Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 Action RPG, presents a demanding workload for the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K paired with the Intel Arc B390. The measured frame rates reveal a system where the graphics solution is the primary bottleneck, with the CPU's substantial processing power remaining largely underutilized. The data indicates that achieving a smooth 60 FPS experience is only possible at 1080p with High settings, while higher resolutions and more demanding presets push the Arc B390 past its limits.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is severe, confirming that the Intel Arc B390 is the limiting component in this configuration. At 1080p with High settings, the system delivers an average of 60 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same settings, the average falls to 42 FPS, a 30% reduction. At 3840x2160, the average further drops to 25 FPS, which is a 58% decrease from the 1080p baseline. This scaling pattern is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, where the rendering resolution directly dictates the workload on the graphics processor.

The data shows a similar trend across all settings presets. For Low settings, the average frame rate goes from 84 FPS at 1080p to 58 FPS at 1440p and then to 35 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset follows suit, with averages of 66, 46, and 27 FPS at 1080p, 1440p, and 4K, respectively. The Ultra preset, which is the most demanding, demonstrates the most significant drop, going from 38 FPS at 1080p to 27 FPS at 1440p and finally to a nearly unplayable 16 FPS at 4K.

These numbers illustrate that the Arc B390's performance is heavily tied to pixel count. The GPU's fill-rate and shading capabilities, while adequate for 1080p, are overwhelmed by the demands of 1440p and especially 4K. The fact that even at Low settings the 4K average is only 35 FPS reinforces that this is not a CPU limitation; a more powerful GPU would see a much smaller relative drop. The system is consistently GPU-limited, and the resolution scaling results are a direct reflection of the Arc B390's modest performance profile, which sits at the 9th percentile of all GPUs.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for playing Greedfall with this hardware?

A: The data shows that 1920x1080 is the only resolution where the system can achieve a 60 FPS average, which occurs at High settings. At 2560x1440, the best average is 58 FPS on Low settings, and at 3840x2160, the maximum average is 35 FPS, also on Low. Therefore, 1080p is the recommended resolution for a playable experience.

Q: How much of a performance difference is there between the Low and High presets at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset yields an average of 84 FPS, while the High preset yields 60 FPS. This represents a 24 FPS difference, or a 40% reduction in frame rate when moving from Low to High. The Medium preset sits between them at 66 FPS.

Q: Is the Ultra preset playable at any resolution?

A: The benchmark data indicates that the Ultra preset is not viable. At 1920x1080, the average frame rate is 38 FPS. This drops to 27 FPS at 2560x1440 and to a very low 16 FPS at 3840x2160. The 1080p average is below the standard 60 FPS target, and the higher resolutions are far too slow.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B390 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the Arc B390 scored 1482. This places it 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce 800M (1460), 2.5% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM (1446), and 2.7% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 (1443). These are very small margins, indicating a performance class at the very low end.

Q: What do the minimum FPS figures tell us about frame pacing at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the minimum FPS was recorded as 23 at 3840x2160, 39 at 2560x1440, and 56 at 1920x1080. These minimums show that while the average at 1080p is 66 FPS, the frame rate can dip to 56 FPS, which is close to the 60 FPS target. The larger drops at 1440p and 4K indicate significant stuttering and an inconsistent experience.

Q: Given the GPU's performance, what is the highest preset that can maintain an average above 60 FPS?

A: The only configuration in the measured data that achieves an average above 60 FPS is 1920x1080 with the Low preset, which averages 84 FPS. The High preset at the same resolution averages exactly 60 FPS, while the Medium preset averages 66 FPS. No other resolution or preset combination exceeds the 60 FPS threshold.

Settings Recommendations

For a balanced experience prioritizing a smooth frame rate, the Low preset at 1920x1080 is the only option that provides a significant margin above 60 FPS, with an average of 84 FPS. This is the most responsive configuration in the data. However, the jump to Medium settings at the same resolution still yields a respectable average of 66 FPS. Given that the minimum FPS at Medium is 56, the experience will be mostly smooth with occasional dips below 60 FPS. For players seeking a better visual quality without a major performance hit, Medium at 1080p is the optimal compromise.

