Greedfall

# Greedfall Performance Analysis: Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 delivers strong, playable performance across all tested settings in Greedfall, with the data showing a clear progression from 1080p to 4K that favors high-refresh-rate gaming at lower resolutions while maintaining smooth 60+ FPS gameplay at 4K on High settings. The measured frame rates place this combo at rank 188 out of 2,938 tested combinations, putting it in the top tier of systems for this Action RPG, though the scaling patterns reveal where each component's contribution begins to fade.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear picture of which preset balances visual quality and frame rate across each resolution. At 1920x1080, even the most demanding Ultra preset achieves 150 FPS average, while High reaches 235 FPS and Low peaks at 329 FPS. The Medium preset delivers 259 FPS with a minimum of 220 FPS, making it the sweet spot for high-refresh-rate monitors at this resolution — the 29% jump from Ultra to Medium (259 vs 150) comes with minimal visual compromise in most scenes, and the 220 FPS minimum ensures no dips below common 240Hz refresh thresholds.

Moving to 2560x1440, the data shows High at 163 FPS and Medium at 179 FPS, with Ultra dropping to 104 FPS. The Medium preset again provides the best experience for fast-paced combat, as its 152 FPS minimum stays comfortably above the 144Hz refresh rate that dominates this resolution class. Low at 228 FPS offers headroom for competitive play, but the visual downgrade in Greedfall's environments — dense with foliage and architectural detail — makes High the better recommendation for most players, as it maintains 163 FPS average with no reported minimum dips in the data.

At 3840x2160, the recommendation shifts decisively. Ultra drops to 62 FPS average, which is playable but leaves minimal headroom for demanding scenes. High delivers 97 FPS average, and Medium hits 107 FPS with a 91 FPS minimum and 123 FPS maximum. For 4K displays, High is the recommended preset: it provides a 35 FPS advantage over Ultra (97 vs 62) while retaining most of the visual fidelity that matters in this title — shadow detail, texture resolution, and draw distance. The 97 FPS average also aligns well with 120Hz 4K displays, and the lack of reported minimums below 60 FPS indicates consistent frame pacing. Low at 136 FPS is unnecessary at this resolution, as the GPU is already the limiting factor and the visual sacrifice outweighs the 39 FPS gain over High.

FAQ

Q: Can this system maintain 60 FPS at 4K with all settings maxed?

A: The data shows Ultra settings at 3840x2160 produce a 62 FPS average, which clears the 60 FPS threshold but narrowly. The margin is thin enough that demanding scenes could cause dips below 60, so High settings at 97 FPS provide safer headroom for consistent 4K gameplay.

Q: How does the system perform at 1440p for high-refresh-rate monitors?

A: At 2560x1440, Medium delivers 179 FPS average with a 152 FPS minimum, and High reaches 163 FPS. Both presets comfortably exceed 144Hz refresh rates, while Ultra at 104 FPS still provides a smooth experience for 100Hz+ displays.

Q: What is the largest frame rate gap between presets at any resolution?

A: At 1920x1080, the gap between Low (329 FPS) and Ultra (150 FPS) is 179 FPS, representing a 119% performance difference. This is the largest preset-to-preset spread in the measured data, indicating the CPU and GPU combination has substantial headroom at this resolution.

Q: Is the RTX 5080 the limiting factor at 1080p?

A: The 329 FPS Low result at 1080p suggests the GPU is not fully saturated, but the frame rates are so high that the CPU's 24 cores and 5.80 GHz boost clock become the practical ceiling. The data shows diminishing returns when comparing Low to Medium (329 to 259 FPS, a 27% drop), which indicates a balanced workload between components.

Q: How does the 4K Ultra result compare to 1080p Ultra?

A: The 4K Ultra average of 62 FPS is 88 FPS lower than the 1080p Ultra average of 150 FPS, a 59% reduction. This scaling reflects the GPU's 16 GB GDDR7 memory and 960 GB/s bandwidth handling the increased pixel workload at 4K.

Q: What does the combo rank of 188 out of 2,938 indicate?

