Hard West

FAQ

Q: Is the AMD Ryzen 5 5600 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 a strong combination for Hard West?

A: Yes. This combo ranks 96th out of 1699 tested combinations in the game, placing it in the top percentile for performance. The CPU holds a 79th percentile ranking against all CPUs, and the GPU sits at the 91st percentile against all GPUs, so both components are well above average for this title.

Q: Can this system handle Hard West at 4K with maximum settings?

A: It runs 4K Ultra at an average of 59.9 FPS. That is playable but only just above standard 60 FPS thresholds. Dropping to 4K High raises the average to 74.6 FPS, which provides a more comfortable margin for turn-based tactics where smooth camera panning matters.

Q: How much performance does the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM contribute in this game?

A: The GPU operates with a 2235 MHz base clock and a 2520 MHz boost clock, backed by 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus. Hard West is a 2015 turn-based title, so the VRAM capacity is far beyond what the game demands, but the memory bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s ensures texture streaming at 4K Ultra remains effortless.

Q: Is the Ryzen 5 5600 a bottleneck for the RTX 4090 in Hard West?

A: The data suggests it is not a significant limitation. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads with a 4.40 GHz boost clock deliver single-thread performance that scales well with the game's logic-heavy turn-based mechanics. The 1080p Low result of 233.4 FPS indicates the CPU can push frames far beyond typical display refresh rates.

Q: What is the best preset to use at 1440p?

A: Medium at 2560x1440 delivers 183.6 FPS, which is excellent. However, High at 143.2 FPS is the better choice if you want visual fidelity without sacrificing smoothness, as it stays well above 120 FPS and looks noticeably richer than Medium in this title.

Q: How does this combo compare to the CPU's nearest rivals in overall benchmark scores?

A: The Ryzen 5 5600 averages 21765 in benchmark scores, which is 0.6% above the Intel Xeon D-1746TER and 0.9% above the Intel Core i7-11700F. It trails the AMD EPYC 9554P and EPYC 9534 by 0.6% each, so the CPU sits in a tightly contested performance band with its closest competitors.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing, and its specifications reflect a GPU designed for far heavier workloads than Hard West presents. The AD102 chip on a 5 nm process contains 76,300 million transistors across a 609 mm² die, with 16,384 shading units, 512 texture mapping units, and 176 raster output pipelines. The 128 ray tracing cores and 512 tensor cores are essentially idle in this turn-based tactics game, but the raw rasterization throughput matters.

The GPU's clock behavior is notable: a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz. In a game like Hard West, where scenes are mostly static between actions, the boost clock holds steady because thermal headroom is rarely challenged. The 24 GB GDDR6X memory with a 384-bit bus width and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth is overkill for a game with modest texture sizes, but it means there are zero frame hitches from memory swapping, even at 4K Ultra.

The RTX 4090's benchmark profile reinforces its capability. It scores 38194 in Passmark G3D and 26613 in Passmark GPU Compute, with a 91st percentile ranking against all GPUs. The nearest rivals—NVIDIA Tesla T4, Tesla P40, AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56, and Quadro P6000—all sit within 1.3% of its average benchmark score, but those are workstation-class cards. For gaming, the RTX 4090 is in a different league entirely.

What the measured FPS data shows is that Hard West is not GPU-limited until you push to 4K Ultra. At 1080p and 1440p, the GPU has so much headroom that the frame rate is likely capped by engine-level physics or game logic rather than the graphics card. The RTX 4090's pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s are far beyond what this game can generate at typical resolutions. The GPU is effectively coasting.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how Hard West scales across resolutions. From 1080p to 1440p, the drop is moderate. At High settings, the average falls from 196.4 FPS to 143.2 FPS, a 27% reduction. At Ultra, it goes from 169.9 FPS to 106.5 FPS, a 37% reduction. These are substantial drops that indicate the GPU is starting to take on more work as pixel count increases.

The jump from 1440p to 4K is where the scaling becomes dramatic. At High settings, the average falls from 143.2 FPS to 74.6 FPS, a 48% reduction. At Ultra, it drops from 106.5 FPS to 59.9 FPS, a 44% reduction. This pattern is classic GPU-limited behavior: as resolution increases, the graphics card becomes the primary constraint, and the frame rate drops proportionally with pixel count.

Looking at the Low preset, the scaling is even more telling. At 1080p Low, the system hits 233.4 FPS. At 1440p Low, it drops to 200.3 FPS. At 4K Low, it falls to 119.2 FPS. The 1080p to 4K reduction is 49%, which is close to the theoretical 4x pixel count difference, but not exactly proportional. This suggests that even at Low settings, there is a CPU or engine ceiling around 233 FPS at 1080p, and the GPU takes over as the limiter once resolution climbs.

