Greedfall

# Greedfall Performance Analysis: Intel Core Ultra 5 235 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

The combination of Intel's Core Ultra 5 235 and NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 5090 delivers exceptional performance in Greedfall, with the measured data showing this pairing ranks 83rd out of 2,938 tested combos, placing it in the top 3% of all configurations. The RTX 5090, with its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, proves overwhelmingly capable across all tested resolutions, while the Core Ultra 5 235's 14 cores and 14 threads provide solid CPU headroom even at lower resolutions where the processor's influence becomes more apparent. This analysis examines the measured FPS data across three resolutions and four quality presets, exploring how this hardware pairing behaves in a 2019 Action RPG that remains demanding even on modern flagship components.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data reveals a clear hierarchy across Greedfall's quality presets, with each step in settings carrying a significant performance cost. At 1080p, the Low preset delivers an extraordinary 359 FPS average, while Medium drops to 282 FPS, High to 256 FPS, and Ultra to 164 FPS. This progression shows that moving from Low to Ultra costs roughly 54% of the performance headroom, yet even the most demanding preset at this resolution remains far beyond what most displays can reproduce. The High preset at 1080p, with its 256 FPS average, represents the optimal balance for competitive play on high-refresh-rate monitors, as the gap between High and Ultra (92 FPS) is disproportionately large compared to the visual gains typically associated with that final settings tier.

At 1440p, the pattern shifts but remains favorable. Low produces 249 FPS, Medium 196 FPS, High 178 FPS, and Ultra 113 FPS. The Medium preset here appears particularly compelling, offering 196 FPS with a minimum of 166 FPS and maximum of 225 FPS—a tight frame-time distribution that suggests consistent performance without the volatility seen at some other settings. High at 1440p still delivers 178 FPS, which comfortably exceeds the refresh rate of most gaming monitors, while Ultra's 113 FPS remains playable but begins to approach the threshold where frame pacing becomes noticeable on 120Hz displays. For users prioritizing visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness, High at 1440p emerges as the recommended preset, as it maintains a substantial cushion above 144 FPS while avoiding the steep performance penalty of Ultra.

The 4K results demand more careful consideration. Ultra at 3840x2160 drops to 68 FPS, which falls below the 70 FPS threshold commonly associated with smooth gameplay on high-refresh displays. High at 4K produces 106 FPS, Medium 117 FPS, and Low 149 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K, with its 99 FPS minimum and 134 FPS maximum, offers the most consistent experience while staying above 100 FPS average—a meaningful psychological barrier for many gamers. Given that the jump from Medium to High at 4K costs only 11 FPS while the jump from High to Ultra costs 38 FPS, the Medium preset provides the best experience per measured frame at this resolution. Users with G-SYNC or FreeSync displays might prefer High's 106 FPS, but the median recommendation points to Medium as the sweet spot for 4K gameplay with this hardware.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 83 out of 2,938 tested configurations places this hardware pairing in the 97.2nd percentile of all combinations tested. This positioning reflects the RTX 5090's dominant GPU performance combined with the Core Ultra 5 235's respectable CPU capabilities. The GPU's percentile of 92 among all tested GPUs suggests it sits near the top of the performance hierarchy, while the CPU's 89th percentile among all processors indicates it trails slightly behind the very fastest chips but remains firmly in high-end territory. The combination of two top-decile components yields a composite ranking that outperforms the sum of its parts, suggesting Greedfall's workload benefits from the balanced nature of this pairing.

The nearest rival data for the CPU provides useful context for understanding the processor's role. The Core Ultra 5 235's average benchmark score of 46,062 places it within 0.1% of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (46,030, +0.1% delta) and the Intel Core i9-13900HX (46,098, -0.1% delta). This tight clustering indicates that the Ultra 5 235 performs equivalently to flagship mobile processors from the previous generation, despite being a desktop chip with a 65W TDP. The AMD EPYC 4364P (45,970, +0.2%) and EPYC 7303 (45,960, +0.2%) trail by similar margins, demonstrating that the Ultra 5 235 sits at a performance plateau shared by several high-end processors from different market segments.

For the GPU, the RTX 5090's average benchmark score of 79,842 places it 0.3% ahead of the Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605) and 0.6% ahead of the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396), while trailing the Radeon Pro Vega 64X by 1.4% (80,959). This unusual comparison set reflects the benchmark database's methodology, which may not yet include many next-generation consumer GPUs. The 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs confirms the RTX 5090's position near the apex of graphics performance, and its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 18,355 provides additional evidence of its capabilities in modern DirectX 12 workloads.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus produces 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, figures that dwarf the requirements of a 2019 Action RPG like Greedfall. This memory configuration ensures that VRAM capacity or bandwidth never becomes a limiting factor at any resolution or settings preset tested. The GPU's 92.2 billion transistors on a 750 mm² die, manufactured on TSMC's 5 nm process, represent a massive investment in compute resources, with 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 render output units available for pixel processing.