A: This ranking places the system in the top 6.4% of all tested combinations for Greedfall. The percentileVsAllCpus of 96 and percentileVsAllGpus of 87 confirm both components are high-end performers, though the GPU's slightly lower percentile suggests it contributes more to the overall ranking ceiling.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a consistent pattern of GPU-bound scaling. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 235 at 1920x1080 to 163 at 2560x1440 (a 31% reduction) and then to 97 at 3840x2160 (a 41% reduction from 1440p). This non-linear scaling is characteristic of a system where the RTX 5080's rendering workload grows exponentially with pixel count, while the CPU's 24 cores and 5.80 GHz boost clock provide ample headroom at all resolutions.

The Medium preset shows similar scaling: 259 FPS at 1080p, 179 FPS at 1440p (31% drop), and 107 FPS at 4K (40% drop). The consistency of these percentages across presets indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck as resolution increases, with the CPU maintaining its ability to feed frames even at the lowest settings. At Low settings, the scaling is steeper — 329 to 228 to 136 FPS — representing 31% and 40% drops respectively, which further confirms the GPU-bound nature of Greedfall at higher resolutions.

The Ultra preset shows the most dramatic scaling: 150 FPS at 1080p drops to 104 FPS at 1440p (31% reduction) and then to 62 FPS at 4K (40% reduction). This pattern suggests that at 4K Ultra, the RTX 5080's 56.28 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 16 GB VRAM are stretched to their limits, with the 62 FPS result sitting just above the playability threshold. The 960.0 GB/s memory bandwidth becomes critical here, as Greedfall's texture-heavy environments at 4K Ultra likely approach the 16 GB capacity, though the data does not indicate any stuttering or minimum frame drops in the Ultra rows.

The limiting component analysis points clearly to the GPU at 4K: the CPU's performance in synthetic benchmarks (51,731 in Cinebench R23 multicore, 7,303 in single-core) and its 96th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggest it is not the constraint at any resolution. The RTX 5080's 87th percentile ranking among GPUs, combined with the 59% frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings, establishes the GPU as the scaling bottleneck.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all presets. Low settings produce 329 FPS average, Medium reaches 259 FPS with a 220 FPS minimum and 297 FPS maximum, High achieves 235 FPS, and Ultra settles at 150 FPS. The Medium preset's measured range of 220-297 FPS shows tight frame pacing, with the 77 FPS spread indicating consistent delivery under load. The 179 FPS gap between Low and Ultra (329 vs 150) demonstrates the significant GPU workload increase at this resolution, yet even Ultra remains far above the 144Hz threshold.

At 2560x1440, the data shows Low at 228 FPS, Medium at 179 FPS (152 minimum, 206 maximum), High at 163 FPS, and Ultra at 104 FPS. The Medium preset's 54 FPS range (152-206) is wider than at 1080p, suggesting the GPU is working harder and frame times vary more under load. The jump from Ultra to High (104 to 163 FPS, a 57% improvement) is the largest preset-to-preset gain at this resolution, making High the best balance for 1440p gaming. Low at 228 FPS retains the competitive edge for esports-style play, though Greedfall's genre rarely demands such high frame rates.

At 3840x2160, the measurements show Low at 136 FPS, Medium at 107 FPS (91 minimum, 123 maximum), High at 97 FPS, and Ultra at 62 FPS. The Medium preset's 32 FPS range (91-123) represents the tightest frame pacing at 4K, indicating the GPU maintains consistent performance despite the heavy pixel workload. The drop from Medium to High (107 to 97 FPS, a 9% reduction) is modest, while Ultra's 62 FPS represents a 36% reduction from High — a significant visual quality cost for the marginal fidelity gain. The 4K Ultra result barely clears 60 FPS, and the lack of minimum frame data for that row suggests the average may not reflect worst-case scenarios.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 188 out of 2,938 tested combinations places this system in the top 6.4% of all configurations for Greedfall. This ranking reflects the synergy between the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus and RTX 5080, though the individual component percentiles provide context: the CPU ranks in the 96th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU ranks in the 87th percentile among all GPUs. The gap between these percentiles suggests the GPU is the more common bottleneck in this pairing, and the combo rank of 188 benefits from the CPU's exceptional headroom.

Comparing to the CPU's nearest rivals, the Core Ultra 9 290K Plus scores an average benchmark of 84,003, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285K (83,807) and 1.1% higher than the AMD EPYC 4584PX (83,090). It trails the AMD EPYC 7F72 by 1.3% (85,072 vs 84,003). These are marginal differences that would not meaningfully affect Greedfall's frame rates, as the game's CPU demands are modest relative to these workstation-class processors. The 24 cores and 24 threads, combined with 36 MB of shared L3 cache, provide ample parallel processing for the game's AI and physics systems.

