Hard West

The Intel Core i5-14400F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 delivers a wide spread of frame rates in Hard West, ranging from 246.7 FPS at 1080p Low to 37.1 FPS at 4K Ultra. The data shows that this combo sits at rank 506 out of 1699 tested combinations, placing it comfortably in the top third of all systems for this turn-based tactics title. The following sections break down exactly how this pairing behaves across resolutions and settings, and what the numbers indicate about where the performance ceiling lies.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K reveals a system that transitions from CPU-bound at lower resolutions to heavily GPU-bound at the top end. At High settings, the jump from 1080p (156.6 FPS) to 1440p (96 FPS) is a 38.7% reduction, while moving from 1440p to 4K (52.4 FPS) costs another 45.4%. That steepening curve is classic GPU saturation behavior — the RTX 3080 is the limiting factor as pixel count climbs.

Looking at Low settings tells the same story more dramatically. The 1080p Low result of 246.7 FPS drops to 155.9 FPS at 1440p (a 36.8% loss) and then to 84.9 FPS at 4K (a 45.5% loss from 1440p). The fact that the percentage losses are nearly identical between High and Low at each resolution step suggests that the GPU is fully engaged even at Low settings beyond 1080p. At 1080p Low, the CPU is likely the bottleneck — the i5-14400F’s 10 cores and 16 threads can only push the engine so far, and 246.7 FPS is close to the practical ceiling for this title’s simulation loop.

Medium settings follow the same pattern: 199.5 FPS at 1080p, 124.7 FPS at 1440p, and 67.4 FPS at 4K. The 4K Medium result is notable — it is 28.6% higher than 4K High (52.4 FPS), indicating that the Ultra preset’s additional effects are disproportionately expensive at high pixel counts. Hard West is not a twitch shooter, so the absolute frame rates matter less than consistency, but the scaling data shows that players targeting 60 FPS at 4K will need to stay at Medium or below.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor from the Core 14th Gen series, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its architecture is Raptor Lake-R on a 10 nm process, and it supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory. For a turn-based tactics game like Hard West, the CPU is responsible for the game’s logic, pathfinding, and AI decisions, which are typically single-threaded or lightly threaded workloads.

The benchmark data for this CPU shows a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914 and a single-core score of 3093. In the broader CPU landscape, it sits at the 88th percentile versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 32508. Its nearest rivals are the Intel Core i7-12800H (32513, delta 0%), the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (32446, delta 0.2%), and the AMD Ryzen 7 250 (32584, delta -0.2%). These deltas are all within a fraction of a percent, meaning this i5 is effectively tied with those parts in general compute — it is neither a standout nor a laggard.

In Hard West specifically, the 1080p Low result of 246.7 FPS hints at the CPU’s ceiling. The game’s turn-based nature means it rarely needs to stream massive worlds, but the simulation still runs every frame. The 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache help with the repetitive lookups common in tactical AI. The 4.70 GHz boost clock is the key asset here — at 1080p Low, the game is likely hitting the single-thread limit, and the i5’s high boost helps it stay ahead of slower-clocked rivals. The data shows the CPU is not the limiting factor at 1440p or 4K, where the GPU’s workload dominates.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific CPU-GPU combination holds rank 506 out of 1699 tested combos in Hard West, which places it in the 70th percentile of all systems tested for this game. That is a solid position — not top-tier, but well above the median. The ranking reflects the balance between the i5-14400F’s strong single-thread performance and the RTX 3080’s substantial rasterization power.

The GPU’s percentile versus all GPUs is 80, and its average benchmark score is 35787. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro Duo (35860, delta -0.2%), the AMD Radeon 880M (35646, delta 0.4%), and the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (36101, delta -0.9%). The RTX 3080 is essentially matched with the RX 7900 GRE in synthetic tests, but in Hard West the combo rank suggests the NVIDIA card’s driver optimization and the i5’s high boost clock work well together. The combo rank of 506 is respectable, but it is importantly many combos above it likely pair the RTX 3080 with faster CPUs from the Core i7 or Ryzen 7 lines, which would help at 1080p where the CPU matters more.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the data shows a wide range depending on settings:

• Low: 246.7 FPS
• Medium: 199.5 FPS
• High: 156.6 FPS
• Ultra: 114.4 FPS

The 1080p results are all playable, but the gap between Low and Ultra is 132.3 FPS, indicating that the Ultra preset’s effects are costly even at this resolution. The 1080p Ultra result of 114.4 FPS is still above 60, so players with 1080p displays can max the game out.

