Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 action RPG, presents an interesting test for the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti combination. The data shows a system capable of high refresh rate play at 1080p and 1440p, while 4K demands more careful settings management. This analysis breaks down the measured performance, provides settings recommendations, and examines the interplay between the CPU and GPU in this specific title.

Settings Recommendations

For the most balanced experience, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 provides a strong combination of visual fidelity and performance. At this setting, the combo achieves an average of 134 FPS, which is a substantial 71.8% higher than the 78 FPS average at Ultra settings. The Medium preset also provides a minimum FPS of 114, ensuring smooth gameplay even in demanding scenes, and a maximum of 155 FPS. The jump from High to Medium is 12 FPS, which is a smaller numerical difference than the 56 FPS drop seen when moving from Medium to Ultra, indicating that the Ultra preset is significantly more demanding.

At 1920x1080, the High preset is a strong recommendation for players with high refresh rate monitors. The data shows an average of 176 FPS, which is more than enough to saturate a 144Hz display. While the Medium preset at 1080p offers a higher average FPS of 194, the High preset provides a better visual experience. The Ultra preset at 1080p, with an average of 112 FPS, still delivers smooth gameplay but represents a 64 FPS drop from High, suggesting it applies a heavy load that may be disproportionate to its visual gains in this title.

For 4K gaming, the High preset is the clear choice for a playable experience. The RTX 3080 Ti manages an average of 73 FPS at 3840x2160 on High settings, which is a significant drop from the 122 FPS at 1440p on the same preset. Dropping to Medium at 4K yields 80 FPS, but the difference is only 7 FPS. The Low preset at 4K offers 102 FPS but substantially reduces visual quality. The Ultra preset at 4K, with an average of just 46 FPS, should be avoided for consistent smoothness, as it falls below the 60 FPS threshold that many players target.

How This Combo Ranks

The Core i5-14400F and RTX 3080 Ti combination holds a comboRankInGame of 993 out of 3703 tested combinations. This places the pairing in the top 26.8% of all tested configurations for Greedfall. This ranking indicates that while this is a powerful setup, there are many other combinations that achieve higher average frame rates in this specific game.

The CPU, Intel Core i5-14400F, sits at the 83rd percentile when compared to all CPUs in the benchmark database. Its nearest rivals show a tight grouping of scores, with the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U just 0.1% ahead, the Intel Core i9-11900 0.2% ahead, and the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS 0.2% behind. The Intel Core i7-12800H is 0.5% ahead. This indicates the i5-14400F is a highly competitive mid-range processor, and its performance is nearly identical to several strong alternatives.

The GPU, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti, also holds an 83rd percentile rank against all other GPUs. Its nearest rivals show a wider spread. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is 2% ahead, while the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 is 0.8% ahead. The older NVIDIA Tesla M40 24 GB is 1.2% behind, and the standard Tesla M40 is 1.7% behind. The RTX 3080 Ti is an upper-tier card, but its performance is closely matched by a range of other options, some of which are newer and some older. The combo's overall rank of 993 is influenced by both components performing at a relatively high but not top-tier level for Greedfall, where other combinations of newer or more powerful hardware can produce higher average FPS.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings to use for the highest average FPS?

A: At 1920x1080 with the Low preset, the combo achieves the highest average FPS of 247. This is followed by the Medium preset at 1080p with an average of 194 FPS.

Q: How does the performance at 4K compare to 1080p?

A: At 1080p High settings, the average FPS is 176. At 4K High settings, the average FPS drops to 73. This is a substantial decrease of 58.5%.

Q: Is this system capable of 4K gaming in Greedfall?

A: The data shows that at 4K with High settings, the average FPS is 73, and at Medium it is 80, which is playable. However, at Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 46, which is likely not smooth enough for most players.

Q: What is the lowest average FPS recorded for this combination?

A: The lowest average FPS is 46, which occurs at 3840x2160 resolution with the Ultra settings preset.

Q: How does the i5-14400F compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The i5-14400F shows a deltaPct of 0.1% compared to the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U and 0.2% compared to the Intel Core i9-11900. It is essentially a tie in average benchmark scores, being 0.2% faster than the AMD Ryzen 7 6800HS and 0.5% faster than the Intel Core i7-12800H.

Q: What is the frame time variance like at 1080p Medium settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, the minimum FPS is 165 and the maximum is 223, resulting in a range of 58 FPS, which is about a 30% variance from the average of 194 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data for Greedfall with the Core i5-14400F and RTX 3080 Ti shows a clear and predictable performance scaling across resolutions and settings.

At 1920x1080, the combo is clearly CPU-bound at lower settings, with the GPU having headroom. The Low preset results in an average of 247 FPS. Moving to Medium yields an average of 194 FPS, with a minimum of 165 and a maximum of 223. The High preset drops the average to 176 FPS. The Ultra preset delivers an average of 112 FPS. The difference between Low and High is 71 FPS, while the difference between High and Ultra is 64 FPS, showing that the Ultra preset is significantly heavier. The data indicates that the frame rates are very high across all presets, with even the Ultra preset being above the refresh rate of a standard 60Hz monitor.

