Hard West

# Hard West Performance Analysis: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers exceptional performance in Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015. This combination ranks 3rd out of 1,699 tested configurations, placing it in the top 0.2% of all systems evaluated. The data reveals a platform that excels across all resolution and settings combinations, with the CPU's 3D V-Cache architecture and the GPU's Blackwell 2.0 design working in tandem to produce frame rates that range from a playable 57.3 FPS at 4K Ultra to a blistering 337.4 FPS at 1080p Low.

FAQ

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

A: The Ryzen 9 9950X3D + RTX 5090 combination ranks 3rd out of 1,699 tested combos, placing it in the 99.8th percentile of all systems benchmarked for this game.

Q: What is the maximum frame rate achieved in this testing?

A: The highest recorded average FPS is 337.4 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The minimum tested average is 57.3 FPS at 4K with Ultra settings.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Ryzen 9 9950X3D scores 71,660 average benchmark points, which is 0.9% ahead of the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 and 1.8% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, while trailing the Intel Xeon 6517P by 1.9%.

Q: What memory bandwidth does the CPU provide?

A: The Ryzen 9 9950X3D supports dual-channel DDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its closest competitor in average benchmark scores?

A: The RTX 5090 scores 84,306 average benchmark points, which is 0.1% higher than the RTX 5090 D and 1.3% higher than the AMD Radeon PRO W6600, while the NVIDIA CMP 40HX edges it out by 1.6%.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 1440p at High settings?

A: At High settings, the system delivers 236.2 FPS at 1920x1080 and 151.1 FPS at 2560x1440, representing a 36% reduction when moving to the higher resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 serves as the primary rendering engine in this configuration, and its specifications directly influence the measured frame rates in Hard West. Built on the GB202 chip using TSMC's 5 nm process, this GPU packs 92,200 million transistors across a 750 mm² die. The memory subsystem is particularly robust: 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus delivers 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which proves essential for maintaining consistent frame delivery at 4K resolutions where the game's turn-based tactical scenes demand frequent texture streaming.

The GPU's clock behavior shows a base frequency of 2017 MHz and a boost of 2407 MHz. The memory operates at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective throughput. These clocks, combined with 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs, produce compute throughput of 104.8 TFLOPS in both FP32 and FP16 modes. The texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s explain why the card maintains high frame rates even at Ultra settings—at 4K Ultra, the system still averages 57.3 FPS, which is the only sub-60 FPS result in the entire dataset.

The RTX 5090's benchmark scores corroborate its strength: the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test yields 14,411 points, while Geekbench OpenCL and Vulkan scores reach 380,114 and 379,571 respectively. The PassMark G3D score of 39,650 and GPU compute score of 26,756 further demonstrate the card's capabilities. Relative to its nearest rivals, the RTX 5090 leads the RTX 5090 D by a narrow 0.1% in average score (84,306 vs 84,241), and the AMD Radeon PRO W6600 by 1.3%—margins that suggest this GPU sits at the very top of the performance hierarchy.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D provides the processing foundation for this combination, and its architecture is well-suited to Hard West's turn-based logic. With 16 cores and 32 threads based on Zen 5 architecture, this CPU operates at a base clock of 4.30 GHz and boosts to 5.70 GHz. The 128 MB of shared L3 cache is the standout feature—this large cache capacity helps keep game state data close to the cores, reducing memory latency during complex tactical calculations.

Synthetic benchmarks quantify the CPU's processing prowess. Cinebench R23 scores of 59,712 multicore and 8,430 singlecore demonstrate strong both-threaded and single-threaded performance. Geekbench results show 22,515 multicore and 3,401 singlecore. The PassMark suite provides additional granularity: multithread score of 70,255, single thread of 4,737, floating point math at 159,724, and integer math at 243,209. The data encryption score of 44,536 and extended instructions score of 73,011 indicate robust cryptographic and SIMD processing capability.

