Greedfall

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT combination delivers a playable but uneven experience in Greedfall, with performance varying dramatically across the three tested resolutions. The data shows a system that can push high frame rates at 1080p but struggles to maintain fluid motion at 4K, particularly when the preset is raised beyond Medium. This analysis breaks down the measured rows to identify the optimal settings, the division of labor between CPU and GPU, and how this pairing stacks against the broader benchmark database.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rates for this combo in Greedfall point to a clear sweet spot at 1080p and 1440p with the High preset, but the story changes at 4K. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers an average of 108 FPS, which is only 11 FPS behind the Low preset’s 152 FPS and 11 FPS ahead of Medium’s 119 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra at 1080p costs a substantial 39 FPS, dropping the average to 69 FPS. For most users, High at 1080p offers the best balance: it loses just 44 FPS to Low but gains a significant visual upgrade, while remaining well above the 60 FPS threshold.

At 2560x1440, the pattern repeats. High averages 75 FPS, which is 30 FPS below Low’s 105 FPS but 27 FPS above Ultra’s 48 FPS. Medium sits at 83 FPS, so High is only 8 FPS slower than Medium while providing better image quality. The 1440p High preset is the recommended choice for this resolution because it keeps the average above 60 FPS while offering a richer visual experience than Medium. Ultra at 1440p falls below the 50 FPS mark, making it a poor trade for the visual gains.

The 4K results are the weakest link. At 3840x2160, High averages 45 FPS, Medium averages 49 FPS, and Low averages 63 FPS. Ultra drops to 29 FPS, which is essentially unplayable for an action RPG. The data indicates that at 4K, the Medium preset is the best option when prioritizing a balance between visual fidelity and frame rate, since it outperforms High by 4 FPS while maintaining a minimum of 42 FPS. However, Low at 4K is the only preset that breaks the 60 FPS barrier, hitting 63 FPS on average. For players who demand smooth motion over detail, Low at 4K is the practical choice; for those who can tolerate sub-60 FPS, Medium provides a more visually appealing experience without the steep cost of High or Ultra.

Comparing across resolutions, the Hard preset scales well from 1080p to 1440p, losing 33 FPS, but the drop from 1440p to 4K is severe, losing another 30 FPS. This suggests that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, a point elaborated in the GPU Role section. Overall, the recommended path is High at 1080p or 1440p, and Medium at 4K if you accept the frame rate trade-off.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is the dominant component in this pairing for Greedfall, particularly as resolution increases. The GPU’s 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus provides 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is sufficient for this game’s textures at 1080p and 1440p, but the data shows signs of strain at 4K. The measured frame rates at 4K Ultra (29 FPS) versus 4K Low (63 FPS) indicate a 34 FPS swing purely from settings, which is a much larger delta than the 83 FPS swing at 1080p (152 FPS Low to 69 FPS Ultra). This widening gap at higher resolutions is typical of a GPU that is running out of memory bandwidth or shading throughput.

The GPU’s clock behavior is also relevant. The RX 6600 XT has a base clock of 1968 MHz, a game clock of 2359 MHz, and a boost clock of 2589 MHz. The boost clock is 621 MHz above the base, which gives the card headroom to react to thermal and power limits. In Greedfall, the 4K Medium result of 49 FPS with a minimum of 42 FPS suggests that the card is hitting boost clocks during lighter scenes but dropping lower when the action intensifies. The 1440p Medium result of 83 FPS (min 70, max 95) shows a wider variance, which is consistent with the GPU alternating between game clock and boost clock depending on scene complexity.

The GPU’s raw compute figures support this interpretation. The card offers 10.60 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and a texture rate of 331.4 GTexel/s, which are modest by modern standards. For a 2019 action RPG like Greedfall, these numbers are adequate at 1080p, but the 4K Ultra preset clearly exceeds the card’s capabilities, as evidenced by the 29 FPS average. The pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s becomes a limiting factor at 3840x2160, where the card must process over 8 million pixels per frame. The 64 ROPs are also a bottleneck at this resolution, which explains why the drop from Medium to High at 4K costs only 4 FPS (49 to 45), while the drop from High to Ultra costs 16 FPS (45 to 29). This non-linear scaling indicates that the Ultra preset introduces effects that heavily tax the ROPs and memory subsystem.

