Hard West

# Hard West with Intel Core i5-10400F + Intel Arc B580

The Intel Core i5-10400F paired with the Intel Arc B580 delivers a playable but settings-sensitive experience in Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015. Benchmark data shows this combination ranks 1317th out of 1699 tested CPU-GPU pairings for this game, placing it in the lower-middle tier of configurations. The Arc B580, built on the Xe2-HPG architecture with 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus, provides substantial headroom at lower resolutions, while the six-core Comet Lake processor keeps pace with the GPU across most settings. The measured results reveal a system that excels at 1080p and 1440p with moderate settings, but struggles to maintain smooth frame rates at 4K Ultra, indicating a clear GPU-bound scenario at higher loads.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this system in Hard West?

A: At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, the system achieves 126.1 FPS average, which is well above the 60 FPS threshold. At 2560x1440 with High settings, it maintains 61.2 FPS average. The 3840x2160 High setting drops to 29 FPS, making 4K viable only at Low settings, where it reaches 52.2 FPS.

Q: How does the Arc B580 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Arc B580's average benchmark score of 23021 is 0.1% higher than the AMD Radeon 760M, 0.3% higher than the NVIDIA P106-100, and 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile. It trails the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 by 0.7%, with the RTX 4060 scoring 23181.

Q: How does the Core i5-10400F perform relative to comparable CPUs?

A: The CPU has an average benchmark score of 14168 and sits in the 73rd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD EPYC 7552, scores 14115 (0.4% lower), while the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C scores 14277 (0.8% higher). The Intel Core i5-8500 scores 14332, which is 1.1% higher.

Q: What are the key compute capabilities of the Arc B580?

A: The GPU delivers 13.67 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 27.34 TFLOPS FP16 (2:1 ratio). It has 2560 shading units, 160 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, with 20 ray tracing cores. Memory bandwidth is 456.0 GB/s from 12 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit interface.

Q: Is the Core i5-10400F a limiting factor in Hard West at 1080p?

A: At 1080p Low, the system reaches 150.5 FPS average, suggesting the CPU can drive high frame rates. The processor's 6 cores and 12 threads with a boost clock of 4.30 GHz appear sufficient for this turn-based title at lower settings, though the GPU becomes the bottleneck at higher quality presets.

Q: What is the performance spread between Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 97.6 FPS average, while Ultra drops to 47 FPS. Medium achieves 75.8 FPS and High reaches 61.2 FPS. This represents a 50.6 FPS difference between the lowest and highest quality presets.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 serves as the primary rendering engine for Hard West, and its specifications directly shape the measured performance. The GPU operates at a fixed 2670 MHz base and boost clock, with memory running at 2375 MHz effectively delivering 19 Gbps across the 192-bit bus. This configuration yields 456.0 GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is ample for a 2015 turn-based tactics title that relies more on geometry and texture throughput than sustained bandwidth.

The GPU's 12 GB of GDDR6 memory provides generous capacity for Hard West's assets, even at 4K resolution. The 2560 shading units and 80 ROPs deliver a pixel rate of 213.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 427.2 GTexel/s, which translate into strong fill rates for the game's stylized visuals. The Xe2-HPG architecture with 20 ray tracing cores is largely irrelevant for this title, but the raw rasterization performance is what drives the benchmark results.

Synthetic benchmarks position the B580 at the 66th percentile of all GPUs, with an average score of 23021. Its nearest rival, the AMD Radeon 760M, scores 22999 (0.1% lower), while the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 scores 23181 (0.7% higher). This tight clustering indicates the B580 competes directly with mainstream GPUs, and in Hard West, it demonstrates this positioning through its settings scaling. At 1080p High, the GPU produces 93.8 FPS, but dropping to Low settings nearly doubles that to 150.5 FPS, showing that the B580 has substantial headroom when shading complexity is reduced.

The GPU's PassMark results reveal its DirectX capabilities: it scores 183 in DirectX 9, 128 in DirectX 11, and 76 in both DirectX 10 and DirectX 12. Hard West, being a 2015 title, likely relies on DirectX 11 paths, where the B580's score of 128 suggests moderate compatibility. The OpenCL score of 92821 and Vulkan score of 109672 indicate strong compute and modern API performance, though these are less relevant for this specific game.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F provides the processing backbone for Hard West, with 6 cores and 12 threads running at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz. This Comet Lake architecture chip uses a 14 nm process and supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. The 12 MB shared L3 cache and 256 KB L2 per core offer sufficient capacity for the game's turn-based logic and AI calculations.

