Hard West

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates across resolutions reveal a classic GPU-bound scaling curve, but with an unusual twist at the top end. From 1080p to 1440p, the average FPS drops by roughly 15-20% across all settings, which is a moderate decline consistent with a system that still has plenty of headroom at these resolutions. However, the jump from 1440p to 4K is far more severe, with average frame rates falling by 40-50% depending on the preset. This steep cliff at 4K indicates that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is the primary limiting component at higher pixel counts, while the AMD Ryzen 5 4600G has less influence on the scaling pattern.

Looking at the specific numbers, the High preset shows this dynamic clearly: 159 FPS at 1080p, 135 FPS at 1440p, and then just 71 FPS at 4K. The 1080p-to-1440p drop of 24 FPS is modest, but the 1440p-to-4K drop of 64 FPS is more than double that. Similarly, the Ultra preset goes from 143 FPS at 1080p to 101 FPS at 1440p, then collapses to 53 FPS at 4K. This pattern strongly suggests that the RTX 5080's raw compute power is being saturated as resolution increases, while the CPU can keep feeding frames adequately at lower resolutions.

The Low preset tells a slightly different story. At 1080p, the Low setting produces 188 FPS, which is the highest measured result in the entire dataset. At 1440p, it still manages 161 FPS, but at 4K it drops to 113 FPS. The fact that even the Low preset cannot maintain high frame rates at 4K, despite the relatively simple rendering workload, reinforces that the GPU's fill rate and memory bandwidth are the bottlenecks at 4K. The 75 FPS difference between 1080p and 4K on Low is proportionally larger than the difference on High, which suggests that the game's rendering engine becomes increasingly inefficient at higher resolutions.

Notably, the scaling between Medium and High settings is relatively small at each resolution. At 1080p, the difference is 16 FPS (175 vs 159); at 1440p, it is 15 FPS (150 vs 135); and at 4K, it is 21 FPS (92 vs 71). This tight grouping indicates that the Medium preset is nearly as demanding as High, which is an important consideration for players looking to optimize settings. The Ultra preset, by contrast, imposes a much larger penalty: at 4K, Ultra is 39 FPS slower than High, and at 1440p, it is 34 FPS slower. This suggests that Ultra enables effects or rendering features that disproportionately tax the GPU at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 is the dominant component in this combo, and its specifications explain much of the observed performance. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration is ample for Hard West at all tested resolutions and settings, as turn-based tactics games rarely require massive frame buffers. The 4K Ultra result of 53 FPS is not limited by VRAM capacity but rather by the GPU's compute throughput.

The RTX 5080's clock behavior is also relevant. With a base clock of 2295 MHz and a boost clock of 2617 MHz, the GPU has a substantial overclocking headroom built into its design. The fact that frame rates scale almost linearly with resolution from 1440p to 4K suggests that the GPU is operating at or near its boost clock during these tests, with thermal or power limits not significantly constraining performance. The 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is the key metric here, as it directly determines how many pixels the GPU can process per second.

Comparing the RTX 5080 to its nearest rivals in the benchmark database provides context for its performance tier. The GPU's average benchmark score of 56083 places it slightly above the AMD Radeon 8060S (55757, deltaPct 0.6) and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55698, deltaPct 0.7). It trails the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (57367, deltaPct -2.2) by a small margin. However, in this specific game, the RTX 5080's performance at 4K Ultra (53 FPS) and 4K High (71 FPS) shows that it is not the absolute top-tier GPU for this title, despite its strong synthetic benchmark showing.

