Hard West

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combination ranks 815th out of 2,949 tested combos in Hard West, placing it in the top 27.6% of all systems. This is a strong position for a turn-based tactics title, indicating that the pairing delivers a smooth experience without being near the absolute top of the charts. The rank reflects a balanced setup where neither component is a glaring bottleneck, though the data suggests the GPU carries more weight in determining final frame rates. For a game from 2015, this modern pairing sits comfortably ahead of the majority of tested hardware, though it does not dominate the leaderboard—a result consistent with a title that is not particularly demanding by contemporary standards.

How This Combo Ranks

The 815th rank out of 2,949 combos places this system in the upper quartile of all tested configurations. Benchmark results indicate that this pairing outperforms roughly 72% of all recorded combinations, a solid showing for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The ranking suggests that Hard West’s engine responds well to the RTX 4070’s raw compute power, while the Ryzen 5 5600F’s six cores are sufficient to avoid holding the system back in most scenarios. In percentile terms, the CPU itself sits at the 85th percentile among all processors, while the GPU ranks at the 81st percentile among all graphics cards, so the combo’s overall position is slightly below what either component achieves individually—implying that the game’s workload does not fully saturate both parts.

The nearest rivals in the CPU’s benchmark data are instructive here. The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 scores 36,938, essentially identical to the Ryzen 5 5600F’s 36,945 average, with a delta of 0%. The AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D and Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 are slightly ahead at 37,018 and 37,093 respectively, but the differences are under half a percent. This tells us that the 5600F is squarely in the middle of a tightly clustered group of mid-range processors, and any performance variance in Hard West would be negligible when swapping between them. The GPU’s rivals paint a similar picture: the Tesla P4 is 0.1% behind, the RX Vega 56 is 0.4% behind, and the RTX 4080 Mobile is 1.3% ahead, meaning the RTX 4070’s performance is well-bracketed by those parts.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 brings 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. In Hard West, a turn-based tactics game with static scenes and moderate texture loads, this memory configuration is more than ample. The card’s boost clock of 2,475 MHz, with a base of 1,920 MHz, provides the compute headroom needed to push high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, as seen in the measured results. The GPU’s 5,888 shading units and 64 ROPs handle the game’s DirectX 11-era rendering pipeline without breaking a sweat, and the 46 RT cores are largely irrelevant for a title that does not use ray tracing.

Benchmark data shows the RTX 4070 achieving a PassMark G3D score of 26,927 and a PassMark GPU Compute score of 14,720, which places it at the 81st percentile among all GPUs. The nearest rivals in synthetic tests are the Tesla P4 at 37,628 average score (0.1% behind), the RX Vega 56 at 37,507 (0.4% behind), and the RTX 4080 Mobile at 38,135 (1.3% ahead). These small deltas suggest that in Hard West, the RTX 4070’s actual frame rates should be very close to what those competing cards would produce, assuming no other bottlenecks. The GPU’s 12 GB VRAM is a key asset at 4K, where the High preset at 3840x2160 still manages 54 FPS average, while the Ultra preset drops to 40 FPS—likely a result of the game’s older engine struggling with the extra load rather than a VRAM limitation.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear pattern of diminishing returns as resolution increases. At 1080p, the system delivers 199 FPS on Low, 185 FPS on Medium, 161 FPS on High, and 121 FPS on Ultra. Moving to 1440p, those numbers drop to 162 FPS on Low, 133 FPS on Medium, 102 FPS on High, and 76 FPS on Ultra. At 4K, the figures fall further to 85 FPS on Low, 70 FPS on Medium, 54 FPS on High, and 40 FPS on Ultra. The percentage drops are steep: from 1080p Low to 4K Low, the frame rate falls by 57%, while from 1080p High to 4K High, the drop is 66%. This indicates that the GPU becomes the limiting factor as pixel count rises, while the CPU’s role diminishes.

