Hard West

# How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 achieves a combo rank of 179 out of 3,722 tested combinations in Hard West, placing it in the top 4.8% of all tested configs for this turn-based tactics title. This is a strong showing, but not a dominant one—the game's modest requirements mean many mid-range combos can also produce high frame rates, so the raw hardware ceiling here is less decisive than in more demanding genres.

The CPU's overall benchmark percentile of 81 versus all CPUs, combined with the GPU's 86th percentile among all GPUs, suggests both components are well above average, yet the combo's rank in Hard West (179th) is notably better than either component's standalone percentile would imply. This indicates the game rewards balanced setups rather than extreme single-component performance. The Ryzen 5 9600X's nearest rivals—the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE (0.2% higher avg score), Ryzen 7 7840H (0.5% lower), Ryzen 7 5800XT (0.6% lower), and Ryzen 7 8845HS (0.8% lower)—all sit within a 1% band, meaning the CPU's exact positioning among peers is nearly irrelevant for this game. The RTX 4080's nearest rivals—the RTX 4080 SUPER (0.1% higher), Radeon Pro W5700X (1.1% lower), RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (2.6% lower), and Radeon 8060S (2.7% lower)—show a similar clustering, with the 4080 sitting right at the edge of a performance tier rather than clearly above it.

What the rank data implies is that Hard West, released in 2015, is far more forgiving than modern AAA titles. A combo at rank 179 out of 3,722 still delivers playable frame rates at every resolution and setting tested, and the gap between this combo and the top-ranked ones is likely driven by extreme overkill configurations rather than meaningful gameplay differences. The data suggests that for this specific game, the RTX 4080 is over-provisioned, while the Ryzen 5 9600X provides more than enough computational headroom for the turn-based logic that dominates Hard West's workload.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 brings 16 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 256-bit bus, delivering 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth—a figure that far exceeds what Hard West's 2015-era graphics engine can realistically utilize. The GPU's base clock of 2205 MHz and boost clock of 2505 MHz, combined with 9,728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 raster output units, provide massive raw throughput. The card's 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 performance and 76 ray tracing cores are largely irrelevant for this game, which does not employ ray-traced effects, but the sheer rasterization power ensures that Hard West's visual effects—which are modest by modern standards—are handled with ease.

The measured FPS data shows the GPU's performance scaling across resolutions. At 4K Ultra, the combo averages 51 FPS, which is the only sub-60 result in the entire dataset. This suggests that even at the highest settings, the RTX 4080 is not fully stressed by Hard West's rendering demands; the 4K Ultra drop is more likely due to the game's engine limitations and draw-call overhead rather than GPU compute limits. The 16 GB VRAM is never threatened—Hard West's textures and geometry for a turn-based tactics game are far smaller than what modern open-world titles require—so the memory capacity is effectively a non-factor in this context.

The GPU's benchmark scores reinforce its position: a PassMark G3D score of 34,457 and an average benchmark score of 54,247 put it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores only 0.1% higher, meaning the two cards are functionally identical in this game. The data shows that the RTX 4080 is the performance ceiling for this combo, but Hard West rarely approaches that ceiling—the bottleneck shifts to the CPU at lower resolutions, as the FPS numbers at 1080p demonstrate.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Hard West?

A: At 1440p High settings, the combo achieves 131 FPS average, while 4K High delivers 69 FPS. The 1440p result is well above the 60 FPS threshold, making it a sweet spot for high refresh rate monitors. At 1080p High, the average jumps to 206 FPS, which is suitable for 200Hz+ displays.

Q: Does the RTX 4080 bottleneck the Ryzen 5 9600X in this game?

A: The data suggests the opposite at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 324 FPS average, which is likely CPU-limited given the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads. At 4K Ultra, the average drops to 51 FPS, indicating the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings.

Q: How does the combo's CPU ranking compare to its GPU ranking?

A: The CPU's 81st percentile among all CPUs and the GPU's 86th percentile among all GPUs are close, but the combo's overall rank of 179 out of 3,722 in Hard West is much stronger than either percentile alone would suggest, indicating the game is not heavily dependent on either component.

Q: What frame rates can be expected at 1080p Medium?

A: The measured data shows an average of 269 FPS, with a minimum of 228 FPS and a maximum of 309 FPS. This is the only settings level at 1080p where min/max values were recorded, providing a reliable range for gameplay.

Q: Is the 4K Ultra setting playable with this combo?

A: The average FPS at 4K Ultra is 51, which is below the 60 FPS standard for smooth gameplay. While it may be playable for turn-based tactics where frame timing is less critical, it is the only measured configuration that falls short of 60 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its closest rival in this game?

A: The RTX 4080's average benchmark score of 54,247 is 0.1% lower than the RTX 4080 SUPER's 54,209 score, making the two effectively identical in performance. This negligible difference means either card would produce nearly identical FPS in Hard West.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1080p, the combo delivers its highest frame rates. Low settings produce an average of 324 FPS, Medium averages 269 FPS (with a min of 228 and max of 309), High averages 206 FPS, and Ultra averages 155 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 52% drop in average FPS, which is a substantial cost for the visual quality upgrade that Ultra provides over Low in this game.

At 1440p, the averages are 207 FPS for Low, 170 FPS for Medium (min 144, max 195), 131 FPS for High, and 98 FPS for Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is roughly 36% across all settings, which aligns with the pixel count increase of 78%—indicating the GPU is not the primary bottleneck at these resolutions. The Medium setting at 1440p maintains a minimum of 144 FPS, which exactly matches common 144Hz monitor refresh rates.

