Greedfall

Greedfall, the 2019 Action RPG, is a demanding title that scales significantly with hardware. The pairing of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 delivers a broad spectrum of performance across resolutions and presets. The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy of playability, with the choice of settings determining whether the experience is capped by the display's refresh rate or the game's engine limits.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results indicate that the High preset provides the most balanced experience across all three tested resolutions. At 1920x1080, High settings produce an average of 226 FPS, which is a substantial 81 FPS higher than the Ultra preset's 145 FPS. This gap widens at 2560x1440, where High averages 157 FPS compared to Ultra's 100 FPS, and at 3840x2160, High achieves 94 FPS while Ultra drops to 60 FPS. The data suggests that the jump from High to Ultra incurs a disproportionate performance cost for what is typically a marginal visual improvement in this title.

For users with high-refresh-rate 1080p displays, the Medium preset at 249 FPS is the optimal choice, as it offers a 23 FPS advantage over High while remaining visually acceptable. The Medium preset also shows the only recorded minimum FPS values in the dataset, with a 212 FPS floor at 1080p, a 147 FPS floor at 1440p, and an 88 FPS floor at 4K. These minimums demonstrate that Medium maintains consistent frame pacing, which is crucial for action combat.

The Ultra preset is only recommended for 4K displays with standard 60Hz refresh rates, as it hits exactly 60 FPS average at that resolution. At 1440p, the 100 FPS average on Ultra is playable but leaves performance on the table compared to High's 157 FPS. The Low preset, while delivering the highest frame rates (318 FPS at 1080p, 220 FPS at 1440p, 131 FPS at 4K), is not recommended for this hardware combination, as it suggests the system is severely underutilized. The data shows that Low settings at 1080p produce 318 FPS, which exceeds the refresh rate capabilities of virtually all consumer displays, indicating an unnecessary compromise in visual fidelity.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 plays a dominant role in Greedfall's performance profile, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling across resolutions. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is sufficient for the game's assets at 4K, as the High preset maintains a 94 FPS average without any reported stuttering or frame drops. The GPU's boost clock of 2505 MHz, built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with 9728 shading units, demonstrates strong raw throughput.

The RTX 4080's 76 RT cores and 304 tensor cores are present, though Greedfall's implementation of ray tracing is not measured in this dataset. The GPU's FP32 performance of 48.74 TFLOPS indicates substantial compute capability, which translates directly to the high fill rates observed. The 112 ROPs and 304 TMUs work in concert to deliver the pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s, which are the key specifications driving Greedfall's traditional rasterization workload.

The GPU's benchmark percentile of 86 versus all GPUs places it in the upper echelon, with an average benchmark score of 54247. Its closest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, scores only 0.1% higher, indicating that this card is at the very peak of its performance class. The RTX 4080's predecessor, the GeForce 30 series, is a clear step below, while its successor, the GeForce 50 series, has not been tested in this configuration. The data shows that the GPU is the primary scaling factor, as the CPU's 3DMark max threads score of 13795 and Cinebench R23 multicore score of 47737 are more than sufficient to feed the GPU at all settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU/GPU combo in Greedfall?

A: The data indicates that 2560x1440 on High settings provides the ideal balance, with a 157 FPS average. This resolution takes advantage of the RTX 4080's capabilities without pushing the GPU to its limits, as evidenced by the 4K High preset's 94 FPS average. The 1440p result sits comfortably above 144Hz refresh rates, making it suitable for high-refresh displays.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from Low to Ultra settings?

A: At 1920x1080, the drop from Low to Ultra is 173 FPS, from 318 FPS down to 145 FPS. At 2560x1440, the drop is 120 FPS (220 to 100), and at 3840x2160, the drop is 71 FPS (131 to 60). The percentage reduction is consistent across resolutions, with Ultra delivering roughly 46% of Low's performance at 1080p, 45% at 1440p, and 46% at 4K.

Q: Does this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K?

A: Yes, but only on the High preset, which averages 94 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K averages 103 FPS with a minimum of 88 FPS, while Ultra averages exactly 60 FPS. The Low preset at 4K averages 131 FPS, demonstrating that even at 4K, the system has headroom above the 60 FPS threshold for all presets except Ultra.

Q: Is the Ryzen 9 9900X3D a bottleneck in this game?

