Hard West

The Intel Core i5-12400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 places 54th out of 1,699 tested combinations in Hard West, a result that puts it comfortably inside the top 4% of all configurations cataloged for this title. This ranking is unsurprising given the GPU’s position in the broader hardware hierarchy — the RTX 5090 sits in the 94th percentile against all GPUs — and the CPU’s 77th percentile against all processors. What is more telling is how the two components split the workload in a turn-based tactics game that is not typically considered a graphics stress test, and how the measured frame rates scale across resolutions and settings. The data shows a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-limited at every measured configuration, but with enough CPU headroom to avoid becoming a bottleneck even at the lowest settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 54 out of 1,699 tested pairs translates to a position within the top 3.2% of all configurations benchmarked in Hard West. This is a strong result, but the context matters: the database includes many combinations with far more modest GPUs, and the RTX 5090’s presence in this pairing boosts it above the overwhelming majority. The CPU itself is not among the very fastest in the database — its average benchmark score of 19,221 places it just 0.1% ahead of the Intel Core i7-8700K and 0.3% ahead of the Intel Core i5-1335U, while trailing the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS by 0.7% and the AMD EPYC 7773X by 1.3%. These are negligible differences in synthetic tests, but they indicate that the i5-12400F is a mid-pack performer in raw compute. The GPU, by contrast, is near the top: its average benchmark score of 84,306 is just 0.1% ahead of the RTX 5090 D, 0.2% ahead of the RTX 5050 Mobile, and 1.3% ahead of the AMD Radeon PRO W6600, while falling 1.6% short of the NVIDIA CMP 40HX. The GPU’s 94th percentile ranking versus all GPUs confirms that this combo’s high placement is driven almost entirely by the graphics card.

GPU Role

The RTX 5090 brings an enormous amount of graphics horsepower to Hard West, and the benchmark results reflect that. Its memory configuration is substantial: 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2017 MHz and boosts to 2407 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). These figures are far beyond what a turn-based tactics game from 2015 requires, and the measured frame rates confirm that the GPU is never the limiting factor at any resolution. At 1080p, the GPU delivers between 176.5 FPS at Ultra and 248.4 FPS at Low, with the gap between settings narrowing as resolution increases. The GPU’s compute capabilities — 104.8 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, 21,760 shading units, and 680 texture mapping units — are deployed here with substantial headroom. The card’s 176 ROPs and 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate ensure that even the highest-detail settings at 4K remain playable, with a measured 59.9 FPS at Ultra 3840x2160. Given that the game is from 2015, the RTX 5090’s modern features — DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and 170 RT cores — are largely unused, but the raw rasterization performance is what drives these scores.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Alder Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz. Its 18 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core are adequate for Hard West’s AI and logic calculations, but the game’s turn-based nature means CPU load is typically modest. The CPU’s synthetic benchmarks show a balanced profile: a single-thread score of 3,481 in PassMark, a multi-thread score of 19,433, and a Cinebench R23 multi-core result of 16,518. These numbers place it in a competitive range with the i7-8700K (which scores 19,210 on average) and the Ryzen 5 7533HS (19,364), but the differences are small enough to be noise. In Hard West, the CPU’s role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and manage game logic, and the measured FPS scaling suggests it does this without bottlenecking. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 248.4 FPS, which is likely near the game engine’s ceiling; at 1080p Ultra, it drops to 176.5 FPS, indicating that the GPU is still doing the heavy lifting even at lower resolutions. The CPU’s 77th percentile ranking versus all CPUs is a fair representation of its standing — respectable, but not elite, and clearly not the reason this combo ranks so highly in Hard West.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates show a clear pattern: higher resolutions and higher settings both reduce FPS, but the GPU’s headroom means even the most demanding configuration remains playable. At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 248.4 FPS at Low, 228.4 FPS at Medium, 207 FPS at High, and 176.5 FPS at Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is 71.9 FPS, a 29% reduction, which is modest compared to what lower-end GPUs would experience. Moving to 2560x1440, the numbers drop to 214 FPS at Low, 193.5 FPS at Medium, 149 FPS at High, and 114.9 FPS at Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra widens to 99.1 FPS, a 46% reduction, indicating that resolution scaling is beginning to tax the GPU more heavily. At 3840x2160, the results are 123 FPS at Low, 99.6 FPS at Medium, 79.3 FPS at High, and 59.9 FPS at Ultra. The Low-to-Ultra delta here is 63.1 FPS, a 51% reduction. Notably, the 4K Ultra result of 59.9 FPS is just shy of the 60 FPS target, while 4K High at 79.3 FPS provides comfortable margin. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Ultra settings is from 176.5 FPS to 59.9 FPS, a 66% drop, which is consistent with a GPU that has ample bandwidth and compute for this title. The minimum and maximum FPS are not recorded, so the average values represent the full picture available.

FAQ

*Q: How does this combo rank against all tested configurations in Hard West?*

A: This combo ranks 54th out of 1,699 tested combinations, placing it in the top 3.2% of all pairs benchmarked for this game.

Q: Is the GPU or the CPU more responsible for this combo’s high ranking?

A: The GPU is the dominant factor. The RTX 5090 sits in the 94th percentile against all GPUs, while the i5-12400F is in the 77th percentile against all CPUs, and the measured FPS scaling indicates the GPU handles nearly all the workload.

Q: What frame rate can I expect at 4K Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the combo achieves an average of 59.9 FPS, which is just below the 60 FPS threshold. Dropping to High settings raises it to 79.3 FPS.

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

A: The i5-12400F’s average benchmark score of 19,221 is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i7-8700K, 0.3% higher than the Intel Core i5-1335U, 0.7% lower than the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS, and 1.3% lower than the AMD EPYC 7773X.

Q: Does the GPU’s 32 GB of memory matter for this game?

A: Hard West is from 2015 and does not require anywhere near 32 GB of GDDR7 memory; the GPU’s 1.79 TB/s bandwidth and 32 GB capacity are far beyond the game’s needs, meaning memory is never a limiting factor.

Q: Is there any resolution or setting where the CPU becomes a bottleneck?

A: The data does not indicate a CPU bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 248.4 FPS, which is likely near the engine’s limit, and the FPS scaling from Low to Ultra at all resolutions is consistent with GPU-bound performance.