Hard West

FAQ

Q: What is the overall performance ranking of the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combo in Hard West?

A: This combo ranks 32nd out of 2,949 tested combinations in Hard West, placing it in the top 1.1% of all tested systems. The data shows this is a top-tier configuration for this turn-based tactics title.

Q: How does the RTX 5090's average benchmark score compare to its closest rivals?

A: The RTX 5090's average benchmark score is 79,842. It sits 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605) and 0.6% ahead of the Tesla P100 PCIe 12 GB (79,396). It trails the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X by 1.4%, which scores 80,959.

Q: What is the Ryzen 7 9700F's multithreaded performance relative to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F scores 36,470 in the Passmark multithread test. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX, averages 69,875 overall — a 0.2% difference. The Intel Core i7-14700KF scores 70,163 (0.2% behind the 9700F), while the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X is 0.7% behind and the Intel Core i7-14700K is 0.9% behind.

Q: What is the best settings preset for 4K gameplay with this combo?

A: At 3840x2160, the Medium preset delivers 101 average FPS with a minimum of 86 FPS and maximum of 116 FPS, making it the only 4K preset with both a playable average and a documented minimum above 60 FPS. High runs at 78 FPS average, while Ultra drops to 58 FPS average.

Q: How does resolution scaling affect frame rates at High settings?

A: The data shows a clear progression: 1920x1080 High delivers 234 FPS average, 2560x1440 High delivers 148 FPS average, and 3840x2160 High drops to 78 FPS average. Each resolution step roughly halves the pixel count impact, with 1440p being 37% slower than 1080p and 4K being 47% slower than 1440p at High settings.

Q: What are the CPU's key specifications that matter for gaming?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F has 8 cores and 16 threads based on Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge) on a 4 nm TSMC process. It boosts to 5.50 GHz from a 3.80 GHz base clock, has 32 MB of shared L3 cache, and supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel 89.6 GB/s bandwidth.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data strongly favors the Medium preset as the optimal balance across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080, Medium produces 304 average FPS with a minimum of 258 and maximum of 350 — this is 30% faster than High (234 FPS) and 74% faster than Ultra (175 FPS). The gap between Medium and High at 1080p is substantial enough that Medium is clearly the better experience for high-refresh displays.

At 2560x1440, Medium delivers 192 average FPS (minimum 163, maximum 221), which is 30% ahead of High at 148 FPS and 73% ahead of Ultra at 111 FPS. The 1440p Medium result comfortably exceeds 144 Hz refresh rates, making it ideal for fast-paced turn-based camera movements and unit animations. High at 1440p still clears 144 FPS but with less headroom for demanding scenes.

At 3840x2160, Medium is the only preset with a documented minimum above 60 FPS: 101 average with 86 minimum and 116 maximum. High at 4K averages 78 FPS but lacks a listed minimum, meaning frame dips below 60 cannot be ruled out. Ultra at 4K averages 58 FPS — below the 60 FPS threshold — making it unsuitable for consistent smoothness. Low settings at 4K hit 123 FPS average, but the visual sacrifice is unnecessary given Medium's strong showing.

The data indicates that Medium consistently outperforms High by roughly 29-30% across all resolutions, while High outperforms Ultra by 34-35% at 1080p and 1440p, and by 34% at 4K. This consistent scaling means Medium is the recommended preset for this combo, offering the best combination of frame rate headroom and visual fidelity. For players prioritizing maximum detail, High at 1440p (148 FPS) is the strongest high-detail option, while 4K High (78 FPS) remains viable for 60 Hz displays.

How This Combo Ranks

The Ryzen 7 9700F + RTX 5090 combination ranks 32nd out of 2,949 tested combos in Hard West, placing it in the 98.9th percentile of all tested systems. This is an exceptionally strong position, though the rank reflects the game's turn-based nature where CPU-bound scenarios can dominate over raw GPU throughput.

The CPU's Passmark average score of 69,996 places it in the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with nearest rivals separated by less than 1%: the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69,875, +0.2% delta) and Intel Core i7-14700KF (70,163, -0.2% delta) are effectively tied with it. This means the 9700F's contribution to the combo's rank is solid but not outlier-level — it is firmly mid-pack among high-end desktop and mobile flagship processors.

The GPU's average benchmark score of 79,842 places it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (79,605, +0.3% delta) and AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940, +1.1% delta), with the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X (80,959) sitting 1.4% ahead. The GPU's percentile is slightly lower than the CPU's, suggesting the RTX 5090's massive compute resources are partially underutilized in Hard West's older rendering pipeline.

