Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 Action RPG, presents an interesting test for the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti combination. The benchmark data shows a system that is clearly capable of high frame rates across all resolutions, but the relationship between settings and performance reveals a nuanced picture of where the bottlenecks lie. The measured results span from a low of 54.2 FPS at 4K Ultra to a high of 293.7 FPS at 1080p Low, indicating a wide performance envelope that depends heavily on the user's choice of resolution and graphical fidelity.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combo suggests a clear hierarchy in settings presets, with the most balanced experience found in the High preset. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers an average of 206.6 FPS, which is a significant 71 FPS drop from the Low preset's 293.7 FPS but still offers a remarkably smooth experience. More importantly, the transition from High to Ultra at this resolution incurs a substantial 71.4 FPS penalty, bringing the average down to 135.2 FPS. This indicates that the Ultra preset demands a disproportionate amount of GPU resources for the visual improvement it provides.

At 2560x1440, the pattern holds. The High preset achieves 144.8 FPS, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors. The Medium preset at 161.8 FPS is only 17 FPS faster, while the Low preset at 200.9 FPS shows a more pronounced gain. The Ultra preset at this resolution falls to 92.4 FPS, which is still playable but sacrifices the headroom that makes the High preset so comfortable. The data suggests that for a demanding title like Greedfall, the High preset offers the optimal balance between visual quality and performance headroom, as it maintains frame rates well above 144 FPS at 1440p and above 200 FPS at 1080p.

For 4K gaming, the choices become more critical. The High preset at 3840x2160 delivers 86 FPS, which is a playable and generally smooth experience. The Medium preset at 97.8 FPS offers a slight performance boost, but the jump to Ultra drops the frame rate to 54.2 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay on many displays. The Low preset at 123 FPS is the only option that provides a high refresh rate experience at 4K, but it comes with the visual compromises inherent in Low settings. Therefore, the High preset remains the most sensible recommendation across all resolutions, providing a consistent and high-quality experience without the steep performance cost of Ultra.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i9-14900K is a 24-core, 32-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture. Its high core count and impressive boost clock of 6.00 GHz are designed to handle both heavily threaded workloads and single-threaded tasks with ease. In the context of Greedfall, the benchmark data indicates that the CPU is not the limiting factor at any resolution. This is evident from the frame rate scaling; when the resolution drops from 4K to 1080p, the average FPS at High settings increases from 86 to 206.6. This substantial gain suggests that the GPU has more headroom to work with at lower resolutions, and the CPU is capable of feeding it data fast enough to achieve these higher frame rates.

The processor's multi-threaded performance is substantial, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 49872 and a Passmark multithread score of 58674. These scores place it in the 97th percentile of all CPUs, indicating its dominant position in the market. In a game like Greedfall, which is an Action RPG with a focus on world simulation and AI, the CPU's ability to handle background tasks and game logic is crucial. The data shows that even at 1080p with the Low preset, where the CPU load is typically highest relative to the GPU, the system achieves 293.7 FPS. This is a clear indication that the i9-14900K provides more than enough processing power to avoid becoming a bottleneck in this title.

The i9-14900K's performance relative to its nearest rivals is tight. It trails the AMD EPYC 7413 by a mere 0.3% in average benchmark score but leads the Intel Core i9-14900KF and Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF by 0.7% each. This shows that while the CPU is a top-tier performer, its lead over other high-end chips is marginal in synthetic benchmarks. In gaming, this means the choice between these CPUs is unlikely to produce a significant difference in frame rates, as the GPU will typically be the constraining factor.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. This memory configuration is a key component in determining performance at higher resolutions and settings. The data shows a significant performance drop when moving from High to Ultra settings, which is likely due to the increased memory pressure and shader complexity of the Ultra preset. At 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 54.2, a stark contrast to the 86 FPS at 4K High. This 31.8 FPS difference highlights how demanding the Ultra preset is on the GPU's resources.

The GPU's clock speeds, with a base of 2310 MHz and a boost of 2610 MHz, are competitive, and its FP32 performance of 40.09 TFLOPS places it as a strong performer in its class. The benchmark scores reflect this, with a Passmark G3D score of 31624 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 205028. The GPU's percentile ranking at 85% of all GPUs shows that it is a high-end part, though not at the very top. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 Mobile, has a slightly higher average score, but the RTX 4070 Ti is only 0.6% behind it, indicating a very close performance level.

The GPU's role as the primary bottleneck becomes clear when analyzing the FPS scaling across resolutions. At 1080p High, the system achieves 206.6 FPS, which is a high frame rate that many CPUs would struggle to keep up with. However, the i9-14900K is clearly up to the task, allowing the GPU to be fully utilized. The fact that the frame rate scales down to 86 FPS at 4K High demonstrates that the GPU is working much harder at the higher resolution, which is the expected behavior. The RTX 4070 Ti is a capable card for Greedfall, but the Ultra preset at 4K pushes it beyond its comfort zone, resulting in a frame rate that is playable but not optimal for competitive or high-refresh-rate play.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset for a smooth 1440p experience with this combo?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 delivers an average of 144.8 FPS, which is ideal for a 144 Hz monitor. The Ultra preset at this resolution drops to 92.4 FPS, making High the better choice for maintaining a high refresh rate.

