Greedfall

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile ranks 813th out of 3703 tested combos in Greedfall, placing it in the top 22% of all configurations. This is a strong result for a mobile platform, though the ranking shows that a significant number of desktop-oriented or more specialized combos outperform it in this specific title. The combo’s position reflects a balanced pairing where neither component dramatically bottlenecks the other, but the game’s age and CPU-bound nature mean the massive GPU horsepower is not always fully utilized.

How This Combo Ranks

The 813th position out of 3703 combos places this laptop pairing in the 78th percentile of all tested configurations for Greedfall. That is a solid showing, but not an elite one. The data indicates that while the RTX 5090 Mobile is a top-tier mobile GPU, its performance in this 2019 action RPG is tempered by the game’s engine and the CPU’s ability to feed it frames.

When looking at the CPU’s general benchmark standing, the Ryzen 9 8945HX sits at the 95th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 76212. Its nearest rivals in synthetic tests include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (0.1% higher score), AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P (0.4% lower), AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX (0.4% lower), and AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (0.6% higher). This shows the 8945HX is essentially tied with the best mobile and many desktop chips in raw compute, which is crucial for a game that relies on consistent frame pacing.

The GPU’s synthetic standing is less impressive relative to its name. The RTX 5090 Mobile’s average benchmark score of 45152 puts it at the 84th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon Pro 5500 XT (0.5% higher score), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti (0.8% lower), Intel Arc A730M (1.0% higher), and NVIDIA RTX 5880 Ada Generation (1.8% higher). This is a notable finding: in pure compute benchmarks, the RTX 5090 Mobile is not dramatically ahead of a desktop RTX 4070 Ti, despite its newer architecture and higher memory capacity. This explains why the combo’s in-game rank is good, but not number one; the GPU’s raw power is similar to last-gen desktop cards, even if it has more VRAM and newer features.

The combo’s rank is also influenced by the fact that Greedfall is not a highly demanding title by 2025 standards. The measured FPS at 1080p Ultra (119 FPS) is high, but the jump to 4K Ultra (49 FPS) shows that the game can still stress the GPU at higher resolutions. The rank of 813 suggests that many combos with slightly faster desktop GPUs or CPUs with higher single-core performance achieve higher average frame rates, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU matters more.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using a 5nm process from TSMC, with a chip designated GB203. It features 10496 shading units, 328 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units. The memory subsystem is a key highlight: 24 GB of GDDR7 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 896.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This is a massive amount of VRAM for a mobile GPU and is more than sufficient for Greedfall’s textures at any setting.

Clock speeds are relatively modest for a flagship, with a base clock of 990 MHz and a boost clock of 1515 MHz. This is a lower boost clock than many desktop cards, reflecting the thermal constraints of a mobile form factor (TDP is 95 W). The pixel rate is 169.7 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 496.9 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 31.80 TFLOPS. These numbers are strong, but the clock speeds show that the GPU is power-limited. In Greedfall, this means the GPU can push very high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but at 4K Ultra, the boost clock may drop under sustained load, contributing to the 49 FPS average.

The GPU’s synthetic benchmark scores support this analysis. In Passmark G3D, it scores 30034, which is high, but its DirectX 12 score is only 138, and DirectX 11 is 269. These are oddly low scores for such a powerful GPU, suggesting driver overhead or architectural inefficiencies in legacy APIs. Greedfall uses DirectX 11, which is a potential bottleneck. The GPU’s Geekbench OpenCL score of 201834 and Vulkan score of 198405 are more representative of its compute capability. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5871 is a modern benchmark that shows strong performance, but it does not translate directly to Greedfall’s older engine.

The GPU’s 24 GB VRAM is a major advantage for future-proofing, but in Greedfall, it is overkill. The game’s textures at 4K Ultra likely fit within 8-10 GB, so the extra capacity does not boost frame rates. The bandwidth of 896.0 GB/s is more relevant; it ensures that texture streaming is not a bottleneck, even at 4K. However, the low boost clock relative to desktop equivalents means the GPU is not always the limiting factor in this game.

