Hard West

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Hard West show a steep, predictable decline as resolution increases, but the shape of that curve reveals where the bottleneck sits. At 1080p High, the combo delivers 102.2 FPS, which drops to 63.1 FPS at 1440p High (a 38.3% reduction) and further to 32.7 FPS at 4K High (a 68.0% reduction from 1080p). This is a classic GPU-limited scaling pattern — the CPU has headroom at lower resolutions, but the Radeon RX 7600’s rendering throughput becomes the limiting factor as pixel count quadruples.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings at each resolution reinforces this. At 1080p, Low runs at 157.9 FPS while Ultra runs at 78.2 FPS — a 79.7 FPS spread that shows how heavily the game’s graphical options tax the GPU. At 4K, the same spread narrows to 33.3 FPS (55.8 Low vs. 22.5 Ultra), suggesting that even the Low preset at 4K is pushing the GPU near its limits. The 4K Ultra result of 22.5 FPS is particularly telling: it sits below the 30 FPS playability threshold, indicating that this resolution/preset combination overruns the card’s capacity.

Interestingly, the 1440p numbers show the most balanced behavior. High at 1440p produces 63.1 FPS, which is close to the 60 FPS target, while Medium at 84.1 FPS and Low at 101.3 FPS give comfortable margins. The data suggests that at 1440p, the GPU is still the primary constraint, but the workload is within the card’s sweet spot. At 1080p, however, the scaling from Low to Ultra (157.9 down to 78.2) hints that the CPU may start to matter at the very low end — a 157.9 FPS average is high enough that the Intel Core i5-12400’s single-thread performance could be coming into play, though the data does not isolate CPU limits directly.

How This Combo Ranks

In the benchmark database, this CPU-GPU pairing ranks 1143 out of 1699 tested combinations for Hard West. That places it in the lower third of all combos — a position that reflects the game’s age (released in 2015) and the fact that many newer, higher-end pairings simply overpower it. The percentile data for the individual components helps contextualize this: the CPU sits at the 77th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU is at the 63rd percentile among all GPUs. The combo’s overall rank is dragged down slightly by the GPU, which is the weaker link in this pairing for this particular title.

The rank of 1143 out of 1699 means roughly 67% of tested combos outperform it in Hard West. That is not a flattering position, but it is also not surprising for a turn-based tactics game where frame rates above 60 FPS are largely irrelevant to gameplay quality. The combo’s standing is more meaningful when viewed against its immediate rivals. The CPU’s nearest rival, the Intel Core i7-9700, has an average benchmark score of 19831 — just 0.1% lower than the i5-12400’s 19850. The i7-8700 scores 19894 (0.2% higher), and the i5-11600K scores 19771 (0.4% lower). These deltas are negligible, meaning the CPU is essentially performance-equivalent to its closest competitors.

On the GPU side, the RX 7600’s nearest rival, the RX 7600 XT, scores 20146 — just 0.6% higher than the RX 7600’s 20258. The RX 460 scores 20088 (0.8% higher), while the RTX 3070 Mobile and Intel Arc B570 score 20534 and 20556 respectively (1.3% and 1.5% higher). These small deltas indicate that the GPU is also tightly clustered with its peers. The combo’s rank, therefore, is less about being outclassed and more about the sheer number of combos in the database that pair higher-tier components.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. For a 2015 turn-based tactics game like Hard West, this memory configuration is more than adequate — the game’s texture and geometry demands are modest by modern standards. The card’s memory clock runs at 2250 MHz (18 Gbps effective), and its core clocks span a base of 1720 MHz to a boost of 2655 MHz, with a game clock of 2250 MHz. These clock figures are high, but the measured FPS suggests the card is rarely boosting to its maximum in this title, as the frame rates at 4K Ultra (22.5 FPS) indicate the GPU is fully saturated.

The GPU’s shading resources include 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units. The pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s are theoretical maxima; in practice, Hard West’s rendering workload does not come close to saturating these at lower resolutions. The 4K results, however, show the card hitting its compute ceiling — the FP32 throughput of 21.75 TFLOPS is being pushed hard when rendering at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings.

The RX 7600’s 32 ray accelerators are irrelevant for this game, as Hard West predates ray tracing and does not use it. The card’s DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) is forward-looking but unused here. The GPU’s 63rd percentile ranking among all GPUs reflects its mid-range positioning; it is neither a top-tier card nor a weak one. The measured FPS data confirms this: it handles 1080p and 1440p comfortably, but 4K Ultra is beyond its practical reach.

FAQ

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

A: 1440p provides the best balance. High settings yield 63.1 FPS, Medium 84.1 FPS, and Low 101.3 FPS — all above 60 FPS. 1080p offers higher rates (102.2 FPS High) but 4K drops below 60 FPS on every preset.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its closest rival?

