Hard West

The data for Hard West, running on an AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080, presents a clear picture of a system that is dramatically over-powered for a turn-based tactics title from 2015. The benchmark results show extreme frame rates at lower resolutions, with performance scaling that reveals the game’s engine limitations rather than any bottleneck in the hardware. This analysis walks through the measured FPS across resolutions and settings, the combo’s standing against other tested systems, and what the data implies about the CPU and GPU roles in this specific title.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K demonstrates how the rendering load shifts as pixel count increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the system produces 252 FPS, which drops to 160 FPS at 1440p and further to 84 FPS at 4K. This represents a 33% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 67% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is not linear, which points to the game becoming progressively more GPU-bound at higher resolutions.

Looking at High settings, the pattern continues: 159 FPS at 1080p, 101 FPS at 1440p, and 53 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1440p to 4K is particularly steep at 48% (from 101 to 53 FPS), suggesting that at 4K the RTX 5080 is finally being pushed to a meaningful workload. However, the absolute numbers remain high for a turn-based tactics game, where fluid camera movement and unit animations are the primary visual demands.

The Medium preset shows the most complete data, with min and max FPS recorded at each resolution. At 1080p Medium, the average is 207 FPS (min 176, max 238), at 1440p it drops to 131 FPS (min 111, max 150), and at 4K it falls to 69 FPS (min 58, max 79). The frame time consistency, as indicated by the min-to-max spread, remains tight at all resolutions. At 4K Medium, the 21 FPS spread between min and max (58 to 79) is proportionally larger than at 1080p, where the spread is 62 FPS (176 to 238), but this is expected given the higher absolute frame rates.

Ultra settings produce the lowest averages: 119 FPS at 1080p, 75 FPS at 1440p, and 40 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result of 40 FPS is the only configuration in the entire dataset that dips below the 60 FPS threshold, which is notable for a game of this age. This suggests that the Ultra preset applies effects that are disproportionately expensive at high pixel counts, likely involving heavy post-processing or shadow techniques that do not scale well.

The limiting component shifts across the resolution spectrum. At 1080p, the CPU is clearly the primary constraint, as the GPU is capable of far higher output than the game engine can feed. The jump from 252 FPS at Low to 159 FPS at High (a 37% reduction) at the same resolution indicates that the graphics settings are impacting the CPU-side draw call processing. At 4K, the GPU becomes the bottleneck, with the RTX 5080’s rasterization throughput being the deciding factor between 84 FPS at Low and 40 FPS at Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this specific hardware pairing holds the 949th position out of 3,722 total combos for Hard West. This places it in the top 25.5% of all systems tested for this game. The rank reflects the fact that while the hardware is extremely powerful, the game itself is not demanding enough to separate this combo from many others at the top of the performance curve.

The CPU’s benchmark percentile tells a relevant story. The Ryzen 9 8945HX sits in the 95th percentile against all CPUs in the database, indicating that it is among the fastest processors available. Its nearest rivals in average benchmark score include the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (0.1% higher score), the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P (0.4% lower), and the AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 9945WX (0.4% lower). These differences are negligible, meaning the CPU is performing exactly as expected for its class.

The GPU follows a similar pattern with an 87th percentile ranking against all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon 8060S, scores 0.6% higher on average, while the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE scores 2.2% higher. The RTX 5080’s average benchmark score of 56,083 places it in a tightly contested performance band, where the 0.6% to 2.3% deltas between rivals are within normal manufacturing variance.

For Hard West specifically, the combo rank of 949 out of 3,722 suggests that many other combinations achieve similar or better results. This is not a criticism of the hardware but rather a reflection of the game’s low system requirements. A turn-based tactics title from 2015 does not push modern flagship components, so the ranking is determined more by the game’s engine limits than by the hardware’s capabilities. The data indicates that this combo outperforms roughly 74.5% of all tested configurations, which is solid but unremarkable for a top-tier CPU and GPU pairing.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides clear guidance on which preset offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance for this hardware. At 1080p, all settings produce playable results, but the Medium preset stands out with an average of 207 FPS and a minimum of 176 FPS. This provides a 30% improvement over High (159 FPS) while maintaining a frame rate far above what any display can show. Ultra at 119 FPS is still smooth, but the jump from High to Ultra yields diminishing visual returns for a 25% performance cost.

