Hard West

# Hard West with Intel Core i5-12600KF + Intel Arc B570

This combination of the Intel Core i5-12600KF and Intel Arc B570 lands in the 2360th position out of 2949 tested combos for Hard West, placing it in the lower-middle tier of all configurations. The game, a turn-based tactics title from 2015, proves surprisingly demanding at higher settings, with the data showing a clear progression from playable frame rates at 1080p to borderline results at 4K. The Arc B570’s 10 GB of GDDR6 memory and 2500 MHz boost clock form the backbone of this performance, while the 10-core, 16-thread CPU provides ample headroom that never appears to bottleneck the GPU in this title.

FAQ

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

A: The data shows 1920x1080 as the optimal resolution, where even Ultra settings produce 63 FPS average, while High settings reach 84 FPS and Low hits 134 FPS. At 2560x1440, only Low and Medium settings stay above 60 FPS (85 and 69 FPS respectively), and at 3840x2160, every setting falls below 45 FPS.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B570 compare to its nearest GPU rivals?

A: The B570’s average benchmark score of 20556 places it 0.1% above the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534) and 0.4% above the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M (20480), while sitting 0.1% below the Intel Arc A750 (20582) and 0.5% below the AMD Radeon R9 M390X (20662).

Q: What is the performance difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: The measured FPS jumps from 134 FPS at Low to 110 FPS at Medium, then drops to 84 FPS at High and 63 FPS at Ultra. That represents a 71 FPS difference between the lowest and highest presets, or roughly 53% lower performance at Ultra compared to Low.

Q: Does the CPU or GPU limit performance in Hard West?

A: The resolution scaling suggests GPU limitation. As resolution increases from 1080p to 1440p to 4K at High settings, FPS drops from 84 to 53 to 28 respectively — a pattern consistent with the GPU becoming the bottleneck. The CPU’s 23391 Cinebench R23 multi-core score indicates it has substantial headroom.

Q: Can this combo maintain 60 FPS at 1440p?

A: Only at Low (85 FPS) and Medium (69 FPS) settings. High settings produce 53 FPS, and Ultra drops to 40 FPS. For a locked 60 FPS experience, Medium is the highest preset that achieves it at 2560x1440.

Q: What is the frame rate spread at Medium settings across resolutions?

A: At 1920x1080 Medium, the combo delivers 110 FPS average with a minimum of 93 FPS and maximum of 126 FPS. At 2560x1440 Medium, the average drops to 69 FPS with a range of 59 to 80 FPS. At 3840x2160 Medium, the average falls to 36 FPS with a spread of 31 to 42 FPS.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570’s specifications directly shape Hard West’s performance across all measured configurations. Its 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus provides 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves sufficient at lower resolutions but becomes a limiting factor as pixel count increases. The GPU’s 2500 MHz base and boost clocks are identical, indicating a fixed operating point that delivers consistent throughput without thermal or power throttling variance.

The B570’s rendering capabilities stem from its 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units. These translate to a pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s, which explains why the card handles 1080p with ease — the fill rate requirements at that resolution are well within its capacity. The 11.52 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power handles the game’s turn-based tactical rendering, which likely involves static scenes with moderate geometry rather than the heavy particle effects seen in action titles.

At 4K, the situation changes dramatically. The 28 FPS average at High settings suggests the B570’s memory bandwidth or fill rate becomes saturated. The 160-bit bus width, while adequate for 1080p and 1440p, struggles to feed the 8.3 million pixels at 3840x2160. The GPU’s 65th percentile ranking among all GPUs places it in the mid-range tier, and the measured results confirm this positioning — capable of smooth gameplay at mainstream resolutions but not designed for 4K gaming.

