Greedfall

# Greedfall Performance Analysis: Intel Core Ultra 5 235 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070

The data for Greedfall with the Intel Core Ultra 5 235 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 reveals a combo that sits in the 582nd position out of 2938 tested combinations, placing it in the top 20th percentile of all tested hardware pairings. This Action RPG from 2019 responds well to the modern hardware, though the scaling patterns across resolutions and settings suggest the RTX 5070 is the primary performance driver at higher quality levels, while the CPU's 14 cores and 14 threads provide ample headroom at lower presets. The measured results show a system that can comfortably handle this title at 1080p and 1440p, with 4K requiring more careful settings selection to maintain high frame rates.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K tells a clear story about where the bottleneck sits in this system. At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 265 FPS at 1920x1080 to 184 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 110 FPS at 3840x2160. That represents a 30.6% decline moving from 1080p to 1440p, and a further 40.2% decline going from 1440p to 4K. The scaling is nearly linear with pixel count, which strongly indicates the GPU is the limiting factor even at the lowest quality preset.

Looking at High settings, the pattern persists with 189 FPS at 1080p, 131 FPS at 1440p, and 78 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 30.7%, nearly identical to the Low settings decline, while the 1440p to 4K drop is 40.5%. This consistency across different quality levels suggests the RTX 5070's rendering pipeline is being saturated at all settings, and the CPU is not constraining performance in any meaningful way.

The Medium preset shows a slightly different story. At 1080p the average is 208 FPS, dropping to 144 FPS at 1440p (a 30.8% decrease) and 86 FPS at 4K (a 40.3% decrease from 1440p). The min FPS numbers at Medium settings are 177 FPS at 1080p, 123 FPS at 1440p, and 73 FPS at 4K, which shows that even the worst-case frame times remain playable across all resolutions.

Ultra settings reveal the steepest scaling curve. The 1080p average of 121 FPS falls to 84 FPS at 1440p (a 30.6% decline) and then to 50 FPS at 4K (a 40.5% decline). The fact that the percentage drops remain remarkably consistent across all four settings presets—hovering around 30% for the first step and 40% for the second—indicates that Greedfall's rendering load scales predictably with pixel count, and the RTX 5070's 12 GB of GDDR7 memory is not causing any unexpected bottlenecks at higher resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 582 out of 2938 tested combinations places this pairing in the 80.2nd percentile of all tested systems for Greedfall. This is a strong showing, though not exceptional when considering the hardware involved. The RTX 5070's individual percentile of 82 against all GPUs suggests the graphics card is performing near its expected level in this title, while the Core Ultra 5 235's percentile of 89 against all CPUs indicates the processor is well above average.

What is interesting is how the combo rank compares to the individual component rankings. The CPU sits in the 89th percentile and the GPU in the 82nd percentile, yet the combined system performance for this specific game lands in the 80th percentile. This suggests Greedfall is not fully utilizing the strengths of either component, likely because the game's engine has certain scaling limits that prevent the hardware from reaching its full potential.

The nearest rivals for the CPU include the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 with an average benchmark score of 46030 (a 0.1% delta), the Intel Core i9-13900HX at 46098 (-0.1% delta), the AMD EPYC 4364P at 45970 (0.2% delta), and the AMD EPYC 7303 at 45960 (0.2% delta). These extremely tight margins—all within 0.2% of the Core Ultra 5 235's average benchmark score—indicate that the CPU's synthetic performance is essentially tied with several very different processor designs, from mobile HX chips to server EPYC parts.

For the GPU, the nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (0.1% delta), AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (0.8% delta), AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (-1.2% delta), and NVIDIA RTX A500 Mobile (2.0% delta). These are all older workstation or mobile parts, which highlights that the RTX 5070's closest performance matches in the database are not modern gaming GPUs, suggesting the 50-series card sits in a unique performance tier.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 brings 12 GB of GDDR7 memory across a 192-bit bus, delivering 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory runs at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed, while the core operates between 2325 MHz base and 2512 MHz boost clocks. The 6144 shading units, 192 TMUs, and 80 ROPs provide the raw throughput, with the card achieving 30.87 TFLOPS FP32 performance.

In Greedfall, the GPU's role becomes clear when examining the benchmark results. The PassMark G3D score of 29137 and 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5077 place the card in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs. The Geekbench OpenCL score of 172660 and Vulkan score of 178923 indicate strong compute capabilities that should handle the game's physics and particle effects.

The 12 GB VRAM capacity appears sufficient for this title at all tested resolutions, as there are no anomalous frame rate collapses at 4K that would indicate memory swapping. The consistent scaling pattern across resolutions suggests the memory subsystem is not a limiting factor. The 672.0 GB/s bandwidth is likely more than adequate for a 2019 game, which explains why the performance scales so predictably with resolution rather than showing memory-related stutters or drops.

The GPU's 80 ROPs and 201.0 GPixel/s pixel rate directly influence how quickly the game can fill the screen at higher resolutions. The 482.3 GTexel/s texture rate handles the game's environmental detail, and the 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores provide headroom for any ray tracing or DLSS features, though the measured data does not indicate whether these features are active in the benchmark runs.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a clear hierarchy of settings for different priorities. At 1080p, all settings presets deliver playable frame rates, with Low at 265 FPS, Medium at 208 FPS, High at 189 FPS, and Ultra at 121 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra costs 68 FPS, a 36% reduction, which suggests the Ultra preset includes effects that are disproportionately expensive relative to their visual benefit.

