Hard West

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS for this combo at 1920x1080 with High settings?

A: The Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER combination delivers an average of 99.8 FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings.

Q: How does the RTX 2060 SUPER compare to its closest rival in raw GPU benchmarks?

A: The RTX 2060 SUPER has an average benchmark score of 19774, placing it 0.5% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 and 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN, while sitting 0.8% above the NVIDIA Quadro K5200.

Q: What is the best resolution for maintaining above 60 FPS at Ultra settings?

A: At 2560x1440 with Ultra settings, the combo achieves 49.8 FPS, which is below 60. At 1920x1080 with Ultra, it reaches 77.1 FPS, making 1080p the only tested resolution where Ultra settings stay comfortably above 60 FPS.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU in this game?

A: The data does not indicate a bottleneck. The i5-10400F scores 1453 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 10297 in multi-core, which is sufficient for the GPU to express its full range of performance across resolutions, as shown by the wide FPS spread between Low and Ultra settings.

Q: How many CPU threads does the i5-10400F offer, and what is its boost clock?

A: The Intel Core i5-10400F provides 6 cores and 12 threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz, based on the Comet Lake architecture.

Q: What is the VRAM capacity of the RTX 2060 SUPER, and how does it relate to Hard West?

A: The RTX 2060 SUPER has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth. Given that the game runs at 49.8 FPS at 4K Low settings, the VRAM allocation appears adequate for this turn-based tactics title's moderate requirements.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data shows a clear hierarchy across settings presets, with the sweet spot depending on resolution target. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers 126.6 FPS, which is nearly 27 FPS higher than High (99.8 FPS) and only 29.4 FPS behind Low (156 FPS). Given that Hard West is a turn-based tactics game where reaction time is less critical than visual clarity, Medium at 1080p offers the best balance: it maintains a high frame rate while likely preserving more visual detail than Low. Ultra at 1080p drops to 77.1 FPS, which is still playable but represents a 49.5 FPS penalty compared to Medium.

For 2560x1440, the situation tightens. Medium hits 81.1 FPS, while High falls to 61.8 FPS and Ultra plummets to 49.8 FPS. The Medium preset at 1440p remains above 60 FPS and is the recommended choice for this resolution, as High barely crosses the threshold and Ultra falls below it. Low at 1440p reaches 100.6 FPS but sacrifices too much visual quality for the extra headroom.

At 3840x2160, none of the tested presets reach 60 FPS. High averages 36 FPS, Medium 44.4 FPS, Low 49.8 FPS, and Ultra 25.3 FPS. For 4K gaming, the Low preset provides the most playable experience, though the 49.8 FPS average indicates this combo is not ideal for 4K in this title. The data suggests that players targeting 4K should either lower expectations to Low settings or consider a different resolution entirely.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F brings 6 cores and 12 threads to the pairing, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.30 GHz. Its Comet Lake architecture, built on Intel's 14 nm process, delivers a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 10297 and a single-core score of 1453. In the broader CPU landscape, the i5-10400F sits at the 73rd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 14168.

The nearest rival data shows the i5-10400F within 1.2% of the AMD EPYC 7552 (0.4% faster), AMD Ryzen 3 7320C (0.8% slower), Intel Core i5-8500 (1.1% slower), and AMD Ryzen Embedded V2546 (1.2% slower). This clustering indicates that the CPU's performance is competitive with a range of server, mobile, and desktop parts, though none of these rivals are gaming-specific comparisons.

For a turn-based tactics game like Hard West, single-thread performance often matters more than multi-thread scaling, as the game's simulation and rendering logic typically runs on fewer threads. The i5-10400F's single-core score of 1453 in Cinebench R23 and 3DMark single-thread score of 688 suggest adequate headroom for the game's logic. The 3DMark 2-thread score of 1350 and 4-thread score of 2560 further indicate that the CPU can handle the lighter threading demands of this genre without becoming a limiting factor.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-10400F with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER combination ranks 1183 out of 1699 tested combos in Hard West, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database. This position reflects that while the hardware is competent, many other configurations achieve higher frame rates in this specific title.

The rank of 1183 out of 1699 means that roughly 30% of tested combos perform worse, while 70% perform better. This is a modest placement for a CPU that sits at the 73rd percentile overall and a GPU at the 63rd percentile. The discrepancy suggests that Hard West's performance profile rewards other hardware characteristics more heavily, or that the combination's balance is not optimal for this game's engine.

The measured FPS data corroborates this ranking. At 1920x1080 Ultra, the combo achieves 77.1 FPS, which is respectable but not exceptional in a field where many combos exceed 100 FPS at this resolution. The 4K Ultra result of 25.3 FPS is particularly weak, reinforcing that this pairing is not optimized for high-resolution, high-settings gaming.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture with the TU106 chip, manufactured on TSMC's 12 nm process. It contains 10,800 million transistors on a 445 mm² die, with a base clock of 1470 MHz and a boost clock of 1650 MHz. The memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, providing 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

The GPU's compute capabilities include 2176 shading units, 136 texture mapping units, and 64 ROPs, along with 34 RT cores and 272 tensor cores. Its FP32 performance is rated at 7.181 TFLOPS, with a pixel rate of 105.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 224.4 GTexel/s. The GPU supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

In benchmark terms, the RTX 2060 SUPER holds an average score of 19774, placing it at the 63rd percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rivals show tight competition: the NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN is 0.3% slower, the RTX 2070 is 0.5% slower, the Quadro K5200 is 0.8% slower, and the Tesla K40m is 1.3% slower. This indicates that the RTX 2060 SUPER sits in a crowded performance band where small clock or memory differences separate competitors.

For Hard West, the GPU's role is evident in the scaling across settings. At 1920x1080, moving from Low to Ultra costs 78.9 FPS (from 156 to 77.1 FPS), demonstrating that the GPU is the primary driver of performance at this resolution. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for the game's needs, as evidenced by playable frame rates even at 4K Low settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest performance. Low settings produce an average of 156 FPS, Medium reaches 126.6 FPS, High achieves 99.8 FPS, and Ultra drops to 77.1 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a consistent 20-30 FPS reduction per tier, with the largest single drop occurring between Medium and High at 26.8 FPS.

The 2560x1440 results show a similar pattern but with compressed headroom. Low averages 100.6 FPS, Medium 81.1 FPS, High 61.8 FPS, and Ultra 49.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 50.8 FPS at this resolution, slightly less than the 78.9 FPS gap at 1080p, indicating that resolution scaling moderates the settings impact.

At 3840x2160, performance falls below playable thresholds for most presets. High averages 36 FPS, Medium 44.4 FPS, Low 49.8 FPS, and Ultra 25.3 FPS. Notably, the Low preset at 4K delivers the same average FPS as the Ultra preset at 1440p (49.8 FPS), illustrating how resolution and settings trade-offs can yield equivalent frame rates. The 4K results show that this combo is better suited to 1080p or 1440p gaming, where it can maintain 60+ FPS across most settings.