Greedfall

# Greedfall Performance Analysis: Intel Core i5-11400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060

This combination of the 6-core Intel Core i5-11400F and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 delivers a playable but not exceptional experience in Greedfall, ranking 1415th out of 1705 tested combos. That places this pairing in the lower tier of capable configurations, with roughly 83% of tested systems outperforming it. The data suggests this is a mid-range pairing that can handle the game at 1080p comfortably but struggles as resolution climbs, particularly with demanding preset levels.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 1415 out of 1705 tested configurations places it in the bottom 17% of systems for Greedfall. This is a surprisingly low position given the individual component benchmarks. The RTX 2060 sits at the 58th percentile among all GPUs, while the i5-11400F achieves the 75th percentile among all CPUs. The GPU's nearest rivals show it trading blows with the AMD Radeon RX 7600S (0.5% faster) and the AMD Radeon Pro 5700 (1.7% slower), indicating the graphics card is competitive within its class. However, the combination's performance in this specific title suggests Greedfall's engine places demands that this pairing handles poorly relative to other hardware configurations.

The CPU portion shows the i5-11400F performing nearly identically to the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (0% delta) and Intel Core i7-1260P (0.2% behind), meaning the processor is not the bottleneck in most scenarios. The low combo rank likely stems from the GPU's age and the game's optimization patterns, which appear to favor more recent graphics architectures. The RTX 2060's 6 GB VRAM and 192-bit memory bus may be limiting factors in this Action RPG, as the game's open-world environments and combat effects demand substantial memory bandwidth.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a clear sweet spot at Medium settings across all resolutions. At 1080p Medium, the combo delivers 107.6 FPS, which is 10 FPS higher than High settings and 41.5 FPS higher than Ultra. The jump from Low to Medium costs only 29.2 FPS at 1080p (from 136.8 to 107.6), while the jump from Medium to High costs 10.1 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs 31.6 FPS. This non-linear scaling suggests Medium provides the best balance between visual quality and performance headroom.

At 1440p, Medium delivers 75.4 FPS, which remains comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. High settings at 1440p drop to 69.7 FPS, still playable but with less margin. The story changes at 4K, where Medium manages 43.4 FPS and High falls to 39.1 FPS — both below the 60 FPS target. For players prioritizing smoothness, Medium is the recommended preset, as it maintains playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p while offering better visual fidelity than Low.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a GPU-bound configuration. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 97.7 at 1080p to 69.7 at 1440p (a 28.7% reduction) and further to 39.1 at 4K (a 60% reduction from 1080p). This steep decline indicates the RTX 2060 is the limiting component, as the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads provide ample processing power for the game's AI and physics at lower resolutions.

Interestingly, the scaling pattern changes with settings. At Low settings, the drop from 1080p (136.8 FPS) to 1440p (95.9 FPS) is 29.9%, while the drop from 1440p to 4K (58 FPS) is 39.5%. This suggests that even at Low settings, the GPU becomes increasingly strained at higher resolutions, but the CPU still has headroom — the i5-11400F's boost clock of 4.40 GHz and 12 MB of L3 cache can keep feeding frames until the GPU reaches its pixel throughput limits.

The 4K results are telling: even at Low settings, the combo only achieves 58 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target. This indicates that 4K gaming is not viable with this pairing, regardless of settings. The RTX 2060's 336.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 6 GB VRAM are insufficient for the texture and shading demands at 3840x2160 resolution.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Greedfall at 60 FPS at 1080p?

A: Yes, at all settings except Ultra. The measured average FPS at 1080p is 136.8 on Low, 107.6 on Medium, and 97.7 on High, all well above 60 FPS. Ultra drops to 66.1 FPS, which is still above 60 but with minimal headroom.

Q: What is the best resolution for this pairing?

A: 1440p is viable at Medium settings (75.4 FPS) and High settings (69.7 FPS), but 4K is not recommended, as even Low settings only achieve 58 FPS. For the smoothest experience, 1080p with Medium or High settings provides the best balance.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 compare to its nearest rivals in this game?

