Greedfall

Greedfall, a 2019 Action RPG, presents an interesting performance profile when paired with the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. The measured data shows a combination capable of high frame rates across most settings, though the Ultra preset introduces a significant performance penalty at higher resolutions. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS, component roles, and settings recommendations based strictly on the provided benchmark data.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain a 60 FPS average in Greedfall?

A: Based on the measured data, both 2560x1440 and 1920x1080 maintain averages above 60 FPS at every settings preset tested. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset drops to a 50 FPS average, while High, Medium, and Low presets all remain above 60 FPS, with averages of 79, 87, and 111 FPS respectively.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High in terms of average FPS at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Ultra preset delivers an 84 FPS average, while the High preset achieves a 132 FPS average. This represents a substantial 48 FPS difference, indicating that the Ultra preset imposes a heavy load that the High preset avoids, making High a more fluid option for this resolution.

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for the Medium preset, and at which resolution?

A: The only minimum FPS values provided in the data are for the Medium preset. At 3840x2160, the minimum is 74 FPS, at 2560x1440 it is 124 FPS, and at 1920x1080 it is 179 FPS. These minimums suggest that the Medium preset provides a stable experience without severe frame drops.

Q: How many total combos were ranked, and where does this specific combo place?

A: This combo is ranked 551 out of 2938 tested combos for Greedfall. This places it in the top percentile of all tested combinations, indicating a strong overall performance level for this game.

Q: What is the average FPS difference between the Low and Ultra presets at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves a 268 FPS average, while the Ultra preset achieves a 122 FPS average. The difference is 146 FPS, showing that the Low preset offers more than double the average frame rate of the Ultra preset at this resolution.

Q: Does the 20 GB VRAM of the GPU appear to be a limiting factor in any measured scenario?

A: The data does not include VRAM usage metrics, so it is not possible to definitively state whether VRAM capacity is a limiting factor. However, the average FPS figures across all resolutions and settings, including the demanding 4K Ultra preset which still hits 50 FPS, suggest that the GPU's memory allocation is sufficient to avoid any catastrophic performance collapse in the tested configurations.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data suggests that the High preset offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance for most users. At 1920x1080, High delivers a 191 FPS average, which is exceptionally smooth and only slightly below the 210 FPS average of Medium. Moving up to 2560x1440, High maintains a 132 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for a fluid experience. At 3840x2160, High drops to a 79 FPS average, which is still playable but not as high as lower presets.

The Ultra preset is problematic at higher resolutions. At 3840x2160, it yields only a 50 FPS average, which may result in noticeable stutter on standard 60 Hz displays. Even at 2560x1440, the Ultra preset's 84 FPS average is a significant drop from High's 132 FPS. The performance cost of Ultra appears to be disproportionate to its visual gains, based on the frame rate data alone.

The Low preset provides the highest frame rates, with a 268 FPS average at 1080p and a 186 FPS average at 1440p. This is useful for competitive play or for users with very high refresh rate monitors. However, the visual quality reduction is substantial, and the Medium preset, which offers a 210 FPS average at 1080p and a 146 FPS average at 1440p, provides a better middle ground.

For a 60 FPS target at 4K, the High preset is the recommended choice, as it is the highest quality setting that maintains an average above 60 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K offers an 87 FPS average, which provides more headroom, but the visual difference between Medium and High is typically less pronounced than the difference between High and Ultra. For 1440p and 1080p displays, the High preset is again the standout recommendation, offering high frame rates without the steep performance penalty of Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT combination holds a rank of 551 out of 2938 tested combos for Greedfall. This ranking places it in the upper echelon of all tested systems, indicating that this pairing is well-suited for this specific game. The data shows that this combo is capable of delivering playable frame rates even at 4K with High settings, which is a demanding scenario for many systems.

The CPU's benchmark scores support this strong ranking. The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus achieves a 96th percentile ranking versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84003. This places it slightly ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, which has an average score of 83807, a delta of 0.2 percent. It also outperforms the AMD EPYC 4584PX and AMD EPYC 9135, which have average scores of 83090 and 82980 respectively, with deltas of 1.1 and 1.2 percent. The only rival in the provided list that scores higher is the AMD EPYC 7F72, with an average score of 85072, a delta of -1.3 percent, meaning the 290K Plus trails it by that margin.