At 2560x1440, the performance scales down but remains high. The Low preset averages 171 FPS. The Medium preset delivers 134 FPS on average, with a range of 114 (minimum) to 155 (maximum). High settings average 122 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to an average of 78 FPS. This shows that moving from Medium to High is a 12 FPS difference, while moving from High to Ultra is a 44 FPS difference, indicating that the Ultra preset is extremely demanding at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is the primary bottleneck. The Low preset delivers an average of 102 FPS. The Medium preset yields an average of 80 FPS, with a minimum of 68 and a maximum of 92. High settings produce an average of 73 FPS. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, resulting in an average of 46 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra is significant, with a 56 FPS swing. The gap between Medium and High is only 7 FPS, while the gap between High and Ultra is 27 FPS, once again reinforcing the Ultra preset's steep cost.

The data for the 1440p resolution shows a more gradual performance curve across the presets, with the difference between Low and High being 43 FPS, and the difference between High and Ultra being 44 FPS. This makes the Ultra setting a very heavy load for the GPU at this resolution.

Resolution Scaling

Analyzing the data across the three resolutions reveals a clear trend. At the High settings preset, the average FPS is 176 at 1080p, 122 at 1440p, and 73 at 4K. This represents a 30.7% drop in performance when moving from 1080p to 1440p (176 to 122 FPS), and a further 40.2% drop when moving from 1440p to 4K (122 to 73 FPS). The drop from 1080p to 4K is a 58.5% reduction in average FPS.

With the Medium preset, the same trend is visible. The average FPS is 194 at 1080p, 134 at 1440p, and 80 at 1440p. This is a 30.9% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 40.3% drop from 1440p to 4K. The Low preset follows the same pattern, with 247 FPS at 1080p, 171 FPS at 1440p, and 102 FPS at 4K, representing a 30.8% and 40.4% drop respectively.

The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings presets points to the GPU being the primary limiting factor in this game. The RTX 3080 Ti's performance scales predictably with pixel count, and the CPU is fast enough to keep up with the GPU's demands at each resolution. The fact that the drop from 1440p to 4K is around 40% rather than the theoretical 44% (a 2.25x pixel increase) suggests other bottlenecks may be at play, but the evidence strongly points to a GPU-limited scenario. The CPU, with its high boost clock and 10 cores, is not shown to be the limiting factor, even in the lower settings at 1080p, where the FPS is extremely high. The data suggests that players looking to increase FPS at 4K should focus on GPU rather than CPU upgrades.

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. It has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. With a TDP of 65W, it is a power efficient and capable mid-range CPU. In Greedfall, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with data quickly enough.

The benchmark results for the CPU show its strength. It achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21645 and a single-core score of 3055. In Geekbench, it scores 11268 multi-core and 2058 single-core. These numbers, along with its 83rd percentile ranking, confirm it has strong single-threaded performance, which is crucial for games like Greedfall that may not be heavily multi-threaded.

The data indicates that at 1080p with Low settings, the system averages 247 FPS. This high frame rate shows that the CPU is capable of handling the game's logic and draw calls at a very high rate. The frame rates at 1440p and 4K are lower, but this is expected due to the increased GPU load. The CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads are likely more than sufficient for this game, and the performance is not shown to be a bottleneck at any of the measured resolutions or settings. The trend of performance scaling, which is relatively uniform across all settings at different resolutions, further suggests that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this configuration. The CPU's nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 8840U, are very close in average score, indicating that the i5-14400F is well-positioned in the mid-range, and its performance is in line with what would be expected for this class of processor.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti is a high-end GPU based on the Ampere architecture. It uses the GA102 chip and has 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 912.4 GB/s. The card's base clock is 1365 MHz, and the boost clock is 1665 MHz. With 10240 shading units, its performance is substantial, and its 34.10 TFLOPS FP32 performance puts it in the upper tier of graphics cards. The RTX 3080 Ti has a 350W TDP and is an end-of-life product as of its 2021 release date.

The measured FPS data shows a clear GPU-centric trend. The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is consistent across all settings presets, revealing that the RTX 3080 Ti is the main component responsible for frame rate scaling. At 4K, the Ultra preset still fails to hit 60 FPS (46 average), showing the GPU is not enough to max out the game at the highest resolution.

The GPU's percentile of 83 and its average benchmark score of 41187 reinforce its performance. Its closest rivals, the RTX 5070 and the AMD Radeon Pro 5300, are slightly ahead, but the RTX 3080 Ti still holds its own in this game. The data shows that at 1440p High settings, the card can produce 122 FPS, which is an excellent result for a demanding title. The card's performance at 4K High settings is 73 FPS, which is still a playable experience. It's only at the Ultra preset at 4K that the GPU is not sufficient for a smooth experience, dropping to 46 FPS. The 12 GB of VRAM is sufficient for this game, as the GPU's performance is not shown to be limited by memory capacity in these tests. The RTX 3080 Ti's role in this combination is to deliver high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, and solid but lower performance at 4K, with the CPU not presenting a limiting factor.