Greedfall

Greedfall, the 2019 action RPG from Spiders, presents an interesting stress profile when paired with the Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080. The measured data shows a configuration that is exceptionally capable at high refresh rates in 1080p and 1440p, but one that encounters a significant performance wall when pushed to 4K with maximum settings. The combination of the 20-core Arrow Lake-HX processor and the Ada Lovelace flagship mobile GPU delivers a wide spectrum of frame rates, ranging from a fluid 228 FPS at 1080p Low to a demanding 43 FPS at 4K Ultra. This spread indicates a system where the bottleneck shifts dramatically depending on the resolution and visual fidelity selected, making it a prime candidate for examining how each component contributes to the final experience.

Resolution Scaling

The performance trajectory from 1080p to 4K is steep and revealing. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces an average of 228 FPS, which drops to 158 FPS at 1440p and then to 94 FPS at 4K. This represents a 59% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K at the lowest settings, indicating that even at Low, the GPU is being heavily tasked as pixel count increases. The scaling pattern changes dramatically when moving to Ultra settings. The frame rate starts at 104 FPS at 1080p, falls to 72 FPS at 1440p, and then plummets to 43 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K at Ultra is a 40% reduction, whereas the drop from 1080p to 1440p is 31%.

This data suggests that at lower settings, the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU enough data to maintain very high frame rates, but the GPU becomes the limiting factor as resolution increases. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 124 FPS, which is a massive gap. At 4K, the delta narrows to 51 FPS. This convergence is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions. The RTX 4080, with its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth, has the raw resources to handle 4K, but the pixel throughput demands at Ultra settings prove to be too much for the AD103 chip to maintain smooth frame rates.

The 4K Medium preset is the only 4K configuration with a reported minimum frame rate of 63 FPS, suggesting that the system can hold a playable experience if the user is willing to step down from the highest preset. The fact that the 4K Low average of 94 FPS is more than double the 4K Ultra average of 43 FPS highlights the extreme cost of the Ultra preset's additional graphical effects. For a game like Greedfall, which features dense environments and complex lighting, the resolution scaling data points to a system that is best utilized at 1440p or 1080p for high-refresh-rate displays, while 4K is reserved for those who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate smoothness.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance on the optimal settings for this hardware configuration. At 1080p, every preset from Low to High delivers an average that exceeds 160 FPS, making the choice purely about refresh rate headroom versus visual quality. The High preset at 1080p yields 163 FPS, which is only 16 FPS lower than the Medium preset's 179 FPS, but a full 59 FPS higher than Ultra's 104 FPS. For competitive or fast-paced action, the Low preset's 228 FPS is available, but the visual compromise is significant. The Medium preset at 1080p, with its reported minimum of 152 FPS and maximum of 206 FPS, offers a robust experience that is likely to satisfy most users with high-refresh-rate monitors.

At 1440p, the High preset stands out as the sweet spot. It produces an average of 113 FPS, which is a 9 FPS improvement over the Medium preset's 124 FPS is actually reversed; High is lower than Medium. The data shows Medium at 124 FPS and High at 113 FPS, a difference of 11 FPS. The Ultra preset at 1440p drops to 72 FPS, which is still playable but represents a 45% performance hit compared to High. The 1440p Medium preset, with a minimum of 106 FPS, ensures that frame times remain consistent even in demanding scenes, making it the most balanced choice for a 1440p 144Hz display.

For 4K gaming, the recommendations become more critical. The Ultra preset is effectively unplayable for smooth action, with an average of 43 FPS. The High preset at 67 FPS is borderline, but the Medium preset at 74 FPS with a minimum of 63 FPS is the only 4K option that guarantees a mostly stable frame rate. The data suggests that users with 4K displays should select the Medium preset to maintain a playable experience, as the jump to High only yields a 7 FPS increase on average but sacrifices the reported minimum frame rate stability. The Low preset at 4K, offering 94 FPS, is a viable option for users who prioritize frame rate over all visual effects, but the Medium preset provides a superior balance of image quality and performance for this GPU and CPU combination.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, built on a 3 nm process node by TSMC. Its boost clock of 5.30 GHz and substantial 30 MB of shared L3 cache provide the computational headroom needed to avoid bottlenecking the RTX 4080 in most scenarios. The CPU's benchmark scores are impressive, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 40642 and a single-core score of 5737, placing it in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs. In the context of Greedfall, these numbers suggest that the processor can handle the game's AI, physics, and streaming workloads without becoming a limiting factor, especially at lower resolutions where the GPU is not saturated.

The data supports this interpretation. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 228 FPS, which is a very high frame rate that still does not seem to be CPU-limited, as the GPU is capable of even higher output in other titles. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings shows a 70 FPS drop, which is a 31% decrease, indicating that the GPU is already being tasked harder. The fact that the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at 1080p is further evidenced by the relatively small difference between the Low and Medium presets at that resolution; the 49 FPS gap is likely due to increased GPU load rather than CPU limitations.

