Greedfall

Greedfall, an Action RPG from 2019, responds predictably but dramatically to resolution scaling on the Intel Core i7-12700K and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT platform. At 1080p, the combination produces a massive range of frame rates, from a low of 114.7 FPS on Ultra settings to a high of 246.9 FPS on Low settings. This wide spread narrows considerably as resolution increases, revealing where the bottleneck shifts. At 1440p, the Ultra preset drops to 80.7 FPS, while Low settings still achieve 169.2 FPS. Moving to 4K, the Ultra preset falls to 49.3 FPS, and even the Low preset, which was nearly double that figure at 1440p, settles at 99.4 FPS. The data indicates that at 1080p, the CPU is doing significant work, as the frame rates scale almost linearly with graphical load. However, the 4K results show a stark compression in performance, suggesting that the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions, particularly when the Ultra preset is enabled.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1080p to 4K on this hardware configuration shows a clear and expected performance curve, but the magnitude of the drop varies heavily by preset. On the Ultra preset, moving from 1080p to 1440p costs 34 FPS (114.7 to 80.7), and moving from 1440p to 4K costs another 31.4 FPS (80.7 to 49.3). This represents a 57% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K on Ultra settings, which is a steep price for the higher pixel count. The Low preset tells a different story: it drops from 246.9 FPS at 1080p to 169.2 FPS at 1440p, a loss of 77.7 FPS, but then only drops another 69.8 FPS to 99.4 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K on Low is roughly 60%, which is similar to Ultra, but the absolute frame rates remain high enough to be playable.

This pattern suggests that at 1080p, the i7-12700K is strong enough to feed the RX 9070 XT even on the Low preset, allowing the GPU to push out 246.9 FPS. As resolution increases, the pixel fill rate demands on the GPU grow, and the frame rates begin to converge across presets. At 4K, the difference between Low and High settings is only 27.4 FPS (99.4 vs 72), whereas at 1080p that same gap is 71.6 FPS (246.9 vs 175.3). The benchmark results indicate that the RX 9070 XT’s compute resources are the primary limit at 4K, not the CPU. The 4K Ultra result of 49.3 FPS is the only figure that falls below the 60 FPS threshold, making it the only truly demanding combination in this set.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting a smooth experience on this hardware, the data suggests that the High preset is the sweet spot at 1080p and 1440p. At 1080p, High yields 175.3 FPS, which is over 60 FPS higher than Ultra’s 114.7 FPS, with a visual quality step that is often imperceptible in fast action. At 1440p, High delivers 120.2 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors, while Ultra drops to 80.7 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p offers 137.9 FPS, but the jump to High is only 17.7 FPS less, making High the better choice for visual fidelity per frame.

At 4K, the recommendation changes. High settings produce 72 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS baseline and offers a good balance. Ultra, at 49.3 FPS, is not recommended for smooth play unless the user accepts the lower frame rate. The Low preset at 4K, at 99.4 FPS, is surprisingly viable, but it sacrifices too much visual detail for a game like Greedfall, which has a dense art style. The most efficient choice appears to be High at 4K, as it maintains a solid frame rate while keeping the graphical features that define the game’s atmosphere. Medium at 4K, at 82.2 FPS, is a fallback if the user wants a buffer above 72 FPS, but the difference between Medium and High is only 10.2 FPS, making High the superior pick.

How This Combo Ranks

In the broader database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i7-12700K and AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT achieves a combo rank of 485 out of 1705 tested combos for Greedfall. This places the setup in the top 28% of all configurations, which is a strong showing for a game that is not particularly new. The CPU itself is a capable performer, sitting at the 89th percentile against all CPUs in the database, while the GPU is at the 82nd percentile against all GPUs. The rank suggests that the combination is well-balanced for this title, as it does not fall into the bottom half of results. The data shows that the CPU’s 12 cores and 20 threads are sufficient to avoid becoming a major bottleneck, even at lower resolutions where the GPU is capable of producing very high frame rates.

When compared to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks, the i7-12700K’s average score of 35684 is only 0.3% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 and 0.7% behind the Intel Core i5-14500HX. It is 0.6% ahead of the Intel Core i7-13700T and 0.8% ahead of the Intel Core i7-13800H. These are minuscule differences that would not translate into noticeable performance gaps in Greedfall, which is likely more dependent on the GPU at higher resolutions. The GPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic tests, such as the AMD Radeon Pro 575 and NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile, show even smaller deltas, with the RX 9070 XT sitting within 0.6% of all of them. This indicates that the hardware is performing exactly as expected for its class.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a full picture of the hardware’s capabilities across all settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the Low preset leads with 246.9 FPS, followed by Medium at 194.5 FPS, High at 175.3 FPS, and Ultra at 114.7 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 132.2 FPS, which is the largest of any resolution, showing that the CPU and GPU have headroom to spare at this resolution. At 2560x1440, the same order persists: Low at 169.2 FPS, Medium at 137.9 FPS, High at 120.2 FPS, and Ultra at 80.7 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra shrinks to 88.5 FPS, indicating that the GPU is starting to take on more work.

At 3840x2160, the numbers compress further. Low produces 99.4 FPS, Medium 82.2 FPS, High 72 FPS, and Ultra 49.3 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is now exactly 50.1 FPS. The most notable observation is that the High preset at 4K (72 FPS) is nearly identical to the Ultra preset at 1440p (80.7 FPS), showing that the resolution jump is more punishing than the quality preset jump. The 1080p Low result of 246.9 FPS is the only figure in the set that approaches refresh rates of 240Hz monitors, while the 4K Ultra result of 49.3 FPS is the only one that dips below 60 FPS. The data shows a consistent scaling factor: reducing the resolution from 4K to 1080p on the same preset yields roughly a 2.3x to 2.5x increase in frame rate across all presets.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT plays a decisive role in this game’s performance, particularly as resolution increases. The GPU’s memory configuration includes 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s. This is ample for a game from 2019, and the benchmark results do not indicate any memory capacity issues, as frame rates scale cleanly with resolution. The GPU’s base clock is 1660 MHz, with a game clock of 2400 MHz and a boost clock of 2970 MHz. The high boost clock is likely a key factor in the strong 1080p performance, where the GPU can run at elevated clocks without being limited by other components.

The RDNA 4.0 architecture, built on a 4 nm process, offers 4096 shading units and 128 ROPs, which handle the pixel fill rate demands of 4K. The pixel rate is listed at 380.2 GPixel/s, which explains why the 4K High preset can maintain 72 FPS. However, the Ultra preset at 4K drops to 49.3 FPS, indicating that the increased shader complexity and draw calls are too much for the GPU to sustain at that resolution. The GPU’s FP32 performance of 48.66 TFLOPS is significant, but Greedfall’s engine appears to be more sensitive to raw pixel throughput than compute power, given the steep drop at 4K Ultra. The 64 RT cores are present, but this game does not use ray tracing, so they remain idle. In summary, the RX 9070 XT is the limiting factor at 4K, while the i7-12700K is sufficient to keep up at all lower resolutions.