The scaling pattern also reveals that the RTX 4070 is only fully utilized at 4K, where it is pushed hard enough to show meaningful differences between settings. At 1080p, the frame rates are so high that the game is likely CPU-bound or engine-limited, as evidenced by the relatively small gap between Low (199 FPS) and Medium (185 FPS) compared to the larger gap between High (161 FPS) and Ultra (121 FPS). At 1440p, the system finds a better balance, with the GPU starting to matter more—the difference between Low and Ultra is 86 FPS, versus 78 FPS at 1080p. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the dominant factor, with a 45 FPS spread between Low and Ultra, and the CPU’s contribution becomes negligible.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the Medium preset at 2560x1440 offers the most balanced experience. It delivers 133 FPS average with a minimum of 113 FPS and a maximum of 153 FPS, providing a smooth and consistent frame rate that exceeds what most displays can show. The 113 FPS minimum ensures there are no noticeable dips during intense turn-based combat animations, and the 153 FPS maximum shows headroom for future content. At 1080p, Medium hits 185 FPS with a minimum of 157 FPS, which is excellent but arguably beyond the refresh rate of most monitors, making the extra frames less useful. At 4K, Medium drops to 70 FPS with a minimum of 59 FPS, which is playable but not ideal for a title where camera panning can cause motion judder.

For users with a 60 Hz display, the 4K High preset at 54 FPS average is slightly below the refresh threshold, so the 4K Medium preset at 70 FPS is the safer choice. For 1440p monitors with 144 Hz refresh rates, the High preset at 102 FPS average is a better match than Medium’s 133 FPS, which exceeds the refresh rate and wastes GPU headroom. At 1080p, the High preset at 161 FPS is the sweet spot for 144 Hz displays, while Ultra at 121 FPS is still smooth but does not offer enough visual improvement to justify the 25% frame rate drop. The Low preset is only useful for competitive play or very high refresh rate displays, but even then, the game’s turn-based nature makes such settings unnecessary.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces its highest frame rates across all settings. The Low preset achieves 199 FPS average, which is the peak performance recorded in the entire dataset. Medium improves visual quality while still delivering 185 FPS, with a minimum of 157 FPS and a maximum of 213 FPS—the highest maximum recorded at any resolution. High drops to 161 FPS, and Ultra falls to 121 FPS. These numbers show that 1080p is well within the RTX 4070’s comfort zone, and the CPU’s six cores and 12 threads are sufficient to feed the GPU without causing a bottleneck.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates decrease by roughly 18-20% across all settings. Low delivers 162 FPS, Medium hits 133 FPS with a minimum of 113 FPS and a maximum of 153 FPS, High reaches 102 FPS, and Ultra drops to 76 FPS. The 1440p results are still excellent for a turn-based tactics game, with even the Ultra preset remaining above 60 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 113 FPS is particularly noteworthy, as it indicates a tight frame pacing that prevents stutter during camera transitions.

At 3840x2160, the performance gap widens significantly. Low delivers 85 FPS, Medium hits 70 FPS with a minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS, High drops to 54 FPS, and Ultra falls to 40 FPS. The 4K results show a clear GPU bottleneck, as the frame rates scale almost linearly with the number of pixels being rendered. The Medium preset’s minimum of 59 FPS is right at the edge of 60 Hz displays, making it a borderline choice for 4K gaming. The High preset at 54 FPS and Ultra at 40 FPS are both below the 60 FPS threshold, suggesting that 4K requires a compromise on settings to achieve smooth gameplay.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 5600F is a six-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 3 architecture, built on a 7 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.00 GHz and a boost clock of 4.00 GHz, with 32 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU’s 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4 memory support (with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth) make it a power-efficient choice for gaming. In Hard West, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU, but the data shows it is not entirely irrelevant. At 1080p, where the GPU is not fully stressed, the CPU’s single-thread performance—evidenced by a PassMark single-thread score of 2,872—helps maintain high frame rates, though the game’s turn-based nature means it rarely requires sustained multi-core load.

The CPU’s multithreaded performance, measured at 19,236 in PassMark, is more than adequate for a game that primarily runs on one or two threads. The nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks—the Intel Core Ultra 5 225, Ryzen 5 5500X3D, and Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450—all score within 0.5% of the 5600F, indicating that swapping between these CPUs would produce nearly identical results in Hard West. The CPU’s 85th percentile ranking among all processors confirms that it is a strong mid-range part, but the game’s performance ceiling is set by the GPU, as shown by the resolution scaling data. At 4K, the CPU’s impact is minimal, with the frame rate differences between settings being entirely attributable to GPU load. The CPU’s 4.00 GHz boost clock and 32 MB of L3 cache are likely sufficient to prevent any stutter from asset loading, though the game’s 2015 release date means it predates the Ryzen 5000 series by several years, so the CPU is operating well beyond the game’s original hardware expectations.