The clock behavior of the RTX 5090—2017 MHz base and 2407 MHz boost—contributes to its measured performance, but the data suggests that Greedfall's rendering workload does not fully stress the GPU's capabilities. At 1080p Low, the 359 FPS average indicates that the GPU is completing frames faster than the CPU can feed it, creating a bottleneck that shifts the performance ceiling to the processor. The GPU's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute and 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are far beyond what this game requires, yet the measured FPS still shows diminishing returns at higher resolutions where the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth become more relevant.

The 4K Medium result of 117 FPS with a 99 FPS minimum demonstrates the GPU's ability to maintain playable frame rates even at the highest resolution, while the 4K Ultra result of 68 FPS reveals that Greedfall's Ultra preset includes effects that disproportionately tax even a flagship GPU. The 176 ROPs and 1,636.8 GTexel/s texture rate suggest that the GPU's raw rasterization throughput is ample, so the Ultra preset's performance drop likely stems from compute-heavy post-processing or volumetric effects rather than simple geometry or texture throughput.

Measured FPS Breakdown

Starting at 1920x1080, the measured results show a wide spread across settings. Low delivers 359 FPS, Medium 282 FPS with a 240-325 FPS range, High 256 FPS, and Ultra 164 FPS. The 195 FPS difference between Low and Ultra represents a 54% performance reduction for the highest quality preset, yet even the lowest figure remains far above typical display refresh rates. The Medium preset's frame range of 85 FPS (240 to 325) indicates some variance, but the average of 282 FPS suggests this variance occurs at frame rates where it remains imperceptible to most users.

At 2560x1440, the measured averages are 249 FPS for Low, 196 FPS for Medium (166-225 FPS range), 178 FPS for High, and 113 FPS for Ultra. The Medium preset's 59 FPS range (166 to 225) shows tighter consistency than at 1080p, suggesting the increased resolution reduces CPU-bound frame spikes. The 71 FPS gap between High and Ultra at this resolution mirrors the 92 FPS gap at 1080p, confirming that the Ultra preset's additional cost is consistent regardless of resolution. High's 178 FPS average positions it comfortably above 144 Hz refresh rates, while Ultra's 113 FPS still exceeds 100 FPS for high-refresh displays.

The 3840x2160 results show the GPU beginning to feel the resolution's demands. Low produces 149 FPS, Medium 117 FPS (99-134 FPS range), High 106 FPS, and Ultra 68 FPS. The 81 FPS delta between Low and Ultra at 4K represents a 54% reduction, matching the percentage seen at 1080p and suggesting the Ultra preset's cost scales proportionally with resolution. The Medium preset's 35 FPS range (99 to 134) at 4K represents the tightest frame-time distribution of any resolution tested, indicating that this combination of resolution and settings produces the most predictable performance. Ultra at 4K drops below the 70 FPS threshold, which may introduce noticeable frame pacing issues on displays with high refresh rates.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals important insights about the limiting component at each settings tier. At Low settings, the FPS drops from 359 at 1080p to 249 at 1440p (a 30.6% reduction) and further to 149 at 4K (a 58.5% reduction from 1080p). This scaling pattern suggests that at Low settings, the CPU plays a significant role at 1080p, as the 1440p result shows less than the expected 44% reduction that pure GPU-bound scaling would predict. The 4K Low result of 149 FPS indicates the GPU begins to assert its limiting role at higher resolutions, but the CPU still contributes to frame pacing.

At Medium settings, the FPS drops from 282 at 1080p to 196 at 1440p (30.5% reduction) and 117 at 4K (58.5% reduction from 1080p). The consistency of these percentages across Low and Medium settings suggests that both presets are limited by the same components in similar proportions. The Medium preset's minimum FPS figures—240 at 1080p, 166 at 1440p, and 99 at 4K—show a linear scaling pattern that aligns with the pixel count increase, implying the GPU becomes progressively more dominant as resolution rises.

High settings demonstrate a different scaling profile: 256 FPS at 1080p drops to 178 FPS at 1440p (30.5% reduction) and 106 FPS at 4K (58.6% reduction). These percentages nearly match the Low and Medium presets, indicating that High settings do not shift the bottleneck significantly. Ultra settings, however, show a steeper initial drop: 164 FPS at 1080p falls to 113 FPS at 1440p (31.1% reduction) and 68 FPS at 4K (58.5% reduction from 1080p). The slightly larger percentage drops at Ultra suggest that this preset introduces effects that scale more aggressively with pixel count, likely due to increased GPU memory pressure or compute-heavy shaders.