The practical takeaway is that Hard West at 1080p is CPU-bound or engine-bound with this hardware, while 4K is firmly GPU-bound. The 1440p resolution sits in a transitional zone where both components contribute to the final frame rate. For a turn-based game, any of these results are playable, but the scaling pattern shows where the performance bottlenecks shift.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data covers three resolutions and four settings presets, giving a complete picture of performance.

At 1920x1080, the results are: Low 233.4 FPS, Medium 213.7 FPS, High 196.4 FPS, Ultra 169.9 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 63.5 FPS, which means even the heaviest preset retains 73% of the performance of the lightest preset. This indicates that at 1080p, the game is not heavily taxing the RTX 4090, and the frame rates are limited by other factors.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low 200.3 FPS, Medium 183.6 FPS, High 143.2 FPS, Ultra 106.5 FPS. The drop from Medium to High is particularly steep at 40.4 FPS, suggesting that High enables effects that significantly increase GPU load. Ultra then adds another 36.7 FPS of cost, making it the most demanding preset at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low 119.2 FPS, Medium 101.4 FPS, High 74.6 FPS, Ultra 59.9 FPS. Here, every preset step costs a meaningful amount of performance. The gap from Medium to High is 26.8 FPS, and from High to Ultra is 14.7 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 59.9 FPS is the only measurement that dips below 60 FPS, and it does so by just 0.1 FPS.

The pattern across all resolutions is consistent: Low and Medium presets are relatively close in cost, while High and Ultra introduce progressively heavier rendering loads. The RTX 4090 handles Low and Medium at all resolutions with ease, but Ultra at 4K brings it to the edge of 60 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience per the measured rows, the recommended preset depends on your resolution and refresh rate.

At 1080p, High is the optimal choice. It delivers 196.4 FPS, which is still far above any mainstream monitor's refresh rate, and it looks significantly better than Medium. Ultra at 169.9 FPS is also viable, but the visual difference between High and Ultra in a turn-based tactics game is unlikely to justify the 26.5 FPS cost.

At 1440p, High at 143.2 FPS is the clear winner. It provides smooth gameplay on 144 Hz panels and retains visual quality. Medium at 183.6 FPS offers higher frame rates, but the visual downgrade is noticeable in a game where you spend time examining character models and environments. Ultra at 106.5 FPS is playable but sacrifices too much performance for marginal visual gains.

At 4K, the recommendation is High at 74.6 FPS. This stays comfortably above 60 FPS and provides good visual fidelity. Ultra at 59.9 FPS is technically playable but sits right at the threshold where frame pacing issues can appear. Medium at 101.4 FPS is the choice for players who prioritize frame rate over visuals, but High offers the best balance for a game that is not action-heavy.

In summary, High is the recommended preset across all three resolutions. It consistently delivers the best compromise between visual quality and frame rate, with the only sub-60 FPS result occurring at 4K Ultra, which should be avoided.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, codenamed Vermeer. It operates on the AMD Socket AM4 platform with a 65 W TDP, making it an efficient choice for this pairing. The base clock is 3.50 GHz and the boost clock reaches 4.40 GHz, which are the figures that matter for Hard West's single-threaded game logic.

The CPU's cache hierarchy is substantial: 64 KB of L1 per core, 512 KB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. This L3 cache is particularly relevant for a turn-based tactics game, where the CPU must track unit positions, line-of-sight calculations, and action points across many entities. The 32 MB shared cache helps keep frequently accessed game state data close to the cores.

Benchmark results show the CPU's strengths. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2584 and multicore score of 18309 indicate balanced performance. The Passmark single-thread score of 3256 and multithread score of 21541 confirm that both single-thread and multi-thread workloads are handled well. The 3DMark single-thread score of 882 and 16-thread score of 5641 show similar patterns.

The CPU's role in Hard West is evident from the 1080p Low result of 233.4 FPS. This is the highest measured frame rate across all configurations, and it is likely near the engine's limit for game logic updates. The fact that 4K Low drops to 119.2 FPS—a 49% reduction—while 4K Ultra drops to 59.9 FPS—a 74% reduction from 1080p Low—shows that the GPU becomes the bottleneck as resolution increases.

The Ryzen 5 5600 sits at the 79th percentile against all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 21765. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon D-1746TER (0.6% faster), AMD EPYC 9554P (0.6% slower), AMD EPYC 9534 (0.6% slower), and Intel Core i7-11700F (0.9% slower). These results place the CPU in a tightly competitive band, but for gaming, the Zen 3 architecture's strong single-thread performance is what matters most. In Hard West, the CPU provides ample headroom for game logic, and the RTX 4090 is never starved for data.