Greedfall

Greedfall, the 2019 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload that scales significantly with both resolution and graphical presets. The measured data for the Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB shows a component pairing where the graphics card is the primary bottleneck at higher settings, while the processor demonstrates sufficient headroom to support lower settings at standard resolutions. This analysis walks through the benchmark results to determine the optimal configuration and the role each component plays.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark data reveals a clear hierarchy in performance across the four tested presets. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers an average of 107.6 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this combo. Moving up to Medium reduces the average to 81.5 FPS, and High further drops it to 75.9 FPS. The Ultra preset, however, causes a substantial performance cliff, falling to 47.5 FPS. This represents a 56% performance loss from Low to Ultra at 1080p, indicating that the Ultra preset imposes a heavy load that the RTX 3050 4 GB cannot sustain comfortably.

For the best experience, the data points to the High preset as the optimal balance. At 1080p, High yields 75.9 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, while providing a significant visual upgrade over the Medium preset's 81.5 FPS. The difference between Medium and High is only 5.6 FPS (about 7%), making the visual fidelity gain of High a worthwhile trade. While Low offers the highest frame rate, it likely sacrifices too much visual detail for a nominal gain over High. The Ultra preset is not recommended at any resolution, as it drops below 60 FPS even at 1080p and falls to 37.2 FPS at 1440p, making it unplayable for most users.

At 1440p, the High preset still manages a respectable 51.7 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for fast-paced action. The Medium preset at 1440p produces 56.9 FPS, a more stable option for this resolution. At 4K, all presets fail to reach 60 FPS, with the High preset yielding only 31.4 FPS. The data suggests that 1080p with High settings is the intended sweet spot for this hardware combination, offering a fluid experience without pushing the GPU into severe performance degradation.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor from the Core 14th Gen series, based on the Raptor Lake architecture. Its base clock is 2.50 GHz, which can boost up to 4.70 GHz. The processor's benchmark scores place it in the 88th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32508. This performance level is closely matched by its nearest rivals, including the Intel Core i7-12800H (32513, 0% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (32446, 0.2% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 7 250 (32584, -0.2% delta). These near-identical scores suggest that the i5-14400F provides competitive processing power that should not be a limiting factor in most gaming scenarios.

In the context of Greedfall, the CPU's role is evident when examining the frame rates at lower graphics settings. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 107.6 FPS, and at 1440p Low it reaches 73.2 FPS. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings shows a 32% drop in performance, which is primarily attributed to the GPU. However, the fact that the CPU can push these frame rates suggests it has sufficient headroom. The processor's multi-threaded capabilities, demonstrated by its Cinebench R23 multicore score of 21914 and Passmark multithread score of 25783, indicate it can handle the game's logic and AI tasks without bottlenecking the GPU. The data shows that as settings increase, the frame rate drop is more pronounced, which is a classic sign of the GPU becoming the limiting factor, not the CPU. The i5-14400F's 20 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support further contribute to its ability to feed data to the GPU efficiently.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB is a member of the GeForce 30-series, built on the Ampere architecture with an 8 nm process node. It operates with a base clock of 1545 MHz and a boost clock of 1740 MHz. The GPU features 4 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 192.0 GB/s. Its compute capabilities include 2048 shading units and 64 tensor cores, with a FP32 performance of 7.127 TFLOPS. The GPU is positioned at the 50th percentile among all GPUs, indicating it is a mid-range performer.

