Hard West

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is the dominant force in this pairing, built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with a 5 nm process node and a GB202 chip containing 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. Its clock behavior is notable: a base clock of 2017 MHz boosts to 2407 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). The 32 GB of GDDR7 memory across a 512-bit bus delivers 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for a turn-based tactics title like Hard West, where texture streaming and scene complexity are modest compared to modern AAA shooters.

The measured frame rates show the GPU scaling almost linearly with settings at each resolution. At 4K, the RTX 5090 D moves from 62 FPS on Ultra to 83 FPS on High, 108 FPS on Medium, and 131 FPS on Low. This 69 FPS spread between Ultra and Low indicates that the GPU's shading units (21,760), TMUs (680), and ROPs (176) are being exercised differently across presets. The pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s explain why even the heaviest preset remains playable—there is raw throughput to spare. The FP32 compute of 104.8 TFLOPS is far beyond what Hard West's engine can utilize, but it ensures that no setting combination will bottleneck the experience.

The RTX 5090 D's 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores are largely irrelevant for this genre, as turn-based tactics rarely employ real-time ray tracing or DLSS-style upscaling. However, the GPU's DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2), Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6 mean compatibility is assured. The 92nd percentile ranking among all GPUs, based on an average benchmark score of 77,712, places it near the top of the stack, though its nearest rivals—the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (deltaPct 1.1), RX 6850M XT (-1.6), and two Tesla P100 variants (-2.1 and -2.4)—show that the synthetic benchmark gap is narrow. In actual game FPS, however, the RTX 5090 D's 32 GB VRAM and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth provide headroom that those competitors cannot match, even if Hard West never approaches the capacity limit.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The data reveals a clear resolution scaling pattern that shifts the bottleneck between CPU and GPU. At 1080p, the RTX 5090 D is so fast that the CPU becomes the limiting factor. The measured FPS at 1920x1080 ranges from 187 FPS on Ultra to 246 FPS on Low, with Medium hitting 229 FPS and High at 208 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is only 59 FPS, which is smaller than the 69 FPS spread at 4K. This compression suggests that at 1080p, the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X's 16 cores and 32 threads are struggling to feed the GPU quickly enough, capping performance around the 250 FPS ceiling.

Moving to 2560x1440, the FPS drops are modest: Low falls to 211 FPS (-35 from 1080p), Medium to 197 FPS (-32), High to 158 FPS (-50), and Ultra to 118 FPS (-69). The percentage drops range from roughly 14% (Low) to 37% (Ultra), indicating that the GPU is starting to take over as the primary limiter at this resolution. The 1440p Medium preset shows a min FPS of 167 and max of 226, a 59 FPS variance that reflects the game's turn-based engine occasionally spiking in CPU-bound moments during enemy turns.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is fully saturated. The FPS drops become steeper in absolute terms: Low falls to 131 FPS (-80 from 1440p), Medium to 108 FPS (-89), High to 83 FPS (-75), and Ultra to 62 FPS (-56). The percentage drops range from 37% (Low) to 47% (Ultra), clearly demonstrating that the RTX 5090 D's 104.8 TFLOPS of compute is being pushed hard. The 4K Medium preset shows a min FPS of 92 and max of 124, a 32 FPS variance that is tighter than at 1440p, suggesting the GPU is now the consistent bottleneck. The fact that 4K Ultra still holds 62 FPS average—playable for a turn-based game—underscores the GPU's strength, but the scaling curve shows diminishing returns as resolution increases, with the CPU's role receding.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

For a turn-based tactics game like Hard West, frame rate consistency matters more than raw peak FPS, since players make critical decisions during enemy turns and camera pans. The measured data shows that the Medium preset offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance stability across all three resolutions. At 1080p, Medium delivers 229 FPS average with a min of 195 and max of 264, providing a 69 FPS buffer above the Low preset's 246 FPS while looking noticeably better. At 1440p, Medium holds 197 FPS with min 167 and max 226, which is still far above any display refresh rate and offers smoother camera movement than High's 158 FPS.

The 4K Medium preset is the sweet spot for this combo. At 108 FPS average with min 92 and max 124, it maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS while delivering the visual richness of medium textures and effects. The High preset at 4K drops to 83 FPS, which is still playable but leaves less headroom for demanding scenes, and Ultra at 62 FPS sits too close to the 60 FPS threshold—any ambient CPU spike could cause perceptible stutter. The Low preset at 4K (131 FPS) sacrifices too much visual quality for a game that is inherently slow-paced; the extra frames provide no tangible benefit.

The measured rows suggest that Medium is the recommended preset for this hardware combination, particularly at 1440p and 4K. The min FPS values for Medium (167 at 1440p, 92 at 4K) are the only ones recorded across all settings, indicating that the benchmark captured stable frame delivery. For players with high-refresh-rate displays (144 Hz or 240 Hz), the 1440p Medium preset at 197 FPS is ideal, while 4K Medium at 108 FPS suits 120 Hz panels. Ultra is only advisable at 1080p, where 187 FPS still provides a smooth experience, but the visual difference between Medium and Ultra in a top-down tactics title rarely justifies the 42 FPS loss.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks 100th out of 2,949 tested combos in Hard West, placing it in the top 3.4% of all configurations. This percentile position is notable because it reflects the game's engine characteristics: Hard West is a turn-based tactics title from 2015, originally released on 2015-11-17, and its engine is not designed to scale with modern high-core-count CPUs or flagship GPUs. The rank of 100 means that 2,849 other CPU-GPU pairings scored higher, which may seem counterintuitive given the hardware's raw power.

