Hard West

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Hard West across the three tested resolutions reveal a title that is heavily GPU-bound at higher settings, yet increasingly CPU-limited at lower resolutions and presets. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces 60.4 FPS average, while dropping to 4K Low yields 127.8 FPS — a 2.1x improvement from the lowest to highest preset at the same resolution. This wide spread indicates that the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is doing substantial work at 4K, with the visual settings directly modulating the load.

Moving to 1440p, the scaling pattern shifts. The average frame rate at High settings jumps from 78.2 FPS at 4K to 149.5 FPS — a 91% increase. At Low settings, the jump is even more pronounced: 127.8 FPS at 4K rises to 208.5 FPS at 1440p, a 63% uplift. The Medium preset at 1440p reaches 197.8 FPS, which is nearly double the 104.7 FPS seen at 4K Medium. The Ultra preset at 1440p delivers 111.7 FPS, again nearly double the 60.4 FPS at 4K Ultra. This consistent near-doubling from 4K to 1440p across all presets suggests that pixel throughput is the dominant constraint at 4K, with the RTX 5090's 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth and 176 ROPs being fully exercised.

The transition from 1440p to 1080p tells a different story. At High settings, the average FPS rises from 149.5 to 208 — a 39% gain. At Low settings, the gain is a more modest 17% (208.5 to 243.1 FPS). Medium settings see a smaller relative gain of 15% (197.8 to 227.8 FPS). The Ultra preset shows the largest relative gain of 61% (111.7 to 179.9 FPS). The diminishing returns at Low and Medium settings between 1440p and 1080p indicate that the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is beginning to become the limiting factor at these lower resolutions. The CPU's 8 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, are sufficient to drive high frame rates, but the gap between 1440p Low (208.5 FPS) and 1080p Low (243.1 FPS) is far smaller than the gap between 4K High (78.2 FPS) and 1440p High (149.5 FPS). This suggests that at 1080p with low graphical load, the game's single-threaded performance requirements start to cap the FPS, given the CPU's 3dmark single-thread score of 943 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3327.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of presets at each resolution. At 4K, the High preset delivers 78.2 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, while Ultra drops to 60.4 FPS — right at the edge. The Medium preset at 4K offers 104.7 FPS, which is a substantial 34% improvement over High. For players targeting smooth gameplay at 4K, the Medium preset appears to be the sweet spot: it provides a 74% higher frame rate than Ultra while still maintaining playable performance. The Low preset at 4K reaches 127.8 FPS, which is a 111% improvement over Ultra, but the visual trade-off may be significant for a turn-based tactics game where readability matters.

At 1440p, the situation is more forgiving. The Ultra preset achieves 111.7 FPS, which is already well above 60 FPS. The High preset at 149.5 FPS offers a 34% uplift over Ultra, and Medium reaches 197.8 FPS. Given that the RTX 5090 has 32 GB of GDDR7 memory, there is no VRAM capacity concern even at Ultra settings with high-resolution textures. The data suggests that at 1440p, Ultra is a viable option for players who prioritize visual fidelity, as the frame rate remains above 100 FPS. However, for those who want headroom for fast camera movements or higher refresh rate displays, the High preset provides a 34% improvement with presumably minimal visual degradation.

At 1080p, all presets exceed 179.9 FPS, with Low reaching 243.1 FPS. The Ultra preset at 179.9 FPS is the lowest among the four, but it still provides a very high frame rate. The difference between Medium (227.8 FPS) and Low (243.1 FPS) is only 6.7%, while High (208 FPS) sits between them. Given that the CPU is the likely bottleneck at 1080p Low, the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance, delivering 227.8 FPS — a 27% improvement over Ultra while maintaining a substantial frame rate advantage over High. For a turn-based tactics game, frame rates above 200 FPS are far beyond what is necessary for smooth gameplay, so at 1080p, the Ultra preset remains a reasonable choice despite being the slowest option.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is a Blackwell 2.0 architecture GPU with 21,760 shading units and 170 RT cores. Its memory configuration is substantial: 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, yielding 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The boost clock is 2407 MHz, with a base clock of 2017 MHz. The GPU's measured performance in synthetic benchmarks includes a Passmark G3D score of 39650 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 380114, placing it in the 94th percentile among all GPUs.