The CPU's benchmark percentile of 96 versus all CPUs places it in the top 4% of processors. Its average benchmark score of 71,660 sits 0.9% above the Intel Xeon Platinum 8270 and 1.8% above the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, while the Intel Xeon 6517P leads by 1.9% and the Intel Core i7-14700KF trails by 2.2%. This positioning confirms the 9950X3D as a top-tier processor, though the margins over rivals are modest in synthetic workloads.

The CPU's memory architecture supports dual-channel DDR5 with 89.6 GB/s bandwidth and ECC capability. The PCIe Gen 5 interface with 24 CPU lanes ensures the RTX 5090's PCIe 5.0 x16 connection runs at full bandwidth. The 170 W TDP and unlocked multiplier allow for overclocking headroom, though the data shows stock performance is already exceptional.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of Ryzen 9 9950X3D and RTX 5090 achieves a rank of 3rd out of 1,699 tested combos in Hard West. This top-tier placement means only two other configurations produce higher frame rates in this game. The ranking reflects the synergy between the CPU's large cache and the GPU's massive memory bandwidth—Hard West's turn-based mechanics benefit from both rapid state calculations and fast texture rendering.

The measured FPS data illustrates why this combo ranks so highly. At 1080p, the system achieves 337.4 FPS on Low, 306.4 FPS on Medium, 236.2 FPS on High, and 176.7 FPS on Ultra. These results show that even at the highest settings, the system maintains frame rates far above display refresh rates. At 1440p, the scores remain impressive: 238.6 FPS Low, 196.7 FPS Medium, 151.1 FPS High, and 110.4 FPS Ultra. The 4K results—122.7 FPS Low, 99.9 FPS Medium, 76.4 FPS High, and 57.3 FPS Ultra—demonstrate that the combination remains viable even at the most demanding resolution.

The rank of 3rd out of 1,699 combos places this system ahead of 99.8% of tested configurations. The data indicates that the GPU's 32 GB VRAM and 1.79 TB/s bandwidth are not bottlenecks at any tested setting, while the CPU's 128 MB L3 cache ensures that game logic processing never becomes a limiting factor. This balanced performance profile is the primary reason for the high ranking.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that remains GPU-bound at higher resolutions but shows CPU limitations at lower ones. At High settings, the progression is 236.2 FPS at 1080p, 151.1 FPS at 1440p, and 76.4 FPS at 4K. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is 36%, and from 1440p to 4K is 49.4%. These reductions are steeper than the pixel count increases would suggest, indicating that the GPU's rendering workload scales super-linearly due to increased shader and memory pressure.

At Low settings, the scaling pattern changes. The system produces 337.4 FPS at 1080p, 238.6 FPS at 1440p (29.3% drop), and 122.7 FPS at 4K (48.6% drop from 1440p). The 1080p Low result of 337.4 FPS approaches the CPU's maximum frame delivery capability—the CPU's single-thread score of 8,430 in Cinebench R23 and PassMark single thread of 4,737 suggest this is near the processing ceiling for game logic updates.

The Ultra settings reveal the most significant resolution scaling. From 176.7 FPS at 1080p to 110.4 FPS at 1440p (37.5% drop) and then to 57.3 FPS at 4K (48.1% drop), the Ultra preset demonstrates that 4K Ultra is the first configuration where the GPU's rendering load begins to challenge the RTX 5090's capabilities. The 4K Ultra result of 57.3 FPS is the only sub-60 result in the entire dataset, suggesting that Hard West's Ultra preset at 4K represents an extreme load.

The limiting component analysis shows that at 1080p, the CPU's frame generation capability is the constraint—the system cannot exceed 337.4 FPS regardless of GPU headroom. At 4K, the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck, as evidenced by the steep FPS drops when increasing resolution. The 1440p results represent the sweet spot where both components contribute optimally, with frame rates ranging from 110.4 FPS Ultra to 238.6 FPS Low. This scaling behavior is typical for a top-tier combination in a turn-based tactics game, where CPU performance matters for game logic but GPU performance dominates at higher resolutions.