Greedfall

Greedfall, the 2019 Action RPG from Spiders, presents a fascinating case study in system bottlenecking when paired with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT. The measured FPS data reveals a configuration that is heavily constrained by the graphics card at higher resolutions, yet demonstrates remarkable headroom at 1080p. The benchmark results show a clear delineation between GPU-bound and CPU-bound scenarios, with the Ryzen 9 9900X’s substantial processing power only becoming a limiting factor at the lowest settings and resolutions.

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

The scaling pattern across resolutions is decidedly non-linear, which provides strong evidence about which component is driving performance. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 106.9 at 1920x1080 to 75.7 at 2560x1440, a reduction of approximately 29%. Moving further to 3840x2160, the average plummets to 46.1, representing a 57% decline from the 1080p baseline. This steep degradation as pixel count increases is the classic signature of a GPU-bound workload.

The data becomes even more telling when examining the Low settings preset. At 1920x1080 Low, the system achieves 150.5 FPS, but this drops to 107.3 at 2560x1440 and then to 61.3 at 3840x2160. The fact that the 4K Low result is still 31% higher than the 4K High result suggests the RX 6600 XT is the primary constraint, as reducing graphical fidelity directly translates into higher frame rates even at the highest pixel counts.

What is particularly revealing is the comparison between the 1440p and 4K results. The gap between 2560x1440 High (75.7 FPS) and 3840x2160 High (46.1 FPS) is a 39% drop, which is proportionally larger than the 54% pixel count increase. This disproportionate scaling indicates that the GPU’s memory bandwidth and compute resources are being saturated at 4K. The Ryzen 9 9900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, is clearly not the limiting factor in these scenarios, as the frame rate scales almost entirely with the graphics workload.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

This specific pairing of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X with the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT sits at rank 1247 out of 1705 tested combinations in Greedfall. This places the combo in the 27th percentile of all tested systems, which is a surprisingly low standing given the strength of the CPU. The data suggests that the RX 6600 XT is holding the configuration back substantially in this title.

The CPU itself compares favorably to its immediate rivals in synthetic benchmarks, with an average benchmark score of 54450. The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D scores 54681, a delta of -0.4%, placing the two AMD chips essentially on par. The Intel Core i7-14700F is 0.7% behind with a score of 54097, while the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K and 245KF are 1.5% and 1.8% ahead, respectively. This indicates that the CPU is not the weak link in this combination.

Conversely, the GPU’s standing in its own benchmark pool is mediocre. The RX 6600 XT has an average benchmark score of 27985, and its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (0.1% ahead) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (0.9% behind). The fact that the combo ranks at 1247 out of 1705, despite having a top-tier CPU in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, strongly implies that the graphics card is the bottleneck, dragging the entire system’s in-game rank down to a mid-tier position.

FAQ

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X bottlenecking the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT in Greedfall?

A: No, the benchmark data indicates the opposite. The CPU is in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, and its performance is within 1.8% of its nearest rivals. The frame rate scaling with resolution changes indicates a GPU bottleneck, not a CPU one.

Q: What is the best resolution to play Greedfall with this hardware combination?

A: According to the data, 1920x1080 is the most comfortable resolution, delivering 106.9 FPS at High settings and 150.5 FPS at Low. The 2560x1440 resolution is also playable with 75.7 FPS at High, but 3840x2160 dips below 60 FPS at High settings.

Q: How does the RX 6600 XT compare to the RTX 3070 in this context?

A: The RX 6600 XT has an average benchmark score of 27985, which is 0.9% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070’s score of 28238. This means the RTX 3070 is marginally faster on average, but in Greedfall, the RX 6600 XT’s 8 GB VRAM and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are the key factors.

Q: Does increasing graphical settings from Low to Ultra have a linear impact on performance?

A: No, the impact is highly non-linear. At 1080p, the drop from Low (150.5 FPS) to Ultra (70.2 FPS) is a 53% reduction. At 4K, the drop from Low (61.3 FPS) to Ultra (28.6 FPS) is a 53% reduction as well, showing consistent scaling but with severe absolute penalties at the highest settings.

Q: What is the combo’s overall ranking among all tested systems?

A: The combination of AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT ranks at position 1247 out of 1705 tested combos in Greedfall. This places it in the lower third of all systems tested, primarily due to the GPU’s limitations.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 9900X’s performance significantly different from the Ryzen 9 9900X3D?

