Greedfall

Greedfall, the 2019 Action RPG from Spiders, shows a clear and predictable scaling pattern when paired with the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. The measured data reveals that the transition from 1080p to 4K imposes a significant load on the rendering pipeline, with average frame rates dropping by roughly 40-55% depending on the preset. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces 191 FPS, but scaling up to 2560x1440 drops that to 132 FPS, a reduction of 59 FPS. Moving to 3840x2160 at the same High preset yields only 79 FPS, which is 112 FPS below the 1080p result. This pattern holds across the board; the Low preset at 1080p hits 268 FPS, while at 4K it falls to 111 FPS. The frame rate deltas between resolutions indicate a system that is heavily GPU-bound at higher resolutions, while the 1080p results suggest the CPU still has headroom to push more frames, though the game's engine and the GPU's limits start to cap performance.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior of this configuration is a textbook example of GPU-bound performance. At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are exceptionally high across all settings, ranging from 122 FPS on Ultra to 268 FPS on Low. These numbers suggest that at 1080p, the Radeon RX 7900 XT has ample bandwidth and compute throughput to feed frames quickly, but the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is likely not the limiting factor, as the frame rates are high enough to indicate that the GPU is still delivering the bulk of the work. When moving to 2560x1440, the average FPS drops by a consistent 30-40% across presets. For instance, Medium settings at 1440p produce 146 FPS, down from 210 FPS at 1080p. This drop is steeper than what would be expected from a purely CPU-limited scenario, confirming that the GPU's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are becoming more critical.

The jump to 3840x2160 is where the GPU really starts to struggle. At 4K Ultra, the average frame rate plummets to 50 FPS, which is a 59% reduction from the 122 FPS seen at 1080p Ultra. Even at 4K Low, the system only manages 111 FPS, which is still playable but represents a 157 FPS drop from the 1080p Low result. The data for Medium settings at 4K shows an average of 87 FPS with a minimum of 74 FPS and a maximum of 100 FPS, indicating that frame pacing can become inconsistent under load. These results suggest that the 20 GB of GDDR6 memory and the 800.0 GB/s bandwidth on the RX 7900 XT are sufficient for the game's textures, but the sheer pixel count at 4K overwhelms the 5376 shading units and 192 ROPs, leading to the observed frame rate collapse. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is particularly harsh, with the High preset losing 53 FPS, which is a 40% performance hit for a 2.25x increase in pixel count, confirming that the GPU is the dominant bottleneck at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265, with its 20 cores and 20 threads, is a high-end desktop processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture and built on a 3 nm process from TSMC. Its base clock of 2.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.30 GHz provide the single-threaded muscle needed for game logic, while the 30 MB of shared L3 cache helps keep data fed to the cores. In Greedfall, a game that is not known for being heavily threaded, the CPU's role is primarily to maintain a stable frame rate floor and ensure that the GPU is not starved of draw calls. The benchmark results for the CPU show a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42216 and a single-core score of 5960, placing it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, which indicates that it has far more processing power than a 2019 title like Greedfall can utilize.

Looking at the measured FPS data, the CPU's impact is most evident at 1080p Low, where the system hits 268 FPS. This is an extremely high frame rate that suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data to reach the engine's limits. However, the fact that the frame rates do not scale linearly with resolution (e.g., 4K Low is 111 FPS, which is not exactly 25% of 1080p Low) indicates that the GPU is the primary limiter once resolution increases. The CPU's performance relative to its nearest rivals is strong, with the AMD EPYC 4464P being 0.3% faster, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F being 0.3% slower, and the AMD EPYC 7343 being 0.7% slower. This puts the 265 in a tight pack of high-core-count parts, but for Greedfall, the extra cores are largely irrelevant; the game is unlikely to scale beyond 8-10 threads, and the 20-core count is more beneficial for productivity workloads than for this specific title. The data shows that the CPU does not bottleneck the GPU at any tested setting, as even the lowest 4K Ultra frame rate of 50 FPS is well above what a CPU constraint would typically produce, leaving the RX 7900 XT as the definitive performance ceiling.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data across the four presets—Low, Medium, High, and Ultra—at three resolutions provides a clear picture of the performance trade-offs. At 1920x1080, all presets are playable, but the jump from High to Ultra is significant, with a 69 FPS drop from 191 to 122 FPS. This suggests that the Ultra preset enables effects that are disproportionately expensive for the visual gain, likely related to shadow quality, ambient occlusion, or post-processing. For a smooth experience on a standard 144Hz monitor, the High preset at 1080p, which delivers 191 FPS, is the optimal choice, as it leaves a 53 FPS buffer over the Medium preset's 210 FPS while still offering better visual fidelity. The Low preset at 1080p, hitting 268 FPS, is only useful for competitive play or for users with very high refresh rate displays, as the visual quality degradation is substantial for a 77 FPS gain over High.

