Greedfall

Settings Recommendations

For Greedfall, the measured data across three resolutions and four quality presets reveals a clear pattern: the High preset delivers the most balanced experience for this combination of Intel Core i5-13400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. At 1920x1080, High produces an average of 192.7 FPS, which is 67.9 FPS below Low but still far above display refresh-rate thresholds for most monitors. At 2560x1440, High averages 132.6 FPS, maintaining a smooth experience that comfortably exceeds 120 FPS. Even at 3840x2160, High holds at 81.8 FPS, which remains playable on standard 60 Hz displays and approaches high-refresh territory.

The Ultra preset, by contrast, imposes a severe performance penalty that is difficult to justify. At 3840x2160, Ultra drops to 49.4 FPS — a 32.4 FPS reduction compared to High, representing a 39.6% loss in average frame rate. At 2560x1440, Ultra falls to 85 FPS, a 47.6 FPS drop from High. The gap narrows at 1080p, where Ultra still manages 124.8 FPS, but the visual uplift from High to Ultra in a 2019 Action RPG rarely compensates for such a substantial throughput reduction.

Medium sits between these extremes but offers no compelling advantage over High. At 1080p, Medium averages 211.1 FPS versus High's 192.7 FPS — an 18.4 FPS gain that most users would not perceive. At 1440p, the difference shrinks to 12.1 FPS (144.7 vs 132.6). At 4K, Medium's 89.1 FPS is only 7.3 FPS above High. Since the performance cost of High over Medium is modest while the quality improvement is typically more visible, High emerges as the recommended preset across all three resolutions.

FAQ

Q: Does the Ultra preset provide enough frame rate for 4K gaming?

A: No. The measured average at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 49.4 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered necessary for smooth gameplay. High settings at the same resolution deliver 81.8 FPS, making High the viable 4K option.

Q: How much performance is gained by dropping from High to Low at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low produces 184.7 FPS compared to High's 132.6 FPS, a gain of 52.1 FPS (39.3% higher). This is the largest relative jump between adjacent presets at this resolution.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this configuration?

A: The data indicates the GPU becomes the primary constraint at higher resolutions. At 1080p, Low settings yield 265.7 FPS, suggesting the CPU can feed very high frame rates. At 4K, even Low drops to 111.2 FPS, showing the GPU's workload dominates as resolution increases.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Medium and High at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Medium averages 211.1 FPS while High averages 192.7 FPS. The difference is 18.4 FPS (9.5%), which is a relatively small penalty for the expected visual quality increase.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations for this game?

A: The combination of Intel Core i5-13400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT ranks 353 out of 1705 tested combos in Greedfall, placing it in the top 20.7% of all configurations.

Q: Can this system handle 4K at Medium settings?

A: Yes. At 3840x2160 with Medium settings, the average frame rate is 89.1 FPS, which is well above 60 FPS and provides headroom for demanding scenes. This is 39.7 FPS higher than the Ultra preset at the same resolution.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates across 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160 reveal how this system scales with resolution and where the bottleneck shifts. At Low settings, the progression is 265.7 FPS at 1080p, 184.7 FPS at 1440p, and 111.2 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 81.0 FPS (30.5%), and from 1440p to 4K is 73.5 FPS (39.8%). This scaling pattern indicates that even at Low settings, the GPU is doing substantial work — the RX 7900 XT's 20 GB of GDDR6 memory and 800.0 GB/s bandwidth must feed the increasing pixel count.

At High settings, the scaling is 192.7 FPS at 1080p, 132.6 FPS at 1440p, and 81.8 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p reduction is 60.1 FPS (31.2%), while the 1440p-to-4K reduction is 50.8 FPS (38.3%). The consistency of these percentage drops — roughly 31% and 38-40% — suggests that Greedfall's rendering load scales predictably with pixel count, and the GPU remains the dominant performance factor across all tested resolutions.

The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic resolution sensitivity: 124.8 FPS at 1080p, 85 FPS at 1440p, and 49.4 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop is 39.8 FPS (31.9%), and the 1440p-to-4K drop is 35.6 FPS (41.9%). The 4K result falling below 50 FPS indicates that Ultra's additional effects — likely including higher-resolution shadows and post-processing — push the GPU past its comfortable operating range at 8.3 million pixels.

The CPU's role in this scaling is evident at 1080p Low, where 265.7 FPS demonstrates the i5-13400F's 10 cores and 16 threads can sustain very high frame rates. However, as resolution increases, the GPU's raw throughput (51.48 TFLOPS FP32) becomes the limiting factor, with frame rates at 4K dropping to less than half of their 1080p values across all settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Intel Core i5-13400F and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT achieves a rank of 353 out of 1705 tested combinations in Greedfall. This places the configuration in the 79.3rd percentile, meaning it outperforms roughly four out of five other tested combos. Given that Greedfall is a 2019 title with moderate system requirements, a top-quintile ranking indicates this hardware pairing is well above the median for this game.