The CPU's synthetic benchmarks show a balanced profile: 3DMark scores range from 688 in single-thread to 4748 in 16-thread tests, while Cinebench R23 results are 1453 single-core and 10297 multi-core. Geekbench scores of 1454 single-core and 5783 multi-core further confirm this processor's mid-range positioning. The PassMark multithread score of 12115 and physics score of 696 indicate that the CPU can handle game logic without becoming a bottleneck at standard frame rates.

In Hard West, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling across settings. At 1080p, the difference between Low (150.5 FPS) and High (93.8 FPS) is 56.7 FPS, which is largely driven by GPU load rather than CPU limitations. The 10400F's 73rd percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14168, places it slightly above the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115) and just below the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (14277). This positioning suggests the CPU is more than adequate for a turn-based tactics game where frame rates are not as demanding as fast-paced shooters.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s and PCIe Gen 3, 16 Lanes interface ensure data can flow to the GPU without significant delays. The 65 W TDP and dual-channel memory support keep the platform efficient, though the processor's lack of integrated graphics means the B580 is the sole display output source. For Hard West's AI pathfinding and turn resolution, the 12 threads provide ample parallelism, and the boost clock of 4.30 GHz handles single-threaded tasks effectively.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its strongest performance. Low settings produce an average of 150.5 FPS, while Medium achieves 126.1 FPS. High settings drop to 93.8 FPS, and Ultra settles at 71.5 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 79 FPS, indicating that quality presets have a substantial impact on GPU load at this resolution. All four settings exceed the 60 FPS threshold, making 1080p fully playable regardless of quality preference, with Ultra still providing a comfortable margin above 60 FPS.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales predictably but remains strong. Low settings yield 97.6 FPS, Medium produces 75.8 FPS, and High maintains 61.2 FPS. Ultra drops to 47 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS standard but still playable for a turn-based title. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 50.6 FPS, a smaller absolute gap than at 1080p, but the relative drop from Low to Ultra is approximately 52%. High settings at 1440p offer a balanced experience with 61.2 FPS, while Medium at 75.8 FPS provides additional headroom.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear limiting factor. Low settings achieve 52.2 FPS, Medium drops to 43.7 FPS, and High falls to 29 FPS. Ultra produces only 22.2 FPS, making it essentially unplayable for smooth gameplay. The 4K results show a 30 FPS difference between Low and Ultra, but all settings struggle to reach 60 FPS. Only Low settings at 4K approach playability, and even then, the 52.2 FPS average leaves little margin for demanding scenes.

The data reveals a consistent pattern: at each resolution, the difference between Low and Medium is smaller than between High and Ultra. At 1080p, Low to Medium is 24.4 FPS, Medium to High is 32.3 FPS, and High to Ultra is 22.3 FPS. At 1440p, the gaps are 21.8, 14.6, and 14.2 FPS respectively. This suggests that the Ultra preset imposes a disproportionately higher load, likely due to advanced lighting or shadow effects that stress the B580's 80 ROPs.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K illustrates the GPU's scaling behavior and identifies the bottleneck at each resolution. At High settings, performance drops from 93.8 FPS at 1080p to 61.2 FPS at 1440p, a 34.8% reduction, then to 29 FPS at 4K, a further 52.6% reduction. This scaling is steeper than the pixel count increase, suggesting that memory bandwidth and fill rate constraints become more pronounced at higher resolutions.

For Low settings, the scaling is more linear: 150.5 FPS at 1080p, 97.6 FPS at 1440p (35.1% reduction), and 52.2 FPS at 4K (46.5% reduction). The 1080p to 1440p drop is consistent across settings, but the 1440p to 4K drop is larger for High (52.6%) than for Low (46.5%). This indicates that at 4K, the GPU's 456.0 GB/s bandwidth and 213.6 GPixel/s pixel rate become limiting factors, particularly with higher quality settings that increase per-pixel work.

Ultra settings show the most dramatic scaling: 71.5 FPS at 1080p, 47 FPS at 1440p (34.3% reduction), and 22.2 FPS at 4K (52.8% reduction). The 4K Ultra result of 22.2 FPS is only 31% of the 1080p Ultra performance, highlighting that the B580's 13.67 TFLOPS FP32 compute is insufficient for this combination. Medium settings follow a similar trend: 126.1 FPS at 1080p, 75.8 FPS at 1440p (39.9% reduction), and 43.7 FPS at 4K (42.3% reduction).

The data strongly suggests the GPU is the primary bottleneck across all resolutions and settings. The CPU, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, maintains consistent frame delivery even at 1080p Low where 150.5 FPS is achieved. If the CPU were limiting, we would expect smaller frame rate differences between resolutions, but the substantial drops indicate the B580's rendering capabilities are the binding constraint. The 4K results, particularly at High and Ultra, fall below playable thresholds, confirming that this system is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming in Hard West.