At 2560x1440, the recommendation shifts to Medium or High. The Medium preset delivers 146 FPS with a minimum of 124 FPS and a maximum of 168 FPS, which is well-suited for high refresh rate 1440p gaming. High at 1440p produces 132 FPS, which is still excellent, but the 14 FPS drop from Medium is not worth the marginal visual improvements in a game like Greedfall, where the art style is more about atmosphere than raw texture detail. The Ultra preset at 1440p, at 84 FPS, is playable but falls below the 100 FPS threshold that many users prefer, and it is a 48 FPS drop from High, indicating that the Ultra settings are not efficiently optimized. For 3840x2160, the data is more constrained. The High preset at 79 FPS is the best balance, as it remains above 60 FPS and provides the visual richness of High settings. The Medium preset at 87 FPS is also viable, but the 8 FPS gain over High is minimal, and the visual downgrade is noticeable. Ultra at 4K, with 50 FPS, should be avoided unless the user has a VRR display and can tolerate the frame rate dips, as the performance hit is severe. The Low preset at 4K, at 111 FPS, is a surprising outlier, suggesting that the GPU can handle 4K if the settings are aggressively reduced, but it sacrifices too much visual quality for a 32 FPS gain over High.

How This Combo Ranks

In the comprehensive database of tested CPU and GPU combinations for Greedfall, this specific pairing of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT ranks 551st out of 2938 combos. This places it in the top 18.8% of all tested configurations, which is a strong showing for a system that is not using the absolute fastest components available. The rank is likely influenced by the fact that the RX 7900 XT, while a high-end card, is not the top-tier RDNA 3 part, and the Core Ultra 7 265, despite its strong benchmarks, is not the flagship Arrow Lake processor. However, the 551st rank out of nearly 3000 combos indicates that this system is well above the median performance level, and it is capable of delivering a smooth experience at 1440p and even 4K with adjusted settings.

The GPU's overall percentile rank of 55th against all GPUs might seem low, but this is due to the inclusion of many lower-end cards in the database. The RX 7900 XT's nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon 660M and NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile, are within 0.5% of its average benchmark score, but these are likely not direct competitors in gaming performance, as the 7900 XT's dedicated 20 GB of VRAM and 800.0 GB/s bandwidth are in a different class. The combo's rank in Greedfall specifically, as opposed to synthetic benchmarks, shows that the game is more sensitive to GPU rasterization performance than to raw compute, and the 7900 XT's 51.48 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power is more than sufficient for this title. The rank of 551 means that there are 550 other combinations that can push higher frame rates, but many of those likely include more powerful GPUs like the RTX 4090 or higher-clocked RDNA 3 parts. For the price point and power draw, this combo's rank is respectable, and the measured data shows it can handle Greedfall at high settings across most resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT, based on the Navi 31 chip and RDNA 3.0 architecture, is the primary driver of Greedfall's performance, and its characteristics are clearly reflected in the measured FPS. With a boost clock of 2394 MHz and a game clock of 2025 MHz, the GPU is designed for high-throughput rendering, but its performance in this title is more dependent on memory bandwidth and pixel fill rate than on raw clock speed. The 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus provides 800.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is crucial for loading textures at 4K resolution. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS drops to 50, indicating that the GPU is running out of pixel processing capability, not memory capacity. The 192 ROPs and 336 TMUs are tasked with filling the screen, and the 459.6 GPixel/s pixel rate is just not enough to maintain high frame rates at 4K with maximum settings.

The GPU's benchmark scores, such as the Passmark G3D score of 29009 and the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5623, place it in the 55th percentile of all GPUs, but its nearest rivals in the database are the AMD Radeon 660M and NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile, which are within 1% of its average score. This is misleading, as those parts are not in the same performance class, but it highlights that the database's scoring is based on a broad range of workloads. In Greedfall, the GPU's role is to deliver the high frame rates seen at 1080p, but the scaling to 4K shows its limitations. The 300 W TDP and dual-slot design suggest a high-power component, and the 2x 8-pin power connectors indicate that it draws significant current under load. The GPU's launch MSRP of 899 USD reflects its position as a premium part, and the measured data confirms that it is a capable 1440p card that can handle 4K with some settings compromises, but it is not a 4K Ultra card for Greedfall.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The exact measured FPS values for this combo are as follows. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 268 FPS, with no minimum or maximum reported. The Medium preset at 1080p produces an average of 210 FPS, with a minimum of 179 FPS and a maximum of 242 FPS, showing a 63 FPS spread between the 1% low and the peak. The High preset at 1080p achieves 191 FPS, and the Ultra preset drops to 122 FPS. At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 186 FPS, Medium averages 146 FPS with a minimum of 124 and a maximum of 168, High averages 132 FPS, and Ultra averages 84 FPS. The transition from 1080p to 1440p results in a 30-35% reduction in frame rates across all presets, which is consistent with the increase in pixel count.

At 3840x2160, the performance takes a more significant hit. The Low preset averages 111 FPS, Medium averages 87 FPS with a minimum of 74 and a maximum of 100, High averages 79 FPS, and Ultra averages 50 FPS. The data for Medium at 4K is the only set with full min/max values, indicating that the frame pacing is more variable at this resolution. The gap between High and Ultra at 4K is 29 FPS, which is the largest relative drop between any two adjacent presets, suggesting that the Ultra preset's additional effects are extremely taxing on the GPU. The difference between Low and High at 4K is 32 FPS, which is smaller than the 77 FPS gap at 1080p, confirming that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor as resolution increases. Overall, the measured FPS breakdown shows that this combo can deliver high refresh rate gaming at 1080p, solid 1440p performance, and playable 4K at reduced settings, with the Medium and High presets being the most balanced for 4K.