A: The benchmark data suggests the CPU is not a limiting factor. The CPU's passmark single-thread score of 4646 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 6739 indicate strong per-core performance. The frame rates scale linearly with resolution and settings, which is characteristic of GPU-bound scenarios. The CPU's 128 MB of L3 cache and 12 cores with 24 threads provide ample processing headroom.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its direct successor in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080 SUPER, which is the closest rival, scores 54209 compared to the RTX 4080's 54247, a delta of only 0.1% in favor of the 4080. This effectively puts the two cards at performance parity in aggregate benchmarks. The RTX 4080's percentile of 86 places it well above the median GPU.

Q: What are the minimum FPS values recorded?

A: Minimum FPS data is only available for the Medium preset. At 1920x1080, the minimum is 212 FPS with a maximum of 287 FPS. At 2560x1440, the minimum is 147 FPS with a maximum of 199 FPS. At 3840x2160, the minimum is 88 FPS with a maximum of 119 FPS. These figures show that Medium maintains frame times that are consistently above playable thresholds.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 254th out of 3703 tested combos in Greedfall, placing it in the top 6.9% of all configurations. This rank is impressive given the game's release date of September 2019, as newer hardware naturally enjoys advantages in this title. The CPU's percentile of 91 versus all CPUs and the GPU's percentile of 86 versus all GPUs combine to create a system that sits near the top of the performance distribution.

The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 5 245KF, which scores 0.6% lower, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245K, which scores 1.3% higher. The Intel Xeon 6505P and Intel Core i7-14700F score 2% and 2.1% higher, respectively. These small deltas indicate that the 9900X3D is positioned in a tightly contested performance bracket. The GPU's nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, is effectively identical in performance, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X scores 1.1% higher and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB scores 2.6% higher.

The combo rank of 254 suggests that there are 253 configurations that outperform this pairing in Greedfall, likely consisting of higher-tier GPUs or CPUs with stronger gaming optimizations. However, given that the RTX 4080 is marked as end-of-life and the CPU is a current-generation part, this rank reflects a mature, well-balanced system. The 3703 total combos tested provide a comprehensive baseline, and this pairing's position in the top 7% demonstrates exceptional performance for a single-GPU setup.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a predominantly GPU-limited scenario. At High settings, the transition from 1080p to 1440p results in a 69 FPS drop (226 to 157), a 30.5% reduction. Moving from 1440p to 4K causes a 63 FPS drop (157 to 94), a 40.1% reduction. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 132 FPS, representing a 58.4% decrease. This scaling pattern is consistent with a GPU that is being progressively more stressed as pixel count increases.

At Low settings, the scaling is more dramatic: 318 FPS at 1080p drops to 220 FPS at 1440p (a 30.8% decrease) and then to 131 FPS at 4K (a 40.5% decrease from 1440p). This steeper drop at Low settings confirms that the GPU is the limiting component, as the CPU has more headroom to work with when the GPU's workload is reduced. The Medium preset shows a similar trend: 249 to 173 to 103 FPS, with percentage drops of 30.5% and 40.5% respectively.

The Ultra preset exhibits the largest relative scaling, dropping from 145 FPS at 1080p to 100 FPS at 1440p (31% decrease) and then to 60 FPS at 4K (40% decrease). The consistent pattern of roughly 30% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and 40% reduction from 1440p to 4K across all settings indicates that the RTX 4080's 16 GB memory buffer and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth are being fully utilized at higher resolutions. The fact that the 4K Ultra result hits exactly 60 FPS suggests that the game engine or driver may be enforcing a frame rate cap at this configuration.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. The Low preset averages 318 FPS, which is the highest recorded value in the entire dataset. Medium averages 249 FPS with a minimum of 212 FPS and a maximum of 287 FPS. High averages 226 FPS, while Ultra drops significantly to 145 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 173 FPS, demonstrating that Greedfall's Ultra preset imposes a substantial performance penalty at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down predictably. Low averages 220 FPS, Medium averages 173 FPS (min 147, max 199), High averages 157 FPS, and Ultra averages 100 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra is 120 FPS. This resolution represents the sweet spot for the RTX 4080, as the frame rates remain high enough for competitive play while the visual quality benefits from the increased pixel density.

At 3840x2160, the system maintains playable performance across all presets. Low averages 131 FPS, Medium averages 103 FPS (min 88, max 119), High averages 94 FPS, and Ultra averages exactly 60 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra is 71 FPS. The 4K results show that the RTX 4080's 16 GB of VRAM is sufficient for the game's textures at this resolution, as there are no reported stutters or frame drops outside the Medium preset's recorded minimums. The 88 FPS minimum at 4K Medium is notably robust, indicating that the memory subsystem handles the increased resolution without issues.