A: The Intel Core i5-12400 has an average benchmark score of 19850, which is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i7-9700 (19831) and 0.4% higher than the Intel Core i5-11600K (19771). It trails the i7-8700 by 0.2% (19894).

Q: Why is 4K Ultra so much slower than 4K Low?

A: The difference is 33.3 FPS (22.5 Ultra vs. 55.8 Low). Ultra settings increase rendering complexity — likely shadows, post-processing, and texture filtering — which taxes the GPU’s 21.75 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 169.9 GPixel/s pixel rate beyond their effective limits.

Q: Does the GPU’s memory bandwidth matter for this game?

A: The RX 7600’s 288.0 GB/s bandwidth over a 128-bit bus is sufficient for Hard West. The game’s 2015-era assets do not require high bandwidth; the FPS drops at higher resolutions are more attributable to the card’s compute throughput than memory constraints.

Q: What is the CPU’s single-thread performance?

A: The i5-12400 scores 2249 in Cinebench R23 single-core and 910 in 3DMark single-thread. These scores are competitive, but the game’s turn-based nature means single-thread performance is not a primary constraint — the data shows GPU-limited scaling.

Q: How does the combo’s rank compare to the component percentiles?

A: The combo ranks 1143 out of 1699 (67th percentile), which is lower than the CPU’s 77th percentile and the GPU’s 63rd percentile. The rank reflects the pairing’s overall position among all combos, not just the individual parts.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal preset depends on the target resolution. At 1080p, all four presets exceed 60 FPS, with Low at 157.9, Medium at 133, High at 102.2, and Ultra at 78.2. The Ultra preset is entirely playable here, and the 78.2 FPS average leaves room for demanding scenes. For players prioritizing visual fidelity, 1080p Ultra is the clear choice — the 22.5 FPS floor at 4K Ultra is not a concern at this resolution.

At 1440p, the recommendation shifts. High settings deliver 63.1 FPS, which is just above the 60 FPS threshold, while Medium offers 84.1 FPS for a more comfortable margin. Ultra drops to 47.8 FPS, which is below 60 FPS and may feel less smooth. The data supports Medium as the best default at 1440p — it provides 84.1 FPS, a 33.4% improvement over High, with likely minimal visual degradation in a game with static turn-based scenes. Low at 101.3 FPS is an option for high-refresh displays, but Medium’s balance is superior.

At 4K, no preset reaches 60 FPS. Ultra is effectively unplayable at 22.5 FPS, and High is marginal at 32.7 FPS. Medium at 43.1 FPS is the highest playable option, though still below the 60 FPS target. Low at 55.8 FPS is the only preset that approaches 60 FPS. For 4K, the recommendation is Low or Medium — Low at 55.8 FPS is the safer bet for stable gameplay, while Medium at 43.1 FPS offers better visuals if the player can tolerate lower frame rates. The data does not support 4K Ultra for this combo in Hard West.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel’s 10 nm process. Its base clock is 2.50 GHz with a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, and it carries 18 MB of shared L3 cache. In the measured FPS data, the CPU’s role is secondary — the frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K tracks the GPU’s workload closely, indicating that the CPU is not the limiting component in most configurations.

The CPU’s benchmark scores support this interpretation. In Cinebench R23, it scores 15935 multi-core and 2249 single-core. The multi-core score is respectable but not exceptional; the single-core score is more relevant for older games like Hard West, which often rely on one or two threads for game logic. The 3DMark results show a single-thread score of 910 and a 2-thread score of 1692, suggesting that the CPU has adequate single-thread headroom for the game’s turn-based mechanics, which do not demand high sustained frame rates.

At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 157.9 FPS — a high enough frame rate that the CPU’s per-core performance could become a factor if the GPU were faster. However, the RX 7600’s 63rd percentile ranking means it cannot push frame rates high enough to expose CPU limits. The CPU’s nearest rivals — the i7-9700 (0.1% lower score), i7-8700 (0.2% higher), and i5-11600K (0.4% lower) — all have similar performance profiles, so swapping the CPU would not meaningfully change the game’s results.

The CPU’s 6 cores and 12 threads provide ample parallelism for background tasks, but Hard West is not a multi-threaded title. The PassMark multi-thread score of 18747 and the Cinebench R20 multi-core score of 6692 indicate solid overall throughput, yet the game’s measured FPS does not scale with core count — it scales with GPU load. The 65 W TDP and dual-channel DDR4/DDR5 memory support round out the CPU’s profile, but none of these factors alter the fundamental conclusion: in this combo, the GPU dictates performance, and the CPU is a capable but non-limiting partner.