Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 Action RPG, presents an interesting scalability test for the Intel Core i5-14600K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX. The measured data reveals a configuration that is heavily GPU-bound at high resolutions but capable of extreme frame rates at 1080p. The benchmark results show a clear hierarchy across presets, with the combination ranking in the 84.3rd percentile of all tested combos (rank 268 out of 1705).

Settings Recommendations

The optimal experience depends entirely on the target resolution. At 4K, the Ultra preset delivers an average of 51.7 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a fast-paced action RPG. The High preset at 4K provides a substantial improvement, jumping to 87.9 FPS, a 70% increase over Ultra. This makes High the clear choice for 4K, as it offers a smooth frame rate while maintaining visual fidelity. Dropping to Medium at 4K yields 94.9 FPS, a modest 8% gain over High, which may not justify the visual downgrade for most users.

At 1440p, the scenario changes. The Ultra preset achieves 90.2 FPS, which is perfectly smooth for this genre. High at 145.8 FPS and Medium at 156.7 FPS both offer headroom for high-refresh-rate monitors, but Ultra provides the best visual quality without sacrificing playability. The data suggests that 1440p Ultra is the sweet spot for this combination, balancing the GPU's capabilities with the CPU's throughput.

For 1080p, the story is about maximizing frame rates. The Low preset reaches 287.3 FPS, while Medium hits 228.4 FPS and High reaches 208.4 FPS. Even Ultra at 130.9 FPS is well above the 120Hz threshold. Given the high performance ceiling, the Medium preset at 1080p appears to be the most balanced, offering a 9% improvement over High while maintaining a substantial 74% lead over Ultra. The Low preset's 287.3 FPS is only 26% faster than Medium, indicating diminishing returns at the lower end of the settings spectrum.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is the dominant component in this configuration, especially at higher resolutions. With 24 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 384-bit bus, it offers 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is particularly relevant for Greedfall, an open-world RPG that can demand large texture pools. The GPU's 192 ROPs and 384 TMUs provide strong pixel and texture throughput, rated at 479.6 GPixel/s and 959.2 GTexel/s respectively.

The GPU's benchmark results place it at the 85th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 44019. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon Pro 580, scores 44195, a delta of -0.4%, indicating the 7900 XTX is essentially at parity in synthetic tests. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti scores 44900, putting the 7900 XTX 2% behind it, while the RTX 4090 Mobile scores 43667, with the 7900 XTX leading by 0.8%.

The measured FPS data shows the GPU's influence clearly. From Low to Ultra at 4K, the frame rate drops from 118.6 FPS to 51.7 FPS, a 56% reduction. This steep decline suggests that the Ultra preset's features, likely including heavy post-processing and shadow effects, place an enormous load on the GPU's shading units (6144 SPs) and ray accelerators (96 RT cores). The GPU's boost clock of 2498 MHz and game clock of 2365 MHz provide the raw compute headroom, but the Ultra preset at 4K appears to saturate the graphics pipeline.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K provides the compute foundation for this pairing. With 14 cores (6 performance and 8 efficiency) and 20 threads, it offers substantial multi-threaded capacity. Its boost clock of 5.30 GHz is critical for single-threaded game logic, which often dominates in RPGs like Greedfall. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache helps reduce memory latency, though the CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5, with the measured results likely reflecting a high-bandwidth DDR5 configuration.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32881 and a single-core score of 4642. Its average benchmark score is 49166, placing it at the 93rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival is the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X with a score of 49062, a delta of just 0.2%, showing they are effectively tied. The Intel Core i5-14600KF scores 49367, putting the standard 14600K 0.4% behind its unlocked counterpart.

The CPU's role in Greedfall is evident when examining the 1080p results. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 287.3 FPS, which is a clear indicator that the CPU can feed the GPU rapidly. However, the scaling from Low to Ultra at 1080p shows a drop to 130.9 FPS, a 54% reduction. This is less severe than the 56% drop at 4K, suggesting that at 1080p, the CPU is still able to maintain high throughput, but the GPU becomes more of a limiting factor as settings increase. The CPU's 14 cores handle the game's background simulation and AI tasks, while the 20 threads provide headroom for background processes without impacting frame pacing.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-14600K and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX combination ranks 268th out of 1705 tested combos, placing it in the top 15.7% of all configurations. This is a strong showing for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU, indicating that the CPU does not bottleneck the GPU significantly in this title.

The ranking suggests that this combo outperforms the majority of systems, but it is not at the very top. The top 15% of combos likely include configurations with newer or higher-tier CPUs such as the Core i9 series or Ryzen 9 processors, which could provide slightly better frame pacing in CPU-bound scenarios. However, the data shows that the 14600K's single-core performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4642) is sufficient to keep the 7900 XTX well-fed in most situations.

The combo's position is particularly notable given the GPU's end-of-life production status. The 7900 XTX, despite being succeeded by newer Navi IV parts, still delivers top-tier performance. The rank of 268 indicates that this pairing is competitive with much newer hardware, making it a viable option for high-refresh-rate 1440p and smooth 4K gaming.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the bottleneck dynamics of this configuration. At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 287.3 FPS at 1080p to 118.6 FPS at 4K, a 59% reduction. This is a massive drop that indicates the GPU is the primary constraint even at Low settings when resolution increases.

At Medium settings, the drop is from 228.4 FPS at 1080p to 94.9 FPS at 4K, a 58% reduction. The High preset shows a similar pattern: 208.4 FPS at 1080p down to 87.9 FPS at 4K, a 58% drop. The Ultra preset is the most severe, falling from 130.9 FPS at 1080p to 51.7 FPS at 4K, a 60% reduction.

These consistent drops of roughly 58-60% across all settings point to a purely GPU-limited scenario at higher resolutions. The 4K resolution requires four times the pixel count of 1080p, and the 7900 XTX's pixel rate of 479.6 GPixel/s is being fully utilized. The CPU's performance remains relatively constant, but the GPU's workload scales with resolution.

The transition from 1440p to 4K is also telling. At High settings, 1440p yields 145.8 FPS, while 4K yields 87.9 FPS, a 40% reduction. This is less than the 1080p to 1440p drop (30% from 208.4 to 145.8), which suggests that the GPU is approaching its architectural limits. The 24 GB memory buffer and 960.0 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient to avoid capacity bottlenecks, but the compute units are overwhelmed at 4K Ultra.

The data shows that at 1080p, the system is balanced, with the CPU capable of driving 287.3 FPS at Low settings. As resolution increases, the GPU becomes the sole limiting factor, with the CPU's 14 cores and 5.30 GHz boost clock providing ample headroom. For users targeting 4K, the High preset at 87.9 FPS is the recommended starting point, while 1440p Ultra at 90.2 FPS offers the best balance of visual quality and performance.