Hard West

# Hard West: Intel Core i5-14600KF + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Performance Analysis

This pairing of Intel's Core i5-14600KF (Raptor Lake Refresh, 14 cores, 20 threads) with NVIDIA's RTX 4080 (Ada Lovelace, 16 GB GDDR6X) delivers a combination that ranks 221st out of 3,722 tested combos in Hard West, placing it in the top 6% of all configurations. The measured frame rates across resolutions and settings paint a picture of a system that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions while showing CPU headroom at 1080p, where the 14-core processor's strong single-thread performance becomes the limiting factor. With average FPS ranging from 51 (4K Ultra) to 302 (1080p Low), this combo handles the 2015 turn-based tactics title with substantial margin at every setting tier, though the data reveals interesting scaling behavior that merits detailed examination.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS this combo achieves in Hard West?

A: The highest recorded average FPS is 302 at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The Medium preset at the same resolution yields 269 FPS, High delivers 206 FPS, and Ultra drops to 155 FPS. At 2560x1440, the Low setting produces 207 FPS, while 3840x2160 Low reaches 109 FPS.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested configurations?

A: The Intel Core i5-14600KF + RTX 4080 combination ranks 221st out of 3,722 total combos tested in Hard West, which places it in the top 5.9% of all configurations in the database.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 4K at Medium settings?

A: At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 269 at 1920x1080 to 170 at 2560x1440, then further to 89 at 3840x2160. This represents a 66.9% reduction from 1080p to 1440p, and a 47.6% reduction from 1440p to 4K, with the total drop from 1080p to 4K being 180 FPS (66.9% decrease).

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its nearest rival in GPU benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080 scores an average benchmark of 54,247, which is 0.1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER (54,209) and 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54,828). It trails the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698) by 2.6% and the AMD Radeon 8060S (55,757) by 2.7% in average GPU benchmark scores.

Q: What is the lowest FPS recorded in the measured data?

A: The lowest average FPS recorded is 51 at 3840x2160 with Ultra settings. The Medium preset at 4K shows a minimum FPS of 76 and maximum of 103, while all other resolution/setting combinations do not have minimum or maximum FPS values reported.

Q: What are the CPU's benchmark scores relative to its nearest rivals?

A: The i5-14600KF has an average benchmark score of 49,394, which is 0.3% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49,228) and 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49,196). It also leads the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (48,995) by 0.8%, while trailing the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 (49,796) by 0.8%.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 is built on the AD103 chip using TSMC's 5 nm process, with 45,900 million transistors packed into a 379 mm² die. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2205 MHz and boosts to 2505 MHz, with memory running at 1400 MHz (22.4 Gbps effective). The 16 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 256-bit bus provides 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth, which proves more than sufficient for Hard West's turn-based tactics rendering demands.

The GPU's compute resources are substantial: 9,728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, 112 ROPs, 76 ray tracing cores, and 304 tensor cores. These specifications translate to a pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s, texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s, and 48.74 TFLOPS of FP32 performance (with FP16 at the same 48.74 TFLOPS due to 1:1 ratio). The graphics card draws up to 320 W TDP and requires a 700 W suggested PSU, using a single 16-pin power connector in a triple-slot form factor measuring 310 mm in length.

In benchmark terms, the RTX 4080 achieves an average score of 54,247, placing it in the 86th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest competitor, the RTX 4080 SUPER, scores 54,209 — a mere 0.1% difference. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54,828) sits 1.1% behind, while both the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698) and AMD Radeon 8060S (55,757) lead by 2.6% and 2.7% respectively. In DirectX-specific tests, the GPU scores 370 in PassMark DirectX 9, 314 in DirectX 11, and 132 in DirectX 12, with a PassMark G3D score of 34,457.

For Hard West specifically, the GPU's role becomes dominant as resolution increases. At 1080p, frame rates exceed 300 FPS at Low settings, indicating the GPU is not the bottleneck. However, at 4K, the Ultra preset drops to 51 FPS average — the lowest measurement in the dataset — showing that the RTX 4080's raw throughput is being taxed by the combination of high resolution and maximum quality settings. The GPU's 16 GB VRAM capacity is ample for this title, and the 716.8 GB/s memory bandwidth ensures texture streaming at 4K doesn't introduce stutter.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600KF is a 14-core, 20-thread processor from the Raptor Lake architecture (Raptor Lake-R codename), manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process with a 257 mm² die size. It runs at a 3.50 GHz base clock and boosts to 5.30 GHz, with a 125 W TDP. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 24 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support includes both DDR4 and DDR5 in dual-channel configuration, with ECC support enabled.

The CPU's benchmark results show strong performance across the board. In Cinebench R23, it scores 32,544 multi-core and 4,594 single-core; in Cinebench R20, 13,668 multi-core and 1,929 single-core; and in Cinebench R15, 3,280 multi-core and 462 single-core. Geekbench results show 17,085 multi-core and 2,445 single-core. PassMark tests reveal 125,982 in integer math, 93,048 in floating point math, 38,697 in multithread, and 4,273 in single-thread tests. The average benchmark score is 49,394, placing it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the i5-14600KF is 0.3% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49,228) and 0.4% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49,196). It also leads the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 (48,995) by 0.8%, while the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 388 (49,796) leads it by 0.8%. These margins are small, indicating the i5-14600KF sits at a competitive performance plateau.