FAQ

Q: Is the RTX 5090 Mobile overkill for Greedfall?

A: Yes, in terms of VRAM. The 24 GB GDDR7 is far more than the game requires, and the measured FPS at 4K Ultra (49 FPS) shows the GPU is still challenged by raw rasterization, not memory capacity. The GPU’s percentile of 84 is lower than the CPU’s 95, indicating that the GPU is the primary limit at high resolutions, but not because of VRAM.

Q: Can this combo hit 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Not at Ultra settings. The measured average is 49 FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra. To achieve 60 FPS, you would need to lower settings to High, where the average is 77 FPS. At Low settings, it reaches 108 FPS, showing the GPU has headroom if graphical fidelity is reduced.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 9 8945HX scores 76212 on average, which is nearly identical to the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (76155, 0.1% higher), the AMD EPYC 8224P (76492, 0.4% higher), the Threadripper PRO 9945WX (76513, 0.4% higher), and the Ryzen 9 9950X3D (75779, 0.6% lower). It is effectively a tie among these top-tier chips.

Q: What is the limiting factor at 1080p High?

A: The CPU starts to become the bottleneck. At 1080p High, the combo hits 186 FPS, which is high, but the jump from 1080p Low (261 FPS) to 1080p High (186 FPS) is a 29% drop, indicating that the CPU cannot keep feeding frames as the GPU spends more time on effects. The CPU’s single-thread score of 6030 in Cinebench R23 is strong but not outlier-level for this task.

Q: Is there a significant difference between Medium and High settings at 1440p?

A: Yes. At 2560x1440 Medium, the average is 142 FPS with a minimum of 121 FPS. At High, the average drops to 129 FPS. The difference of 13 FPS is noticeable for competitive play, but both are well above 100 FPS, so it is a matter of visual preference.

Q: Does the combo scale well from 1080p to 4K?

A: The scaling is typical of a GPU-bound scenario. From 1080p High (186 FPS) to 4K High (77 FPS), the frame rate drops to 41.4% of the original. This is a heavy drop, but the 4K High result is still playable. The scaling is steeper at Ultra, where 1080p (119 FPS) drops to 4K (49 FPS), a 58.8% reduction.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of performance across resolutions and settings. All numbers are average FPS unless otherwise noted.

At 1920x1080, the combo is exceptionally fast. Low settings yield 261 FPS, which is likely beyond the refresh rate of most laptop displays. Medium settings produce 205 FPS, with a minimum of 174 FPS and a maximum of 236 FPS. High settings drop to 186 FPS, which is still very smooth. Ultra settings are where the GPU starts to work harder, resulting in 119 FPS. The difference between High and Ultra at 1080p is 67 FPS, showing that Ultra settings introduce significant additional load, likely from higher draw distances and post-processing effects.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains excellent. Low settings hit 181 FPS, which is a 30.7% drop from 1080p Low, showing the GPU is now more involved. Medium settings average 142 FPS (minimum 121, maximum 163), which is a 30.7% drop from 1080p Medium. High settings average 129 FPS, a 30.6% drop from 1080p High. Ultra settings average 82 FPS, a 31.1% drop from 1080p Ultra. The consistency of the percentage drop (around 31%) across all settings at 1440p indicates that the GPU is scaling linearly with resolution, and the CPU is not a significant limiting factor at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the performance drops more sharply. Low settings average 108 FPS, which is a 40.2% drop from 1080p Low. Medium settings average 85 FPS, with a minimum of 72 FPS and a maximum of 98 FPS. High settings average 77 FPS, a 40.3% drop from 1080p High. Ultra settings average 49 FPS, a 58.8% drop from 1080p Ultra. The non-linear drop at Ultra (58.8% vs. ~40% for other settings) suggests that the GPU is hitting a hard limit, likely due to memory bandwidth saturation or shader complexity at the highest settings.