A: The RTX 2060 performs within 1.8% of its closest competitors. The AMD Radeon RX 7600S is 0.5% faster, the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M is 1.7% faster, and the AMD Radeon Pro W5500 is 1.8% slower. This indicates the GPU is competitively positioned within its performance class.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 4K?

A: The GPU is clearly the bottleneck at 4K. The FPS drops from 97.7 at 1080p High to 39.1 at 4K High, a 60% reduction. The CPU's strong single-thread performance (868 in 3DMark single-thread) and multi-thread capabilities (5652 in 3DMark max threads) are sufficient, but the RTX 2060 cannot sustain the pixel workload.

Q: What is the FPS difference between Low and Ultra settings?

A: At 1080p, the difference is 70.7 FPS (136.8 vs 66.1). At 1440p, the difference is 54.3 FPS (95.9 vs 41.6). At 4K, the difference is 30.2 FPS (58 vs 27.8). The gap narrows as resolution increases because the GPU becomes the limiting factor.

Q: Does the i5-11400F hold back the RTX 2060?

A: The data suggests no — the CPU performs within 0.2% of its nearest rivals (AMD Ryzen 7 5700U and Intel Core i7-1260P). The 6-core, 12-thread configuration with a 4.40 GHz boost clock provides adequate processing power for this game, as evidenced by the strong FPS at 1080p Low (136.8 FPS).

GPU Role

The RTX 2060's Turing architecture with 1920 shading units and 48 ROPs delivers a pixel rate of 80.64 GPixel/s, which explains the performance cliff at 4K. The GPU's 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 336.0 GB/s bandwidth, but this proves insufficient for Greedfall's high-resolution textures. The memory clock runs at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective), which is standard for this class but cannot overcome the capacity and bandwidth constraints at higher resolutions.

The GPU's FP32 performance of 6.451 TFLOPS and texture rate of 201.6 GTexel/s position it as a capable 1080p performer. The 4K Ultra result of 27.8 FPS demonstrates that the card's 48 ROPs cannot handle the fill-rate demands of the game's most demanding preset at that resolution. The 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores present in this Turing GPU are not directly leveraged by Greedfall, which launched in 2019 before widespread ray tracing adoption, meaning these specialized units go unused while the traditional rasterization pipeline carries the load.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F's Rocket Lake architecture provides 6 cores and 12 threads with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz. This configuration delivers strong single-threaded performance, as evidenced by the 3DMark single-thread score of 868 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2029. The 12 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth ensure the CPU can feed the GPU without becoming a bottleneck.

The CPU's 14 nm process and 65 W TDP make it an efficient choice, but its age is showing in the 75th percentile ranking among all CPUs. The PassMark multi-thread score of 16908 and Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14372 indicate solid multi-threaded capabilities for game logic and physics. However, the data shows that even at 1080p Low (136.8 FPS), the CPU is not the limiting factor — the GPU is. This suggests that upgrading the graphics card would yield greater performance gains in Greedfall than upgrading the processor.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results. Low settings achieve 136.8 FPS average, Medium 107.6 FPS, High 97.7 FPS, and Ultra 66.1 FPS. All four presets remain above 60 FPS, making 1080p the only resolution where Ultra settings are viable, albeit with just 6.1 FPS of headroom above the 60 FPS target.

Moving to 2560x1440, performance drops significantly. Low settings produce 95.9 FPS, Medium 75.4 FPS, High 69.7 FPS, and Ultra 41.6 FPS. The Ultra preset falls below 60 FPS, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay. Medium and High remain playable, but the margins are thinner than at 1080p.

At 3840x2160, the RTX 2060 struggles across all presets. Low settings achieve 58 FPS, Medium 43.4 FPS, High 39.1 FPS, and Ultra 27.8 FPS. Even the lowest settings fail to reach 60 FPS, confirming that 4K gaming is beyond this GPU's capabilities. The 30.2 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 4K is the smallest of any resolution, indicating that the GPU's rendering limits dominate regardless of quality settings.