Hard West

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D delivers a decisive performance profile in Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015. The data shows that this combination is heavily GPU-bound at lower resolutions, while the CPU’s strong single-thread performance becomes the limiting factor as resolution drops. This analysis breaks down the measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality settings, interprets the scaling behavior, and provides actionable settings recommendations based strictly on the benchmark results.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 4K down to 1080p reveals a classic pattern of diminishing returns, but with a twist specific to this game’s engine. At 3840x2160 with High settings, the combo produces 83 FPS. Dropping to 2560x1440 High yields 158 FPS, a 90% improvement. Moving further down to 1920x1080 High produces 234 FPS, which is only 48% faster than 1440p. This indicates that while the RTX 5090 D is immensely powerful, the CPU begins to assert its influence at lower pixel counts.

The scaling from 1440p to 1080p is less dramatic than from 4K to 1440p, which is a strong signal that the Ryzen 5 7600’s six cores and 12 threads are nearing their practical limit for this title. At 4K, the GPU is doing the heavy lifting, and the 83 FPS High result reflects that. At 1080p, the 277 FPS Low result is close to the ceiling of what the CPU can feed, as evidenced by the relatively small gap between Low and High settings at that resolution. The data shows a 43 FPS difference between Low and High at 1080p, whereas at 4K, that same settings gap is 48 FPS, suggesting the GPU has more headroom at higher resolutions.

The minimum FPS values, where recorded, reinforce this analysis. At 4K Medium, the min FPS is 92 with an average of 108, showing a 16 FPS spread. At 1440p Medium, the min is 174 with an average of 205, a 31 FPS spread. At 1080p Medium, the min is 219 with an average of 258, a 39 FPS spread. This widening variance as resolution decreases is a hallmark of CPU-bound scenarios, where frame times become less consistent. In turn-based tactics, this variance matters less than in fast-paced shooters, but it still indicates that the processor is the bottleneck at 1080p.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 7600 is a 7000-series desktop processor built on the Zen 4 architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC. It features 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. The 32 MB of shared L3 cache is substantial for a mid-range chip. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 1852 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 2521 in Geekbench single-core, which are strong results that translate directly to Hard West’s turn-based logic and AI calculations.

The game’s frame rate at 1080p Low (277 FPS) is the key indicator of CPU performance. This is a very high result that shows the Ryzen 5 7600’s single-thread capabilities are more than adequate for this title’s older engine. The multi-threaded score of 12735 in Cinebench R23 is also solid, but Hard West is not a game that scales heavily with core count. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 6499 and max-thread score of 6503 are nearly identical, confirming that the processor’s performance is consistent across workloads, but the game only uses a fraction of that parallelism.

Compared to its nearest rivals in the CPU benchmark database, the Ryzen 5 7600 sits in a tight cluster. It is 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Core i9-11900KF, while being 0.3% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 7435HS. These deltas are negligible, meaning that any of these processors would produce nearly identical frame rates in Hard West when paired with the same GPU. The percentile ranking of 78 against all CPUs indicates that this is a strong processor overall, but not an elite one. For a turn-based tactics game where the action is dictated by discrete turns rather than continuous physics, the Ryzen 5 7600’s high single-core performance is the dominant factor, and it does not disappoint.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is a massive graphics card, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a GB202 chip. It has 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The clock speeds are 2017 MHz base and 2407 MHz boost. With 21760 shading units and 176 ROPs, it is designed for extreme throughput. The FP32 performance of 104.8 TFLOPS is a clear indicator of its raw power.

In Hard West, the GPU’s role becomes dominant at 4K resolution. At 4K Ultra, the combo achieves 62 FPS, which is the lowest recorded result in the dataset. At 4K High, it reaches 83 FPS, and at 4K Medium, 108 FPS, with a minimum of 92 FPS. The jump to 4K Low yields 131 FPS. This progression from 62 to 131 FPS shows that the RTX 5090 D has ample headroom, but the game’s engine is not optimized to fully utilize the card’s capabilities, especially at Ultra settings where the visual fidelity gains are not proportional to the frame rate cost.