The GPU’s benchmark percentile of 70 versus all GPUs places it in the mid-range, and its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 (0.7% ahead) and the Intel Arc A350M (0.8% behind). These comparisons are based on average benchmark scores, not Greedfall specifically, but they contextualize the card’s overall position. In this game, the RX 6600 XT is clearly the limiting factor at 4K, while at 1080p it has enough headroom to let the CPU shine, as discussed in the CPU Role section.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this Intel Core Ultra 7 265 + AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT combination ranks 2624 out of 3703 tested combos for Greedfall. This places it in the 29th percentile of all combos, meaning roughly 71% of tested systems deliver higher frame rates in this game. The rank is surprisingly low given the individual components’ performance percentiles — the CPU sits in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU sits in the 70th percentile of all GPUs. The disparity between the CPU’s high ranking and the combo’s mid-low ranking suggests that the GPU is holding the system back, particularly at higher resolutions.

The combo rank of 2624 is driven by the 4K results, which are poor across all settings. Even at 1080p, where the combo delivers 152 FPS on Low, the average across all resolutions and settings is dragged down by the 29 FPS at 4K Ultra. The data shows that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can compete with more balanced systems, but it falls behind at 4K. For context, the CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks — such as the AMD EPYC 4464P (0.3% lower average score) and the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F (0.3% higher) — have similar compute capabilities, but they are paired with different GPUs in other combos, which explains why the overall rank is not higher.

The rank also reflects the game’s age and optimization. Greedfall, released in 2019, is not particularly demanding on CPUs, so the Ultra 7 265’s 20 cores and 20 threads are largely underutilized. The GPU becomes the deciding factor, and the RX 6600 XT’s 8 GB VRAM and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are modest for 4K. The fact that this combo outperforms only 1,079 other combos out of 3,703 indicates that many systems with weaker CPUs but stronger GPUs achieve better frame rates in this title. The takeaway is that this pairing is mismatched for Greedfall at high resolutions, but it is adequate for 1080p gaming.

FAQ

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

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 averages 75 FPS, which is 8 FPS below Medium (83 FPS) but 27 FPS above Ultra (48 FPS). High offers a better visual experience than Medium while staying above 60 FPS, making it the recommended choice.

*Q: Can this combo run Greedfall at 4K smoothly?*

A: No. The best 4K result is on Low settings, averaging 63 FPS, while Medium averages 49 FPS with a minimum of 42 FPS. High drops to 45 FPS, and Ultra falls to 29 FPS. Only Low at 4K reaches the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How much performance does the Ultra preset cost compared to High?

A: At 1080p, Ultra averages 69 FPS versus High’s 108 FPS, a loss of 39 FPS. At 1440p, Ultra averages 48 FPS versus High’s 75 FPS, a loss of 27 FPS. At 4K, Ultra averages 29 FPS versus High’s 45 FPS, a loss of 16 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU more important for this game at 1080p?

A: At 1080p, the data suggests the GPU is still the primary factor, but the CPU has more headroom. The 1080p Low preset hits 152 FPS, while High hits 108 FPS, indicating that the GPU is scaling with settings. The CPU’s 20 cores are not fully utilized, so the GPU dictates frame rates.

Q: How does this combo compare to the GPU’s nearest rivals in overall performance?

A: The RX 6600 XT’s average benchmark score is 24,442, which is 0.7% lower than the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 (24,277) and 0.8% higher than the Intel Arc A350M (24,647). These are synthetic scores, not Greedfall results, but they place the GPU in the same performance class.

Q: What is the minimum FPS on Medium settings across resolutions?

