Hard West

# Hard West — Intel Core i5-14600KF + Intel Arc B390

Hard West is a turn-based tactics title from 2015, and the measured performance data for this Intel Core i5-14600KF and Intel Arc B390 combination reveals a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics side of the equation. The Arc B390, with its integrated design and 9th percentile ranking among all GPUs, delivers playable frame rates only at 1080p with lower presets, while the 14-core, 20-thread i5-14600KF sits in the 90th percentile among all CPUs. Across all resolutions and settings, the average frame rates range from a low of 14 FPS at 4K Ultra to a high of 87 FPS at 1080p Low, with the combo ranking 2614th out of 2949 tested combinations in this game. The data shows a clear pattern: this pairing is viable for 1080p gaming at Low or Medium settings, but struggles at higher resolutions and preset levels.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this system in Hard West?

A: Based on the measured data, 1920x1080 with Low settings delivers the highest average frame rate at 87 FPS, while 1920x1080 with Medium settings provides a more balanced experience at 71 FPS with a minimum of 61 FPS. These are the only configurations that achieve average frame rates above 70 FPS.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in general benchmark performance?

A: The Arc B390's average benchmark score is 1482, which places it just 1.3% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% ahead of the GeForce 800M (1460), 2.5% ahead of the GT 625 OEM (1446), and 2.7% ahead of the GT 710 (1443). These are extremely small margins, indicating performance at the very bottom of the GPU spectrum.

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

A: At 1920x1080, the average frame rate drops from 87 FPS on Low to 41 FPS on Ultra, representing a reduction of 46 FPS or roughly 53% lower performance. The Medium preset sits between these at 71 FPS average.

Q: Is the CPU a limiting factor in this game's performance?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not the primary bottleneck. The Intel Core i5-14600KF has 14 cores, 20 threads, and boosts to 5.30 GHz, placing it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs. The GPU's 9th percentile ranking indicates the graphics solution is the limiting component, especially at higher resolutions.

Q: How does the i5-14600KF compare to its nearest CPU rivals?

A: The i5-14600KF has an average benchmark score of 49394, which is 0.3% higher than the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49228), 0.4% higher than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49196), and 0.8% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (48995). It trails the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 (49796) by 0.8%.

Q: What are the minimum frame rates recorded for the Medium preset across resolutions?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum frame rates. At 1920x1080, the minimum is 61 FPS and maximum is 82 FPS. At 2560x1440, the minimum drops to 38 FPS with a maximum of 52 FPS. At 3840x2160, the minimum is 20 FPS and maximum is 27 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured frame rate data for Hard West with this hardware combination makes the optimal settings choice straightforward. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 87 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded in any configuration. However, the Medium preset at 1080p delivers 71 FPS average with a minimum of 61 FPS, providing a more visually detailed experience while still maintaining playable performance. The gap between these two presets is 16 FPS, but the Medium preset's minimum of 61 FPS ensures the frame rate stays above the 60 FPS threshold, making it the recommended choice for a smooth experience with better visual quality.

Moving to the High preset at 1080p, the average drops to 55 FPS, which is still playable but represents a 22.5% reduction compared to Medium. The Ultra preset at 1080p falls to 41 FPS average, which begins to feel less responsive for a turn-based tactics game where camera movement and unit selection benefit from smoother visuals. For 1080p gaming, the Medium preset offers the best balance between visual fidelity and performance, as the 71 FPS average with a 61 FPS minimum provides consistent frame pacing without sacrificing too much detail.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset averages 45 FPS with a minimum of 38 FPS, which is borderline acceptable for a slower-paced tactical game but noticeably less fluid. The Low preset at 1440p averages 55 FPS, making it the better choice if resolution is prioritized over visual detail. The High preset at 1440p drops to 35 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 26 FPS, both of which are less ideal. For 1440p, the Low preset is recommended, as it maintains a higher average frame rate while allowing the higher resolution to compensate for reduced detail settings.

At 3840x2160, none of the presets achieve playable performance. The Low preset averages 29 FPS, Medium averages 24 FPS with a minimum of 20 FPS, High averages 18 FPS, and Ultra averages 14 FPS. The data indicates that 4K gaming is not viable with this combination, and users should stick to 1080p or 1440p with appropriate preset choices.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior in Hard West reveals a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-limited. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 at the Medium preset, the average frame rate drops from 71 FPS to 45 FPS, a reduction of 26 FPS or approximately 37%. Scaling further from 1440p to 3840x2160 at Medium brings the average down to 24 FPS, another 21 FPS drop or about 47% reduction. This consistent pattern across resolution steps indicates that the rendering workload is scaling almost directly with pixel count, which is typical of a GPU-bound scenario.

The Low preset shows similar behavior: 87 FPS at 1080p falls to 55 FPS at 1440p (a 37% drop), then to 29 FPS at 4K (a 47% drop from 1440p). The High preset follows the same trajectory with 55 FPS at 1080p, 35 FPS at 1440p, and 18 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset yields 41 FPS at 1080p, 26 FPS at 1440p, and 14 FPS at 4K. The proportional scaling across all presets strongly suggests that the Intel Arc B390's rendering capabilities are the limiting factor, as the frame rate reductions closely mirror the pixel count increases from 1080p (2.07 million pixels) to 1440p (3.69 million pixels) to 4K (8.29 million pixels).