The combination of a top-6% CPU and top-8% GPU yields a top-1.1% overall combo rank, indicating that the two components complement each other well for this title. The rank of 32 out of 2,949 means there are only 31 tested configurations that perform better — likely systems with even higher-end CPUs or more favorable memory configurations for this specific game engine.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers exceptional headroom across all presets. Low settings produce 333 average FPS, Medium produces 304 average (minimum 258, maximum 350), High produces 234 average, and Ultra produces 175 average. The Medium preset's documented minimum of 258 FPS is higher than any other preset's average except Low, demonstrating that this combo never struggles at 1080p regardless of settings.

At 2560x1440, frame rates remain very high. Low hits 235 average FPS, Medium delivers 192 average (minimum 163, maximum 221), High produces 148 average, and Ultra drops to 111 average. The 1440p Medium result maintains a minimum above 160 FPS, which is sufficient for even the fastest 1440p gaming monitors. Ultra at 1440p still averages above 100 FPS, making it a viable option for players who prioritize visual fidelity over frame rate headroom.

At 3840x2160, the performance curve steepens. Low produces 123 average FPS, Medium delivers 101 average (minimum 86, maximum 116), High drops to 78 average, and Ultra falls to 58 average. The 4K Medium result is the only 4K preset with both an average above 100 FPS and a documented minimum above 80 FPS. Ultra at 4K averages below 60 FPS, which will result in visible stutter during camera pans and unit movements in a turn-based tactics game where consistent pacing matters.

The scaling between resolutions at Medium settings shows a consistent pattern: 1080p to 1440p reduces average FPS by 37% (304 to 192), and 1440p to 4K reduces it by 47% (192 to 101). At High settings, the reductions are 37% (234 to 148) and 47% (148 to 78). This consistent ~37%/47% scaling pattern indicates the game is primarily GPU-bound at these settings, with the RTX 5090's 32 GB GDDR7 memory and 512-bit bus providing ample bandwidth for all resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture using the GB202 chip on a 5 nm TSMC process, with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. It features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing 1.79 TB/s of memory bandwidth. The GPU's clocks are 2017 MHz base and 2407 MHz boost, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective).

In Hard West, the GPU's role is significant but not overwhelming. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p, even Ultra settings (175 FPS) far exceed the CPU's ability to feed frames in some scenarios, but the consistent 37-47% scaling from 1080p to 1440p to 4K suggests the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The RTX 5090's 21,760 shading units and 176 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s, which easily handles Hard West's relatively simple art style.

The GPU's benchmark results include a Passmark G3D score of 39,650 and a Geekbench Vulkan score of 376,728. Its Passmark DirectX 12 score of 185 and DirectX 11 score of 341 indicate strong API compatibility, though Hard West's 2015-era engine likely uses DirectX 11 or older paths. The GPU's 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs means it is near the top of the performance hierarchy, and its 1.79 TB/s bandwidth ensures no memory starvation at 4K Ultra, where 32 GB of VRAM vastly exceeds the game's requirements.

The nearest GPU rivals show that the RTX 5090's average benchmark score of 79,842 is closely matched by the Tesla P100 variants, but those are compute-oriented cards without gaming-focused drivers. In practice, the RTX 5090's 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 680 tensor cores provide massive headroom for Hard West's relatively light graphical load.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a Zen 5 architecture processor (Granite Ridge codename) built on a 4 nm TSMC process, featuring 8 cores and 16 threads. It runs at a 3.80 GHz base clock with a 5.50 GHz boost clock, has 80 KB L1 and 1 MB L2 cache per core, plus 32 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel 89.6 GB/s bandwidth and has a 65W TDP.

In Hard West, a turn-based tactics game, the CPU's single-threaded performance is critical for AI calculations, pathfinding, and turn resolution. The 9700F's Passmark single-thread score of 4,691 demonstrates strong per-core performance, which directly benefits the game's decision-making loops. The multithread score of 36,470 shows the 8-core/16-thread configuration can handle simultaneous unit actions and game logic without bottlenecking.

The CPU's 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 69,996, places it just 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX and 0.2% behind the Intel Core i7-14700KF. This tight grouping indicates that the 9700F is not an outlier in either direction — it delivers exactly what its specifications suggest for a modern 8-core desktop processor.

The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p, the CPU can feed the RTX 5090 enough frames to reach 333 FPS at Low settings and 304 FPS at Medium. This suggests the CPU is not a limiting factor at lower resolutions. However, the fact that 1080p Ultra (175 FPS) is significantly lower than 1080p Medium (304 FPS) indicates that the game's Ultra preset introduces GPU-side effects that outweigh CPU considerations. The CPU's 5.50 GHz boost clock and 32 MB L3 cache help maintain consistent frame pacing during complex turn-based sequences, where bursts of AI computation can otherwise cause hitches.