The Arc B570’s 150 W TDP and dual-slot design indicate a power-efficient architecture, though the 450 W suggested PSU requirement shows it needs a reasonable power supply. The PCIe 4.0 x8 interface provides sufficient bandwidth for this game, as evidenced by the scaling patterns — if the interface were a bottleneck, performance would not degrade so predictably with resolution increases.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s rank of 2360 out of 2949 tested configurations places it in the 80th percentile from the bottom, meaning roughly 20% of tested combos perform worse. This positioning is curious given the individual component rankings: the CPU sits at the 79th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU rests at the 65th percentile among all GPUs. The combination underperforms relative to what the individual parts might suggest, likely due to Hard West’s specific rendering demands.

The CPU’s nearest rivals provide context for its processing power. The Intel Core i9-10900K scores 27872 (0.3% higher), the AMD Ryzen 5 8500GE scores 27712 (0.3% lower), and the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D scores 27896 (0.3% higher). These tiny deltas indicate the i5-12600KF is performing essentially identically to these alternatives in synthetic benchmarks, yet the game’s FPS results depend far more on the GPU.

For the GPU, the rival comparisons show the B570 is tightly clustered with its nearest competitors. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile scores 20534 (0.1% lower), the Intel Arc A750 scores 20582 (0.1% higher), and the AMD Radeon R9 M390X scores 20662 (0.5% higher). This clustering suggests that swapping the B570 for any of these alternatives would produce nearly identical frame rates in Hard West, making the GPU choice less critical than the resolution and settings selection.

The rank of 2360 becomes more meaningful when considering the game’s age. Hard West launched in 2015, and the data indicates it doesn’t scale efficiently with modern hardware at high resolutions. The combo’s position in the bottom 20% of tested configurations suggests that many other GPU/CPU pairs handle this title better, likely due to better optimization for the game’s rendering engine rather than raw compute power.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers consistently playable frame rates across all presets. Low settings produce 134 FPS, Medium achieves 110 FPS with a minimum of 93 FPS and maximum of 126 FPS, High reaches 84 FPS, and Ultra maintains 63 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra is 71 FPS, showing that the game’s visual quality settings have a substantial impact on performance at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance drops become more pronounced. Low settings yield 85 FPS, Medium produces 69 FPS with a range of 59 to 80 FPS, High falls to 53 FPS, and Ultra drops to 40 FPS. The difference between Low and Ultra is 45 FPS, a smaller absolute gap than at 1080p but a larger percentage drop of 53%. The Medium preset’s minimum of 59 FPS indicates that frame pacing remains stable even at this higher resolution.

At 3840x2160, the combo struggles to maintain playability. Low settings produce 44 FPS, Medium averages 36 FPS with a minimum of 31 FPS and maximum of 42 FPS, High drops to 28 FPS, and Ultra falls to 21 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 31 FPS suggests occasional stutters, while the Ultra preset’s 21 FPS average would be borderline for turn-based gameplay where responsiveness matters less than in action genres.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at High settings shows a 31 FPS drop (84 to 53), and from 1440p to 4K another 25 FPS drop (53 to 28). This consistent degradation pattern points to a GPU bottleneck, as the frame rate decreases proportionally with pixel count rather than plateauing due to CPU limitations.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression across resolutions reveals a near-linear relationship with pixel count at each settings level. At Low settings, the FPS drops from 134 at 1080p to 85 at 1440p (a 37% reduction) and then to 44 at 4K (a 48% reduction from 1440p). The 1440p to 4K jump represents a 2.25x increase in pixels, and the FPS drops by roughly half, indicating the GPU is scaling predictably with workload.

At High settings, the pattern is steeper: 84 FPS at 1080p, 53 FPS at 1440p (37% drop), and 28 FPS at 4K (47% drop). This consistent proportional decline suggests the limiting component is the GPU’s rendering pipeline rather than memory capacity or bandwidth. If VRAM were the bottleneck, the 4K results would show a more dramatic collapse beyond the linear scaling.

The Medium preset shows the tightest frame ranges, with a 93-126 FPS spread at 1080p, 59-80 FPS at 1440p, and 31-42 FPS at 4K. These ranges indicate stable performance without major frame time spikes, which is notable for a game from 2015 running on modern hardware. The minimum FPS values never fall more than 15% below the average, suggesting consistent frame delivery.

