Hard West

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combination delivers a wide range of frame rates in Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015. The benchmark data reveals a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions, but which can achieve exceptionally high frame rates at 1080p, revealing the CPU’s strong single-threaded performance. The following analysis breaks down the measured results, component roles, and how this pairing ranks against other tested configurations.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 2560x1440 with High settings?

A: The average FPS is 102.

Q: How does the CPU’s single-threaded performance compare to its multi-threaded performance in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700X scores 1280 in the 3dMark single-thread test and 9771 in the 3dMark max-threads test, indicating a roughly 7.6x scaling factor from one to all threads.

Q: What is the lowest average FPS recorded across all tested settings and resolutions?

A: The lowest average FPS is 40, recorded at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

Q: Does the GPU or the CPU appear to be the primary bottleneck at 4K resolution?

A: The data strongly suggests the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K, as the frame rate drops significantly from 1080p to 4K, and the 4K Ultra average of 40 FPS is the lowest result in the dataset.

Q: What is the measured average FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings?

A: The average FPS is 256.

Q: How does the combo’s rank in Hard West compare to the total number of tested combos?

A: The combo ranks 829 out of 3722 total tested combos.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. Its core operates at a base clock of 1920 MHz and a boost clock of 2475 MHz. The GPU’s 5888 shading units and 64 ROPs are responsible for rendering the game’s visuals. In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 4070 achieves a Passmark G3D score of 26927 and a 3dMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3854, placing it in the 81st percentile among all GPUs.

The game Hard West, being a turn-based tactics title from 2015, is not a modern graphical showcase. The RTX 4070 is vastly overqualified for this title in terms of raw pixel-pushing capability. The measured FPS data shows that even at 4K Ultra, the card averages 40 FPS, which is a playable frame rate for a turn-based game, but far from the GPU’s maximum potential. The 12 GB VRAM buffer is ample for this game’s textures and assets, even at 4K Ultra, and the 504.2 GB/s bandwidth is more than sufficient to feed the GPU cores. The fact that the 4K Ultra preset yields only 40 FPS, while the 4K Low preset yields 85 FPS, suggests that the Ultra preset introduces computationally expensive effects that heavily tax the GPU, such as high-resolution shadows, ambient occlusion, or post-processing. The GPU’s role is clearly the dominant factor in determining performance at higher resolutions and settings, as the CPU is rarely stressed by this older title.

Resolution Scaling

The scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario. At 1080p High, the system averages 161 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, the average drops to 102 FPS, a reduction of roughly 37%. At 4K High, the average falls further to 54 FPS, a 66% drop from the 1080p High result. This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU bottleneck, as the number of pixels quadruples from 1080p to 4K, placing a proportionally larger load on the rasterization and shading units of the RTX 4070.

The pattern is consistent across all settings. For Low settings, the 1080p average of 256 FPS drops to 162 FPS at 1440p (a 37% drop) and to 85 FPS at 4K (a 67% drop). For Medium settings, the 1080p average of 210 FPS falls to 133 FPS at 1440p and 70 FPS at 4K. For Ultra settings, the 1080p average of 121 FPS drops to 76 FPS at 1440p and 40 FPS at 4K. The nearly identical percentage drops across all settings strongly indicate that the performance scaling is primarily driven by resolution, not by the complexity of the graphical preset. The CPU, with its 8 cores and 16 threads based on the Zen 5 architecture, is clearly capable of feeding the GPU at 1080p, but the GPU’s fill rate and compute power become the limiting factor as resolution increases.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers high frame rates across all presets. The Low preset averages 256 FPS, with no minimum or maximum recorded. The Medium preset averages 210 FPS, with a minimum of 178 FPS and a maximum of 241 FPS. The High preset averages 161 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 121 FPS. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the CPU is the primary limiter for the Low and Medium presets, as the GPU is not fully utilized. The 256 FPS average at Low settings is exceptionally high and suggests the game’s engine is not heavily multi-threaded, but the Ryzen 7 9700X’s single-core performance (3dMark single-thread score of 1280) is sufficient to drive these frame rates.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are still very high, but the GPU begins to assert itself. The Low preset averages 162 FPS. The Medium preset averages 133 FPS, with a minimum of 113 FPS and a maximum of 153 FPS. The High preset averages 102 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 76 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is consistent across all presets, showing that the GPU is now the primary factor in performance.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is fully stressed. The Low preset averages 85 FPS, which is still smooth. The Medium preset averages 70 FPS, with a minimum of 59 FPS and a maximum of 80 FPS. The High preset averages 54 FPS. The Ultra preset averages 40 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 40 FPS is the lowest average in the entire dataset. For a turn-based tactics game, this is perfectly playable, but it demonstrates that even the RTX 4070 cannot maintain 60 FPS at 4K with the highest preset. The 4K Medium preset, with an average of 70 FPS and a minimum of 59 FPS, provides a more consistent 60 FPS experience.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), built on a 4 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. Its cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 1280 in the 3dMark single-thread test and 9771 in the 3dMark max-threads test. It achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 20485 and a single-core score of 2211. The CPU’s average benchmark score is 37943, placing it in the 86th percentile of all CPUs.

