Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 Action RPG, presents a clear performance hierarchy for the Intel Core i7-13700K and AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT combination. The measured frame rates indicate that the Ultra preset is a demanding step that severely impacts performance, while more balanced settings offer a significantly better experience.

Settings Recommendations

The data shows that the Ultra preset is disproportionately punishing at every resolution. At 3840x2160, the average frame rate collapses to 32.7 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The drop from High to Ultra at this resolution represents a loss of 23.9 FPS, a 42% reduction that makes the setting impractical. The pattern continues at 2560x1440, where Ultra yields 56.8 FPS compared to High's 92 FPS, and at 1920x1080, where Ultra produces 83.7 FPS versus High's 129.5 FPS.

For the best experience, the High preset is the clear recommendation across all tested resolutions. It delivers a playable 56.6 FPS at 4K, a smooth 92 FPS at 1440p, and an excellent 129.5 FPS at 1080p. The High preset appears to offer a well-balanced visual-to-performance ratio, avoiding the steep performance cliff that Ultra introduces.

The Medium preset offers a marginal improvement over High at higher resolutions. At 3840x2160, Medium scores 56.7 FPS, virtually identical to High's 56.6 FPS. At 2560x1440, Medium achieves 102.7 FPS, roughly 11% faster than High. The Low preset provides the highest frame rates, reaching 182.4 FPS at 1080p and 77.7 FPS at 4K, but the visual compromise is likely substantial given the game's genre.

The Ultra preset's 32.7 FPS at 4K and 56.8 FPS at 1440p suggest that this setting is intended for future hardware or for players willing to accept significant performance penalties. The measured data indicates that High is the sweet spot for this configuration, offering a strong balance of visual fidelity and frame rate across all resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT, built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with a 7 nm process from TSMC, demonstrates its capabilities through the measured frame rates. The GPU's 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 384.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient for Greedfall's demands at 4K, where the High preset still manages 56.6 FPS.

The GPU's clock speeds are notably high, with a base clock of 2321 MHz, a game clock of 2424 MHz, and a boost clock of 2581 MHz. These frequencies contribute to the card's 13.21 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, which is further supported by its 2560 shading units and 160 texture mapping units. The 40 ray tracing cores and 64 ROPs round out the specification sheet, though Greedfall's 2019 release date suggests ray tracing is not a primary workload.

The RX 6700 XT's performance percentile of 77 places it above the majority of GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon RX 6800, scores 0.7% higher in average benchmark score, placing the 6700 XT in a tightly contested performance tier. The GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support and 12_2 feature level ensure compatibility with modern rendering techniques, while its 16 Gbps effective memory speed helps maintain bandwidth at higher resolutions.

The transition from 1080p to 4K shows the GPU being progressively more stressed. At 1080p High, the card produces 129.5 FPS, but this drops to 56.6 FPS at 4K, a 56% reduction. This scaling indicates that Greedfall is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, and the RX 6700 XT's 12 GB frame buffer and 384.0 GB/s bandwidth are the limiting factors at 4K Ultra, where performance falls to 32.7 FPS.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K, with its 16 cores and 24 threads, provides substantial processing headroom for Greedfall. The CPU's Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process, features a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, which are critical for the game's single-threaded performance demands. The 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache help reduce memory latency during gameplay.

The CPU's benchmark scores indicate strong multi-threaded capabilities, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 39000 and a single-core score of 5505. The PassMark multithread score of 45887 and single-thread score of 4333 further confirm its processing power. The 3DMark scores show excellent scaling from 2 threads (2262) to 16 threads (10717) and max threads (12412), suggesting the CPU can handle heavily threaded workloads without bottlenecking.

The i7-13700K sits at the 93rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 47282. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-13700KF, is virtually identical with a 0.1% lower score, while the AMD EPYC 4364P is 0.3% higher. This places the CPU in a performance tier where it is unlikely to be the limiting factor in Greedfall, which is a 2019 title that does not require the latest multi-core optimizations.

At 1080p, where the GPU has less work, the CPU's role becomes more apparent. The jump from Medium (142.6 FPS) to Low (182.4 FPS) at 1080p suggests that at lower settings, the CPU can feed frames faster than the GPU can render them, but the 5.40 GHz boost clock ensures the processor keeps up with the GPU's output. The data indicates that at no tested resolution or setting does the CPU become a bottleneck, as the GPU's performance scaling with resolution is consistent with a GPU-bound workload.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset to use at 1440p for this combo?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 delivers 92 FPS on average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold. The Ultra preset drops to 56.8 FPS, making High the recommended choice for a smooth experience.

Q: How does the RX 6700 XT compare to its closest rival in raw performance?

A: The AMD Radeon RX 6800 has an average benchmark score of 33493, which is 0.7% higher than the RX 6700 XT's score. This places the two cards in the same performance bracket, with the 6700 XT trailing by a negligible margin.

Q: Does the i7-13700K bottleneck the GPU at 1080p?

A: The data does not indicate a CPU bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 182.4 FPS, and the CPU's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 5505 and boost clock of 5.40 GHz are sufficient to keep pace with the GPU at all tested settings.

Q: What is the performance impact of moving from High to Ultra at 4K?

A: The average frame rate drops from 56.6 FPS on High to 32.7 FPS on Ultra at 3840x2160, a reduction of 23.9 FPS. This makes Ultra effectively unplayable at 4K for this configuration.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its single-threaded performance?

A: The Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 39000 is roughly 7 times higher than the single-core score of 5505, reflecting the benefit of 16 cores and 24 threads. For Greedfall, which relies on fewer threads, the single-core performance is more relevant.

Q: Is the GPU's memory bandwidth sufficient for 4K gaming?

A: The 384.0 GB/s bandwidth and 12 GB of GDDR6 memory are adequate for 4K at High settings, producing 56.6 FPS. However, at Ultra settings, the combination of memory pressure and rendering demands reduces performance to 32.7 FPS, indicating the card is nearing its limits.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data across resolutions reveals a consistent pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, confirming the GPU-bound nature of Greedfall. At the High preset, the average frame rate drops from 129.5 FPS at 1920x1080 to 92 FPS at 2560x1440, a 29% reduction, and then to 56.6 FPS at 3840x2160, a further 38% reduction from 1440p. This scaling is nearly linear with the increase in pixel count, which is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario.

The Low preset shows the largest absolute frame rates, with 182.4 FPS at 1080p, 124 FPS at 1440p, and 77.7 FPS at 4K. The transition from 1080p to 4K at Low settings results in a 57% drop, similar to the High preset's 56% drop. This consistency indicates that the GPU's rendering pipeline, not the CPU or memory subsystem, is the primary constraint.

The Medium preset behaves similarly to High, with 142.6 FPS at 1080p, 102.7 FPS at 1440p, and 56.7 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset, however, shows a different scaling pattern. At 1080p, Ultra produces 83.7 FPS, but this falls to 56.8 FPS at 1440p and 32.7 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 1440p is 32%, but from 1440p to 4K it is 42%, suggesting that Ultra settings impose an increasing burden on the GPU's resources at higher resolutions.

The data points to the RX 6700 XT as the limiting component. The CPU, with its 93rd percentile ranking and strong single-thread performance, is not the bottleneck. The GPU's 77th percentile ranking and the consistent FPS scaling with pixel count indicate that its 2560 shading units and 384.0 GB/s bandwidth are the determining factors. Players targeting 4K should stick to High settings, while 1080p and 1440p users can comfortably use High or even Ultra at 1080p, where 83.7 FPS remains playable.