A: In synthetic benchmarks, the difference is minimal. The 9900X scores 54450, while the 9900X3D scores 54681, a delta of only -0.4%. This suggests that in Greedfall, the CPU is not the differentiating factor.

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

At 1920x1080, the RX 6600 XT delivers its strongest performance. The Low preset achieves an average of 150.5 FPS, which drops to 119.5 FPS at Medium, 106.9 FPS at High, and 70.2 FPS at Ultra. This represents a 53% reduction from the lowest to the highest settings, showing that even at 1080p, the GPU is heavily taxed by the Ultra preset.

Moving to 2560x1440, the average frame rates are 107.3 FPS at Low, 81.5 FPS at Medium, 75.7 FPS at High, and 50.9 FPS at Ultra. The drop from Low to Ultra is 52.5%, a similar proportional reduction to 1080p. Notably, the High preset at 1440p is only 29% slower than High at 1080p, which is less than the 77% increase in pixel count, suggesting some CPU headroom is being utilized at the lower resolution.

At 3840x2160, performance becomes marginal. The Low preset yields 61.3 FPS, which is the only 4K setting that clears the 60 FPS threshold. Medium drops to 46.6 FPS, High to 46.1 FPS, and Ultra plummets to 28.6 FPS. The similarity between the Medium and High results at 4K (46.6 vs 46.1 FPS) is striking, suggesting that the GPU is so saturated that the extra graphical features in High are not costing additional performance because the renderer is already at its limit.

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

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 23 chip, featuring 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus. The memory clock is listed at 2000 MHz, with 16 Gbps effective, providing a bandwidth of 256.0 GB/s. The GPU has a base clock of 1968 MHz, a game clock of 2359 MHz, and a boost clock of 2589 MHz, with 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs.

The 8 GB VRAM capacity is a critical factor in Greedfall’s performance. At 4K Ultra, the game’s texture and geometry demands likely exceed the available memory, causing the frame rate to crash to 28.6 FPS. The 128-bit memory bus and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are also modest, which explains the steep performance drop when moving from 1440p to 4K. The pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s and texture rate of 331.4 GTexel/s are the physical limits being hit at the higher resolutions.

The GPU’s percentile ranking of 71 places it above the median but far from top-tier. Its average benchmark score of 27985 is nearly identical to the GTX 980 Ti, which is a much older card. This suggests that while the RX 6600 XT has modern features like DirectX 12 Ultimate and Vulkan 1.4, its raw rasterization performance is the limiting factor in this game, particularly at resolutions above 1080p.

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

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), with a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz. It has 64 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. The CPU’s single-thread performance is strong, as evidenced by its 3dmark single-thread score of 1286 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6555.

In Greedfall, the CPU’s role appears to be secondary to the GPU. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 150.5 FPS, which is the highest score in the dataset. This likely represents a point where the CPU is still able to feed the GPU adequately. The fact that the 1080p Low result is 40% higher than the 1440p Low result (107.3 FPS) indicates that the GPU is the primary limiter, since the CPU workload does not change with resolution.

The CPU’s 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs, combined with its negligible delta against rivals like the Ryzen 9 9900X3D (-0.4%), confirms that the 9900X is not the bottleneck in this pairing. Its multicore performance, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 46438, is more than sufficient for Greedfall’s demands, which are likely single-thread or lightly-threaded. The data implies that a less powerful CPU could deliver similar frame rates in this specific game when paired with the same GPU.

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

The measured data suggests that the High preset at 1920x1080 provides the most balanced experience. At 106.9 FPS, it offers a frame rate that is 10% lower than Medium (119.5 FPS) but delivers substantially better visual quality. The Low preset at 150.5 FPS is unnecessarily fast, as the visual compromises are likely significant.

For users with 2560x1440 displays, the High preset at 75.7 FPS is the recommended choice. It remains comfortably above 60 FPS and is only 6.7% slower than the Medium preset (81.5 FPS), making it the sweet spot for visual fidelity and performance. The Ultra preset at 50.9 FPS is playable but drops below the 60 FPS threshold, which may be a concern for smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the data indicates that the Low preset at 61.3 FPS is the only viable option for maintaining a 60 FPS experience. The Medium preset at 46.6 FPS and High at 46.1 FPS are nearly identical in performance, suggesting that the GPU is so constrained that the additional settings have minimal impact. The Ultra preset at 28.6 FPS is not recommended, as it falls below playable thresholds for most users. The recommendation is to stick with 1080p or 1440p with the High preset, as these offer the best combination of visual quality and frame rate stability.