Hard West

The data for Hard West, played on an Intel Core i5-10400F with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER, shows a substantial performance ceiling. The measured frames per second indicate that this combination delivers a highly fluid experience across most settings, with the choice of preset primarily affecting visual fidelity rather than playability.

Settings Recommendations

For a turn-based tactics title where frame pacing is less critical than in action genres, the Ultra preset at 1080p and 1440p remains entirely viable. At 1920x1080, Ultra produces an average of 136.5 FPS, which is a 12% reduction from the High preset’s 155.2 FPS but still far beyond the refresh rate of standard monitors. At 2560x1440, Ultra averages 99.1 FPS, which is smooth for this genre and leaves ample headroom for the 60 Hz displays commonly used at this resolution.

The Medium preset offers a compelling balance if the user prioritizes power efficiency or lower thermals. At 1080p, Medium delivers 170.9 FPS, which is 10% higher than High and 25% higher than Ultra. The gap widens at 4K, where Medium achieves 87.7 FPS compared to High’s 68 FPS, a 29% improvement. For users with 4K displays, the Medium preset is the recommended starting point because it maintains an average above 60 FPS while preserving most visual quality.

The Low preset is only necessary for maximum frame rates, which are largely irrelevant in this genre. At 1080p, Low reaches 181.4 FPS, but the visual degradation is not worth the 5% gain over Medium. Similarly, at 4K, Low produces 106.4 FPS, which is impressive but unnecessary given Medium’s 87.7 FPS. The data suggests that the High preset is the optimal choice for 1440p and 1080p users, while Medium is the best fit for 4K. Ultra is reserved for those who value image quality above all else, as it remains playable at all three resolutions.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Hard West at 4K with the Ultra preset?

A: Yes, but with a caveat. The measured average FPS at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings is 53.2 FPS. This is below the 60 FPS threshold often considered ideal, but for a turn-based tactics game, the frame rate is still playable and consistent.

Q: What is the performance difference between the High and Ultra presets?

A: The gap varies by resolution. At 1080p, High averages 155.2 FPS versus Ultra’s 136.5 FPS, a 12% difference. At 1440p, High achieves 132 FPS while Ultra drops to 99.1 FPS, a 25% difference. At 4K, the gap widens to 22%, with High at 68 FPS and Ultra at 53.2 FPS.

Q: Is the RTX 4080 SUPER the bottleneck at lower resolutions?

A: The data indicates that the CPU becomes more relevant as resolution drops. At 1080p, the FPS difference between Low and Ultra is 45 FPS (181.4 vs 136.5), which is a 25% spread. This suggests that the GPU can render frames quickly enough that settings changes have a direct impact, but the CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads must keep up with the high frame rate.

Q: How does the Low preset compare to Medium at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low averages 153 FPS and Medium averages 143.8 FPS. The difference is only 6%, meaning the Medium preset provides a substantial visual upgrade with a negligible performance cost.

Q: What is the best preset for a 60 Hz 4K display?

A: The Medium preset is the safest choice, delivering 87.7 FPS at 4K. This provides a 46% margin above 60 FPS, ensuring that any frame drops from in-game effects or camera movement will not cause noticeable stuttering.

Q: Does this CPU hold back the GPU in this game?

A: The benchmark scores show the i5-10400F has a single-thread score of 688 in 3dmark and 1453 in Cinebench R23. For Hard West, which is not a heavily threaded title, the CPU’s 2.90 GHz base clock and 4.30 GHz boost clock appear sufficient to feed the RTX 4080 SUPER, as evidenced by the high FPS at 1080p.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Comet Lake architecture, built on a 14 nm process. Its base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz are the primary drivers for gaming performance. In this turn-based tactics title, the CPU’s role is to manage game logic, unit AI, and pathfinding calculations, which are typically single-threaded or lightly threaded workloads.

Benchmark results for the CPU show a single-thread score of 688 in 3dmark and 1453 in Cinebench R23. These figures place the processor in the 73rd percentile among all CPUs, indicating solid single-core performance. The multi-thread results, such as 10297 in Cinebench R23 and 4735 in 3dmark max threads, show that the CPU can handle background tasks without interfering with the game’s frame delivery.