The Core Ultra 7 265HX sits just 0.1% above the Intel Core i7-13790F in average benchmark score, with a delta of 0.1%, and 0.7% above the Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX. This performance class is more than sufficient for Greedfall, which was released in 2019 and does not have the multi-threaded demands of more modern titles. The CPU's PassMark single-thread score of 4500 and multi-thread score of 47985 indicate strong per-core performance and robust multi-core capability, which ensures that the game's main thread and background tasks are handled with ease. In this configuration, the CPU role is to provide a stable platform that allows the GPU to perform at its full potential, and the data shows it does so effectively.

FAQ

Q: Can this system achieve 60 FPS at 4K with maximum settings in Greedfall?

A: No. The measured data shows that the 4K Ultra preset produces an average of 43 FPS, which is well below the 60 FPS target. Users would need to lower the preset to Medium, which yields 74 FPS, to achieve a smooth 60 FPS experience at 4K.

Q: What is the best resolution for high-refresh-rate gaming with this hardware?

A: At 1080p, the system can reach up to 228 FPS on Low settings and 163 FPS on High settings. At 1440p, the High preset delivers 113 FPS, which is ideal for 144Hz monitors, while the Low preset achieves 158 FPS for even higher refresh rates.

Q: How does the Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX compare to its nearest rival in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ultra 7 265HX has an average benchmark score of 63173, which is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i7-13790F's score of 63080. It also outperforms the AMD Ryzen AI 7 450G by 0.2% and the AMD Ryzen AI Embedded P185 by 0.5%.

Q: Is there a significant performance difference between the Low and Medium presets?

A: Yes, the difference varies by resolution. At 1080p, the Low preset averages 228 FPS while Medium averages 179 FPS, a 49 FPS difference. At 4K, the gap narrows to 20 FPS, with Low at 94 FPS and Medium at 74 FPS.

Q: Does the RTX 4080's performance in Greedfall justify its high benchmark percentile?

A: The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 34457 places it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. In Greedfall, it delivers strong results at lower resolutions, but the 4K Ultra preset shows its limits, suggesting that while the card is powerful, Greedfall's Ultra settings are exceptionally demanding.

Q: What is the minimum frame rate recorded for any preset in this test?

A: The only preset with a reported minimum frame rate is Medium. At 4K, the minimum is 63 FPS, at 1440p it is 106 FPS, and at 1080p it is 152 FPS. No minimum frame rate data is available for the Low, High, or Ultra presets.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is a formidable mobile GPU based on the Ada Lovelace architecture, featuring 9728 shading units and 76 ray tracing cores. Its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s, which is crucial for high-resolution textures and effects. The GPU's boost clock of 2505 MHz and FP32 performance of 48.74 TFLOPS place it in the upper echelon of mobile graphics solutions. In the benchmark database, it sits just 0.1% above the RTX 4080 SUPER in average score, with a delta of 0.1%, and 1.1% above the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X.

In Greedfall, the GPU's role is clear: it is the primary driver of performance at higher resolutions and settings. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system can achieve 228 FPS, but this is likely a scenario where the GPU is not fully taxed. As resolution increases to 4K, the GPU becomes the definitive bottleneck. The difference between 1080p and 4K at Low settings is a 134 FPS drop, which is a 59% reduction. This is a direct consequence of the GPU having to render four times as many pixels. The 4K Ultra preset, with an average of 43 FPS, demonstrates that even the RTX 4080's raw compute power is insufficient for the most demanding settings in this title.

The GPU's memory subsystem plays a significant role in the performance scaling. With 16 GB of VRAM, there is no capacity limitation at 4K, but the bandwidth of 716.8 GB/s may become a limiting factor when texture detail and effects are maxed out. The measured FPS at 4K Medium (74 FPS) versus 4K High (67 FPS) suggests that the additional graphical features in the High preset require more memory bandwidth, resulting in a 7 FPS penalty. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 34457 and DirectX 12 score of 132 reflect its modern feature set, but Greedfall's engine seems to respond better to raw shader throughput than to ray tracing capabilities, as evidenced by the steep performance drop at Ultra. Overall, the RTX 4080 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its performance ceiling dictates the playable settings at each resolution.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete measured FPS dataset for Greedfall with the Intel Core Ultra 7 265HX and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 228 FPS average
• Medium: 179 FPS average, 152 FPS minimum, 206 FPS maximum
• High: 163 FPS average
• Ultra: 104 FPS average

2560x1440:

• Low: 158 FPS average
• Medium: 124 FPS average, 106 FPS minimum, 143 FPS maximum
• High: 113 FPS average
• Ultra: 72 FPS average

3840x2160:

• Low: 94 FPS average
• Medium: 74 FPS average, 63 FPS minimum, 85 FPS maximum
• High: 67 FPS average
• Ultra: 43 FPS average

This data reveals a consistent pattern across all resolutions: the Medium preset provides the only reported minimum frame rate, indicating a stable performance profile. The Low preset offers the highest averages, but no minimum data is available to assess frame time consistency. The Ultra preset consistently delivers the lowest averages, and the gap between Ultra and High grows with resolution. At 1080p, the difference between Ultra and High is 59 FPS, while at 4K, it is 24 FPS. This suggests that the Ultra preset's effects are more expensive at lower resolutions where the GPU has more headroom, but the relative cost remains significant at higher resolutions. The system's overall rank in the game is 1219 out of 3703 combinations, placing it in the top third of all tested configurations, which aligns with the strong performance observed at 1080p and 1440p.