The CPU's role in this scaling is minimal. The Intel Core i5-14600KF with its 14 cores and 20 threads is far more capable than what a 2015 turn-based tactics game requires, so the resolution-dependent frame rate drops cannot be attributed to processor limitations. The data indicates that the Arc B390, with its integrated design and 7.680 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, is saturated by the increasing resolution demands, and this is where the performance ceiling lies.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are as follows: Low preset achieves 87 FPS, Medium preset achieves 71 FPS with a minimum of 61 FPS and maximum of 82 FPS, High preset achieves 55 FPS, and Ultra preset achieves 41 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 46 FPS, with each preset step costing approximately 14-16 FPS on average. The Medium preset's recorded minimum of 61 FPS indicates that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate stays above the 60 FPS threshold, making this the most consistent configuration at 1080p.

At 2560x1440, the average frame rates are: Low preset at 55 FPS, Medium preset at 45 FPS with a minimum of 38 FPS and maximum of 52 FPS, High preset at 35 FPS, and Ultra preset at 26 FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs 10 FPS, from Medium to High costs 10 FPS, and from High to Ultra costs 9 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 38 FPS shows that frame times can become inconsistent at this resolution, though the turn-based nature of Hard West makes sub-40 FPS dips more tolerable than in fast-paced genres.

At 3840x2160, the average frame rates are: Low preset at 29 FPS, Medium preset at 24 FPS with a minimum of 20 FPS and maximum of 27 FPS, High preset at 18 FPS, and Ultra preset at 14 FPS. The Medium preset's minimum of 20 FPS is very low, and even the Low preset's 29 FPS average falls below the 30 FPS threshold often considered the minimum for acceptable playability. None of the 4K configurations provide a playable experience, and the data suggests that 4K should be avoided entirely with this hardware.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is the dominant factor in this system's Hard West performance. Based on the Panther Lake chip with Xe3-LPG architecture, this integrated GPU has 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 raster operation units. Its boost clock reaches 2500 MHz, enabling a pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance of 7.680 TFLOPS places the Arc B390 in a very low performance tier, as reflected in its 9th percentile ranking among all GPUs and its average benchmark score of 1482.

The GPU's nearest rivals in benchmark performance are all older NVIDIA parts: the GeForce GT 520MX (1463 score, 1.3% behind), GeForce 800M (1460, 1.5% behind), GT 625 OEM (1446, 2.5% behind), and GT 710 (1443, 2.7% behind). These comparisons illustrate the Arc B390's position at the entry level of the GPU hierarchy, and the measured frame rates in Hard West are consistent with this low standing. The GPU's memory configuration is System Shared, meaning it relies on system memory rather than dedicated VRAM, and the memory bandwidth is listed as System Dependent. This shared memory arrangement can further impact performance in memory-intensive scenarios, though the turn-based nature of Hard West likely mitigates some of these effects.

The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 provides a synthetic reference point, and the real-world Hard West results align with this modest performance profile. At 1080p Low, the 87 FPS average is the only configuration that approaches high refresh rate territory, while all other settings and resolutions fall well below that mark. The GPU's 12 RT cores and DirectX 12 Ultimate support indicate modern feature support, but the raw rendering throughput is insufficient for demanding settings in this title.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF plays a supporting role in Hard West performance, and the data shows it is not the bottleneck. This processor features 14 cores and 20 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. Built on Raptor Lake architecture with a 10 nm process, it has 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 2 MB of L2 cache per core. The 125W TDP and Intel Socket 1700 compatibility are standard for this generation, and the CPU's 90th percentile ranking among all processors reflects its strong overall capability.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 49394 places it in close competition with several high-end rivals. It is 0.3% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49228), 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49196), and 0.8% ahead of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (48995). The only rival that edges it out is the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 (49796), which leads by 0.8%. These margins are all within 1% of each other, indicating that the i5-14600KF is competitive with contemporary high-end options.

In the context of Hard West, a turn-based tactics game from 2015, the CPU's capabilities vastly exceed the game's requirements. The single-core performance, as shown by the Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4594 and Geekbench single-core score of 2445, is more than sufficient for the game logic and AI calculations. The multi-core performance, with Cinebench R23 multi-core at 32544 and Passmark multithread at 38697, further demonstrates that the processor is not strained by this workload. The frame rate patterns across resolutions and settings consistently point to the GPU as the limiting component, with the CPU maintaining headroom even at the lowest frame rates.

How This Combo Ranks

This Intel Core i5-14600KF and Intel Arc B390 combination ranks 2614th out of 2949 tested combinations in Hard West, placing it in the bottom 11% of all systems tested. This ranking is heavily influenced by the GPU's weak performance, as the 9th percentile Arc B390 drags down what would otherwise be a strong pairing with the 90th percentile CPU. The combination's position in the rankings reflects the measured frame rates: even at the best settings configuration (1080p Low at 87 FPS), the system barely reaches mainstream performance levels, and most configurations fall below 60 FPS.

The disparity between the CPU and GPU performance tiers is striking. The i5-14600KF's 90th percentile ranking suggests a processor that outperforms 90% of all CPUs, while the Arc B390's 9th percentile ranking indicates it outperforms only 9% of all GPUs. This creates a significant imbalance in the system, where the CPU is capable of much higher frame rates than the GPU can deliver. In Hard West specifically, the gameplay mechanics of turn-based tactics place relatively low demands on both components, but the GPU still becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings.

Comparatively, the combo rank of 2614 out of 2949 means that approximately 335 tested combinations performed worse in this game. However, the vast majority of systems with similarly capable CPUs would likely achieve better results with a more powerful GPU. The data suggests that users with this combination should target 1080p with Medium settings as the sweet spot, as this configuration delivers the best balance of visual quality and frame rate consistency. For those prioritizing frame rate above all else, the 1080p Low preset at 87 FPS average is the only configuration that approaches high-refresh-rate levels, while 1440p and 4K resolutions are not recommended given the measured performance limitations.