The GPU's percentile ranking of 87 among all GPUs indicates that it sits in the upper echelon of graphics hardware. Yet, the measured FPS in Hard West at 4K Ultra (53 FPS) is below the 60 FPS threshold that many players consider the minimum for smooth gameplay. This suggests that even a top-tier GPU like the RTX 5080 cannot fully brute-force the most demanding settings at 4K in this game, likely due to the game's rendering engine having inefficiencies that no amount of raw GPU power can overcome. The 16 GB VRAM capacity is never stressed, and the 960.0 GB/s bandwidth is more than sufficient for the game's texture and geometry data.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 4600G is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 2 architecture, codenamed Renoir, manufactured on a 7 nm process. Its base clock of 3.70 GHz and boost clock of 4.20 GHz place it in the mid-range of desktop CPUs from its generation. In Hard West, a turn-based tactics game, the CPU's role is primarily to handle game logic, pathfinding, and AI calculations rather than intensive physics or complex scene management typical of real-time games.

The CPU's benchmark scores provide insight into its expected performance. Its single-thread performance is measured at 726 in 3dmark_single_thread and 1919 in cinebench_r23_singlecore, which are modest figures by modern standards. However, for a turn-based game like Hard West, single-thread performance is often more critical than multi-threaded throughput, as the game's logic may not scale well across many cores. The CPU's multi-threaded scores are more robust: 13593 in cinebench_r23_multicore and 15992 in passmark_multithread, indicating that it can handle parallel workloads when needed.

The fact that frame rates at 1080p are so high (188 FPS on Low, 159 FPS on High) suggests that the CPU is not a bottleneck at lower resolutions. Even at 4K, where the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, the CPU's performance does not degrade the results further. If the CPU were struggling to keep up, we would expect to see frame rates plateau or drop inconsistently across resolutions. Instead, the scaling pattern is smooth and predictable, which implies that the Ryzen 5 4600G has sufficient headroom for this game's demands.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database are closely matched. The AMD Ryzen 3 PRO 5355GE has an average score of 17482, just 0.1% lower than the 4600G's 17507 average. The Intel Core 7 150U is 0.6% behind, while the AMD Ryzen 3 8300GE and Intel Core i3-14100T are 0.6% and 0.8% ahead, respectively. These tiny deltas indicate that the 4600G is firmly in the middle of its performance tier, and any differences in gaming performance would be negligible. In Hard West specifically, the CPU's 71st percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it is adequate for most gaming scenarios, though not exceptional.

The integrated Radeon Vega 7 graphics in the 4600G are irrelevant for this testing configuration since the discrete RTX 5080 handles all rendering. However, the CPU's memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s over dual-channel DDR4 could theoretically impact game performance if the game were CPU-bound, but the measured results show no such limitation. The 8 MB of shared L3 cache is modest, but again, the turn-based genre does not typically require high cache bandwidth.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of AMD Ryzen 5 4600G and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks 737 out of 3722 tested combos in Hard West, placing it in the top 20% of all configurations. This ranking reflects a significant imbalance between the CPU and GPU: the RTX 5080 is a top-tier GPU (87th percentile), while the 4600G is a mid-range CPU (71st percentile). The high combo ranking is almost entirely attributable to the GPU's strength, as the CPU is likely holding back the system from achieving even higher frame rates in CPU-limited scenarios.

The rank of 737 out of 3722 means that roughly 2985 other combos perform worse in this game, while about 736 perform better. This is a strong result for a system pairing a 2020-era budget CPU with a 2025 flagship GPU. The data indicates that the RTX 5080 can overcome the CPU's limitations in this particular game, which is not always the case in more CPU-intensive titles. The turn-based nature of Hard West means that the CPU has more time between frames to compute game logic, reducing the likelihood of CPU bottlenecks.

Compared to other combos that might pair the RTX 5080 with a more powerful CPU, this configuration is likely leaving some performance on the table. However, the measured frame rates at 1080p (up to 188 FPS) suggest that the CPU is not severely limiting the system. The fact that the combo ranks in the 737th position despite the CPU's mid-range status confirms the GPU's raw power and the game's relatively low CPU demands.