At 1440p, the Medium preset again offers the best experience at 131 FPS average (min 111), compared to High at 101 FPS and Ultra at 75 FPS. The 30 FPS gap between Medium and High is substantial, and since the visual difference between Medium and High in a tactics game is often limited to shadow quality and texture filtering, the performance gain favors Medium. Ultra at 75 FPS is acceptable, but it is 43% slower than Medium.

The 4K resolution requires more careful consideration. Medium produces 69 FPS average (min 58), which is adequate for a turn-based game where fast reaction times are not critical. High drops to 53 FPS, and Ultra falls to 40 FPS, both of which are below the 60 FPS ideal. For 4K, Medium is the recommended preset, as it maintains a playable frame rate while offering better image quality than Low (84 FPS). Low at 4K is technically the smoothest at 84 FPS, but the visual quality reduction is significant.

The data suggests that Medium is the sweet spot for this combo across all resolutions. The min FPS values recorded for Medium (176 at 1080p, 111 at 1440p, 58 at 4K) indicate that the frame pacing remains consistent without sudden drops. The Ultra preset’s lack of min/max data in the measurements makes it harder to assess its consistency, but the average scores alone are low enough to recommend against it except at 1080p.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete dataset for this combo reveals a consistent hierarchy across all resolutions. At 1920x1080, the averages are: Low 252 FPS, Medium 207 FPS (min 176, max 238), High 159 FPS, and Ultra 119 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 53% reduction in frame rate, which is substantial but leaves even the worst case (Ultra at 119 FPS) far above the refresh rate of most monitors.

At 2560x1440, the averages shift to: Low 160 FPS, Medium 131 FPS (min 111, max 150), High 101 FPS, and Ultra 75 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra widens to 53% (from 160 to 75 FPS), and the Ultra setting now approaches the lower end of high-refresh territory. The Medium preset’s min of 111 FPS indicates that even in the most demanding scenes, the system maintains a frame rate that exceeds 100 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the averages are: Low 84 FPS, Medium 69 FPS (min 58, max 79), High 53 FPS, and Ultra 40 FPS. This resolution shows the most dramatic scaling, with Ultra delivering only 48% of the Low preset’s performance. The Medium preset’s min of 58 FPS is the only recorded instance where the frame rate dips below 60 FPS in this dataset, but it remains playable for a turn-based game.

The settings scaling at each resolution is worth noting. At 1080p, the step from Low to Medium costs 45 FPS (18%), from Medium to High costs 48 FPS (23%), and from High to Ultra costs 40 FPS (25%). At 1440p, the steps are 29 FPS (18%), 30 FPS (23%), and 26 FPS (26%). At 4K, the steps are 15 FPS (18%), 16 FPS (23%), and 13 FPS (25%). The percentage costs are remarkably consistent across resolutions, indicating that each preset level adds a similar relative workload regardless of pixel count.

GPU Role

The RTX 5080’s specifications provide context for its performance in Hard West. The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth. For a game from 2015, this memory capacity is more than sufficient; Hard West’s textures and geometry are unlikely to exceed even 4 GB of VRAM at 4K Ultra. The bandwidth of 960.0 GB/s is similarly over-provisioned, as the game’s data streaming demands are minimal.

The clock speeds of 2295 MHz base and 2617 MHz boost are high for a modern GPU, and the 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 performance places it in the upper echelon of graphics cards. In Hard West, these raw compute figures are not the limiting factor. The measured 4K Ultra result of 40 FPS suggests that the game’s engine is using a rendering path that does not efficiently utilize the GPU’s parallel compute architecture.

The GPU’s benchmark scores reinforce its position. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 8,637 and the Geekbench OpenCL score of 235,901 indicate strong general-purpose compute performance. In Hard West, however, the game’s DirectX 11-era rendering (given its 2015 release) relies more on traditional rasterization than on modern compute-heavy techniques. The PassMark G3D score of 36,565 places the GPU in the 87th percentile of all graphics cards, which aligns with the observed performance in this title.