The GPU's role is the dominant factor in this combo's performance, especially at higher resolutions and settings. The memory constraints of 4 GB are a critical limitation. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces only 21.6 FPS, while 4K High yields 31.4 FPS. The drop from 1440p High (51.7 FPS) to 4K High (31.4 FPS) represents a 39% performance loss, which is substantial. This is exacerbated by the small VRAM pool, which likely forces the GPU to manage textures less efficiently at higher resolutions. The data shows a clear pattern: the GPU struggles to maintain playable frame rates at 4K across all settings, and even at 1440p Ultra (37.2 FPS) it falls short of 60 FPS. The RTX 3050 4 GB is best suited for 1080p gaming, where it can deliver 75.9 FPS on High settings. The performance cliff observed when moving from High to Ultra at any resolution highlights the GPU's limitations, as the Ultra preset's additional effects and textures overwhelm the available memory bandwidth and processing power.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-14400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 4 GB combination is ranked 1556 out of 1705 tested combos in Greedfall. This places it in the lower 9% of all tested configurations, indicating that it performs below the majority of other hardware pairings in this specific game. This ranking is somewhat expected given the GPU's mid-range status and its 4 GB VRAM limitation, which is below the modern standard for high-resolution gaming.

The rank suggests that while the CPU is a strong performer (88th percentile), the GPU holds the combo back significantly. Many other combos likely feature more powerful GPUs that can handle the game's demands at higher resolutions and settings. The data shows that this combo is only capable of delivering a smooth 60+ FPS experience at 1080p with Low to High settings, which is a narrower performance window compared to higher-ranked configurations. The 4K results, which top out at 45.1 FPS on Low, reinforce the idea that this combo is not intended for high-resolution gaming. The rank of 1556 out of 1705 is a quantitative measure of this limitation, reflecting that the RTX 3050 4 GB's performance is a significant constraint in this title.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling data reveals how the frame rate drops as the pixel count increases, which in turn indicates which component is the limiting factor. Starting at 1080p High (75.9 FPS), moving to 1440p High (51.7 FPS) results in a 32% decrease in performance. Further moving to 4K High (31.4 FPS) results in a 39% decrease from 1440p. This pattern of diminishing returns is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the graphics card cannot keep up with the increasing pixel workload.

A similar trend is observed at other settings. At Medium, the drop from 1080p (81.5 FPS) to 1440p (56.9 FPS) is a 30% reduction, and from 1440p to 4K (35.2 FPS) is a 38% reduction. At Low, the drops are less severe: 1080p (107.6 FPS) to 1440p (73.2 FPS) is a 32% drop, and 1440p to 4K (45.1 FPS) is a 38% drop. The consistency of these percentage drops across settings indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at all resolutions above 1080p. The CPU, which is a top-tier performer, is not the limiting factor here; if it were, the frame rate drops would be more pronounced at lower resolutions where the CPU has more work relative to the GPU. The data suggests that the RTX 3050 4 GB's memory bandwidth and processing power are insufficient to maintain frame rates as the resolution increases, making 1080p the only resolution where this combo can achieve a consistently smooth experience.

FAQ

Q: What is the best graphics preset for this combo at 1080p?

A: The High preset is the best choice, delivering an average of 75.9 FPS. It offers a playable frame rate well above 60 FPS while providing better visual fidelity than the Medium preset, which only yields 81.5 FPS.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming?

A: No. The highest average frame rate at 4K is 45.1 FPS on Low settings, which is not smooth. At High settings, it drops to 31.4 FPS, and at Ultra it falls to 21.6 FPS, making 4K unplayable.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the main bottleneck in this system?

A: The GPU is the primary bottleneck. The CPU is a high-performance part (88th percentile), but the RTX 3050 4 GB's performance limits frame rates, especially at higher resolutions and settings.

Q: How does this combo compare to other tested configurations?

A: It ranks 1556 out of 1705 combos, placing it in the lower percentile of tested systems. This reflects the GPU's limitations, as the CPU is competitive with its nearest rivals in benchmark scores.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 1440p on Medium settings?

A: The average frame rate is 56.9 FPS, which is playable but not consistently smooth for all users. The High preset is slightly lower at 51.7 FPS.

Q: Does the 4 GB VRAM affect performance?

A: Yes, the 4 GB memory size is a significant limitation. The data shows substantial performance drops at higher resolutions, which is consistent with the GPU running out of memory bandwidth and capacity, particularly at Ultra settings.