A: At 1080p Medium, the minimum is 101 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the minimum is 70 FPS. At 4K Medium, the minimum is 42 FPS. These values show a steady decline as pixel count increases.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates show a clear pattern of degradation as resolution increases from 1080p to 4K. At the High preset, the average FPS drops from 108 at 1920x1080 to 75 at 2560x1440, a loss of 33 FPS (30.6%). From 1440p to 4K, the average drops from 75 to 45, a loss of 30 FPS (40.0%). This accelerating decline is a classic sign of a GPU-limited scenario. The CPU’s performance is relatively constant across resolutions, so the GPU’s rendering load is the only variable.

Looking at the Low preset, the scaling is even more pronounced: 152 FPS at 1080p, 105 FPS at 1440p, and 63 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are 30.9% from 1080p to 1440p and 40.0% from 1440p to 4K, which mirrors the High preset’s pattern. This consistency indicates that the GPU’s memory bandwidth (256.0 GB/s) and pixel rate (165.7 GPixel/s) are the limiting factors, regardless of the visual settings. The 8 GB VRAM is likely sufficient for Low and Medium at all resolutions, but the 128-bit bus becomes a bottleneck at 4K.

The Medium preset’s minimum FPS values provide additional insight. At 1080p, the minimum is 101 FPS; at 1440p, it is 70 FPS; at 4K, it is 42 FPS. The drop from 1440p to 4K is 28 FPS, which is a 40% reduction in the minimum, matching the average FPS decline. This suggests that the GPU is consistently hitting its limits at 4K, with no spare headroom for sudden frame time spikes. The Ultra preset shows the worst scaling: 69 FPS at 1080p, 48 FPS at 1440p, and 29 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is 58% lower than the 1080p Ultra result, confirming that the GPU cannot handle the combined load of high resolution and maxed settings.

The data implies that the system transitions from CPU-bound at 1080p Low (152 FPS, where the CPU may limit frame rates) to GPU-bound at 4K Ultra (29 FPS, where the GPU is overwhelmed). At 1440p High (75 FPS), the system is balanced, with neither component fully saturated. For players targeting 4K, the Low preset is the only viable option, but even then, the 63 FPS average leaves little margin for demanding scenes. The scaling analysis points to the GPU as the bottleneck above 1440p, and the CPU as having ample headroom throughout.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. Its 30 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR5 memory support (102.4 GB/s bandwidth) make it a high-end desktop part, and its benchmark percentile of 93 versus all CPUs confirms its strong synthetic performance. In Greedfall, however, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, as the game’s engine does not appear to scale with more than a few cores.

The CPU’s single-thread performance is solid, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 5,960 and a Passmark single-thread score of 4,689. These numbers suggest that the CPU can handle the game’s main thread without becoming a bottleneck at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 152 FPS, which is likely near the CPU’s frame rate ceiling for this game, but the CPU is not the limiting factor — the GPU is still responsible for rendering each frame. The CPU’s multi-thread performance, evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42,216, is overkill for Greedfall, which rarely uses more than a handful of threads.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks include the AMD EPYC 4464P (0.3% lower average score) and the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F (0.3% higher). These comparisons show that the 265 is a mid-pack performer among high-end CPUs, but they do not translate to a gaming advantage in this title. The CPU’s 20 cores and 20 threads are designed for productivity workloads, not for a 2019 action RPG. The L3 cache of 30 MB is ample for the game’s data, and the 3 nm process node from TSMC helps with power efficiency, but these factors do not directly influence the measured FPS.

The CPU’s integrated graphics (Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 32EU) are present but irrelevant for this test, as the discrete RX 6600 XT handles all rendering. The CPU’s PCIe Gen 5 support (20 lanes) provides ample bandwidth for the GPU, which uses a PCIe 4.0 x8 interface. This is not a limiting factor, as the GPU’s 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth is the constraint, not the bus. In summary, the CPU provides a strong foundation with no observed bottlenecks in Greedfall, but its performance headroom is wasted because the GPU cannot keep pace at higher resolutions. The data shows that upgrading the GPU would yield far larger frame rate gains than any CPU change for this game.