For 1440p gaming, the Medium preset at 144 FPS with a min FPS of 123 provides the best balance of visual quality and performance. High settings at 131 FPS are also excellent, and even Ultra at 84 FPS remains smooth. The data suggests that 1440p High is the sweet spot, as it provides 131 FPS while maintaining the visual fidelity most players would want from a modern GPU.

At 4K, the situation changes dramatically. Low settings deliver 110 FPS, Medium drops to 86 FPS with a 73 FPS minimum, High falls to 78 FPS, and Ultra plummets to 50 FPS. For a consistently smooth experience at 4K, Medium settings appear optimal, as the 86 FPS average with a 73 FPS minimum ensures frame times stay within a comfortable range. The Ultra preset at 50 FPS may be playable for some, but the 36 FPS gap between Medium and Ultra at this resolution represents a significant visual trade-off.

The min FPS data at Medium settings shows that even the worst-case frame rates remain respectable: 177 FPS at 1080p, 123 FPS at 1440p, and 73 FPS at 4K. This consistency indicates the RTX 5070 handles frame time variance well in Greedfall, making Medium settings a reliable choice across all resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the full settings range shows a spread from 265 FPS at Low to 121 FPS at Ultra. The Medium preset achieves 208 FPS average with a minimum of 177 FPS and maximum of 240 FPS, while High settings deliver 189 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 57 FPS, Medium to High is 19 FPS, and High to Ultra is 68 FPS, revealing that the Ultra preset carries a disproportionate performance penalty.

Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 184 FPS at Low, 144 FPS at Medium (min 123, max 166), 131 FPS at High, and 84 FPS at Ultra. The performance deltas between settings are compressed compared to 1080p: Low to Medium is 40 FPS, Medium to High is 13 FPS, and High to Ultra is 47 FPS. The Medium preset's min FPS of 123 indicates that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate stays well above the 60 FPS threshold.

At 3840x2160, the results show 110 FPS at Low, 86 FPS at Medium (min 73, max 99), 78 FPS at High, and 50 FPS at Ultra. The Low to Medium gap narrows to 24 FPS, Medium to High is 8 FPS, and High to Ultra is 28 FPS. The 50 FPS Ultra result at 4K is the only measured average that falls below 60 FPS, making it the only configuration in the entire dataset that could be considered marginal for smooth gameplay.

FAQ

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

A: Yes, at Medium settings the system achieves 86 FPS average with a 73 FPS minimum at 3840x2160. High settings deliver 78 FPS, while Ultra drops to 50 FPS, which may be below the threshold some players find acceptable.

Q: How much performance is lost when moving from 1080p to 4K?

A: The average frame rate drops by approximately 58.5% across all settings when moving from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160. For example, High settings go from 189 FPS to 78 FPS, and Medium from 208 FPS to 86 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more likely to bottleneck Greedfall?

A: The consistent scaling pattern across resolutions—nearly identical percentage drops from 1080p to 1440p and 1440p to 4K at every settings preset—indicates the GPU is the limiting component in all configurations.

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

A: High settings at 2560x1440 deliver 131 FPS average, while Medium achieves 144 FPS with a 123 FPS minimum. Both are excellent, but High provides better visual quality while still maintaining a high frame rate.

Q: How does the RTX 5070's 12 GB VRAM affect 4K performance?

A: The 12 GB of GDDR7 memory appears sufficient for Greedfall at 4K, as there are no signs of memory-related performance collapses. The frame rate scaling from 1440p to 4K follows the expected pattern based on pixel count.

Q: What frame rates can I expect at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the system delivers 121 FPS average. This is the most demanding configuration in the dataset, but it still provides a smooth experience on high refresh rate monitors.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235 features 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The Arrow Lake architecture on a 3 nm process from TSMC includes 17,800 million transistors on a 243 mm² die. The 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 192 KB L1 cache per core provide the memory hierarchy necessary for game workloads, while the dual-channel DDR5 memory interface offers 102.4 GB/s of bandwidth.

In Greedfall, the CPU's influence is most evident when examining the frame rate ceiling. At 1080p Low settings, the system reaches 265 FPS, which is likely approaching the point where CPU limitations could emerge. However, the fact that the scaling from 1080p to 1440p remains consistent at around 30% across all settings suggests the CPU is not creating a significant bottleneck even at these very high frame rates.

The CPU's benchmark scores indicate strong multithreaded performance: a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 14769 and single-core score of 2085, a PassMark multithread score of 37816, and a single-thread score of 4516. The PassMark physics score of 2570 is particularly relevant for game physics calculations, while the data encryption score of 29293 and compression score of 390711 show the processor's general compute capabilities.

The Core Ultra 5 235's 89th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 46062, places it just 0.1% above the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 and 0.1% below the Intel Core i9-13900HX. This tight clustering suggests that for Greedfall, the specific CPU choice within this performance tier matters little, as the game's engine appears to scale well with the available cores and threads.

The 14 cores without hyperthreading may seem unusual, but the measured results show this configuration handles Greedfall's workloads effectively. The 5.00 GHz boost clock ensures strong single-threaded performance for game logic, while the 14 physical cores provide ample parallel processing for background tasks, asset streaming, and any multithreaded game systems. The combination with the RTX 5070 means the CPU consistently feeds the GPU enough data to maintain the high frame rates measured across all settings and resolutions.