At 4K, the averages are 109 FPS for Low, 89 FPS for Medium (min 76, max 103), 69 FPS for High, and 51 FPS for Ultra. The 4K Ultra result is the only sub-60 average in the entire dataset, and the 4K High average of 69 FPS is just above the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium settings at 4K show a minimum of 76 FPS, meaning even the lowest recorded frame rate at that setting is playable. The scaling from 1440p to 4K shows an average FPS drop of about 47%, which is larger than the pixel increase of 125% would suggest, pointing to memory bandwidth or the game's engine optimization limits rather than raw GPU compute.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drops from 1080p to 4K reveal interesting bottleneck dynamics. At Low settings, the average drops from 324 FPS at 1080p to 207 FPS at 1440p (a 36% decrease) and then to 109 FPS at 4K (a 47% decrease from 1440p). At Ultra settings, the drop is from 155 FPS at 1080p to 98 FPS at 1440p (37% decrease) and then to 51 FPS at 4K (48% decrease). The consistency of these percentage drops across settings—despite the massive pixel count increases—suggests that the game's frame rate is not purely resolution-bound.

The fact that Low settings at 4K (109 FPS) still outperform Ultra at 1440p (98 FPS) indicates that the game's rendering pipeline has a significant overhead from settings-dependent effects, independent of resolution. The GPU's 716.8 GB/s memory bandwidth appears sufficient for all tested configurations, as the 4K Medium result (89 FPS average, 76 FPS minimum) shows no signs of memory starvation. The CPU's role becomes more apparent at lower resolutions: the 1080p Low average of 324 FPS is likely near the engine's maximum frame rate ceiling, as turn-based games often have physics and AI logic that run on the CPU and cannot scale beyond a certain tick rate.

The resolution scaling data implies that Hard West is not a typical GPU-bound title. The RTX 4080's 16 GB of VRAM and 48.74 TFLOPS are never pushed to their limits, even at 4K Ultra. Instead, the game's engine seems to have a performance plateau around 300-325 FPS at 1080p, which the combo reaches at Low settings. This suggests that for players with high refresh rate monitors, the limiting factor at lower resolutions is the game's own code rather than the hardware.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 9600X is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), fabricated on a 4 nm process by TSMC. It runs at a base clock of 3.90 GHz and boosts up to 5.40 GHz, with 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel configuration and 89.6 GB/s of bandwidth. These specifications are far beyond what Hard West requires, as the game's turn-based logic and AI calculations are not particularly thread-hungry, but the high boost clock and single-thread performance are beneficial for the game's simulation tick rate.

The CPU's benchmark scores show strong single-threaded performance: a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 2,183.5 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2,923. The multi-threaded results are equally robust, with Cinebench R23 multi-core scoring 17,528.5 and PassMark multi-thread scoring 30,027. The CPU's average benchmark score of 29,713 places it in the 81st percentile of all CPUs, with its nearest rival—the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755GE—scoring only 0.2% higher. This indicates the 9600X is a top-tier CPU for its class, though the differences among its rivals are negligible.

In Hard West, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p Low, where the combo achieves 324 FPS. This is likely CPU-bound, as the GPU has ample headroom at that resolution and settings. The 6-core, 12-thread configuration is more than sufficient for the game's AI and turn-based mechanics, and the 5.40 GHz boost clock ensures responsive frame pacing. The CPU's 65 W TDP and 4 nm process make it an efficient choice, though that efficiency is not directly relevant to in-game performance metrics. The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the CPU is not the bottleneck—the 51 FPS average is GPU-limited, as the CPU's single-thread performance would not degrade at higher resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimizing the experience. At 1080p, all settings deliver playable frame rates, with even Ultra averaging 155 FPS. For players with 144Hz monitors, Medium settings (269 FPS average, 228 FPS minimum) provide a comfortable margin above the refresh rate, while High (206 FPS) and Ultra (155 FPS) also exceed 144 FPS. The Low setting's 324 FPS average is overkill for most displays but useful for competitive play if the game supports it.

At 1440p, Medium settings offer the best balance: 170 FPS average with a 144 FPS minimum, which exactly matches 144Hz refresh rate requirements. High settings at 131 FPS average are also suitable for 120Hz displays, but the 144 FPS minimum at Medium ensures no drops below the refresh threshold. Ultra at 98 FPS is acceptable for 60Hz displays but not for higher refresh rates. Low at 207 FPS is excessive for most 1440p monitors but provides the highest possible frame pacing.

At 4K, the recommendations shift. Medium settings (89 FPS average, 76 FPS minimum) are the best choice for a smooth experience, as they stay above 60 FPS even at the minimum. High settings at 69 FPS average are also playable but risk dipping below 60 FPS in demanding scenes. Ultra at 51 FPS average is not recommended for consistent frame delivery, while Low at 109 FPS is viable but sacrifices visual quality. For the best overall experience across resolutions, Medium settings provide the most consistent frame rates, with the 1440p Medium configuration (170 FPS average, 144 FPS minimum) being the standout choice for quality and performance balance. The data indicates that the game's Medium preset is the sweet spot for this hardware, delivering frame rates that exceed display refresh rates at 1080p and 1440p while maintaining a minimum above 60 FPS at 4K.