Greedfall

Greedfall is a 2019 Action RPG that still puts a serious load on modern hardware, and the combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 produces a wide spread of results depending on your resolution and quality targets. The measured data shows a system that can dominate at 1080p and 1440p but requires careful settings management to maintain high refresh rates at 4K. The 24-core processor with a 5.50 GHz boost clock provides ample headroom, while the RTX 4080’s 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 9728 shading units are the primary drivers of visual fidelity. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS across three resolutions and four quality presets, offering practical settings advice for getting the most out of this pairing.

Settings Recommendations

The data reveals a clear pattern: the Ultra preset is a performance killer at every resolution, while the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and frame rate for most users. At 1080p, the Ultra preset delivers 145 FPS, which is respectable, but the jump to Medium yields 249 FPS—a 72% increase in performance for what is often a visually indistinguishable difference in a game like Greedfall, which relies more on art direction than modern effects. The Medium preset also provides the only complete frame time data in the pack, with a minimum of 212 FPS and a maximum of 287 FPS at 1080p, indicating smooth and consistent delivery.

For 1440p, the recommendation shifts decisively toward High settings. The High preset at 1440p achieves 157 FPS, which is well above the 144 Hz refresh rate that most high-end monitors target. Dropping to Medium at 1440p yields 173 FPS, but the 16 FPS gain comes at a noticeable cost to shadow quality and draw distances. The Ultra preset at 1440p plunges to 100 FPS, which is still playable but represents a 36% performance loss compared to High. Given that Greedfall’s visual improvements from High to Ultra are subtle, High at 1440p is the sweet spot for this combo.

At 4K, the situation becomes more delicate. The High preset delivers 94 FPS, which is excellent for 4K gaming and suitable for a 60-90 Hz display. The Medium preset at 4K produces 103 FPS, but the minimum frame rate of 88 FPS suggests occasional dips that could be noticeable. The Ultra preset at 4K falls to 60 FPS, which is a hard cap for many televisions but leaves no headroom for demanding scenes. For most users, High at 4K is the optimal choice, as it provides a 56% performance improvement over Ultra while maintaining the majority of the visual enhancements. If you have a high-refresh 4K monitor, the Medium preset’s 103 FPS average is worth considering, but be prepared for the 88 FPS minimums.

FAQ

Q: What is the best overall preset for a 1440p monitor?

A: The High preset at 2560x1440 delivers 157 FPS on average, which is ideal for 144 Hz displays. The Ultra preset drops to 100 FPS, and the Medium preset only adds 16 FPS over High, so High offers the best balance of visual quality and performance.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming comfortably?

A: Yes, at High settings the combo produces 94 FPS at 3840x2160, which is well above the 60 FPS standard. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 60 FPS, so sticking with High ensures a stable and smooth experience.

Q: How much performance does the Ultra preset cost?

A: At 1080p, Ultra is 145 FPS compared to 249 FPS on Medium, a 42% reduction. At 1440p, Ultra is 100 FPS versus 157 FPS on High, a 36% reduction. At 4K, Ultra is 60 FPS versus 94 FPS on High, a 36% reduction.

Q: Is the RTX 4080 the bottleneck in this system?

A: The data suggests yes, especially at higher resolutions. The CPU’s benchmark scores are exceptional, and the FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows the GPU becoming the limiting factor as resolution increases.

Q: What frame rates can I expect at 1080p with maximum settings?

A: The Ultra preset at 1920x1080 yields an average of 145 FPS. While this is high, it is significantly lower than the 318 FPS achievable on Low settings, indicating that the GPU is still heavily loaded even at 1080p.

Q: Are there any frame time consistency issues?

A: The only preset with complete min/max data is Medium. At 1080p, the range is 212-287 FPS; at 1440p, it is 147-199 FPS; and at 4K, it is 88-119 FPS. These ranges are relatively tight, suggesting consistent performance without major stuttering.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data shows a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop reveals how demanding Greedfall is on the graphics card. Starting at 1080p High with 226 FPS, moving to 1440p High reduces performance to 157 FPS, a 31% decrease. The jump from 1440p to 4K High brings the frame rate down to 94 FPS, another 40% reduction. This steep decline indicates that the RTX 4080 is the primary limiting factor, as the CPU’s 24 cores and 5.50 GHz boost clock are more than capable of feeding frames at lower resolutions.

The Low preset shows an even more pronounced scaling effect. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 318 FPS, which drops to 220 FPS at 1440p and 131 FPS at 4K. The 4K Low result is particularly telling—it is only 37% faster than the 4K High result, suggesting that even at the lowest settings, the GPU is still working hard to render the scene. The Ultra preset exhibits the largest relative drop, going from 145 FPS at 1080p to 100 FPS at 1440p and finally 60 FPS at 4K. This 59% reduction from 1080p to 4K confirms that the RTX 4080’s 716.8 GB/s of memory bandwidth and 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are being fully utilized.

