Hard West

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7700 delivers a wide performance envelope in Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from late 2015. Across 12 measured configurations spanning three resolutions and four quality presets, the combo produces an average FPS range that scales from 31 frames per second at 4K Ultra to 180 FPS at 1080p Low. The data indicates a system that handles the game’s modest engine demands with headroom at lower settings, while 4K Ultra remains the only configuration that dips below the 40 FPS threshold.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Hard West?

A: At 1920x1080, the combo achieves 93-180 FPS depending on settings, with even Ultra quality hitting 93 FPS. At 2560x1440, average FPS ranges from 59 to 125, while 3840x2160 falls to 31-65 FPS. The data shows 1080p and 1440p provide the most comfortable headroom for smooth turn-based play.

Q: How does the RX 7700’s raw compute performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RX 7700’s average benchmark score is 15852, placing it 0.1% below the AMD Radeon R9 370X, 1% below the AMD Radeon RX 9060, 1.1% above the AMD Radeon Pro W5500, and 1.7% below the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti. These deltas are all within a narrow 2.8% band, suggesting near-identical aggregate performance.

Q: What CPU benchmark scores indicate about single-threaded performance?

A: The i5-10400F scores 688 in 3dmark single-thread and 1451 in Cinebench R23 single-core. Its Geekbench single-core score is 1420. These figures place the CPU at the 68th percentile of all CPUs, indicating adequate single-thread throughput for a game like Hard West that relies on deterministic turn-based logic.

Q: Is the GPU or CPU the limiting factor at 4K Ultra?

A: At 3840x2160 Ultra, average FPS drops to 31, while the same settings at 1080p yield 93 FPS. The GPU’s 16 GB VRAM and 624.1 GB/s bandwidth are not exhausted at any resolution, but the 31 FPS at 4K Ultra suggests the GPU’s shading throughput (25.18 TFLOPS FP32) is the primary constraint, since CPU load scales less with resolution.

Q: Does the combo provide consistent frame pacing at Medium settings?

A: The measured rows with min/max data are only for Medium presets. At 1920x1080 Medium, the combo averages 161 FPS with a min of 137 and max of 186. At 2560x1440 Medium, the average is 102 FPS with min 87 and max 117. At 3840x2160 Medium, the average is 54 FPS with min 46 and max 62. The spread between min and max is tight in each case, indicating stable output.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations for this game?

A: The combo ranks 1426 out of 2949 total combos tested in Hard West. This places it in the middle of the distribution, which aligns with the CPU’s 68th percentile and GPU’s 58th percentile standing among their respective product pools.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7700 is built on the RDNA 3.0 architecture with a 5 nm process and houses 28,100 million transistors on a 346 mm² die. Its memory subsystem consists of 16 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 624.1 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU’s clock behavior shows a base of 1900 MHz, a game clock of 2041 MHz, and a boost clock of 2459 MHz, with memory running at 2438 MHz for 19.5 Gbps effective throughput. In Hard West, these specifications translate into measurable scaling: moving from Low to Ultra at any resolution increases visual load, but the GPU still delivers playable results at all settings except 4K Ultra.

The measured FPS data reveals how the GPU’s resources scale with resolution. At 1080p, the jump from Low (180 FPS) to Ultra (93 FPS) represents a 48% reduction in average FPS. At 1440p, the same setting change goes from 125 FPS to 59 FPS, a 53% drop. At 4K, the range is 65 FPS (Low) down to 31 FPS (Ultra), a 52% reduction. This consistent ~50% penalty from Low to Ultra across resolutions indicates the GPU is handling the additional pixel count and shader work in a linear fashion. The 16 GB VRAM is never a limiting factor; even at 4K Ultra, the game’s textures and geometry fit comfortably within that allocation.

The GPU’s compute benchmarks provide context for its gaming behavior. Its Passmark G3D score is 20974, with a Passmark GPU compute score of 10963. In DirectX 12 (Passmark), it scores 96, while DirectX 11 yields 186 and DirectX 9 yields 261. Hard West, released in 2015, predates DirectX 12 Ultimate and likely uses an older API path; the strong DirectX 9 and 11 scores suggest the GPU is well-suited to the game’s rendering requirements. The 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 2865 indicates modern API performance, but that is not directly relevant to this title’s engine. The GPU’s texture rate of 393.4 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 236.1 GPixel/s are more than sufficient for a turn-based tactics game with static or slowly animating scenes.