For the GPU, the RTX 5080's average benchmark score of 56,083 is 0.6% higher than the AMD Radeon 8060S (55,757) and 0.7% higher than the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698), while trailing the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE by 2.2% (57,367). The RTX 5080's 87th percentile ranking places it below the very top GPUs, but its 4K Ultra performance of 62 FPS in Greedfall demonstrates it is well-suited for this title. The 188th combo rank out of 2,938 indicates that while many systems outperform this pairing in synthetic benchmarks, the measured results in Greedfall show strong real-world performance.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 9 290K Plus brings 24 cores and 24 threads to this pairing, with a base clock of 3.70 GHz that boosts to 5.80 GHz. This Arrow Lake Refresh processor, built on TSMC's 3 nm process with 17,800 million transistors, delivers exceptional synthetic performance: 51,731 in Cinebench R23 multicore and 7,303 in single-core, placing it in the 96th percentile of all CPUs. The 36 MB shared L3 cache and 3 MB per-core L2 cache provide fast data access for game logic, while the 115.2 GB/s dual-channel DDR5 memory bandwidth ensures the GPU receives data without CPU-side bottlenecks.

In Greedfall, the CPU's role becomes apparent at lower resolutions where the GPU has headroom. The 1080p Low result of 329 FPS demonstrates the CPU can sustain extremely high frame rates, and the 24 threads handle the game's AI-driven combat encounters and open-world NPC interactions without issue. The 5.80 GHz boost clock is particularly relevant for single-threaded game tasks, as Greedfall's core game loop likely relies on a few primary threads for character movement and world interaction. The single-core Cinebench R20 score of 3,067 confirms strong per-thread performance, which is critical for avoiding frame hitches in busy scenes.

The data suggests the CPU is not a limiting factor at any resolution in this test. The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K follows a consistent GPU-bound pattern, and the CPU's 96th percentile ranking indicates it outperforms the vast majority of processors in this game's workload. The 24 cores may be overkill for Greedfall, which was released in 2019 and likely scales well up to 8-16 threads, but the high boost clock ensures the game's primary threads run at maximum speed. The 125 W TDP and unlocked multiplier suggest this CPU has headroom for overclocking, though the measured results already exceed what the GPU can feed at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB203 chip, provides 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus with 960.0 GB/s bandwidth. Its 10,752 shading units, 336 TMUs, and 112 ROPs deliver 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, with a boost clock of 2617 MHz. The 16 GB VRAM is particularly relevant for Greedfall at 4K Ultra, where the game's detailed textures and large environments likely consume significant memory — the 62 FPS result indicates the GPU is working near its limits.

The GPU's 87th percentile ranking among all GPUs places it in the upper tier, though its average benchmark score of 56,083 trails some rivals like the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE by 2.2%. In Greedfall specifically, the RTX 5080's performance at 4K Ultra (62 FPS) and 4K High (97 FPS) demonstrates its capability for high-resolution gaming, with the 960 GB/s memory bandwidth ensuring texture streaming keeps up with the game's exploration demands. The 256-bit bus width is sufficient for this title, though the data shows the GPU becomes the bottleneck at 4K, as expected.

The RTX 5080's role as the primary performance determinant is clear from the resolution scaling analysis. At 1080p, the GPU is not fully utilized, as evidenced by the 329 FPS Low result and the CPU's ability to maintain high frame rates. At 4K, however, the GPU's 56.28 TFLOPS compute and 293.1 GPixel/s pixel rate are stretched, with the 62 FPS Ultra result showing the limits of this architecture for demanding settings. The 16 GB VRAM is adequate for Greedfall at all tested settings, but the 960 GB/s bandwidth becomes a factor at 4K Ultra where the pixel shader workload increases exponentially.

The GPU's measured performance aligns with its 87th percentile ranking, and its nearest rivals — the AMD Radeon 8060S (0.6% lower) and AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (0.7% lower) — are closely matched in synthetic benchmarks, yet the RTX 5080's 4K results in Greedfall show it can maintain playable frame rates at Ultra, which is the key metric for this title. The dual-slot design and 360 W TDP indicate this is a high-power component, and the 16 GB GDDR7 memory provides future-proofing for more demanding games, though Greedfall's 2019 release does not fully stress the GPU's capabilities.