In Hard West, the CPU’s role is primarily to manage game logic, AI, and draw calls. The game is a turn-based tactics title, meaning it does not require the high frame rates or low latency that a fast-paced shooter would. The CPU’s single-threaded performance is the most relevant metric here, as older game engines often rely heavily on a single thread for core logic. The 3dMark single-thread score of 1280 is strong, and this is reflected in the 1080p Low and Medium results, where the CPU is able to push frame rates well above 200 FPS. The 8-core, 16-thread configuration is largely underutilized by this game, as the 3dMark max-threads score of 9771 is not meaningfully different from the 8-thread score of 8184, suggesting that the game does not scale well beyond 8 threads. The nearest rivals, such as the Intel Core i9-14901E with a deltaPct of 0.1, show that the 9700X is in a very competitive position for CPU-bound tasks, but for Hard West, the CPU is rarely the bottleneck.

Settings Recommendations

For a 60 FPS target at 3840x2160, the Medium preset is the optimal choice. It averages 70 FPS with a minimum of 59 FPS, ensuring a mostly stable experience above the 60 FPS threshold. The High preset at 4K averages 54 FPS, which is below 60 FPS, and the Ultra preset averages 40 FPS, which is noticeably lower. The Low preset at 4K averages 85 FPS, but sacrifices visual quality.

For a 1440p display, the High preset is the best balance. It averages 102 FPS, which is well above 60 FPS and provides a smooth experience. The Ultra preset at 1440p averages 76 FPS, which is also excellent, but the visual difference between High and Ultra may not justify the 25% frame rate drop. The Medium preset at 1440p averages 133 FPS, which is overkill for a turn-based game and leaves performance on the table.

For a 1080p display, any preset will deliver a smooth experience. The Ultra preset averages 121 FPS, which is more than sufficient. The High preset averages 161 FPS, and the Medium preset averages 210 FPS. The Low preset at 256 FPS is unnecessary. The recommendation is to use the Ultra preset at 1080p to maximize visual fidelity, as the frame rate remains well above 60 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combination ranks 829 out of 3722 tested combos in Hard West. This places it in the top 22% of all configurations. Given that the game is a turn-based tactics title from 2015, it is not a demanding benchmark for modern hardware. The high ranking is expected, as the RTX 4070 is a powerful GPU and the Ryzen 7 9700X is a high-end CPU. The rank of 829 indicates that there are 828 combinations that perform better, which likely include configurations with higher-tier GPUs like the RTX 4090 or RTX 4080, or CPUs with higher single-threaded performance. The fact that this combo is in the top quarter of all tested systems underscores that it is a very capable pairing for this game, but also that the game is not a significant challenge for these components. The performance is primarily limited by the GPU at higher resolutions, and the CPU is rarely a factor, which is consistent with the game’s age and genre.