Hard West

The system under measurement pairs the AMD Ryzen 5 7400F (6 cores, 12 threads, Zen 4, boost clock 4.70 GHz) with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 (32 GB GDDR7, 512-bit bus, boost 2407 MHz) playing Hard West, a turn-based tactics title. The frame rates captured across three resolutions and four quality presets provide a clear picture of where this configuration spends its performance budget.

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates at High settings show a substantial dependency on output resolution. At 1920x1080 the average is 221 FPS, dropping to 148 at 2560x1440, and further to 78 at 3840x2160. That represents a decline from above 200 to below 100 as pixel count triples, which is a typical sign that the GPU is handling most of the workload, especially at 4K.

Looking at the Low preset, the numbers climb even higher: 261 FPS at 1080p, 224 at 1440p, and 123 at 2160p. Here the 1440p and 4K figures are still very high, but the 1080p number approaches the 300 FPS range, suggesting that the CPU has room to move even at the highest refresh rates. The step between 1440p and 4K is more severe for Low (224 → 123) than for 1080p to 1440p (261 → 224), which again points to the GPU being the constraint at high resolutions.

Ultra also shares a similar pattern: 175 at 1080p, 111 at 1440p, and a modest 58 at 4K. High settings are the only preset that breaks 170 at 1080p, showing that quality presets matter more when the resolution is already high. The overall trending is expected – higher resolution demands more fill rate, and the 5090's massive bandwidth helps, but the frame rate penalty at 4K is significant.

A closer look at the medium preset includes our only min/max records. At 4K, the min is 86 FPS and max is 116, giving an average of 101. At 1440p, the range is 163–221 with an average of 192, and at 1080p the range is 206–279 with an average of 243. These numbers show that even medium preset remains playable in 4K while delivering very high frame rates at lower resolutions.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor with a base clock of 3.70 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. It uses the Zen 4 architecture on the Raphael chip, built on a 5 nm TSMC process. The L3 cache is 32 MB shared. For a 2015 turn-based tactics game, the engine likely favors a fast single core over many threads, and the 7400F's single-thread performance is strong. Its Cinebench R23 single-core score is 3072, while the multi-core score reaches 21765. Those numbers place it in the 83rd percentile among all CPUs.

The combination with the RTX 5090 produces extremely high frame rates at 1080p and even at 1440p. At 1080p Low, the average is 261 FPS, which is nearly 4K typical for any serious display. The fact that High and Ultra also stay above 175 FPS suggests the CPU is not the limiting factor in that range. If the engine were heavily single-threaded, the 7400F's 4.70 GHz boost clock would be the lead asset. The game's reliance on discrete steps of turns rather than continuous physics also reduces CPU load compared to real-time genres.

However, the CPU does become more influential at higher resolutions because the GPU must wait for each frame's draw calls. At 4K, even the fastest GPUs often depend on CPU throughput to build command lists. The data shows that frame rates at 4K drop to 58–123 across all presets, which is still well above the territory of playability for such a title, but it indicates that the CPU's role shifts slightly as the resolution climbs.

Settings Recommendations

For a balanced experience, the measured numbers suggest the following: at 1920x1080, any preset works well. The Ultra setting still delivers 175 FPS, which is above the refresh rate of most standard monitors. For 1440p, settings Medium through Ultra all meet the 60 FPS threshold; Medium yields 192 FPS, High 148, and Ultra 111, so the line between them is purely about visual quality versus headroom. At 3840x2160, the Ultra average falls to 58 FPS, which is just below a smooth 60 FPS cycle. The High preset at 4K gives 78 FPS, making it the safer choice for large displays. Medium at 4K reaches 101 FPS with a minimum of 86 FPS, so players who want to maximize frame rate could choose Medium instead of High. Low is occasionally harsh on lighting and shadows, but at 4K Low still hits 228, which is playable if the visuals are acceptable.