The High preset at 1080p averages exactly 60 FPS, but this leaves no headroom for demanding scenes, which could cause noticeable frame drops. The Ultra preset should be avoided entirely, as its 38 FPS average at 1080p is not conducive to a fluid action RPG experience. At 1440p and 4K, all presets are either below or far below the 60 FPS target. Low at 1440p, with a 58 FPS average, is the only near-playable option at that resolution, but it will still be subject to frame pacing issues. The data strongly suggests that the best experience is found at 1920x1080, with the Medium preset offering the best balance between visual fidelity and performance.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates provide a complete picture of the system's capabilities across different settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the performance envelope is clear. The Low preset delivers an average of 84 FPS, the highest in the entire dataset. The Medium preset averages 66 FPS, with a minimum of 56 FPS and a maximum of 76 FPS. The High preset averages 60 FPS, which is a playable target but with no margin. The Ultra preset falls to an average of 38 FPS, indicating a substantial performance cost.

At 2560x1440, the system struggles more. The Low preset averages 58 FPS, which is close to but not quite at the 60 FPS target. The High preset averages 42 FPS, and the Medium preset averages 46 FPS, with a minimum of 39 and a maximum of 53. The Ultra preset averages only 27 FPS. These numbers show that 1440p is only viable with the Low preset, and even then, the frame rate is not consistently smooth.

The 3840x2160 results are consistently poor. The Low preset averages 35 FPS, which is the best at this resolution. The Medium preset averages 27 FPS, with a minimum of 23 and a maximum of 32. The High preset averages 25 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages a very low 16 FPS. None of these configurations provide a playable experience for an action game. The data across all resolutions consistently shows that the system's performance is directly tied to the render resolution, with no evidence of a CPU bottleneck at any point.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is undeniably the limiting factor in this configuration. Its benchmark score in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 is 1482, placing it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals, the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, GeForce 800M, GT 625 OEM, and GT 710, are all extremely low-end parts from previous generations, with delta percentages of 1.3, 1.5, 2.5, and 2.7 respectively. This places the Arc B390 in a performance class that is fundamentally unsuited for demanding modern games at high resolutions.

The GPU's specifications reinforce this assessment. It has a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2500 MHz. It features 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 render output units. Its pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 7.680 TFLOPS. These figures, while not directly comparable to the measured game performance, are consistent with a low-end integrated or entry-level discrete part. The memory is system shared, meaning its bandwidth is system dependent, which can be a further bottleneck in memory-intensive scenes.

The performance data in Greedfall directly reflects this limited hardware. The inability to maintain 60 FPS at 1440p or 4K, even on Low settings, shows that the GPU's raw compute and memory bandwidth are insufficient for the game's demands at higher resolutions. There is no scenario in the measured data where the GPU is not the primary performance constraint. The consistent and significant frame rate drops with increasing resolution are a textbook symptom of a GPU-bound system, and the Arc B390's low percentile ranking confirms that its performance is a major limiting factor for this game.

CPU Role

In contrast to the GPU, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K is a very powerful processor that is not the bottleneck in Greedfall. The CPU has 20 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.90 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its architecture is Arrow Lake-S, built on a 3 nm process. It has a substantial 30 MB of shared L3 cache and a large 102.4 GB/s of memory bandwidth. The CPU's benchmark scores are high, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 35850 and a single-core score of 2020. Its Geekbench multicore score is 23085 and single-core is 2713.

The CPU's average benchmark score is 70879, placing it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon 6511P (deltaPct -0.2), Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 (deltaPct -0.7), Intel Core i7-14700KF (deltaPct 1), and AMD Ryzen 7 9700F (deltaPct 1.3). These are all high-performance server or desktop parts, indicating that the 265K is in a completely different performance tier than the Arc B390. The CPU's processing power is far in excess of what is needed for Greedfall, a game from 2019 that is unlikely to be able to fully utilize 20 cores.

The measured game performance shows no signs of CPU limitation. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see similar frame rates at different resolutions, as the CPU workload would be constant. However, the data shows a massive drop from 1080p to 4K, which is the signature of a GPU limit. For example, at High settings, the frame rate goes from 60 at 1080p to 42 at 1440p and 25 at 4K. This scaling is entirely attributable to the GPU. The CPU's high core count, fast clock speeds, and high percentile ranking all point to a processor that is more than capable of feeding frames to the GPU, but the GPU simply cannot keep up. The system's combined rank in this game is 2595 out of 2938 combos, which suggests that the pairing is poorly balanced for this specific title, with the CPU being vastly overqualified for the GPU.