Q: How much of a performance gain is there from 1080p High to 1080p Low?

A: The difference is significant. The Low preset at 1920x1080 achieves 293.7 FPS, which is 87.1 FPS higher than the High preset's 206.6 FPS. This shows that Low settings substantially reduce the GPU workload.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming at maximum settings?

A: The data shows that at 3840x2160 with the Ultra preset, the average FPS is 54.2. While this is playable, it is not a high refresh rate experience. The High preset at 86 FPS is a more comfortable target for 4K.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in Greedfall?

A: The benchmark results indicate the GPU is the limiting factor. This is shown by the frame rate scaling with resolution; as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K, the average FPS at High settings drops from 206.6 to 86, which is a classic sign of GPU-bound performance.

Q: How does the CPU's performance compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Intel Core i9-14900K's average benchmark score is nearly identical to its nearest rivals. It trails the AMD EPYC 7413 by 0.3% and leads the Intel Core i9-14900KF by 0.7%, showing that performance is very closely matched among these top-tier CPUs.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between the Medium and Ultra presets at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Medium preset achieves 161.8 FPS, while the Ultra preset achieves 92.4 FPS. This represents a 69.4 FPS difference, illustrating the heavy cost of the Ultra preset.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how this combo scales across the three standard resolutions. At the High settings preset, the average frame rate progresses from 206.6 FPS at 1920x1080, to 144.8 FPS at 2560x1440, and finally to 86 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 29.9% drop in performance when moving from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 40.6% drop when moving from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering resolution has a direct and significant impact on the frame rate.

The pattern is similar for the other presets. For the Low preset, the frame rates are 293.7 FPS at 1080p, 200.9 FPS at 1440p, and 123 FPS at 4K. The percentage drop from 1080p to 4K is approximately 58%, which is a larger relative drop than seen at the High preset. This suggests that at lower settings, the GPU's raw compute and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints, and the additional pixel count at 4K takes a heavy toll. For the Ultra preset, the frame rates are 135.2 FPS at 1080p, 92.4 FPS at 1440p, and 54.2 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 4K is also about 60%, reinforcing that the Ultra preset is very demanding on the GPU.

The scaling analysis indicates that the Intel Core i9-14900K is not a limiting factor at any resolution. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see frame rates plateau at higher resolutions as the GPU's workload increases. Instead, the frame rates continue to drop consistently as resolution increases, which is the expected behavior when the GPU is the limiting component. The data strongly suggests that for users looking to maximize frame rates, lowering the resolution is the most effective strategy, as it provides a nearly linear increase in performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following is the complete set of measured average FPS data for the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti in Greedfall. At 1920x1080, the system achieves 293.7 FPS on Low, 231.1 FPS on Medium, 206.6 FPS on High, and 135.2 FPS on Ultra. These numbers show a clear hierarchy, with Low being the fastest and Ultra being the most demanding. The difference between Medium and High is 24.5 FPS, while the difference between High and Ultra is 71.4 FPS, which is the largest single-step drop in the entire dataset.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance decreases across the board. The Low preset delivers 200.9 FPS, the Medium preset delivers 161.8 FPS, the High preset delivers 144.8 FPS, and the Ultra preset delivers 92.4 FPS. The relative performance gaps are similar to 1080p, with a 46.6 FPS difference between Low and Medium, and a 52.4 FPS difference between High and Ultra. This indicates that the settings presets have a consistent impact on performance regardless of resolution.

At 3840x2160, the performance is at its lowest. The Low preset is the only option that remains above 120 FPS, with an average of 123 FPS. The Medium preset follows at 97.8 FPS, which is still a solid frame rate. The High preset drops to 86 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for high-refresh-rate displays. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, with an average of only 54.2 FPS. This is the only scenario in the dataset where the average frame rate falls below 60 FPS, making it the least recommended configuration for a smooth experience.

How This Combo Ranks

In the comprehensive database of tested hardware combinations for Greedfall, the Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti combination holds the 200th position out of 1705 tested combos. This places it in the top 11.7% of all configurations, which is a strong showing for a high-end desktop setup. The rank indicates that while this is a very capable system, there are 199 other combinations that achieve higher average frame rates in this specific game. The high ranking is not surprising given the individual performance of both the CPU and GPU, which are both in the upper echelons of their respective categories.

The combo's rank is a reflection of the overall system balance. The i9-14900K, with its 97th percentile ranking among all CPUs, provides a solid foundation, and the RTX 4070 Ti, with its 85th percentile ranking among all GPUs, ensures that the system can handle demanding titles. The fact that this combo ranks 200th suggests that there are a number of systems with more powerful GPUs, such as those with higher-end RTX 40-series cards, that can push frame rates even higher. However, the data shows that this specific pairing offers an excellent balance of performance, capable of delivering high frame rates at 1440p and solid 4K performance at High settings. The combination's performance is consistent with what one would expect from a top-tier CPU paired with a high-end, but not flagship, GPU.