The data shows that the combo is most comfortable at 1080p and 1440p, where it can maintain high refresh rates. At 4K, it is only suitable for High settings if you want 60+ FPS, and Ultra is not playable at 60 FPS, averaging just 49 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the bottleneck characteristics of this combo. Looking at High settings, the frame rates are 186 FPS at 1080p, 129 FPS at 1440p, and 77 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is a 30.6% reduction, and from 1440p to 4K is a 40.3% reduction. This is a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern, where the number of pixels doubles roughly each step, and the frame rate decreases proportionally.

At Medium settings, the scaling is similar: 205 FPS at 1080p, 142 FPS at 1440p (a 30.7% drop), and 85 FPS at 4K (a 40.1% drop from 1440p). The consistency of the ~30% drop for the first step and ~40% drop for the second step across High and Medium settings confirms that the GPU is the primary limiting factor. The CPU has enough headroom to feed the GPU at all resolutions, as evidenced by the high frame rates at 1080p.

However, at Ultra settings, the scaling is different. From 1080p Ultra (119 FPS) to 1440p Ultra (82 FPS), the drop is 31.1%, consistent with other settings. But from 1440p Ultra (82 FPS) to 4K Ultra (49 FPS), the drop is 40.2%, which is larger than the proportional expectation. This suggests that at 4K Ultra, the GPU is running out of compute resources or memory bandwidth, causing a steeper performance cliff. The RTX 5090 Mobile’s 896.0 GB/s bandwidth is high, but the 4K Ultra settings likely include heavy use of volumetric effects and high-resolution shadows that tax the shading units.

The low settings scaling is the most informative for CPU bottleneck analysis. From 1080p Low (261 FPS) to 1440p Low (181 FPS), the drop is 30.7%. From 1440p Low to 4K Low (108 FPS), the drop is 40.3%. These are similar to the High and Medium settings, indicating that even at Low settings, the GPU is still the bottleneck. If the CPU were the limit, we would see a smaller drop at 1080p Low (where the GPU is underutilized) and a larger drop at 4K Low (where the GPU becomes the limit). The data does not show this; the scaling is uniform, meaning the CPU is not holding back the GPU at any resolution, even at 1080p Low with 261 FPS.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Dragon Range. It has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, with a TDP of 55 W. It is built on a 5nm TSMC process and has a total of 64 MB of L3 cache (with 1 MB L2 per core). The CPU’s memory support is DDR5 in a dual-channel configuration, providing 83.2 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Greedfall, the CPU’s role is to maintain a consistent frame rate, particularly at high FPS levels. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42713 and single-core score of 6030 are both excellent. The single-core score is particularly relevant for Greedfall, which is not heavily multithreaded. The Passmark single-thread score of 3907 confirms this strength. The CPU’s percentile of 95 against all CPUs shows it is among the fastest available, which is why it does not bottleneck the GPU at 1080p.

The nearest rival comparisons show that the 8945HX is effectively tied with the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (0.1% difference) and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (0.6% difference) in average benchmark score. This means that in a game like Greedfall, swapping the CPU to a 9950X3D would not yield a significant FPS increase, as the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions. The CPU’s 32 threads are overkill for this title; the game likely uses 4-8 threads, but the high single-core boost clock of 5.40 GHz is what matters most.

The CPU’s integrated Radeon 610M GPU is present, but it is not used for rendering in this combo. The CPU also supports PCIe Gen 5 with 28 lanes, which provides ample bandwidth for the RTX 5090 Mobile’s PCIe 5.0 x16 interface. The memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s is sufficient for the CPU’s needs in this game, as the GPU has its own 896.0 GB/s of VRAM bandwidth.

In terms of thermal and power management, the CPU’s 55 W TDP is low for a 16-core chip, which means it may throttle under sustained all-core loads. However, in Greedfall, the load is typically on fewer cores, so the boost clock can be maintained. The data shows that the CPU is not a bottleneck, as evidenced by the scaling analysis. The combo’s rank of 813 out of 3703 is likely limited by the GPU’s performance at 4K, not the CPU. If the CPU were weaker, the 1080p Low result (261 FPS) would be lower, but it is high, confirming that the CPU has plenty of headroom for this game.