Greedfall

# Greedfall Performance Analysis: Intel Core Ultra 5 245 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D

This combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D delivers exceptional performance in Greedfall, ranking first out of 2,938 tested combos. The data reveals a system that handles the 2019 Action RPG with remarkable headroom across all resolutions, though the scaling patterns expose distinct bottlenecks that shift depending on the settings and resolution chosen.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear progression as resolution increases, with the largest absolute drops occurring at the Low settings tier. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 383 FPS at 1920x1080 to 266 FPS at 2560x1440, representing a 117 FPS reduction. Moving from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 at Low settings brings another drop of 107 FPS, landing at 159 FPS. This steep decline suggests that at lower settings, the GPU is working harder relative to the CPU's capability, making the graphics card the primary limiting factor even at 1080p.

At High settings, the scaling is more moderate but still substantial. The average FPS goes from 273 at 1920x1080 to 190 at 2560x1440, a decrease of 83 FPS. From 1440p to 4K at High settings, the average drops another 77 FPS to 113. The percentage reduction between these steps is roughly 30% for each resolution jump, which is consistent with a GPU-bound scenario where pixel count scales linearly.

Medium settings show a similar pattern to High, with 301 FPS at 1080p, 209 FPS at 1440p, and 125 FPS at 4K. The gaps between resolutions are 92 FPS and 84 FPS respectively. Ultra settings produce the lowest frame rates overall, with 175 FPS at 1080p, 121 FPS at 1440p, and 72 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 72 FPS average is particularly notable because it's the only configuration that drops below the 100 FPS threshold, indicating that Ultra quality at 4K demands more from the GPU than the other settings tiers.

The scaling behavior suggests that at 1080p, particularly with Low and Medium settings, the frame rates are so high (383 and 301 FPS respectively) that the CPU's single-thread performance becomes a contributing factor. At these extreme frame rates, the rendering pipeline's per-frame CPU overhead starts to matter, and the Core Ultra 5 245's boost clock of 5.10 GHz helps maintain these high numbers. As resolution increases, the GPU's workload grows proportionally, and the RTX 5090 D's 32 GB of GDDR7 memory and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth become the dominant factors in determining final performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is built on the Arrow Lake architecture with 14 cores and 14 threads, running at a base clock of 3.50 GHz and boosting to 5.10 GHz. This processor, released in January 2025, features a 3 nm process node from TSMC and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. For Greedfall, which is an Action RPG from 2019, the CPU's role appears primarily in maintaining high minimum frame rates and supporting the upper bounds of frame generation at lower resolutions.

The CPU's benchmark scores place it in the 90th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 48,995. Its closest rival in synthetic testing is the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G, which scores 49,196, a delta of -0.4%, meaning the Core Ultra 5 245 is essentially tied with that processor. The AMD Ryzen 9 7900 scores 49,228 (delta -0.5%), while the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H scores 48,698 (delta +0.6%) and the Intel Core i5-14600K scores 48,618 (delta +0.8%). These margins are all within 1%, indicating that the Core Ultra 5 245 sits in a tightly competitive performance band.

In Greedfall specifically, the CPU's influence is most visible when examining the 1080p Low setting result of 383 FPS. This figure is substantially higher than the 4K Low result of 159 FPS, and the difference of 224 FPS cannot be attributed solely to GPU workload. At 1080p, the GPU has excess capacity, and the CPU's ability to feed the rendering pipeline becomes the constraining factor. The 14-core, 14-thread configuration with a 5.10 GHz boost clock provides strong single-thread performance, which is critical for older game engines that may not scale well across many cores.

The PassMark single-thread score of 4,394 and the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4,648 both indicate robust per-core performance. Greedfall, being a 2019 title, likely relies more on single-thread performance than modern multi-threaded optimizations. The data suggests that at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS drops to 72, the CPU is not the bottleneck; instead, the GPU's rendering load at that quality level is the limiting factor.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D achieves a rank of 1 out of 2,938 tested combos in Greedfall. This top ranking indicates that no other CPU-GPU pairing in the database produces higher average frame rates in this game. The fact that this combo ranks first is significant given the GPU's own percentile ranking of 92 among all GPUs, which is high but not the absolute top, and the CPU's 90th percentile ranking.

The measured FPS data confirms this ranking across all resolution and settings combinations. The lowest average FPS recorded for any configuration is 72 FPS at 4K Ultra, which is still playable. The highest average FPS is 383 FPS at 1080p Low. Across all 12 measured configurations, the average FPS never drops below 72, and at 1080p, all settings tiers produce frame rates above 170 FPS.