It is notably the combo rank does not directly correlate with the GPU's individual percentile ranking of 87. If the CPU were perfectly matched to the GPU, we might expect a rank closer to the top 10% of combos. The 737th position out of 3722 corresponds to roughly the 80th percentile, which is slightly below what the GPU alone would suggest. This gap is likely due to the CPU's limitations in certain scenarios, even if they do not manifest in the average FPS figures.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its strongest performance across all settings. The Low preset achieves an average of 188 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the entire dataset. Medium follows at 175 FPS, with a minimum of 149 FPS and a maximum of 201 FPS, showing good frame time consistency. High drops to 159 FPS, while Ultra is the slowest at 143 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 45 FPS, which is substantial but still leaves all presets well above the 60 FPS threshold.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains strong but shows the expected decline. Low produces 161 FPS, Medium averages 150 FPS (with a minimum of 128 FPS and maximum of 173 FPS), High reaches 135 FPS, and Ultra drops to 101 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra is 60 FPS, wider than at 1080p, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional effects become more taxing at higher resolutions. Even the lowest preset at 1440p (161 FPS) is still very playable, and the Ultra setting at 101 FPS remains above 100 FPS, which is excellent.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates take a significant hit. Low averages 113 FPS, which is still respectable, but Medium drops to 92 FPS (with a minimum of 79 FPS and maximum of 106 FPS). High falls to 71 FPS, and Ultra collapses to 53 FPS. The 60 FPS gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is identical to the 1440p spread, but the absolute values are much lower. Notably, the Medium preset at 4K (92 FPS) is closer to the Low preset (113 FPS) than to High (71 FPS), suggesting that the jump from Medium to High includes a disproportionately expensive rendering feature.

The minimum FPS values, available only for Medium settings, show that the frame time consistency is decent. At 1080p, the minimum of 149 FPS with an average of 175 FPS indicates a 15% drop from average to minimum, which is acceptable. At 1440p, the minimum of 128 FPS against an average of 150 FPS shows a similar pattern. At 4K, the minimum of 79 FPS versus the average of 92 FPS represents a 14% drop, meaning that even the worst-case frame times remain above 60 FPS for the Medium preset. This suggests that the system does not experience severe stuttering, even at 4K.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 offers the best balance of visual quality and performance for this combo. At 1440p Medium, the system delivers 150 FPS average with a minimum of 128 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold and provides a smooth experience for turn-based gameplay. The 128 FPS minimum ensures that even in the most demanding scenes, there is no perceptible stuttering. This configuration also leaves headroom for potential frame rate dips without compromising playability.

For players who prioritize visual fidelity over raw frame rates, the High preset at 1920x1080 is a strong choice. At 159 FPS average, this setting provides excellent image quality while maintaining a frame rate that is more than sufficient for any display. The 1080p High preset is particularly well-suited for players with 144 Hz monitors, as the average FPS exceeds the refresh rate and would allow for smooth gameplay with V-Sync enabled.

The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that falls below 60 FPS, with an average of 53 FPS. This is not recommended for competitive or fast-paced play, but for a turn-based tactics game, 53 FPS may be acceptable to some players who want maximum visual quality. However, the 4K High preset at 71 FPS provides a much better experience with only a modest reduction in visual fidelity compared to Ultra. The 18 FPS difference between High and Ultra at 4K is significant enough to warrant choosing High for most players.

The Low preset is rarely the best choice for this system, as even at 4K it achieves 113 FPS, which is more than adequate. However, the visual downgrade from Low to Medium is substantial, and the performance gain from choosing Low over Medium is only 21 FPS at 4K (113 vs 92). For this reason, the Medium preset at 4K (92 FPS) is a better recommendation than Low, as it provides a significantly better visual experience while still maintaining a high frame rate.

Ultimately, the optimal settings depend on the player's display resolution and refresh rate. For 1080p displays, the High preset at 159 FPS is the sweet spot, as it balances visual quality with a frame rate that exceeds most monitors' refresh rates. For 1440p displays, Medium at 150 FPS is ideal. For 4K displays, High at 71 FPS is recommended, as it stays above 60 FPS while providing good visual quality. The Ultra preset should only be considered at 1080p or 1440p, where it still achieves 143 FPS and 101 FPS respectively, but at 4K, the 53 FPS average is likely too low for a consistently smooth experience.