra averages 79 FPS. The scaling from 4K to 1440p is not uniform—Low improves by 70 FPS, Medium by 55 FPS, High by 49 FPS, and Ultra by 32 FPS. This indicates that lower settings benefit more from the resolution reduction, which is consistent with the GPU becoming less of a bottleneck at lower resolutions. The Medium preset's minimum of 116 FPS is close to the High average of 123 FPS, reinforcing that Medium is not a significant upgrade over High in terms of consistency.

At 1920x1080, the measured values are: Low averages 250 FPS, Medium averages 196 FPS with a minimum of 167 and maximum of 226, High averages 178 FPS, and Ultra averages 114 FPS. The 250 FPS at Low is the highest measured value in the entire dataset, and it shows that the CPU does not limit the RTX 4090 at 1080p with minimal settings. The gap between Medium and High is 18 FPS, and the gap between High and Ultra is 64 FPS, which is the largest single-setting drop in the dataset. The Medium minimum of 167 FPS is still above the High average of 178 FPS, so Medium does provide a higher floor, but the visual trade-off may not be worth it.

Across all resolutions, the pattern is consistent: Low offers the highest FPS but at a visual cost, Medium provides a modest improvement over High with a similar minimum frame rate, High is the balanced choice, and Ultra delivers the lowest FPS with the highest visual quality. The data does not include minimum or maximum FPS for High or Ultra, so the consistency of those presets cannot be directly assessed, but the averages provide a clear ordering.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for this combo at 2560x1440?

A: The data shows High settings produce an average of 123 FPS, while Medium achieves 136 FPS with a minimum of 116 FPS. High is recommended because its average is already well above 60 FPS, and the 13 FPS gain from Medium does not justify the potential visual downgrade, especially since Medium's minimum of 116 FPS is only 7 FPS above High's average.

Q: How does the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM affect Greedfall performance?

A: The 24 GB GDDR6X memory with 1.01 TB/s bandwidth is more than sufficient for Greedfall at all tested settings. Even at 4K Ultra, which produces 47 FPS, the bottleneck is not memory capacity or bandwidth, as the frame rate is determined by the GPU's computational throughput rather than memory constraints.

Q: Why does the Ultra preset perform so much worse than High?

A: At 4K, Ultra averages 47 FPS compared to High's 74 FPS, a 27 FPS difference. At 1440p, the difference is 44 FPS (79 vs. 123), and at 1080p, it is 64 FPS (114 vs. 178). The data indicates Ultra settings introduce rendering features that disproportionately tax the GPU, as the performance drop is larger than the step from Medium to High at every resolution.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 8945HX limiting the RTX 4090 in this game?

A: The combo ranks 619 out of 2,938, which is below what the CPU's 95th percentile and GPU's 88th percentile might suggest. At 1080p Low, the system hits 250 FPS, showing no CPU limit at lower settings, but the rank implies other combinations achieve higher frame rates, suggesting either the CPU or the mobile platform's 55 W TDP may constrain performance in certain scenarios.

Q: What is the minimum FPS at Medium settings across resolutions?

A: At 4K Medium, the minimum is 69 FPS; at 1440p Medium, the minimum is 116 FPS; and at 1080p Medium, the minimum is 167 FPS. These values provide a baseline for frame-time consistency, and they show that Medium does not offer a significantly higher floor than High's average at any resolution.

Q: How does this combo compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The CPU's average benchmark score of 76,212 is within 0.6% of its nearest rivals, including the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX at 0.1% delta and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D at 0.6%. The GPU's average score of 60,347 is within 2.9% of its nearest rivals, but these synthetic scores do not directly translate to Greedfall's measured performance.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, manufactured on a 5 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz provide substantial single-thread and multi-thread capability, as evidenced by its benchmark scores: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 42,713 and a single-core score of 6,030. The CPU has 64 MB of L3 cache, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 64 KB of L1 cache per core, which supports the game's data access patterns. Its 55 W TDP is notably low for a 16-core part, reflecting its mobile design with a socket of AMD Socket FL1, and this thermal envelope may influence sustained performance in gaming workloads.

In Greedfall, the CPU's role is to feed the RTX 4090 with draw calls and game logic, and the measured data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 250 FPS, which is a clear indication that the CPU is not a bottleneck at lower settings. However, as settings increase, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, as shown by the steep FPS drops at Ultra. The CPU's single-thread performance, highlighted by its PassMark single-thread score of 3,907 and Cinebench R20 single-core score of 2,532, is strong for a mobile part, but its nearest rivals in average benchmark score—the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX, AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P, AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX, and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D—are all within 0.6% of its average score of 76,212. This suggests that in synthetic workloads, the 8945HX is competitive with desktop-class processors, but the combo rank of 619 in Greedfall implies that this synthetic parity does not fully translate to this specific game.

The CPU's memory support for DDR5 with dual-channel configuration and 83.2 GB/s bandwidth is adequate for the game, and its 28 PCIe Gen 5 lanes provide high-bandwidth connectivity to the GPU. The integrated Radeon 610M graphics are present but irrelevant when the RTX 4090 is active. The CPU's 95th percentile ranking among all CPUs, based on an average benchmark score of 76,212, positions it as a top-tier mobile processor, but the game's performance is ultimately dictated by the GPU at higher settings. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the system achieves 47 FPS, which is likely GPU-bound, while at 1080p Low, the 250 FPS result suggests the CPU can handle high frame rates without becoming a limiting factor. The 16 cores and 32 threads do not appear to provide a distinct advantage in Greedfall over processors with fewer cores, as the game's performance scales primarily with GPU settings rather than CPU core count. The CPU's boost clock of 5.40 GHz is the key metric for single-threaded game performance, and its Cinebench R15 single-core score of 607 confirms strong per-core capability, but the combo rank suggests that other CPUs paired with similar GPUs may extract higher frame rates in this title.