The 16 GB memory capacity is worth highlighting because it ensures that even at 4K Ultra, the GPU never needs to swap textures to system memory. The 960.0 GB/s bandwidth means that texture uploads are effectively instantaneous. The data shows that the GPU is not the bottleneck at 1080p or 1440p, where the CPU limits frame rates. Only at 4K with Ultra settings does the GPU’s pixel throughput become the deciding factor, and even then the result of 40 FPS is more a function of the game’s inefficient Ultra path than any hardware deficiency.

FAQ

Q: Is this combo capable of running Hard West at 4K Ultra smoothly?

A: No. The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 Ultra is 40 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold. The Medium preset at 4K achieves 69 FPS average (min 58), making it the highest setting that maintains playable frame rates.

Q: What is the best resolution to play at with this hardware?

A: At 2560x1440 Medium, the combo delivers 131 FPS average with a minimum of 111 FPS, providing excellent smoothness with good visual quality. The 4K Medium result of 69 FPS is also viable for a turn-based game, but 1440p offers a 90% higher frame rate.

Q: How does this CPU compare to its nearest rival in terms of average benchmark score?

A: The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX scores 76,212 on average, which is 0.1% lower than the Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX (76,155) and 0.4% lower than the AMD EPYC Embedded 8224P (76,492). It scores 0.6% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D (75,779).

Q: What is the GPU’s percentile ranking among all tested graphics cards?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 ranks in the 87th percentile of all GPUs. Its average benchmark score of 56,083 is 0.6% lower than the AMD Radeon 8060S (55,757) and 2.2% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 9070 GRE (57,367).

Q: Does the 16 GB VRAM make a difference in this game?

A: The 16 GB GDDR7 memory is far more than Hard West requires. Even at 4K Ultra, the game’s 2015-era textures will not approach this limit, so the VRAM capacity has no practical impact on the measured frame rates. The 960.0 GB/s bandwidth ensures texture streaming is never a bottleneck.

Q: Why does the Ultra preset perform so much worse than Medium?

A: The data shows a consistent 25-26% performance penalty when moving from High to Ultra across all resolutions. This indicates that the Ultra preset enables effects that are disproportionately expensive on modern hardware, likely due to the game’s legacy rendering pipeline not being optimized for current GPU architectures.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 8945HX is a 16-core, 32-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, running on the Dragon Range mobile platform. Its base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz, combined with a 64 MB L3 cache, make it one of the fastest mobile CPUs available. The 95th percentile ranking against all CPUs confirms its position near the top of the performance hierarchy.

In Hard West, the CPU’s role is primarily in handling game logic, unit AI, and draw call submission. The game’s turn-based nature means that CPU loads are bursty rather than continuous, with periods of intense computation during enemy turns and strategic calculations. The 16 cores and 32 threads are massively over-provisioned for this workload, as the game likely uses only a handful of threads for its main simulation.

The benchmark scores for this CPU are instructive. The Cinebench R23 multicore score of 42,713 and single-core score of 6,030 demonstrate excellent both multi-threaded and single-threaded performance. For Hard West, single-core performance is more relevant, as the game’s simulation loop is likely serialized. The PassMark single-thread score of 3,907 places it well above average, ensuring that the game’s logic never becomes a bottleneck.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in overall benchmark score show how closely matched the top mobile processors are. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX scores 0.1% higher on average, while the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D scores 0.6% higher. These differences are well within the margin of error for synthetic benchmarks and have no practical impact on Hard West’s frame rates.

The fact that 1080p Low produces 252 FPS while 1080p Ultra produces 119 FPS indicates that the CPU is the limiting factor at low resolutions. The game engine cannot process frames faster than the CPU can submit draw calls, and the RTX 5080 is left waiting. This is typical for games of this era, where CPU performance was not expected to reach modern levels. The 16 cores and 32 threads of the Ryzen 9 8945HX may be overkill, but the high boost clock of 5.40 GHz ensures that the few threads the game does use run at maximum speed.

The 55 W TDP for this mobile processor is modest given its performance, but the power draw is not a factor in frame rate measurements. The data shows that the CPU delivers consistent performance across all tested configurations, with no evidence of thermal throttling or clock instability affecting the results. In a turn-based tactics game, the CPU’s job is to keep the simulation running smoothly, and the measured frame rates at 4K (where the GPU becomes the bottleneck) confirm that the CPU is never the constraining component.