Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload that stresses both modern processors and graphics cards. This analysis examines the measured performance of the Intel Core i5-12400 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9070 across a range of settings and resolutions. The data provides a clear picture of the balance between CPU and GPU capabilities, and how users should configure the game for an optimal experience. The results show a configuration that is well-suited for high-refresh-rate 1440p gaming, but which requires careful settings management to achieve smooth 4K performance.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates across the four presets reveal a significant performance hierarchy. At 1080p, the Ultra preset delivers 108.8 FPS, which is excellent for most displays. However, the step down to High yields a substantial gain to 170.2 FPS, a 56.4% increase. The Medium preset provides 186.5 FPS, and the Low preset reaches 234.5 FPS. Given that the visual difference between High and Ultra in many games is often subtle, the data strongly suggests that the High preset is the optimal choice for 1080p, offering a massive performance headroom over Ultra without a significant visual compromise.

Moving to 1440p, the trend continues. The Ultra preset drops to 72.7 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. The High preset jumps to 117.1 FPS, a 61.1% improvement over Ultra. This makes High the clear recommendation for 1440p, as it comfortably exceeds the 60 FPS threshold and approaches the 120 FPS mark that many gamers target. The Medium preset offers 127.4 FPS, but the gain over High is only 8.8%, making High the better balance of quality and speed. The Low preset at 161.9 FPS is unnecessary for most users at this resolution.

At 4K, the situation becomes more demanding. The Ultra preset produces 41.4 FPS, which is below the standard for smooth gameplay. The High preset recovers to 69.1 FPS, delivering a playable experience. The Medium preset offers 75.3 FPS, and the Low preset reaches 94.8 FPS. For 4K, the High preset appears to be the sweet spot, providing a playable frame rate while maintaining a level of visual fidelity appropriate for the resolution. The data indicates that the High preset is the most efficient choice across all three resolutions, offering the best balance between visual quality and performance. The Ultra preset incurs a steep performance cost, while the lower presets yield diminishing returns in playability.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is the primary driver of frame rates in Greedfall, as evidenced by the performance scaling with resolution. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s. This large memory pool is ample for Greedfall's textures and assets at any resolution, ensuring that memory capacity is not a bottleneck. The GPU's architecture is RDNA 4.0, built on a 4 nm process, with a boost clock of 2520 MHz and a game clock of 2070 MHz.

The GPU's compute power is substantial, with 3584 shading units and a FP32 performance of 36.13 TFLOPS. This raw throughput is what allows the card to push high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p. The benchmark results show the RX 9070's strength in the PassMark G3D test, where it scores 25381. In the context of its nearest rivals, the GPU's average benchmark score of 34780 places it just 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA Quadro GV100 and 0.8% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO W6400. This indicates that the RX 9070 is a high-performance part, situated at the 79th percentile of all GPUs.

The performance data from Greedfall highlights the GPU's scaling. At 4K, the frame rates drop significantly compared to 1440p, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor at that resolution. The difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 4K is 53.4 FPS, showing that the graphical settings have a profound impact on the GPU's workload. This is typical for a game of this era, where higher resolutions and settings place an increasing burden on the graphics card. The RX 9070 handles the load well, but the Ultra preset at 4K proves to be too demanding for a consistent 60 FPS experience.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 serves as the central processor, providing 6 cores and 12 threads based on the Alder Lake architecture. Its base clock is 2.50 GHz, which can boost up to 4.40 GHz. The processor has 18 MB of shared L3 cache and supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory. In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-12400 achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15935 and a single-core score of 2249, demonstrating solid multi-threaded and single-threaded performance. Its PassMark single-thread score is 3456.

The CPU's role in Greedfall is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The benchmark data suggests that the i5-12400 is more than capable of keeping up with the RX 9070 at 1080p and 1440p, as the frame rates scale consistently with resolution. However, it is important to note the CPU's relative performance. Its average benchmark score of 19850 places it at the 77th percentile of all CPUs. The nearest rival data shows it is 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-9700 and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Core i5-11600K, but 0.2% behind the Intel Core i7-8700. This indicates that the i5-12400 is a solid mid-range performer, but not a top-tier part.

In Greedfall, the CPU's performance is likely not the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial, which is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario. At 1080p with the Low preset, the CPU must work harder to generate the high frame rate of 234.5 FPS. The fact that it can achieve this suggests the 6-core, 12-thread configuration is sufficient for the game's engine. The CPU's 3DMark multi-thread score of 5890 further confirms its ability to handle multi-threaded workloads, which is beneficial for the game's background simulation and AI processing.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-12400 and AMD Radeon RX 9070 has a measured rank of 567 out of 1705 tested combos in Greedfall. This places the pairing in the top third of all configurations tested, indicating a strong overall performance level. The rank reflects the balance between the CPU's mid-range compute capabilities and the GPU's high-end rendering power. This particular pairing is not at the very top, but it is firmly in the upper echelon, offering a high level of performance for a desktop system.

The ranking suggests that while the GPU is powerful, the CPU's performance is a slight limiting factor in achieving the absolute highest frame rates. The i5-12400's performance, while excellent for its class, does not match the raw horsepower of the RX 9070. This is evident in the 1080p Low preset results, where the frame rate of 234.5 FPS is high but not at the extreme levels that a top-tier CPU might enable. However, in a game like Greedfall, which is not heavily CPU-dependent at standard settings, the combo performs admirably. The rank of 567 out of 1705 is a strong indicator that users can expect a very good experience with this hardware combination.

The performance relative to other combos is also reflected in the component-level benchmarks. The GPU's 79th percentile ranking is higher than the CPU's 77th percentile, suggesting that the GPU is the more dominant component in this pairing. This is typical for a gaming-focused system, where the graphics card often plays the more critical role in determining frame rates. The combo's rank in the 567th position out of 1705 is a direct result of this dynamic, with the GPU providing the high performance and the CPU supporting it well enough to avoid being a major bottleneck.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent trend as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. At the High preset, the frame rate drops from 170.2 FPS at 1080p to 117.1 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 69.1 FPS at 4K. This represents a 31.2% decrease from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 41.0% decrease from 1440p to 4K. The total drop from 1080p to 4K is 59.4%, indicating that the rendering resolution has a massive impact on performance.

This scaling pattern is indicative of a system that is heavily GPU-bound. As the resolution increases, the number of pixels the GPU must render grows exponentially, putting a greater strain on the graphics card. The CPU's workload does not increase to the same degree, as the game's logic and draw calls remain the same. The fact that the frame rate drops so dramatically with resolution confirms that the AMD Radeon RX 9070 is the primary performance limiter in this configuration at higher resolutions.

The limiting component shifts with resolution. At 1080p, the frame rates are very high, particularly on the Low preset at 234.5 FPS. This suggests that while the GPU is still the main worker, the CPU's ability to issue draw calls could become a factor at such high frame rates. However, at 4K, the GPU's workload is so immense that the CPU's role is diminished. The difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 4K is 53.4 FPS, while at 1080p, this difference is 125.7 FPS. This shows that at lower resolutions, the CPU has more headroom to influence performance, but at 4K, the GPU is the sole bottleneck. The data firmly establishes the GPU as the dominant limiting component, with the CPU providing sufficient support to avoid being a significant constraint.