The 1080p to 4K scaling at Ultra settings tells a different story: 63 FPS down to 21 FPS, a 67% reduction. This steeper decline at the highest preset suggests that Ultra settings introduce effects that disproportionately tax the GPU at high resolutions, possibly related to shadow rendering or post-processing that scales super-linearly with pixel count.

Settings Recommendations

For a smooth experience at 1920x1080, the Medium preset (110 FPS average) provides the best balance, offering a 26 FPS improvement over High while maintaining a minimum of 93 FPS that stays well above display refresh rates. The Ultra preset at 63 FPS is acceptable but provides diminishing returns over High’s 84 FPS for what appears to be minimal visual gain based on the performance cost.

At 2560x1440, Medium is the highest playable preset, delivering 69 FPS with a minimum of 59 FPS. Low settings at 85 FPS offer a more comfortable margin for 60 Hz displays, while High’s 53 FPS and Ultra’s 40 FPS fall below the threshold for smooth gameplay. The data suggests that players prioritizing frame rate stability should stick with Medium at this resolution.

For 3840x2160, only Low settings (44 FPS) approach playability, though the frame rate remains below 60 FPS. Medium at 36 FPS and High at 28 FPS are usable for a turn-based tactical game where input lag is less critical, but Ultra at 21 FPS would test patience even in a genre that tolerates lower frame rates. The recommendation for 4K is to accept the visual compromise of Low or Medium settings.

The measured data indicates that the sweet spot for this combo is 1080p with Medium settings, where the 110 FPS average and 93 FPS minimum provide a comfortable buffer. The 126 FPS maximum suggests the system can push higher in less demanding scenes, ensuring consistent performance throughout gameplay sessions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12600KF brings substantial processing power to this combination, with 10 cores and 16 threads running at a 3.70 GHz base clock and 4.90 GHz boost clock. The CPU’s 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide ample data storage for game logic, while its 80 KB per-core L1 cache handles frequently accessed instructions efficiently.

The CPU’s benchmark results reveal its capabilities: a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 23391 and single-core score of 3302, plus a Geekbench multi-core of 12137 and single-core of 2157. These numbers indicate the i5-12600KF sits comfortably in the 79th percentile among all CPUs, with its nearest rival being the AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D at 27896 (0.3% higher) and the Intel Core i9-10900K at 27872 (0.3% higher).

In Hard West, the CPU’s role is less demanding than in action games due to the turn-based nature of gameplay. The game’s logic, pathfinding, and AI decisions occur during turn transitions, while rendered scenes remain static during player actions. This means the CPU’s 16 threads rarely face sustained heavy loads, and the data confirms this — the FPS scaling with resolution is purely GPU-bound.

The 3DMark multi-threaded scores show the CPU’s scaling behavior: 1995 at 2 threads, 3806 at 4 threads, 6128 at 8 threads, and 7956 at 16 threads. This near-linear scaling indicates efficient thread utilization, which would benefit the game’s turn-computation phases. The PassMark multi-thread score of 27575 and physics score of 1539 further confirm solid processing performance for game logic.

The CPU’s 125 W TDP and Alder Lake architecture on Intel’s 10 nm process provide efficient power delivery, with the DDR4 and DDR5 memory support offering flexibility for system builders. The 20 Gen 4 PCIe lanes from the CPU provide sufficient bandwidth for the B570’s PCIe 4.0 x8 interface, ensuring no data transfer bottleneck between the two components.

The absence of integrated graphics on the i5-12600KF means the B570 handles all display output, and the CPU’s multiplier-unlocked design allows for overclocking potential, though the measured results suggest the stock configuration is more than adequate for this game. The CPU’s 3DMark single-thread score of 1016 and PassMark single-thread of 3925 indicate strong per-core performance that prevents any single-threaded bottlenecks in game logic.