The GPU’s 32 GB of VRAM is far more than Hard West requires, but it ensures that there are no memory-related stutters at any resolution or settings level. The 1.79 TB/s bandwidth is also overkill for this title, which is likely a bottleneck in the rendering pipeline at 4K. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 77712 places it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, but its nearest rivals in the database are significantly less powerful cards like the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT and RX 6850M XT. This indicates that the RTX 5090 D’s performance in synthetic tests does not directly correlate with its performance in this older game, where the CPU and engine limitations come into play.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data provides a complete picture across 12 distinct configurations. At 1920x1080, the results are as follows: Low produces 277 FPS, Medium produces 258 FPS with a minimum of 219 and a maximum of 297, High produces 234 FPS, and Ultra produces 187 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 90 FPS, which is substantial but shows that even at the highest settings, the game runs well above 144 Hz.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are: Low at 238 FPS, Medium at 205 FPS with a minimum of 174 and a maximum of 236, High at 158 FPS, and Ultra at 118 FPS. The drop from High to Ultra is 40 FPS, which is a significant cost for the visual upgrade. The gap between Low and High is 80 FPS, indicating that the GPU is still able to keep up with the CPU at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results are: Low at 131 FPS, Medium at 108 FPS with a minimum of 92 and a maximum of 124, High at 83 FPS, and Ultra at 62 FPS. The Ultra setting at 4K is the only configuration that dips below 60 FPS, which is a critical threshold for smooth gameplay. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 69 FPS, which is a larger percentage drop than at lower resolutions, confirming that the GPU is the primary limiter here.

The data shows a consistent pattern: Medium settings offer the best balance of frame rate and visual quality, as evidenced by the minimum FPS values being recorded only for Medium presets. This suggests that Medium is the most stable configuration in terms of frame pacing.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 7600 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks 46th out of 2949 tested combos in Hard West. This places it in the top 1.6% of all systems tested in this database for this specific game. This high ranking is primarily driven by the GPU’s raw power at 4K, but it is also a signal of the CPU’s ability to avoid bottlenecking the system at lower resolutions.

Given that the GPU alone ranks in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs and the CPU ranks in the 78th percentile of all CPUs, one might expect a higher overall ranking. The fact that it is 46th suggests that there are a few combinations that pair even faster processors with this GPU, which can extract slightly higher frame rates at 1080p. However, for a turn-based tactics game, the 46th ranking is excellent. The top 45 combos likely feature processors with higher single-thread scores, such as the Ryzen 7 7800X3D or the Core i9-14900K, which can push the 1080p Low result beyond 277 FPS.

In practical terms, this ranking means that the system is overkill for Hard West. The game runs flawlessly at 4K High (83 FPS) and 1440p Ultra (118 FPS). The only time the system falls short is at 4K Ultra, where the 62 FPS result is playable but not ideal for a 60 Hz monitor. The ranking also highlights that the GPU is the star of the show, but the CPU is not a weak link. This is a balanced combo that excels in this title.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the display resolution and refresh rate. For a 4K display, the Medium preset is the clear winner. It produces 108 FPS with a minimum of 92, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold and offers a smooth experience. The High preset at 83 FPS is also viable, but the 25 FPS difference between Medium and High is significant. The Ultra preset at 62 FPS is too close to the 60 FPS line, and any minor scene complexity could cause drops below that threshold, making Medium the safer choice.

For a 1440p display with a 144 Hz refresh rate, the High preset at 158 FPS is recommended, as it comfortably exceeds the refresh rate. The Ultra preset at 118 FPS is also playable, but the 40 FPS drop from High to Ultra is not worth the visual upgrade in a game that is already slow-paced. For a 1440p 240 Hz display, the Medium preset at 205 FPS is the best option, as it gets closer to the refresh rate limit.

For a 1080p display, the High preset at 234 FPS is the sweet spot. It provides a significant visual improvement over Medium (258 FPS) while still maintaining a frame rate that exceeds most monitors’ refresh rates. The Ultra preset at 187 FPS is also excellent and is recommended if the player wants maximum visual fidelity, as the 47 FPS cost is acceptable since the game still runs above 144 Hz. The Low preset at 277 FPS is only useful for competitive play, which is irrelevant in a turn-based tactics game.

The data suggests that the Medium preset offers the most consistent frame pacing, as it is the only settings level where both minimum and maximum FPS were recorded across all resolutions. This stability is valuable in a game where you are reading the battlefield and planning moves. For the best overall experience, the recommendation is to use the Medium preset at 4K, High at 1440p, and High or Ultra at 1080p. The RTX 5090 D is powerful enough to handle Ultra at 1080p and 1440p, but the CPU’s limitations at 1080p mean that the gap between Medium and High is smaller than at higher resolutions. Ultimately, the player should prioritize frame rate stability over raw FPS, and the measured minimums show that Medium is the most reliable choice.