At 4K Ultra, the 31 FPS average is the only configuration that falls below 40 FPS, suggesting the GPU’s 25.18 TFLOPS FP32 throughput is being fully utilized. The 40 ray tracing cores and 2560 shading units do not appear to be a bottleneck at lower resolutions; rather, the fixed-function pixel processing at 4K drives the performance drop. The 96 ROPs are tasked with writing 8.3 million pixels per frame at 4K, and at 31 FPS that translates to roughly 257 million pixel writes per second, which aligns with the GPU’s rated pixel rate. For players prioritizing resolution over visual fidelity, the Low preset at 4K (65 FPS) offers a viable path that leverages the 16 GB VRAM without overburdening the shading units.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 1426 out of 2949 tested configurations places it just below the midpoint of the database. This rank reflects the pairing of a 10th-generation Intel CPU with a mid-range AMD GPU, both of which sit near the 60th percentile of their respective product categories. The CPU’s 68th percentile ranking among all CPUs and the GPU’s 58th percentile among all GPUs combine to produce a system that is neither a top-tier performer nor a budget compromise—it sits in the upper-middle of the tested pool for Hard West.

The ranking context becomes clearer when examining the nearest rivals for each component. The i5-10400F’s average benchmark score of 14185 is within 0.6% of the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (14277, -0.6% delta), 0.3% of the Intel Core 7 160UL (14232, -0.3%), 0.2% of the Intel Xeon 6756E (14163, +0.2%), and 0.5% of the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115, +0.5%). These deltas are negligible, meaning the CPU’s contribution to the combo rank is essentially tied with several other processors. Similarly, the RX 7700’s average score of 15852 is within 1.7% of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti (16129, -1.7%) and 1% of the AMD Radeon RX 9060 (16014, -1%). The tight clustering of these rival scores suggests that swapping the GPU for any of these near-equal alternatives would yield a similar combo rank in Hard West.

The fact that the combo ranks 1426 out of 2949, despite both components being near the 60th percentile, indicates that Hard West’s performance distribution is heavily populated with high-end systems. Turn-based tactics games often have lower system requirements, which means a wider range of hardware can achieve playable results. The measured FPS data supports this: even at 4K Ultra (31 FPS), the game is technically running, and at 1080p Low (180 FPS), the combo outperforms many high-end systems that are constrained by other factors. The rank is therefore more indicative of the overall hardware landscape than of any specific weakness in this pairing.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured data covers 12 configurations: four settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) at three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160). For Medium settings, min and max FPS are provided, while other presets only report average FPS.

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its highest averages. Low settings produce 180 FPS, Medium yields 161 FPS (min 137, max 186), High reaches 124 FPS, and Ultra drops to 93 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 87 FPS, a 48% reduction. The Medium preset’s min-max range of 137-186 FPS shows a 49 FPS spread, indicating variance but no severe stutters. At 1080p, all presets exceed 90 FPS, making this resolution the most comfortable for high-refresh-rate displays.

At 2560x1440, the averages decrease predictably. Low settings hit 125 FPS, Medium averages 102 FPS (min 87, max 117), High produces 78 FPS, and Ultra falls to 59 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra delta is 66 FPS, a 53% reduction. The Medium preset’s min-max range of 87-117 FPS represents a 30 FPS spread, which is tighter in relative terms than at 1080p. At 1440p, Ultra quality still maintains 59 FPS, which is playable for a turn-based title, while Low offers a 125 FPS average for smoother camera panning.

At 3840x2160, the GPU’s limits become apparent. Low settings average 65 FPS, Medium averages 54 FPS (min 46, max 62), High drops to 41 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 31 FPS. The Low-to-Ultra reduction is 34 FPS, a 52% decrease. The Medium preset’s min-max of 46-62 FPS shows a 16 FPS spread, which is the smallest absolute range across all resolutions, suggesting that at 4K, the GPU is consistently working near its capacity. The 31 FPS at Ultra is below the commonly accepted 60 FPS threshold but remains functional for a turn-based game where frame rate fluctuations are less disruptive than in fast-action genres.

Comparing the same settings across resolutions reveals the scaling behavior. At Low, 1080p yields 180 FPS, 1440p yields 125 FPS (a 31% reduction), and 4K yields 65 FPS (a 64% reduction from 1080p). At Ultra, 1080p yields 93 FPS, 1440p yields 59 FPS (37% reduction), and 4K yields 31 FPS (67% reduction). The larger percentage drop from 1440p to 4K (64-67%) compared to 1080p to 1440p (31-37%) indicates that the GPU hits a bandwidth or fill-rate wall at 4K, where the pixel count quadruples from 1080p but the GPU’s throughput does not scale linearly.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Comet Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 14 nm process. It runs at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and boosts to 4.30 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU has 64 KB L1 cache per core, 256 KB L2 per core, and 12 MB shared L3 cache. It supports DDR4 memory in dual-channel configuration with 42.7 GB/s bandwidth, and connects via PCIe Gen 3 with 16 lanes. The CPU’s release date of April 2020 places it well after Hard West’s 2015 launch, meaning it has far more processing headroom than the game’s original target hardware.

