Greedfall

Greedfall, the 2019 Action RPG from Spiders, presents an interesting case study in hardware scaling when paired with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti. The benchmark data shows a system that is clearly capable of high frame rates across the board, yet the relationship between resolution, settings, and the final FPS reveals distinct bottlenecks that shift depending on the workload. The combination ranks 233rd out of 1705 tested configurations, placing it in the top 14% of all system combos for this specific title, a strong indicator of overall competence.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K illustrates a classic GPU-bound progression, but the magnitude of the drop is heavily modulated by the quality settings. At 1080p High, the system produces 208.8 FPS. Moving to 1440p High reduces that to 145.2 FPS, a 30.5% decrease, and then to 4K High, the average falls to 87 FPS, a 58.3% drop from the 1080p baseline. This steep decline indicates that at 4K, the rendering load is significantly stressing the GPU, pulling the frame rate down from the high refresh-rate territory of 1080p to a level that is still smooth but far less extreme.

However, the data becomes more nuanced when evaluating the Low settings. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 288.5 FPS. At 1440p Low, it still manages 201.1 FPS, and even at 4K Low, it retains 123.1 FPS. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K at Low settings is 57.3%, which is remarkably similar to the drop seen at High settings. This consistency suggests that while the absolute frame rates differ greatly, the relative cost of increasing pixel count is proportional, pointing to the GPU as the primary scaling limiter regardless of the graphical fidelity level.

The most telling indicator of the GPU’s dominance in the scaling equation is the performance delta between Low and Ultra at each resolution. At 1080p, the gap between Low (288.5 FPS) and Ultra (130.6 FPS) is a massive 157.9 FPS. This gap narrows to 110.1 FPS at 1440p (201.1 vs 91 FPS) and shrinks further to 66.3 FPS at 4K (123.1 vs 56.8 FPS). The fact that the Ultra setting costs more absolute frames at lower resolutions means the CPU has enough headroom to feed the GPU, but at 4K Ultra, the GPU is so overburdened that the CPU’s superior throughput cannot compensate, resulting in the lowest frame rate of 56.8 FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable with this CPU and GPU combination in Greedfall?

A: The highest recorded average is 288.5 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings.

Q: How does the system perform at the most demanding configuration tested?

A: At 3840x2160 resolution with Ultra settings, the average frame rate drops to 56.8 FPS, which is the lowest figure in the dataset.

Q: Is the performance gap between Low and Ultra settings consistent across all resolutions?

A: No, the absolute difference in FPS between Low and Ultra narrows as resolution increases. The gap is 157.9 FPS at 1080p, 110.1 FPS at 1440p, and 66.3 FPS at 4K.

Q: How does the Ryzen 9 9900X compare to its closest rival in general benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 9 9900X has an average benchmark score that is 0.7% higher than the Intel Core i7-14700F, but it is 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D.

Q: What is the performance percentile of the RTX 4070 Ti relative to all other GPUs?

A: The GPU sits in the 85th percentile, indicating it outperforms the majority of graphics cards in the database.

Q: What is the difference in average benchmark scores between the RTX 4070 Ti and its closest rival, the RTX 5090 Mobile?

A: The RTX 4070 Ti has an average score that is 0.6% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile, making the performance nearly identical.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a 12-core, 24-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, running on the AMD Socket AM5 platform. With a base clock of 4.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, it provides substantial single-thread and multi-threaded capabilities. In synthetic benchmarks, its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 46438 and single-core score of 6555 demonstrate a high level of processing power. The data suggests this CPU is rarely the limiting factor in Greedfall, as even the lowest average frame rate of 56.8 FPS at 4K Ultra is likely well above what would indicate a CPU bottleneck.

The processor’s 64 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR5 memory further bolster its performance. Its 3dmark scores show a clear scaling pattern from 2519 in the 2-thread test to 13929 in the max-thread test, indicating that the CPU can effectively utilize its multiple cores. However, in this game, the GPU’s workload dominates the frame rate equation. The fact that at 1080p Low, the system hits 288.5 FPS, suggests the CPU can handle the game’s logic and draw calls at very high speeds, but the GPU still manages to become the limiting factor before the CPU’s headroom is exhausted.

The Ryzen 9 9900X’s performance is ranked in the 94th percentile against all CPUs, and its average benchmark score of 54450 places it in a tight cluster with its nearest rivals. It is 0.4% slower than the Ryzen 9 9900X3D but 0.7% faster than the Intel Core i7-14700F. This indicates that, from a pure processing standpoint, it is a top-tier part. In the context of Greedfall, this means the CPU provides a stable and high-performance foundation, allowing the RTX 4070 Ti to operate at its full potential without being held back by processor limitations.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete matrix of performance across three resolutions and four quality presets. At 1920x1080, the system is exceptionally fast. Low settings deliver 288.5 FPS, Medium drops to 228.2 FPS, High yields 208.8 FPS, and Ultra still manages a very playable 130.6 FPS. This resolution is clearly where the combination excels, with all settings producing frame rates well above the standard 60 FPS threshold and most exceeding 144 Hz refresh rates.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but begins to show the GPU’s workload. Low settings produce 201.1 FPS, Medium 162 FPS, and High 145.2 FPS. The Ultra preset, however, drops significantly to 91 FPS. This is a 42.4% reduction from the 1440p High result, showing that the Ultra preset’s additional effects are particularly taxing on the GPU at this resolution. The 1440p results are still excellent for high-refresh-rate gaming, with High settings maintaining a frame rate that would satisfy users with 144Hz monitors.

At 3840x2160, the system is pushed to its limits. Low settings yield 123.1 FPS, Medium 94.7 FPS, and High 87 FPS. The Ultra preset falls to 56.8 FPS. This is the only configuration in the dataset that dips below the 60 FPS mark. The progression from Low to Ultra at 4K shows a consistent decline, but the step from High to Ultra is particularly steep, representing a 34.7% performance hit. This data suggests that users targeting 4K should stick to High settings for a smooth experience, as the jump to Ultra costs significant performance for diminishing visual returns.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is a high-end graphics card built on the Ada Lovelace architecture. It features 7680 shading units, 240 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, along with 60 RT cores and 240 Tensor cores. The GPU has a base clock of 2310 MHz and a boost clock of 2610 MHz. Its 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. This substantial memory bandwidth is crucial for high-resolution textures and explains why the card maintains playable frame rates at 4K on lower settings.

The GPU’s benchmark scores reinforce its position in the market. It has a Passmark G3D score of 31624 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 205028, placing it in the 85th percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 44900 is almost identical to its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile, which is only 0.6% faster. This near parity in synthetic tests, however, does not fully translate to Greedfall, where the card’s performance is heavily influenced by the settings and resolution.

The RTX 4070 Ti’s role in this pairing is clearly the dominant factor in determining frame rates, particularly at higher resolutions and settings. The data shows that the card is powerful enough to drive high refresh rates at 1080p and 1440p with most settings, but the transition to 4K Ultra exposes its limits. The 56.8 FPS average at 4K Ultra indicates that the GPU is the bottleneck, as the CPU is unlikely to be limiting at that frame rate. The card’s 40.09 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 208.8 GPixel/s pixel rate are substantial, but the demands of Greedfall at 4K Ultra exceed its capabilities, resulting in a sub-60 FPS experience.