Hard West

Hard West is a turn-based tactics title from 2015, and the measured results for the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 show a system that is heavily overqualified for the game's demands at most settings. The data indicates a classic case of a modern, high-end GPU being held back by the game's engine and the CPU at lower resolutions, while higher resolutions and settings finally give the graphics card room to stretch its legs. The benchmark results provide a clear picture of where the performance ceiling lies for this specific combination.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and reveals the shifting bottleneck. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 263.5 FPS, but at 4K Low, that number falls to 126 FPS. This 137.5 FPS drop represents a significant 52% reduction in frame rate. The scaling pattern shows that at 1080p, the system is heavily CPU-bound, as the game's modest visual demands are easily handled by the RTX 5090, leaving the Ryzen 5 8400F to do the heavy lifting. Moving to 1440p, the gap narrows slightly, with the Low preset going from 223.6 FPS at 1440p to 126 FPS at 4K, a 97.6 FPS difference. The trend becomes more pronounced with heavier settings, indicating that the GPU starts to become the limiting factor as resolution increases.

The most telling data point is the Ultra preset scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the system hits 179.2 FPS, but at 4K Ultra, it drops to 57.1 FPS. This 122.1 FPS difference shows that the GPU is finally being pushed to its limits at 4K Ultra. The game's 2015 release date and turn-based genre mean it was never designed to stress a 2025 flagship GPU, so the massive performance headroom at 1080p is expected. The data suggests that 4K is the only resolution where the RTX 5090's raw power is consistently the primary constraint, particularly at High and Ultra settings. At 1080p and 1440p, the CPU's frame generation limit appears to be around 263.5 FPS, which is the highest recorded average in the dataset.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a massive piece of silicon, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node. Its 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s, which is far more than a game like Hard West could ever utilize. The GPU's base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and it features 21,760 shading units. In the context of this game, the GPU's role becomes critical only when the resolution and settings are cranked up. At 4K Ultra, the card's pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s is clearly being challenged, as the frame rate drops to 57.1 FPS, the lowest in the entire dataset.

The benchmark results show that the RTX 5090 is not the limiting factor at 1080p or even 1440p for most settings. The GPU's passmark G3D score of 39,650 and its 94th percentile ranking among all GPUs indicate it is a top-tier performer, but Hard West's simple geometry and effects don't require that level of power. The data implies that the GPU is effectively idle for large portions of the test at lower resolutions. The 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is overkill for a turn-based tactics game. The performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 4K, from 126 FPS to 57.1 FPS, shows that the GPU is only really stressed when the game's few demanding effects are combined with the high pixel count. The RTX 5090's nearest rivals show it is competitive, with the RTX 5090 D being just 0.1% faster in the average benchmark score, but this has little bearing on the in-game results where the CPU is the bottleneck.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Phoenix. It has a base clock of 4.20 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, with 16 MB of shared L3 cache. For a 2015 turn-based tactics game, this CPU is exceptionally powerful. The measured FPS data suggests that the CPU is the primary bottleneck at 1080p and 1440p, as the frame rates hit a ceiling around 263.5 FPS at 1080p Low. This is likely due to the game's single-threaded engine limitations, despite the CPU's strong single-core performance, which is evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,943.

The CPU's 82nd percentile ranking among all CPUs and its average benchmark score of 25,064 put it in the upper echelon of processors, but Hard West simply cannot take advantage of its multi-threading capabilities. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 6,091 demonstrates the CPU's ability to handle multi-threaded workloads, but this is irrelevant here. The data shows that as resolution increases and the GPU becomes the limiting factor, the CPU's role diminishes. At 4K Ultra, the CPU is likely waiting on the GPU to render frames, which is why the frame rate drops so significantly. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s and dual-channel DDR5 support are more than sufficient for this game's demands. The Ryzen 5 8400F's nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, have nearly identical average benchmark scores, but the 8400F's newer architecture likely gives it better per-core performance, which is what matters most in this scenario.

Settings Recommendations

According to the measured rows, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance. At 1080p Medium, the system delivers 244.6 FPS, which is only 18.9 FPS lower than Low settings. At 1440p Medium, the frame rate remains excellent at 192.3 FPS. Even at 4K Medium, the system produces 102.9 FPS, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. This makes Medium the most versatile preset, as it maintains high frame rates across all tested resolutions without the performance hit of Ultra.

The High preset is also viable, particularly at 1440p, where it delivers 148.2 FPS. However, at 4K High, the frame rate drops to 81 FPS, which is still playable but shows a more significant performance cost. The Ultra preset is the most demanding, and the data suggests it should only be used at 1080p, where it hits 179.2 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, the frame rate drops to 112.1 FPS, and at 4K Ultra, it falls to 57.1 FPS, which is below the ideal 60 FPS target. For a turn-based strategy game where smoothness is less critical than in an action title, the Medium preset at 4K provides a superior experience, offering 102.9 FPS and likely a significant visual improvement over Low. The Low preset at 4K yields 126 FPS, but the visual fidelity is likely too poor to justify the extra frame rate.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 37th out of 1,699 tested combos in Hard West. This is a strong ranking, placing it in the top 2.2% of all configurations tested. However, given the raw power of both components, one might expect a higher placement. The data suggests that the ranking is limited by the CPU's performance in this specific game, as the RTX 5090 is likely not the bottleneck at most settings. The 37th rank indicates that there are 36 other combinations that perform better in this title, likely featuring CPUs with stronger single-threaded performance or older architectures that are less efficient but have higher clock speeds.

The combo's ranking confirms the fact that in older games, the CPU often matters more than the GPU. The RTX 5090's massive performance is largely untapped, and the Ryzen 5 8400F's 6-core design, while efficient, may not have the raw single-core speed of some higher-end chips. The data implies that if the game were more modern and GPU-bound, this combo would rank much higher, possibly in the top 10. The 1,699 combos tested provide a wide field, and a 37th place finish is respectable, but it highlights the importance of matching CPU and GPU to the game's engine.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset reveals performance across three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the system achieves 263.5 FPS on Low, 244.6 FPS on Medium, 223.4 FPS on High, and 179.2 FPS on Ultra. These numbers show a smooth progression, with the Ultra preset being 84.3 FPS slower than Low. At 2560x1440, the frame rates are 223.6 FPS on Low, 192.3 FPS on Medium, 148.2 FPS on High, and 112.1 FPS on Ultra. The drop from Low to Ultra at this resolution is 111.5 FPS, indicating that the GPU is starting to become more involved. At 3840x2160, the performance is 126 FPS on Low, 102.9 FPS on Medium, 81 FPS on High, and 57.1 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 68.9 FPS, which is the smallest absolute difference but the largest relative drop, with Ultra being less than half the speed of Low.

The data shows that the scaling from 1440p to 4K is more punishing than from 1080p to 1440p. For example, on High settings, the drop from 1080p (223.4 FPS) to 1440p (148.2 FPS) is 75.2 FPS, while the drop from 1440p to 4K (81 FPS) is 67.2 FPS. This is consistent with the GPU becoming the bottleneck at higher resolutions. The Ultra preset at 4K is the only configuration that falls below 60 FPS, making it the only scenario where the hardware is truly challenged. All other preset and resolution combinations exceed 81 FPS, providing a smooth experience for a turn-based game. The measured data confirms that this is a system with enormous headroom for this title, and users can prioritize visual fidelity without worrying about performance dips, except at 4K Ultra.