The consistent 30-31% reduction from 1080p to 1440p across all settings, followed by a 58-59% reduction from 1080p to 4K, indicates that Greedfall's rendering pipeline scales predictably with pixel count. The gap between the theoretical 44% reduction (1080p to 1440p) and the measured 30% suggests that at 1080p, the CPU limits performance, preventing the GPU from fully utilizing its capabilities. At 4K, the measured 58.5% reduction aligns closely with the theoretical 77% pixel count increase, indicating the GPU becomes the primary limiting factor.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 235's 14 cores and 14 threads operate at 3.40 GHz base and 5.00 GHz boost clocks, with 24 MB of shared L3 cache. This configuration, built on the Arrow Lake architecture using TSMC's 3 nm process, delivers a single-thread score of 2,085 in Cinebench R23 and a multi-thread score of 14,769. The CPU's 89th percentile ranking among all processors, with an average benchmark score of 46,062, places it in the upper echelon of desktop CPUs, though its nearest rivals include both mobile processors (Ryzen AI 9 HX 375) and server chips (EPYC 4364P), reflecting its position at a performance crossroads.

In Greedfall, the CPU's role becomes most apparent at 1080p where the RTX 5090's massive GPU throughput outstrips the processor's ability to feed frames. The 359 FPS result at 1080p Low represents the practical ceiling for this CPU-GPU combination, as the GPU could theoretically render more frames but the CPU cannot issue draw calls quickly enough. The 5.00 GHz boost clock proves valuable for this single-thread-dependent workload, as Greedfall's game logic and physics calculations typically rely on one or two primary threads. The 14-core configuration ensures that background tasks and additional game threads have ample resources without starving the primary rendering thread.

The CPU's cache hierarchy—192 KB L1 per core, 3 MB L2 per core, and 24 MB shared L3—provides sufficient data locality for the game's asset loading and entity management systems. The 102.4 GB/s memory bandwidth from dual-channel DDR5 further supports smooth asset streaming, though the 65W TDP suggests the CPU operates within a modest power envelope relative to its performance class. The PassMark multithread score of 37,816 and single-thread score of 4,516 demonstrate balanced performance across both metrics, indicating that Greedfall's mixed workload of game logic, AI, and rendering commands can be processed without obvious CPU-bound stutter, even at the high frame rates measured at lower resolutions.

At 4K, the CPU's influence diminishes as the GPU becomes the bottleneck, but the measured data shows that even at 4K Ultra with 68 FPS, the CPU maintains adequate frame delivery to avoid dips below the minimum playable threshold. The 24 MB L3 cache likely helps maintain consistent frame times by reducing memory latency for frequently accessed game data, contributing to the smooth frame pacing observed in the Medium preset's minimum FPS figures across all resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings for this hardware in Greedfall?

A: The data shows 1440p High delivers 178 FPS average, comfortably above 144 Hz refresh rates, while 4K Medium provides 117 FPS with a 99 FPS minimum. For maximum visual quality at playable frame rates, 4K High at 106 FPS is viable on displays with variable refresh rate support.

Q: How does the Core Ultra 5 235 compare to its closest CPU rivals?

A: The Ultra 5 235's average benchmark score of 46,062 places it within 0.1% of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 (46,030) and Intel Core i9-13900HX (46,098), and 0.2% ahead of both the AMD EPYC 4364P and EPYC 7303 (45,970 and 45,960 respectively).

Q: Does the RTX 5090's 32 GB VRAM matter for Greedfall?

A: The 32 GB GDDR7 memory with 1.79 TB/s bandwidth far exceeds any requirement Greedfall could impose, even at 4K Ultra settings. The measured data shows no VRAM-related performance degradation at any resolution or preset tested.

Q: Why does Ultra settings cause such a large FPS drop compared to High?

A: At 1080p, Ultra drops to 164 FPS from High's 256 FPS (a 92 FPS reduction), while at 4K the drop is from 106 to 68 FPS (38 FPS reduction). The proportional cost remains consistent at roughly 54% across all resolutions, indicating Ultra introduces effects that scale evenly with pixel count.

Q: Is this CPU or GPU limited at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the 359 FPS result indicates CPU limitation, as the RTX 5090 is capable of higher frame rates but the Ultra 5 235 cannot issue commands fast enough. The 5.00 GHz boost clock and 14 cores provide sufficient throughput for most scenarios, but the GPU remains underutilized at low resolutions.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: The combination ranks 83rd out of 2,938 tested combos, placing it in the top 3% of all configurations. The GPU's 92nd percentile and CPU's 89th percentile rankings combine to produce a system that performs at the upper end of the benchmark database's tested hardware.