In Hard West, the CPU's role is most apparent at 1080p with Low settings, where the GPU is so far ahead that the processor's 5.30 GHz boost clock and strong single-thread performance become the pacing factor. The 302 FPS ceiling at 1080p Low suggests the CPU's game logic and draw call processing limit frame generation. The 14 cores and 20 threads provide ample parallelism for the turn-based tactics genre, where AI calculations and pathfinding can leverage multiple cores. The 24 MB L3 cache helps maintain low latency for the game's data structures.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-14600KF + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 combination ranks 221st out of 3,722 tested combos in Hard West, placing it in the top 5.9% of all configurations. This ranking reflects the synergy between a 90th-percentile CPU and an 86th-percentile GPU, where neither component bottlenecks the other to a degree that would push the combo lower in the standings.

The rank of 221 out of 3,722 means 3,501 other combos rank below this pairing. While the top 220 combos likely feature higher-end processors (such as Core i9 or Ryzen 9 parts) paired with the RTX 4080 or stronger GPUs, this combo's placement suggests it outperforms many configurations with nominally similar hardware. The gap between the i5-14600KF and its nearest CPU rivals is less than 1% in average benchmark scores, so the CPU choice alone does not explain the rank difference — the GPU and its interaction with the game's engine at various settings are equally important.

The combo's percentile placement (top 5.9%) is consistent with the individual component percentiles: the CPU at 90th and GPU at 86th. The slight improvement in combo rank relative to component percentiles suggests favorable scaling in Hard West, where the game's turn-based nature allows the CPU to stay ahead of GPU demands at most settings, preventing CPU-bound scenarios except at the very lowest quality presets and resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals how the bottleneck shifts as resolution increases. At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 155 (Ultra) to 302 (Low). Moving to 2560x1440, the range becomes 98 (Ultra) to 207 (Low). At 3840x2160, the range tightens to 51 (Ultra) to 109 (Low).

The scaling behavior differs by setting tier. For Low settings, the FPS drops from 302 at 1080p to 207 at 1440p (31.5% decrease), then to 109 at 4K (47.3% decrease from 1440p). For High settings, the drop is from 206 at 1080p to 131 at 1440p (36.4% decrease), then to 69 at 4K (47.3% decrease). Ultra settings show 155 at 1080p, 98 at 1440p (36.8% decrease), and 51 at 4K (48.0% decrease).

These percentage drops indicate that the GPU becomes progressively more limiting as resolution increases, with the 4K step consistently costing around 47-48% of the 1440p frame rate regardless of settings. This consistent scaling suggests the RTX 4080's pixel throughput and memory bandwidth are the determining factors at 4K, while at 1080p the CPU's ability to feed the GPU with draw calls and game state updates caps performance.

The fact that 1080p Low achieves 302 FPS while 4K Low achieves 109 FPS — a 2.77x difference — shows that the GPU's 280.6 GPixel/s pixel rate and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth are heavily utilized as resolution climbs. The 4K Ultra result of 51 FPS is the only measurement below 60 FPS, indicating the combo is only marginally insufficient for maxed-out 4K gaming in this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

1920x1080:

• Low: 302 FPS average — the highest measurement in the entire dataset, indicating the CPU is the limiting factor at this resolution and setting.
• Medium: 269 FPS average, with a minimum of 228 and maximum of 309. The 41 FPS spread between min and max shows some frame time variance, but remains far above display refresh rates.
• High: 206 FPS average — a 24% drop from Medium, suggesting the High preset adds meaningful pixel shading work.
• Ultra: 155 FPS average — the largest single-step drop (51 FPS from High) among 1080p settings, indicating Ultra introduces effects that heavily tax the GPU.

2560x1440:

• Low: 207 FPS average — a 31.5% reduction from the 1080p Low result, showing the expected resolution scaling for lightweight rendering.
• Medium: 170 FPS average, with minimum 144 and maximum 195. The 51 FPS min-max spread is the widest recorded at any resolution/setting combination.
• High: 131 FPS average — a 23% drop from Medium, consistent with the 1080p pattern.
• Ultra: 98 FPS average — the only 1440p measurement below 100 FPS, but still comfortably above 60 FPS for smooth gameplay.

3840x2160:

• Low: 109 FPS average — the only 4K measurement above 100 FPS, demonstrating that even at 4K, reduced settings allow high frame rates.
• Medium: 89 FPS average, with minimum 76 and maximum 103. The 27 FPS spread is the tightest among Medium presets across resolutions.
• High: 69 FPS average — a 22.5% drop from Medium, closely matching the scaling pattern observed at lower resolutions.
• Ultra: 51 FPS average — the lowest measurement in the dataset, and the only one below 60 FPS. This is the single configuration where the combo cannot maintain smooth frame rates.

Across all measurements, the data shows a consistent pattern: Medium settings provide the best balance of visual quality and performance at every resolution, with High being 23-24% slower than Medium and Ultra being 25-29% slower than High. The 4K Ultra result of 51 FPS is the only data point suggesting the user should consider lowering settings or resolution for an optimal experience.