Hard West

Hard West is a turn-based tactics title from 2015, and the pairing of AMD's Ryzen 5 7600 with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER produces a combo ranked 1061 out of 1699 tested combinations. The CPU sits in the 83rd percentile of all processors, while the GPU lands in the 65th percentile, a gap that shows up clearly in the measured frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1061 out of 1699 places this pairing in the lower-middle of the database. It is not a top-tier configuration, but it is far from the bottom. The CPU is the stronger half: the Ryzen 5 7600's average benchmark score of 26617 puts it in the 83rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals are all within a fraction of a percent — the Ryzen 7 5800X3D trails by 0.2%, the EPYC 8024P trails by 0.2%, and the Core i9-11900K trails by 0.3%, while the Core i9-12900HK leads by 0.2%. This is a dead heat at the top of the CPU charts.

The GPU is a different story. The RTX 2070 SUPER's average benchmark score of 22206 places it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. It is 0.5% behind the RTX A400 and 2.3% behind the RTX 4060 Mobile, but it leads the GTX TITAN Z by 0.9% and the RX 5700 by 2.5%. The GPU's launch MSRP was 499 USD. The delta between CPU and GPU percentiles — 83 versus 65 — explains why this combo ranks where it does: the processor is capable of feeding a much faster graphics card, but the 2070 SUPER holds the pairing back in GPU-bound scenarios.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data makes the settings picture clear. At 1920x1080, every preset is playable. Low delivers 173.4 FPS, Medium 143.5, High 108, and even Ultra holds 80.2 FPS. For a turn-based tactics game, these are all smooth, so 1080p Ultra is the best experience — you get the full visual fidelity without sacrificing fluidity.

At 2560x1440, the story changes. Low runs at 107.9 FPS and Medium at 93.1, but High drops to 69.6 and Ultra falls to 48.5. The sweet spot is High: 69.6 FPS is comfortably above the smoothness threshold, and the visual upgrade over Medium is worthwhile. Ultra at 1440p is not recommended, as 48.5 FPS dips below the smoothness threshold for most players.

At 3840x2160, only Low is playable at 57.9 FPS. Medium drops to 48.4, High to 33.5, and Ultra to 24.9. If you must play at 4K, Low is the only viable preset, and even then it is borderline. The data suggests 1440p High or 1080p Ultra as the best overall experiences.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 1440p is steep. At High settings, the average falls from 108 to 69.6. At Low, it drops from 173.4 to 107.9. Medium falls from 143.5 to 93.1, and Ultra from 80.2 to 48.5. This uniform penalty across all presets indicates a GPU that is being pushed harder as pixel count rises.

The jump from 1440p to 4K is even more punishing. High drops from 69.6 to 33.5. Low falls from 107.9 to 57.9, Medium from 93.1 to 48.4, and Ultra from 48.5 to 24.9. The near-halving of frame rates at every preset is a classic sign of a GPU-limited scenario. The RTX 2070 SUPER's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 448.0 GB/s bandwidth are simply not enough to feed 4K resolutions at high quality in this title.

The scaling pattern also reveals the CPU's role. The Ryzen 5 7600's strong single-thread performance — a 3dmark single-thread score of 999 and a passmark single-thread score of 3910 — means it is not the bottleneck at any resolution. If the CPU were the limiting factor, the FPS would not drop so dramatically as resolution increases. The data points squarely at the GPU as the constraint.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following table summarizes all measured average FPS values:

| Resolution | Low | Medium | High | Ultra |

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

| 1920x1080 | 173.4 | 143.5 | 108 | 80.2 |

| 2560x1440 | 107.9 | 93.1 | 69.6 | 48.5 |

| 3840x2160 | 57.9 | 48.4 | 33.5 | 24.9 |

At 1080p, the spread from Low to Ultra is wide, with Low at 173.4 and Ultra at 80.2. At 1440p, the spread narrows, and at 4K it shrinks further. The narrowing spread as resolution increases is another indicator of GPU saturation — when the GPU is fully utilized, changing settings has less impact because the pixel throughput is the limiting factor.

The 1080p Low result of 173.4 FPS is the highest measured value in the entire dataset, and it shows that this combo can push very high frame rates at lower settings. The 4K Ultra result of 24.9 FPS is the lowest measured value in the dataset. For a turn-based tactics game, even 24.9 FPS is technically playable, but it is far from comfortable.

FAQ

Q: What is the best settings preset for this combo at 1080p?

A: Ultra delivers 80.2 FPS at 1920x1080, which is the highest quality preset that still maintains a smooth frame rate. Low runs at 173.4 FPS, but the visual trade-off is unnecessary when Ultra is already smooth.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming?

A: At 3840x2160, only Low is playable at 57.9 FPS. Medium drops to 48.4, High to 33.5, and Ultra to 24.9. The data suggests 4K is not a good fit for this pairing unless you are willing to use Low settings.

Q: How does the Ryzen 5 7600 compare to the Ryzen 7 5800X3D?

A: The Ryzen 5 7600's average benchmark score of 26617 is 0.2% higher than the 5800X3D's 26574. The two are effectively tied in overall CPU performance.

Q: How does the RTX 2070 SUPER compare to the RX 5700?

A: The RTX 2070 SUPER's average benchmark score of 22206 is 2.5% higher than the RX 5700's 21670. It also leads the GTX TITAN Z by 0.9%, but trails the RTX 4060 Mobile by 2.3%.

Q: What is the combo's overall rank in the database?

A: This pairing ranks 1061 out of 1699 tested combos, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the database. The CPU's 83rd percentile and GPU's 65th percentile explain the middling position.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck in this game?

A: The GPU is the limiting component. The FPS drops substantially from 1080p to 1440p and even more sharply from 1440p to 4K, which is characteristic of GPU saturation. The CPU's strong single-thread scores (999 in 3dmark single-thread, 3910 in passmark single-thread) indicate it has ample headroom.

CPU Role

The Ryzen 5 7600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on Zen 4 architecture, built on TSMC's 5 nm process. It runs at a base clock of 3.80 GHz and boosts to 5.10 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The cache layout includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3. Memory support is DDR5 over a dual-channel bus, providing 83.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The CPU's launch MSRP was $229.

In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU posts a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 22992 and a single-core score of 3246. The 3dmark results show a single-thread score of 999 and a max-thread score of 6503, indicating strong scaling across its 12 threads. Passmark results include a multithread score of 27058 and a single-thread score of 3910.

Hard West is a turn-based tactics game from 2015, a genre that typically relies more on single-thread performance than on multi-core scaling. The Ryzen 5 7600's single-thread scores are excellent — the 3dmark single-thread result of 999 and the Cinebench R23 single-core result of 3246 place it well above the average CPU. The 83rd percentile ranking confirms this.

The measured FPS data supports the conclusion that the CPU is not the bottleneck. If the 6-core/12-thread processor were struggling, the frame rates would show inconsistency across resolutions. Instead, the FPS scales predictably with resolution and settings, which is the signature of a GPU-bound workload. The RTX 2070 SUPER, with its 2560 shading units and 9.062 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, is the component that determines the playable settings in this title.

For builders considering this pairing, the takeaway is straightforward: the Ryzen 5 7600 has enough headroom for a faster GPU, and the RTX 2070 SUPER is the limiting factor in Hard West. Upgrading the GPU would yield larger gains than upgrading the CPU, based on the data.