The Medium preset, which has the most complete data, shows a linear progression: 249 FPS at 1080p, 173 FPS at 1440p, and 103 FPS at 4K. The consistent ~40% drop per resolution step suggests the game scales predictably with pixel count. For users targeting 4K, the difference between Low (131 FPS) and High (94 FPS) is just 37 FPS, making High the obvious choice. However, the gap between High and Ultra at 4K is only 34 FPS, indicating that Ultra is disproportionately expensive in terms of performance for its visual gains.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers exceptional performance across all presets. The Low preset achieves 318 FPS, which is ideal for esports-style play or maximizing frame rates on a 360 Hz monitor. Medium settings produce 249 FPS with a minimum of 212 FPS and a maximum of 287 FPS, indicating very stable delivery. High settings yield 226 FPS, still far beyond what most displays can show. Ultra settings at 1080p drop to 145 FPS, which is the first preset where the frame rate falls below the 200 FPS threshold—this is still excellent, but it highlights the significant cost of Ultra quality.

At 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but shows the expected decline. Low settings achieve 220 FPS, which is perfect for high-refresh 1440p monitors. Medium settings produce 173 FPS with a minimum of 147 FPS and a maximum of 199 FPS, ensuring smooth gameplay even in demanding scenes. High settings deliver 157 FPS, which is still comfortably above 144 Hz. Ultra settings at 1440p fall to 100 FPS, which is playable but represents a substantial drop from the other presets. The 1440p results suggest that High is the ceiling for maintaining a high refresh rate experience.

At 3840x2160, the system begins to show its limits. Low settings achieve 131 FPS, which is impressive for 4K and suitable for high-refresh 4K monitors. Medium settings produce 103 FPS with a minimum of 88 FPS, which is generally smooth but may have occasional dips below 90 FPS. High settings deliver 94 FPS, which is excellent for 4K gaming on a 60-90 Hz display. Ultra settings at 4K fall to 60 FPS, which is a hard cap for many televisions but leaves no headroom for complex scenes. The 4K data clearly shows that Ultra is only suitable for users who prioritize visual quality over frame rate stability.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 ranks 254th out of 3703 tested combos for Greedfall. This places it in the top 7% of all tested systems, which is a strong showing for a mid-high-end pairing. The CPU itself holds the 96th percentile among all tested processors, while the GPU sits in the 86th percentile among all graphics cards. The combination of a top-decile processor and a high-end GPU results in a system that outperforms the vast majority of configurations tested for this game.

The CPU’s nearest rivals provide context for its performance. The Intel Xeon 6520P matches the Ultra 7 270K Plus with a 0% delta in average benchmark score. The AMD EPYC 4564P is 1.5% slower, the AMD EPYC 9175F is 1.9% slower, and the AMD EPYC 4565P is 2.1% slower. These are all server-class processors, which highlights the Ultra 7 270K Plus’s exceptional multi-threaded capabilities for a desktop chip. For the GPU, the RTX 4080 is nearly identical to the RTX 4080 SUPER, with the latter being just 0.1% faster. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X is 1.1% slower, while the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB is 2.6% slower.

Given this ranking, users can expect this combo to handle Greedfall with ease at 1080p and 1440p, and to provide a solid 4K experience at High settings. The 254th position out of 3703 combos indicates that while there are faster systems, they are primarily composed of top-tier components like the RTX 4090 or higher-end CPUs. For the price point of the RTX 4080 and the Ultra 7 270K Plus, this is a well-balanced configuration that competes favorably with more expensive alternatives.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. Its base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 5.50 GHz provide substantial single-thread performance, which is crucial for Greedfall’s game logic and AI systems. The CPU’s benchmark scores are exceptional: it achieves 44,253 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 2,439 in single-core, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs. Its Passmark multithread score of 68,574 and single-thread score of 5,068 further confirm its capabilities.

In the context of Greedfall, the CPU’s role is to feed the RTX 4080 with enough draw calls and physics calculations to keep the GPU busy. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system achieves 318 FPS, which is likely CPU-limited, as the GPU is not fully stressed at such low settings. However, at 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 60 FPS, indicating that the GPU becomes the bottleneck. The 24 cores and 36 MB of shared L3 cache ensure that even in the most crowded scenes, the CPU does not introduce stutters or frame pacing issues.

The CPU’s 115.2 GB/s memory bandwidth and DDR5 support further enhance its ability to handle large data transfers required by the game’s open-world environments. The Passmark data compression score of 804,322 and floating-point math score of 229,491 suggest that the CPU excels at the kind of parallel workloads that Greedfall’s engine utilizes. While the GPU receives most of the credit for visual performance, the Ultra 7 270K Plus’s raw compute power ensures that the system does not suffer from CPU-bound limitations, even at high frame rates. This makes the pairing particularly well-suited for players who want to maximize frame rates at 1080p or maintain smooth performance at 1440p and 4K.