Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 Action RPG, presents an interesting scalability challenge for the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT combination. The measured data reveals a system that is heavily influenced by both the graphics card and the processor, depending on the resolution and quality settings selected. This analysis walks through the measured FPS to determine where the bottleneck lies and how to optimize the experience.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is stark, but the pattern is not uniform across all settings. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 226 FPS at 1920x1080 to 94.5 FPS at 3840x2160, a reduction of 58.2%. This is a significant decline that points toward the GPU becoming the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions. The RX 7800 XT, while a capable card, is being pushed hard by the pixel count at 4K even with low visual complexity.

The scaling at High settings is similar in nature, with a drop from 161.4 FPS at 1080p to 69.1 FPS at 4K, a 57.2% decrease. The consistency of this drop across Low and High settings suggests that the GPU's rendering workload is the dominant constraint when moving to 4K. The data indicates that the RX 7800 XT is working near its limits at 3840x2160, as evidenced by the sub-100 FPS averages at every quality level.

However, the story changes when looking at the jump between 1080p and 1440p. At High settings, the frame rate goes from 161.4 FPS to 110.1 FPS, a 31.8% decline. While substantial, this is a smaller relative drop than the 1440p to 4K transition, which shows a 37.2% reduction (110.1 to 69.1 FPS). This suggests the CPU is still contributing to performance at 1440p, but its influence wanes as the GPU load increases. The i5-9400, with its 6 cores and 6 threads, appears to be sufficient to keep the GPU fed at 1440p, but the GPU becomes the sole bottleneck at 4K.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy for the best experience, balancing visual quality with playable frame rates. At 4K, the Ultra preset is not viable, producing an average of only 40.9 FPS. The High preset, with 69.1 FPS, is the most sensible option for 4K gaming, offering a playable experience above the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset offers a marginal improvement to 72.1 FPS but is not worth the visual downgrade from High, as the difference is only 3 FPS.

At 1440p, the High preset delivers an excellent 110.1 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors. The Medium preset (120.8 FPS) offers a slight boost but the visual fidelity of High is more valuable. The Ultra preset is playable at 68.6 FPS, but this is a significant drop from High and may not be worth the performance cost. For 1080p, the High preset (161.4 FPS) is the sweet spot, providing a high frame rate that can take advantage of fast displays. The Low preset (226 FPS) is only useful for competitive play or for users with a 240Hz monitor, but the visual compromise is severe.

The data suggests that the High preset is the recommended default for this combination. It provides a strong balance at all three resolutions, ensuring a stable and responsive experience. For users prioritizing maximum visual quality, the Ultra preset is only recommended for 1080p, where it still achieves 101.6 FPS, but the performance hit at 1440p and 4K is too substantial to recommend.

FAQ

Q: Can this combination run Greedfall at 4K with playable frame rates?

A: Yes, but only on the High preset, which averages 69.1 FPS. The Medium preset is similar at 72.1 FPS, while the Low preset reaches 94.5 FPS. The Ultra preset is not playable at this resolution, with an average of only 40.9 FPS.

Q: What is the best setting preset for a 1440p monitor?

A: The High preset is the strongest choice, delivering 110.1 FPS. It provides a significant improvement over Ultra (68.6 FPS) while having a much better visual quality than Medium (120.8 FPS) or Low (152.7 FPS).

Q: Is the CPU a bottleneck in this game?

A: The data suggests the CPU is more influential at 1080p. The frame rate gap between Low and High at 1080p is 64.6 FPS (226 vs 161.4), which indicates the GPU is not fully saturated. At 4K, the gap closes dramatically, with only a 25.4 FPS difference between Low and High, indicating the GPU is the primary limiting factor.

Q: How does the Intel Core i5-9400 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core i3-10305 and the Intel Core i3-1125G4. It is 0.4% higher than the Intel Xeon E-2134 and 0.6% lower than the Intel Core i7-8809G. It sits at the 50th percentile of all CPUs.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1080p?

A: The Ultra preset averages 101.6 FPS, while the Low preset averages 226 FPS. This means the Low preset is 122.4% faster, but it comes at the cost of significantly reduced visual quality.

Q: How does the RX 7800 XT rank against other GPUs?

A: The GPU has an average benchmark score of 32619, placing it at the 76th percentile of all GPUs. It is 0.2% faster than the AMD FirePro S9300 X2 and 0.7% faster than the AMD FirePro S10000, but 0.4% slower than the NVIDIA P104-100 and 0.7% slower than the NVIDIA T600 Mobile.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following is the complete set of measured average frame rates for this hardware combination in Greedfall.

At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 226 FPS. The Medium preset lowers this to 175.9 FPS. The High preset runs at 161.4 FPS. The Ultra preset is the slowest at 1080p, with an average of 101.6 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 152.7 FPS. The Medium preset delivers 120.8 FPS. The High preset produces 110.1 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to an average of 68.6 FPS.

At the highest resolution of 3840x2160, the Low preset manages 94.5 FPS. The Medium preset has an average of 72.1 FPS. The High preset is slightly lower at 69.1 FPS. The Ultra preset is the only unplayable option, with an average of just 40.9 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

In the global database of tested hardware combinations for Greedfall, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT ranks 631 out of 1705 tested combos. This places it in the top 37% of all systems tested. This is a strong showing, indicating that the i5-9400, despite being an older end-of-life processor, is not holding back the RX 7800 XT to a significant degree in this title.

The ranking suggests that a large number of other combinations are capable of higher performance in Greedfall, likely those with more powerful modern CPUs and GPUs. However, the 631st rank out of 1705 also implies that the majority of systems tested will perform worse. The data shows that this combo is a solid mid-to-high tier performer, capable of handling the game well at 1080p and 1440p, with playable 4K performance on High settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture. It has a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its performance in synthetic benchmarks shows a multi-core score of 7969 in Cinebench R23 and a single-core score of 1125. This places the CPU at the 50th percentile of all processors, indicating average performance.

In the context of Greedfall, the CPU's role appears to be supportive rather than dominant. The measured FPS data shows that the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings is most pronounced at 1080p, where the CPU is less likely to be a bottleneck. At 4K, the frame rates across all settings are tightly clustered, suggesting the GPU is the limiting factor. The CPU provides enough throughput to maintain decent minimum frame rates, but it does not allow the GPU to reach its full potential at higher resolutions. The 6 threads are sufficient for this game, but the lack of hyper-threading means it cannot leverage additional logical cores beyond the physical six, which may impact performance in more CPU-intensive titles.