The pattern suggests that the 5090 can handle Ultra at 4K if the game is not heavily optimized, but the High setting provides a more comfortable margin. The difference between Medium and High at 4K is only about 23 FPS (101 vs 78), while the gap between High and Ultra is 20 FPS (78 vs 58). For the smoothest experience, High is the recommended preset for 4K, with Medium for players who want to push 100+ FPS. 1080p and 1440p are safe at Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

Out of 3722 measured CPU-GPU combinations within the test pool, this pairing of Ryzen 5 7400F and GeForce RTX 5090 lands at rank 135. That places it firmly in the top 10% of all configurations, an impressive position given the CPU's modest core count and the game's age. The high average frame rates across all resolutions account for this ranking. The CPU itself sits in the 83rd percentile, while the GPU reaches an 92nd percentile, both contributing to the strong overall position.

When compared to rival components from the same benchmark database, the CPU shows a nearly even performance spread. Its average benchmark score of 32750 is 0.1% higher than Intel Core i5-14600T (32707), and 0.6% lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 6850H (32662), while the AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 360 follows at 32697. The GPU similarly sits 0.3% above Tesla P100 16GB and 0.7% above the Tesla P100 12GB, but 1.4% behind the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X. These minimal gaps confirm that both components are at the higher tier of their respective classes.

GPU Role

The GeForce RTX 5090 is a massive card: it features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, giving 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. That memory capacity and speed are far beyond what Hard West requires, a game that orignally released in 2015. Even the most ambitious 4K textures won't come close to filling 32 GB. However, the GPU's raw power is what drives the frame rates. The boost clock reaches 2407 MHz, and the shading unit count is 21,760. For a tactical title that tends to be draw-call heavy, such a high shading unit array is overqualified, but it ensures that geometry heavy scenes remain smooth.

The data shows that the GPU is the bottleneck at 4K resolution. The Step from 1440p to 4K almost halves the average frame rate for every preset. On the other hand, the CPU scales gracefully across lower resolutions, as evidenced by the near-linear drop from 1080p to 1440p. This is typical for a high-end GPU in a CPU-light title. The GPU's score in Passmark G3D is 39650, and its overall benchmark average is 79842, placing it in the 99th percentile of all GP truly – far ahead of most competitors.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum frame rate measured in this configuration?

A: The highest average FPS is 261, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings.

Q: For 4K Ultra, what is the average FPS?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average is 58 FPS.

Q: Which setting gives the highest minimum FPS at 4K?

A: The Medium preset at 3840x2160 has a minimum of 86 FPS, the only min value recorded at that resolution.

Q: What is the ranking of this CPU-GPU pair among all tested combinations?

A: It ranks 135th out of 3722 combinations.

Q: What are the boost and base clocks of the RTX 5090?

A: The boost clock is 2407 MHz and the base clock is 2017 MHz.

Q: How many cores does the Ryzen 5 7400F have, and what is its L3 cache?

A: It has 6 cores/12 threads, and its shared L3 cache is 32 MB.

Measured FPS Breakdown

| Resolution | Settings | Average FPS | Min FPS | Max FPS |

|------------|----------|------------|---------|---------|

| 3840x2160 | High | 78 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Low | 174 | - | - |

| 3840x2160 | Medium | 101 | 86 | 116 |

| 3840x2160 | Ultra | 58 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | High | 192 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Low | 224 | - | - |

| 2560x1440 | Medium | 178 | 163 | 221 |

| 2560x1440 | Ultra | 111 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | High | 221 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Low | 261 | - | - |

| 1920x1080 | Medium | 192 | 206 | 279 |

| 1920x1080 | Ultra | 175 | - | - |

This breakdown covers every measured configuration. The system is equipped with a GPU of 32GB VRAM and a CPU with 32 MB L3 cache, both retailing at launch with an MSRP of $229 for the CPU and $1,999 for the GPU. The benchmark engine consistently outputs high counts, making this pair a standout for 1080p and 1440p play, while still doing adequately at 4K if the user is willing to dial back lengthe settings.