At 2560x1440:

• Low: 155.9 FPS
• Medium: 124.7 FPS
• High: 96 FPS
• Ultra: 72.9 FPS

1440p is where the RTX 3080 starts to flex its muscle. The 1440p Ultra result of 72.9 FPS is only 5.5% below the 1080p High result (156.6 FPS) — wait, that comparison is not right; the actual delta is that 1440p Ultra is 53.5% lower than 1080p High. The 1440p High result of 96 FPS is a sweet spot for high-refresh 1440p monitors, and even Ultra stays above 70 FPS.

At 3840x2160:

• Low: 84.9 FPS
• Medium: 67.4 FPS
• High: 52.4 FPS
• Ultra: 37.1 FPS

4K is where this combo struggles. The 4K Low result of 84.9 FPS is playable, but Medium drops to 67.4 FPS, High falls to 52.4 FPS, and Ultra is 37.1 FPS — below the 60 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for smooth play. The 4K Ultra result is 56.2% lower than 4K Medium, showing that the Ultra preset’s extra effects are extremely demanding at this resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA102 chip on an 8 nm process from Samsung. It has 8704 shading units, 272 texture mapping units, and 96 ROPs, with 68 ray tracing cores and 272 tensor cores. The memory configuration is 10 GB of GDDR6X on a 320-bit bus, delivering 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The core clocks are 1440 MHz base and 1710 MHz boost, with memory running at 19 Gbps effective.

The GPU’s benchmark scores show a passmark G3D score of 25086 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 4407. Its percentile versus all GPUs is 80, meaning it outperforms 80% of all GPUs tested. The nearest rival data shows it is within 1% of the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE and the AMD Radeon 880M, which is remarkable given the different architectures.

In Hard West, the GPU’s role becomes dominant above 1080p. The 4K Medium result of 67.4 FPS versus the 4K Low result of 84.9 FPS shows a 20.6% drop for one settings tier, which is a clear sign that the GPU is being saturated. The 10 GB VRAM is likely sufficient for this game — Hard West is from 2015, so texture sizes are modest — but the 320-bit bus and high bandwidth ensure that even at 4K Ultra, the GPU is not memory-starved. The RTX 3080’s 29.77 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is more than enough for a turn-based tactics title; the bottleneck is the rasterization pipeline at high resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to a clear sweet spot for this combo. For 1080p displays, the Ultra preset at 114.4 FPS is the best choice — it delivers the full visual experience while staying well above 60 FPS. There is no reason to drop below High at 1080p, as even Ultra maintains a high frame rate.

For 1440p, the High preset at 96 FPS offers the best balance. It is 31.7% faster than Ultra (72.9 FPS) and only 23% slower than Medium (124.7 FPS), but the visual quality jump from Medium to High is substantial in most games. If the player prefers maximum fidelity, Ultra at 72.9 FPS is still playable, but the data suggests High is the practical ceiling for consistent performance.

For 4K, the Medium preset at 67.4 FPS is the recommended default. It is the only 4K setting that clears the 60 FPS bar while still providing moderate visual quality. The Low preset (84.9 FPS) is viable for players who prioritize frame rate above all, but the jump from Low to Medium costs only 20.6% performance and likely improves visuals significantly. The High preset at 52.4 FPS and Ultra at 37.1 FPS are not recommended for 4K play, as they fall below the 60 FPS threshold and the frame time consistency in a turn-based game matters less than in action titles, but the data shows those settings are for screenshot purposes rather than gameplay.

Overall, the i5-14400F + RTX 3080 combo in Hard West is a capable pairing that handles 1080p and 1440p with ease, while 4K requires a settings compromise. The rank of 506 out of 1699 confirms it is a solid mid-to-high-tier system for this game, and the data indicates that players should prioritize GPU settings at higher resolutions, as the CPU is rarely the limiting factor beyond 1080p.