The measured FPS at 1080p with Low settings reaches 181.4 FPS. This high value suggests that the CPU can process frames at a rate that exceeds the GPU’s rendering capacity in this scenario. The fact that increasing settings to Ultra reduces FPS to 136.5 at 1080p, a 25% drop, indicates that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor as pixel workload increases. The CPU’s 12 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support at 42.7 GB/s provide adequate bandwidth for the game’s data streaming needs.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of CPU and GPU ranks 374 out of 1699 tested combos in Hard West. This places the system in the top 22% of all configurations, which is a strong result given that the CPU is a mid-range part from 2020 while the GPU is a high-end model from 2024.

The CPU’s nearest rivals in overall benchmark score include the AMD EPYC 7552, which is 0.4% faster, and the AMD Ryzen 3 7320C, which is 0.8% slower. The Intel Core i5-8500 is 1.1% slower, and the AMD Ryzen Embedded V2546 is 1.2% slower. These small deltas show that the i5-10400F is competitive with a wide range of processors.

On the GPU side, the RTX 4080 SUPER’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 6900 XT, which is 0.2% slower, and the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M, which is 0.4% slower. The AMD Radeon RX 7700S is 2.1% slower, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti is 2.9% slower. The GPU’s percentile rank of 88 among all GPUs confirms its high-end status.

The combined rank of 374 suggests that the CPU is not severely bottlenecking the GPU in this title. If the CPU were a major constraint, the combo would rank lower relative to other pairings with the same GPU. The data indicates that the i5-10400F provides enough processing power to allow the RTX 4080 SUPER to perform near its potential in Hard West.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is significant but not linear. At High settings, the average FPS falls from 155.2 at 1080p to 132 at 1440p, a 15% decrease. From 1440p to 4K, the FPS falls to 68, a 48% decrease. This pattern is typical for a GPU-bound scenario, where the pixel count increase from 1440p to 4K (a 2.25x increase) places a much heavier load on the GPU’s shading units and memory bandwidth.

The RTX 4080 SUPER has a 256-bit memory bus with 16 GB of GDDR6X memory running at 23 Gbps effective, yielding a bandwidth of 736.3 GB/s. This bandwidth is sufficient to handle the 4K texture loads, as evidenced by the 68 FPS at High settings. The GPU’s 10240 shading units and 112 ROPs provide the compute power needed for this resolution.

The scaling from Medium to Low at 4K shows a 21% FPS increase (87.7 to 106.4), which is smaller than the 49% increase at 1080p (170.9 to 181.4). This indicates that at lower resolutions, the CPU becomes a more significant factor, while at 4K, the GPU is the clear limiting component. The Ultra preset at 4K produces 53.2 FPS, which is 22% lower than High, showing that the most demanding settings can push the GPU to its limits.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 181.4 at Low to 136.5 at Ultra. The Medium preset delivers 170.9 FPS, which is within 6% of Low. High produces 155.2 FPS, a 10% reduction from Medium. The spread between Low and Ultra is 45 FPS, or 25%, indicating that the GPU can handle the full range of settings at this resolution without dropping below 136 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 153 at Low, 143.8 at Medium, 132 at High, and 99.1 at Ultra. The difference between Low and Medium is 6%, while the gap between High and Ultra is 25%. This shows that the Ultra preset takes a significant performance hit at 1440p, likely due to increased shadow and post-processing effects.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 106.4 at Low, 87.7 at Medium, 68 at High, and 53.2 at Ultra. The Low preset here is 21% faster than Medium, and Medium is 29% faster than High. The Ultra preset is the only one that falls below 60 FPS, which is notable for a turn-based game where frame rate fluctuations are less disruptive than in action titles.

The data shows a consistent pattern: the RTX 4080 SUPER’s performance scales predictably with resolution and settings. The i5-10400F does not appear to introduce any stutter or frame drops, as the FPS values are consistent across all tested configurations. The 4K Ultra result of 53.2 FPS is the only configuration that might require a settings reduction for users with high-refresh-rate displays.