The ranking context becomes clearer when examining each component's standalone percentile. The i5-13400F sits at the 82nd percentile among all CPUs, while the RX 7900 XT also holds the 82nd percentile among all GPUs. The combo's 79.3rd percentile performance is consistent with both parts landing at similar relative positions — the system performs as expected given its component-level standing.

This rank of 353 out of 1705 also suggests the system is not hitting unusual scaling inefficiencies in Greedfall. The game does not appear to penalize this specific pairing, as the combo rank closely tracks the individual component percentiles. If there were a major bottleneck or driver issue, the combo would likely rank lower than either component's percentile would suggest.

Comparing to the GPU's nearest rivals, the RX 7900 XT's average benchmark score of 38358 is essentially tied with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 Mobile (38349, 0% delta) and the NVIDIA CMP 70HX (38225, 0.3% delta). The CPU's average score of 25236 is nearly identical to the Intel Core i7-13620H (25201, 0.1% delta) and only 0.5% below the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (25365). This level of component parity suggests the combo's ranking is stable — small variations in silicon quality could shift the rank by a few positions, but the overall standing would remain in the top quintile.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F contributes to Greedfall performance through its 10 cores (6 performance and 4 efficiency) and 16 threads, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 4.60 GHz. The 20 MB shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample data locality for game workloads. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21279 and a single-core score of 3004, indicating strong balanced performance.

Greedfall, as an Action RPG from 2019, typically relies on a few heavily threaded tasks for game logic, AI, and physics. The i5-13400F's 3DMark scores show scaling from 1880 at 2 threads to 7314 at 16 threads, demonstrating good multi-threaded efficiency. The passmark multithread score of 25032 and single-thread score of 3634 both sit comfortably in the upper range, suggesting the CPU is not a limiting factor at standard gaming resolutions.

The measured FPS data confirms this: at 1080p Low settings, the system reaches 265.7 FPS, which is a frame rate where CPU overhead typically becomes relevant. The fact that the i5-13400F sustains this without becoming the bottleneck — the 1080p Low result is the highest measured across all resolutions and settings — indicates the CPU has sufficient headroom. The 16 threads allow the game's background tasks to run alongside the main rendering thread without contention.

However, the CPU's influence diminishes as resolution increases. At 4K, even Low settings produce 111.2 FPS, which is only 41.9% of the 1080p Low result. This 58.1% reduction is attributable to the GPU's workload growing with pixel count, not to CPU limitations. The i5-13400F's 82nd percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25236, places it in the same performance tier as the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (25365, 0.5% higher) and just 0.1% above the Intel Core i7-13620H (25201). This CPU has ample capability to feed the RX 7900 XT in Greedfall across all tested configurations.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings sweep produces the following average frame rates: Low at 265.7 FPS, Medium at 211.1 FPS, High at 192.7 FPS, and Ultra at 124.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 140.9 FPS, with Ultra delivering 47.0% of Low's performance. The step from Medium to High costs 18.4 FPS (8.7%), while High to Ultra costs 67.9 FPS (35.2%), making Ultra a poor trade-off at this resolution even though the absolute frame rate remains high.

At 2560x1440, the measured results are: Low at 184.7 FPS, Medium at 144.7 FPS, High at 132.6 FPS, and Ultra at 85 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra spread narrows to 99.7 FPS, with Ultra at 46.0% of Low. The Medium-to-High step is 12.1 FPS (8.4%), and High-to-Ultra is 47.6 FPS (35.9%). The Ultra preset at 1440p falls below the 90 FPS mark, which may be noticeable on high-refresh displays but remains usable.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low at 111.2 FPS, Medium at 89.1 FPS, High at 81.8 FPS, and Ultra at 49.4 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra gap is 61.8 FPS, with Ultra at 44.4% of Low. The Medium-to-High difference is 7.3 FPS (8.2%), while High-to-Ultra costs 32.4 FPS (39.6%). At 4K, only Low and Medium exceed 60 FPS, with High barely clearing it and Ultra falling well below.

Comparing across resolutions, the 1080p Low result of 265.7 FPS stands as the ceiling for this combination, likely approaching the point where the CPU's frame delivery becomes the upper bound. The 1440p High result of 132.6 FPS offers the best balance of visual quality and smoothness for most users, while 4K High at 81.8 FPS demonstrates that this GPU can handle 4K gaming with reasonable settings. The Ultra preset's consistent 35-40% performance penalty relative to High across all resolutions suggests the setting enables effects that disproportionately tax the RX 7900 XT's 5376 shading units and 192 ROPs.