In Hard West, the GPU's role is clearly dominant at 4K resolutions. The frame rate scaling from 4K Ultra (60.4 FPS) to 4K Low (127.8 FPS) demonstrates that the GPU is the primary constraint at this resolution. The 2.1x difference between these presets indicates that the game's visual effects at Ultra settings heavily tax the GPU's compute and memory subsystems. The RTX 5090's 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is being utilized, but the game appears to be more bandwidth-sensitive than compute-bound, given the consistent scaling patterns across presets.

The GPU's 32 GB memory capacity is far beyond what Hard West requires, as the game released in 2015 likely uses significantly less VRAM. This means there is no risk of memory capacity limiting performance at any tested resolution or preset. However, the memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s does play a role in the 4K performance differences. The RTX 5090's nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D, has an average benchmark score of 84241 with a deltaPct of 0.1% — essentially identical performance. The AMD Radeon PRO W6600 trails by 1.3% with a score of 83209, while the NVIDIA CMP 40HX leads by 1.6% with 85637. These margins are negligible, confirming that the RTX 5090 is at the top of the GPU hierarchy.

At 1440p and 1080p, the GPU's role diminishes as the CPU becomes more relevant. The fact that 1440p Low (208.5 FPS) is only 17% faster than 1080p Low (243.1 FPS) suggests that the GPU is no longer the limiting factor at these settings. The RTX 5090's pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s are more than sufficient for the lower resolutions, allowing the CPU to become the bottleneck.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 52nd out of 1,699 tested combos in Hard West. This places the combo in the top 3.1% of all tested configurations. The ranking reflects the strong overall performance of this pairing, though it is not the absolute top combination. The high rank is primarily driven by the RTX 5090's exceptional GPU performance, as the CPU is a previous-generation part that, while capable, is not the fastest available.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 27606 places it in the 84th percentile among all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 7 5800 with a score of 27535 (0.3% slower), the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE at 27708 (0.4% faster), the Intel Core i7-13700H at 27716 (0.4% faster), and the Intel Core i5-12600KF at 27827 (0.8% faster). These differences are minimal, indicating that the 5800X is well-positioned within its performance class, but the CPU's 84th percentile ranking means there are many faster processors that could push the combo higher in the overall ranking.

The GPU's percentile ranking is 94th among all GPUs, which is higher than the CPU's percentile. This disparity suggests that the combo's rank of 52nd is limited by the CPU's performance. If paired with a faster CPU, the RTX 5090 could potentially achieve even higher frame rates at 1080p Low, where the CPU bottleneck is most evident. However, in a turn-based tactics game like Hard West, the practical impact of this bottleneck is minimal, as frame rates above 200 FPS provide no tangible gameplay benefit.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 3 (Vermeer) architecture. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, with 32 MB of L3 cache. The CPU's synthetic benchmark results are solid: Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 23571, single-core score of 3327, and Geekbench multi-core score of 10220. It ranks in the 84th percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 27606.

In Hard West, the CPU's role becomes apparent at lower resolutions and presets. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 243.1 FPS, while at 1440p Low, it reaches 208.5 FPS. The difference is only 17%, which is far smaller than the resolution scaling seen at High settings (39% gain from 1440p to 1080p). This indicates that at Low settings, the CPU is approaching its performance ceiling. The game's turn-based nature likely involves significant AI pathfinding and turn resolution logic, which can be single-threaded. The CPU's 3dmark single-thread score of 943 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3327 suggest that single-thread performance is adequate but not exceptional.

The CPU's 16 threads are likely more than sufficient for Hard West, as the game's engine probably does not scale well beyond 8 threads. The Passmark multi-thread score of 27732 and 3dmark 16-thread score of 7586 demonstrate strong multi-threaded capabilities, but these are unlikely to be fully utilized by a 2015 turn-based tactics game. The single-thread performance is the more critical factor, and the 5800X's boost clock of 4.70 GHz helps mitigate potential bottlenecks.

The data shows that at 4K Ultra, the CPU is not the limiting factor — the GPU is. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate is 60.4 FPS, which is well below the CPU's capability. Even at 4K Low (127.8 FPS), the CPU still has headroom, as the 1440p Low result (208.5 FPS) demonstrates. The CPU only becomes a meaningful constraint at 1080p with Low or Medium settings, where frame rates exceed 220 FPS. For the vast majority of players using this combo, the CPU will not be the bottleneck in Hard West, as the game's turn-based nature means that even 60 FPS is more than sufficient for smooth gameplay.