Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload that scales significantly with both resolution and graphical presets. When paired with the Intel Core i5-9400 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, the measured frame rates reveal a configuration that is often limited by the CPU at lower resolutions, while the GPU becomes the dominant factor at 4K. The data across twelve distinct test scenarios provides a clear picture of the system's capabilities and bottlenecks.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results indicate a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate across the four tested presets: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. For players prioritizing a high refresh rate experience, the Low preset at 1080p yields an average of 270.3 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. However, this comes at the cost of most graphical features. The Medium preset at 1080p offers a more balanced approach, delivering an average of 248.3 FPS, which remains exceptionally high and likely exceeds the refresh rate of most monitors while providing a substantial visual upgrade over Low.

At 1440p, the High preset achieves an average of 175 FPS, making it a strong recommendation for gamers with high-refresh-rate 1440p displays. This setting provides a significant improvement in visual quality over Medium, which scores 191.3 FPS, while still maintaining a frame rate well above 144 FPS. For 4K gaming, the High preset is the optimal choice, producing an average of 106.5 FPS. This is the only 4K setting that comfortably clears the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, as Medium drops to 114.8 FPS and Ultra falls to 63.7 FPS. The data suggests that Ultra is not a practical setting for this combination at any resolution, as it incurs a substantial performance penalty—reducing frame rates by nearly 40% compared to High at 4K—without a proportional guarantee of visual benefit. The High preset provides the best overall experience across all resolutions, balancing performance and image quality.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution to use with this CPU and GPU combination in Greedfall?

A: The data suggests 1440p is the sweet spot. At 1440p with High settings, the average FPS is 175, which is a significant step up from the 4K High result of 106.5 FPS, while still offering a much sharper image than 1080p.

Q: How much performance is lost by enabling the Ultra preset instead of High?

A: The performance penalty is steep. At 1080p, the average FPS drops from 241.9 on High to 160.3 on Ultra, a decrease of 81.6 FPS. At 4K, the drop is even more pronounced, falling from 106.5 FPS on High to 63.7 FPS on Ultra.

Q: Is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 powerful enough for 4K gaming in Greedfall?

A: Yes, the data shows it is capable. With the High preset at 4K, the system achieves an average of 106.5 FPS, which is well above the standard 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay.

Q: Does the Intel Core i5-9400 bottleneck the RTX 4090 in this game?

A: The data suggests it does, particularly at lower resolutions. The frame rate difference between 1440p and 1080p at High settings is substantial, with 1080p reaching 241.9 FPS and 1440p reaching 175 FPS. This smaller-than-expected scaling gap indicates the CPU is a limiting factor at 1080p.

Q: What performance can be expected at 1080p with Low settings?

A: The highest frame rate in the entire dataset is achieved with this configuration. The average FPS is 270.3, which is an exceptionally high result that would be best utilized on a very high refresh rate monitor.

Q: How does the combo's performance rank compared to other tested systems?

A: The combination ranks at position 104 out of 1705 tested combos. This places it in the top 6.1% of all configurations tested for Greedfall, indicating high overall performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor from the Coffee Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its benchmark scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 7969 and a single-core score of 1125, place it at the 50th percentile among all CPUs. This mid-pack standing suggests it is a capable processor, but not a top-tier performer. In Greedfall, the data indicates that this CPU becomes a limiting factor. The frame rate scaling from 1440p to 1080p is not linear. At High settings, the FPS only increases from 175 to 241.9, a 38% improvement, whereas a purely GPU-bound scenario might expect a larger jump. This suggests that at 1080p, the CPU's processing power for game logic and draw calls is the bottleneck, preventing the RTX 4090 from reaching its full potential. The situation changes at 4K, where the GPU's workload increases significantly, shifting the bottleneck back to the graphics card.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 achieves a rank of 104 out of 1705 tested combos for Greedfall. This places the system in the top percentile of all configurations tested. The high ranking is primarily due to the extraordinary performance of the RTX 4090, which sits at the 91st percentile among all GPUs. The CPU's contribution is more modest; its 50th percentile standing is offset by the GPU's overwhelming power. The data shows that this pairing is not balanced, but it is effective. The system's overall position confirms the RTX 4090's ability to drive high frame rates, even when paired with a mid-range processor from an older generation. This rank indicates that for Greedfall, the system delivers a very high level of performance that would be difficult to match with a less powerful GPU.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a clear pattern of how performance scales with resolution. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 241.9 at 1080p to 175 at 1440p, a 27.7% decrease, and then to 106.5 at 4K, a further 39.1% decrease from 1440p. This scaling pattern is informative. The relatively modest drop from 1080p to 1440p, compared to the larger drop to 4K, suggests that at 1080p, the system is limited by the CPU, not the GPU. If the GPU were the sole limiting factor, the performance drop from 1080p to 1440p would likely be more pronounced. However, the substantial drop from 1440p to 4K indicates that the GPU is being fully utilized at the higher resolution. A similar pattern is observed across all presets. For instance, on the Low preset, the FPS goes from 270.3 at 1080p to 240.4 at 1440p, and then to 142.5 at 4K. This confirms that the CPU bottleneck is most apparent at 1080p, while the 4K results are a more accurate reflection of the RTX 4090's raw rendering capabilities in this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates. The Low preset averages 270.3 FPS, while the Medium preset achieves 248.3 FPS. The High preset produces an average of 241.9 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 160.3 FPS. These results show that the CPU is the primary constraint, as the difference between Low and High is only 28.4 FPS, whereas the jump to Ultra incurs a massive 81.6 FPS penalty, suggesting the Ultra preset introduces a particularly heavy workload that the CPU cannot feed fast enough.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but show more variance between presets. The Low preset averages 240.4 FPS, which is only 11.1% lower than its 1080p counterpart, further indicating a CPU limit. The Medium preset averages 191.3 FPS, and the High preset averages 175 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to 109.1 FPS. The scaling here shows the GPU beginning to take on more work, but the CPU is still a factor at the lower settings.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the definitive bottleneck. The High preset achieves an average of 106.5 FPS, which is the most playable 4K result. The Medium preset averages 114.8 FPS, the Low preset averages 142.5 FPS, and the Ultra preset is the most demanding setting tested, with an average of 63.7 FPS. The data at 4K demonstrates the raw power of the RTX 4090, as even the High preset can maintain a frame rate well above 60 FPS, making it the recommended preset for a 4K experience.