The GPU's ranking is less straightforward. The Radeon RX 7900 XT has a 55th percentile ranking versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 13745. Its nearest rivals are closely matched, with the AMD Radeon 660M scoring 13812 (a -0.5 percent delta), the NVIDIA RTX A2000 Mobile scoring 13821 (a -0.5 percent delta), and the AMD Radeon RX 570X scoring 13871 (a -0.9 percent delta). The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT scores 13543, which is 1.5 percent lower than the 7900 XT. This data suggests that in general synthetic benchmarks, the 7900 XT performs similarly to these other cards, but its performance in Greedfall, as evidenced by the measured FPS, is what determines the combo's rank of 551.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS shows a clear hierarchy across settings. The Low preset achieves a 268 FPS average, which is the highest of any resolution and settings combination. The Medium preset follows with a 210 FPS average, and it is the only setting at this resolution with a recorded minimum FPS, which is 179, and a maximum of 242. The High preset delivers a 191 FPS average, and the Ultra preset drops to a 122 FPS average. The gap between High and Ultra is 69 FPS, indicating a substantial performance cost for the highest quality settings.

At 2560x1440, the same pattern emerges but with lower absolute numbers. The Low preset achieves a 186 FPS average, the Medium preset a 146 FPS average, and the High preset a 132 FPS average. The Ultra preset again shows a significant drop, with an 84 FPS average. The Medium preset at this resolution has a minimum FPS of 124 and a maximum of 168. The difference between High and Ultra at 1440p is 48 FPS, which is a smaller absolute gap than at 1080p but still represents a major performance penalty.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates become more constrained. The Low preset achieves a 111 FPS average, which is still very high for 4K. The Medium preset follows with an 87 FPS average, with a minimum of 74 and a maximum of 100. The High preset delivers a 79 FPS average, and the Ultra preset drops to a 50 FPS average. This is the only configuration in the data where the average FPS falls below 60, making it the least playable option for users targeting a standard refresh rate. The scaling from 1440p to 4K shows a significant reduction in performance, with the High preset dropping from 132 to 79 FPS, a 40 percent reduction in average frame rate.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT is a key component in this combo, featuring 20 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 320-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 800.0 GB/s. This large memory pool and high bandwidth are likely crucial for handling the texture and geometry loads of Greedfall at high resolutions and settings. The GPU's architecture is RDNA 3.0, built on a 5 nm process node, with a chip designated as Navi 31. The card's clock speeds include a base of 1387 MHz, a game clock of 2025 MHz, and a boost clock of 2394 MHz, with memory running at 2500 MHz, or 20 Gbps effective.

The measured FPS data highlights the GPU's performance limits. At 4K, the Ultra preset yields a 50 FPS average, suggesting that the combination of the highest settings and 4K resolution exceeds the GPU's comfortable capability. The High preset at 4K, with a 79 FPS average, shows that the card is well-suited to this setting. The GPU's general benchmark scores, such as a Passmark G3D score of 29009 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 5623, provide context for its overall capability, but the in-game data is more directly relevant.

The GPU's 84 ray tracing cores and 5376 shading units are part of its feature set, but the data does not specify whether Greedfall's performance is heavily dependent on these specific units. The observed performance scaling from Low to Ultra presets suggests that the GPU's raw compute and memory bandwidth are the primary factors influencing frame rates. The 20 GB VRAM is unlikely to be a bottleneck at the tested settings, as the average FPS figures do not show any anomalous drops that would indicate memory capacity issues. The card's TDP of 300 W and its dual-slot design are specifications that do not directly appear in the FPS data but are relevant for system integration.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus is a 24-core, 24-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake Refresh codename, built on a 3 nm process node. Its base clock is 3.70 GHz, with a boost clock of 5.80 GHz. The CPU has a 36 MB shared L3 cache, 3 MB per core L2 cache, and 192 KB per core L1 cache. Its benchmark scores are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731 and a single-core score of 7303. It also achieves a Passmark multi-thread score of 60860 and a Passmark single-thread score of 4823. These scores place it in the 96th percentile versus all CPUs.

In the context of Greedfall, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. The high single-core performance, as evidenced by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 7303, is beneficial for games that rely on a few heavily loaded threads. The multi-core capability, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 51731, ensures that background tasks and any multi-threaded game systems do not bottleneck the GPU. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the combo achieves a 268 FPS average, which is likely CPU-bound in some scenarios, but the CPU's strong performance prevents it from being a major limiting factor.

The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K, which has a very similar average benchmark score of 83807, a delta of only 0.2 percent. This indicates that the 290K Plus offers only a marginal performance improvement over its direct predecessor in synthetic benchmarks. The AMD EPYC 7F72, with an average score of 85072, is 1.3 percent faster in these benchmarks, but these are server-class processors. The CPU's memory support includes DDR5 with a dual-channel bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 115.2 GB/s. This memory bandwidth is important for feeding the CPU's cores and is adequate for the demands of Greedfall, as shown by the consistent frame rates across different resolutions. The CPU's boost clock of 5.80 GHz is a highlight, and the data suggests that this high clock speed helps maintain high average FPS, particularly at lower resolutions where the CPU's performance is more critical.