In benchmark terms, the i5-10400F demonstrates balanced multi-threaded capability. Its Cinebench R23 multicore score is 10283, while the single-core score is 1451. Geekbench shows 6257 multicore and 1420 single-core. The 3dmark tests reveal scaling: 2-thread score is 1350, 4-thread is 2560, 8-thread is 3929, and 16-thread (max) is 4748. The jump from 8 to 16 threads is only 20%, indicating that the additional 4 threads (beyond 8) provide diminishing returns, which is typical for a 6-core/12-thread design where the first 6 cores dominate workloads.

For Hard West, a turn-based tactics game, the CPU’s role is primarily in handling game logic, unit AI, and pathfinding calculations. These tasks are typically single-threaded or lightly threaded. The CPU’s single-thread scores (688 in 3dmark, 1451 in Cinebench R23, 1420 in Geekbench) are modest but sufficient for a game that does not require rapid physics simulation. The Passmark single-thread score of 2541 reinforces this. The CPU’s 68th percentile ranking among all CPUs suggests it is above average for the time of its release, but not exceptional by modern standards.

The measured FPS data shows no indication of CPU bottlenecking. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 180 FPS, which is likely near the upper limit of the game’s engine or the GPU’s ability to draw frames, rather than a CPU limitation. If the CPU were the constraint, we would expect to see similar FPS across resolutions at the same settings, since CPU load is resolution-independent. Instead, the data shows clear resolution scaling: at Low, 1080p yields 180 FPS while 4K yields 65 FPS, a 2.8x difference that matches the GPU’s pixel throughput expectations. This confirms the GPU is the primary driver of performance variation, while the CPU provides stable logic processing without becoming a limiting factor.

The CPU’s memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s is lower than the GPU’s 624.1 GB/s, but for game logic and asset decompression, this is ample. The 12 MB L3 cache is also sufficient for the game’s code and data footprint. The lack of integrated graphics on the i5-10400F means the RX 7700 handles all rendering, which is appropriate given the GPU’s 16 GB VRAM. The CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads are more than adequate for a 2015 turn-based title; even if the game uses multiple threads for AI, the CPU has headroom to spare, as evidenced by its 10283 Cinebench R23 multicore score.

Settings Recommendations

For players using this combo, the optimal settings depend on the target resolution and refresh rate. At 1920x1080, all presets deliver above 90 FPS, so the choice is purely visual. Ultra quality at 93 FPS is the best experience for players with 100 Hz or lower displays, as it provides the maximum visual fidelity without dropping below the refresh rate. For 144 Hz displays, High settings at 124 FPS are marginally safer, offering a 31 FPS buffer over Ultra’s 93 FPS. Low settings at 180 FPS are unnecessary except for competitive play, which is irrelevant in a turn-based genre.

At 2560x1440, the recommendation shifts. Ultra quality averages 59 FPS, which is playable but may show judder on 60 Hz displays if frame times vary. Medium settings at 102 FPS (min 87, max 117) provide the best balance, with a 45 FPS headroom over Ultra and a tight min-max range that ensures consistent pacing. High settings at 78 FPS are a middle ground, but Medium’s higher average and recorded min/max data make it the safer choice for smooth camera movement. Players with 144 Hz monitors will not sustain that refresh rate at any setting above Low (125 FPS), so Medium at 102 FPS is the practical ceiling.

At 3840x2160, the combo is stretched. Low settings at 65 FPS are the only config that clears 60 FPS, making it the recommended preset for 4K displays. Medium at 54 FPS (min 46, max 62) is borderline; the min FPS of 46 may cause noticeable hitches during complex scenes. High at 41 FPS and Ultra at 31 FPS are below the playable threshold for many users, though turn-based games can tolerate lower frame rates since there is no twitch reaction requirement. For 4K, the data supports Low as the best experience, with Medium as a viable compromise for players who prioritize visual quality over frame rate consistency.

The measured rows with min/max data (Medium presets) provide insight into frame pacing. At all three resolutions, the Medium preset shows a spread of 49 FPS (1080p), 30 FPS (1440p), and 16 FPS (4K). The absolute spread shrinks as resolution increases, but the relative spread (max minus min divided by average) is 30% at 1080p, 29% at 1440p, and 30% at 4K. This consistency suggests the game’s frame pacing is stable regardless of resolution, meaning the choice of settings is more about average FPS than variance.

Across the board, the data indicates that High settings offer diminishing returns over Medium. At 1080p, High (124 FPS) is 23 FPS below Medium (161 FPS), while at 1440p, High (78 FPS) is 24 FPS below Medium (102 FPS), and at 4K, High (41 FPS) is 13 FPS below Medium (54 FPS). The visual difference between Medium and High in a turn-based tactics game—which often uses static camera angles and minimal particle effects—is likely subtle. Therefore, Medium is the recommended preset for most users, as it provides the highest average FPS with documented min/max stability, while High only offers marginal visual improvements at a significant FPS cost. Ultra should be reserved for 1080p displays where the 93 FPS average remains smooth.