The ranking is driven by the game's age and genre. Turn-based tactics typically rely on single-threaded logic for AI pathfinding and turn resolution, which means the Ryzen 9 5950X's 16 cores and 32 threads are largely underutilized. The CPU's 3dmark single-thread score of 944 and passmark single-thread score of 3470 indicate solid but not class-leading per-core performance, and the 4K Ultra results (62 FPS) show that the GPU is not the sole bottleneck. The combo's percentileVsAllCpus of 91 and percentileVsAllGpus of 92 are both high, yet the in-game rank of 100 out of 2,949 suggests that other combos with faster single-core CPUs or better-optimized drivers achieve higher frame rates in this specific title.

Compared to the CPU's nearest rivals—the Intel Core Ultra 5 235HX (deltaPct -0.2), AMD EPYC 8124P (-0.3), Intel Core i9-13900F (0.4), and Intel Core i7-14700 (-0.7)—the Ryzen 9 5950X's average benchmark score of 51,947 is competitive but not dominant. Similarly, the GPU's nearest rivals show deltaPct values within -2.4 to 1.1, meaning the RTX 5090 D is only marginally ahead of or behind those parts in synthetic tests. The combo's rank of 100 reflects this tight clustering; the measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low (246 FPS), the system is likely CPU-limited, which prevents the GPU from fully expressing its 4K Ultra advantage.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Ryzen 9 5950X is a 16-core, 32-thread processor from the 5000 series, built on the Zen 3 architecture (codename Vermeer) using a 7 nm process at TSMC. It features a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, with 64 KB L1 cache per core, 512 KB L2 per core, and 64 MB of L3 cache. The CPU's memory support is DDR4 dual-channel with 51.2 GB/s bandwidth, and it uses the AMD Socket AM4 platform with PCIe Gen 4 (20 lanes). Its TDP is 105 W, and it has an unlocked multiplier for overclocking.

In Hard West, the CPU's role is significant at lower resolutions but diminishes at 4K. The 1080p results show the CPU capping performance: Low preset at 246 FPS, Medium at 229 FPS, High at 208 FPS, and Ultra at 187 FPS. The narrow spread between Low and Ultra (59 FPS) compared to the 4K spread (69 FPS) indicates that at 1080p, the Ryzen 9 5950X's single-thread performance (3dmark single-thread score of 944, cinebench R23 single-core of 1614) is the limiting factor. The game's turn-based logic likely runs on a few threads, and the CPU's 16 cores cannot accelerate that workload beyond a certain point.

The CPU's multi-threaded prowess—cinebench R23 multicore score of 26,017, passmark multithread of 45,424—is largely irrelevant for Hard West, as the engine does not scale across 32 threads. The 3dmark 16-thread score of 10,810 and max-thread score of 11,597 show that the CPU scales well in synthetic tests, but the game's measured FPS at 4K Ultra (62 FPS) versus 4K Low (131 FPS) demonstrates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at that resolution. The CPU's percentileVsAllCpus of 91 and average benchmark score of 51,947 place it in the top decile, yet its nearest rivals—the Intel Core Ultra 5 235HX, AMD EPYC 8124P, Core i9-13900F, and Core i7-14700—are within 0.7% in average score, meaning the 5950X is not uniquely positioned for this game.

The base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost of 4.90 GHz provide adequate per-core speed for the game's turn-based AI, but the lack of higher single-core performance (passmark single-thread of 3470) means that at 1080p, the FPS ceiling is around 250. The CPU's 64 MB L3 cache helps with data locality in the game's map and unit state management, but the 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth is not a constraint in a game with modest asset streaming. In summary, the Ryzen 9 5950X provides enough CPU horsepower to avoid being a major bottleneck at 4K, but at 1080p and 1440p, its single-thread limits are evident in the FPS data.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 4K Ultra settings for this combo?

A: The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 62 FPS, which is playable for a turn-based tactics game but leaves little headroom for demanding scenes.

Q: How does the CPU's single-thread performance affect 1080p results?

A: The Ryzen 9 5950X's 3dmark single-thread score of 944 and passmark single-thread of 3470 cap the 1080p Low preset at 246 FPS, with Ultra at 187 FPS, showing a 59 FPS spread that indicates CPU limitation.

Q: What is the best preset for 1440p gaming on this hardware?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 delivers 197 FPS average with a min of 167 and max of 226, offering the best balance of visual quality and frame rate stability for high-refresh displays.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested configurations in Hard West?

A: The combo ranks 100th out of 2,949 tested combos, placing it in the top 3.4% of all configurations despite the game's age and genre limitations.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the bottleneck at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the GPU is the primary bottleneck, as evidenced by the FPS drop from 131 (Low) to 62 (Ultra), a 69 FPS spread that reflects the RTX 5090 D's compute limits.

Q: What is the GPU's average benchmark score and percentile ranking?

A: The RTX 5090 D has an average benchmark score of 77,712 and ranks in the 92nd percentile among all GPUs, with nearest rivals within 2.4% in score.