This ranking suggests that the combination is well-balanced for this specific workload. The GPU's nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (delta +1.1%) and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (delta -1.6%), but those comparisons are based on average benchmark scores, not gaming performance. In Greedfall, the RTX 5090 D's 32 GB VRAM and 512-bit memory bus provide advantages that may not be fully captured by synthetic tests.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the resolution with the highest frame rates, the data shows a clear hierarchy across settings. Low settings produce an average of 383 FPS, Medium produces 301 FPS, High produces 273 FPS, and Ultra produces 175 FPS. The Medium setting includes minimum and maximum values of 256 FPS and 346 FPS respectively, showing a 90 FPS range during the benchmark run. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 208 FPS, indicating that Ultra settings impose a significant rendering cost.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain high but drop noticeably. Low averages 266 FPS, Medium averages 209 FPS with a minimum of 178 FPS and maximum of 240 FPS, High averages 190 FPS, and Ultra averages 121 FPS. The range between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 145 FPS, narrower than at 1080p. The Medium setting's spread of 62 FPS between minimum and maximum suggests some scene-to-scene variability, but the average remains well above 200 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates are lower but still impressive. Low averages 159 FPS, Medium averages 125 FPS with a minimum of 106 FPS and maximum of 143 FPS, High averages 113 FPS, and Ultra averages 72 FPS. The Medium setting's minimum of 106 FPS is the lowest minimum recorded across all configurations, though this is still above the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered playable. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 87 FPS, the smallest absolute difference across all resolutions.

The data shows that across every resolution, Low settings provide the highest frame rates, followed by Medium, then High, then Ultra. The relative ordering is consistent, but the absolute differences shrink as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference between Medium and High is 28 FPS, while at 4K, the difference is 12 FPS. This compression of the settings-based performance gap at higher resolutions indicates that the GPU becomes more uniformly burdened as pixel count increases.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a GB202 chip manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU runs at a base clock of 2017 MHz and boosts to 2407 MHz, with memory clocked at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). With 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, this is a massively parallel processor capable of 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute.

The GPU's synthetic benchmark scores place it in the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 77,712. Its nearest rivals in the database include the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (score 76,904, delta +1.1%) and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (score 78,940, delta -1.6%). The NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB and 16 GB variants score 79,396 (delta -2.1%) and 79,605 (delta -2.4%) respectively. These comparisons show that the RTX 5090 D's synthetic average is slightly below some workstation-class GPUs, but in Greedfall, the gaming-optimized drivers and architecture deliver superior frame rates.

In the context of Greedfall, the GPU's role is most pronounced at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS drops to 72. This is the only configuration that approaches the lower bounds of high-refresh-rate gaming. The 32 GB VRAM capacity is far more than Greedfall requires, but the memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s helps sustain high frame rates at 4K resolution. The pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s provide the raw throughput needed for the game's rendering demands.

The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings shows a 103 FPS drop (from 175 to 72), which represents a 41% reduction in performance. This is consistent with the pixel count increasing by a factor of four, suggesting that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at Ultra quality. At Low settings, the same resolution change results in a 224 FPS drop (from 383 to 159), a 58% reduction, indicating that the CPU plays a larger role at lower settings where the GPU has more headroom.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and frame rate goal. At 1920x1080, all settings tiers provide frame rates above 170 FPS, with Ultra delivering 175 FPS. For players with 144Hz or 165Hz monitors, Ultra at 1080p is the best choice because it provides the highest visual quality while still exceeding the refresh rate of most displays. The gap between High (273 FPS) and Ultra (175 FPS) is significant, but both are well above typical monitor refresh rates.

At 2560x1440, the recommendation shifts toward High settings. High delivers 190 FPS, which is above the 144Hz threshold and close to the 165Hz threshold. Ultra at 1440p produces 121 FPS, which is below 144Hz but still smooth. For those with 144Hz QHD monitors, High settings provide the best balance, as the 190 FPS average leaves headroom above the refresh rate. Medium at 209 FPS offers even more headroom, but the visual quality reduction from High may not be worth the extra frames.

At 3840x2160, the choices are more constrained. High settings produce 113 FPS, which is above 60Hz and suitable for 60Hz or 120Hz displays. Ultra settings produce 72 FPS, which is above 60Hz but leaves less headroom. For 4K gaming, High settings are recommended because they maintain a comfortable margin above 60 FPS while providing better visual fidelity than Medium (125 FPS) or Low (159 FPS). The 4K Ultra result of 72 FPS is playable, but the 41 FPS difference between High and Ultra at 4K suggests that the visual gains from Ultra may not justify the performance cost for most players.

Across all resolutions, Medium settings provide the steadiest frame times, as evidenced by the only available minimum and maximum values in the dataset. At 1080p Medium, the range is 256 to 346 FPS; at 1440p Medium, the range is 178 to 240 FPS; and at 4K Medium, the range is 106 to 143 FPS. This consistency makes Medium a reliable choice for players who prioritize smoothness over maximum visual quality.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Greedfall?

A: The highest average FPS is 383 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The lowest average FPS across all configurations is 72 at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested combinations?

A: This combo ranks first out of 2,938 tested combos in Greedfall, making it the top-performing CPU-GPU pairing in the database for this game.

Q: At which resolution and settings does the frame rate drop below 100 FPS?

A: The only configuration that falls below 100 FPS average is 3840x2160 Ultra, which averages 72 FPS. All other settings and resolution combinations stay above 100 FPS.

Q: What is the CPU's percentile ranking and how does it compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 ranks in the 90th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rival is the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G with a delta of -0.4%, and the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 with a delta of -0.5%.

Q: What is the GPU's memory configuration and bandwidth?

A: The RTX 5090 D features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 1750 MHz, which translates to 28 Gbps effective.

Q: How does the frame rate scale from 1080p to 4K at High settings?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 273 at 1920x1080 to 190 at 2560x1440, then to 113 at 3840x2160. This represents a reduction of approximately 30% for each resolution step.