Hard West

Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015, remains remarkably forgiving on modern hardware. The data for the Intel Core i5-9400 and AMD Radeon RX 9070 combination shows a pairing that dominates at standard resolutions but begins to show its limits when pushed to 4K with maximum settings. The benchmark results indicate a system that is heavily GPU-bound at lower resolutions, while the CPU's mid-range standing becomes more relevant only at the extreme high end of the visual spectrum.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 reveals a classic GPU bottleneck curve. At 1080p with High settings, the combo produces 147.2 FPS, but at 1440p this drops to 93.5 FPS, a 36% reduction. Moving to 4K High yields 49.6 FPS, a further 47% reduction from the 1440p figure. This sharp decline indicates that the AMD Radeon RX 9070 is being increasingly saturated as pixel count rises, which is expected for a game from this era that does not heavily tax modern multi-core processors.

The scaling pattern changes depending on the quality preset. At Low settings, the drop from 1080p to 4K is from 172.8 FPS to 82.2 FPS, representing a 52% performance loss. In contrast, at Ultra settings, the same resolution change moves from 117.1 FPS down to 39.3 FPS, a 66% loss. This widening gap suggests that the Ultra preset introduces effects that are particularly demanding on the GPU's compute and memory subsystems, making the 4K Ultra target the only scenario where the Intel Core i5-9400's six threads might start to feel constrained.

The most telling data point is the difference between Low and Ultra at 4K. The spread there is 42.9 FPS, whereas at 1080p the same preset swing is only 55.7 FPS. This compression at higher resolutions confirms that the Radeon RX 9070 is the limiting component; its 16 GB of GDDR6 memory and 644.6 GB/s bandwidth are being pushed hard, but the relative performance gap between presets shrinks as the GPU becomes the sole bottleneck.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Intel Core i5-9400 and the AMD Radeon RX 9070 ranks 685th out of 1699 tested combos for Hard West. This places it in the upper half of all configurations, which is a strong result given the age of the CPU. The processor itself sits at the 50th percentile among all tested CPUs, indicating it is a perfectly average performer in general compute tasks, yet the GPU boosts the gaming experience significantly.

The GPU is the star here, ranking in the 79th percentile among all graphics cards. This discrepancy between the CPU's median standing and the GPU's top-quartile standing explains why the combo performs well in a game that is not CPU-intensive. The nearest rivals to the i5-9400 in synthetic benchmarks include the Intel Core i3-10305 and the Intel Core i3-1125G4, both of which score within 0.2% of the i5-9400's average benchmark score. This suggests that for Hard West, any of these CPUs would deliver nearly identical results when paired with the same GPU.

The ranking data shows that while the CPU is not a weak link, it is also not providing any headroom for future games that might demand more from the processor. The 0.4% delta to the Intel Xeon E-2134 and the -0.6% delta to the Intel Core i7-8809G show a tight cluster of mid-range performance. For this specific title, the combo's 685th rank is respectable, but it is clear that the Radeon RX 9070 is doing the heavy lifting to secure that position.

Settings Recommendations

For the best experience, the measured data points to the High preset at 1920x1080 as the sweet spot. At this setting, the combo delivers 147.2 FPS, which is comfortably above the 144 Hz refresh rate common on modern monitors. The jump from High to Ultra at 1080p costs 30.1 FPS, a 20% performance hit, but only yields a marginal visual improvement in a turn-based game where frame rates are not critical for responsiveness.

At 2560x1440, the High preset is again the recommended choice. The 93.5 FPS average is smooth, and the Medium preset at 124.7 FPS offers an alternative for those who prioritize frame rate over visual fidelity. Pushing to Ultra at 1440p drops the average to 69.8 FPS, which is still playable but represents a significant 25% reduction from High. For a tactics game, the visual clarity of High settings at 1440p is arguably the best balance of image quality and performance.

At 3840x2160, the recommendation changes. The Ultra preset is not viable, with an average of just 39.3 FPS. The Medium preset at 64.6 FPS is the minimum acceptable level for a smooth experience, but the High preset at 49.6 FPS is the better choice if you can tolerate a slightly lower frame rate for better textures and effects. The data suggests that 4K High is the ceiling for this combo, and players should avoid 4K Ultra unless they are willing to accept sub-40 FPS gameplay.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the frame rates are consistently high across all presets. The Low preset averages 172.8 FPS, Medium averages 159.4 FPS, and High averages 147.2 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to 117.1 FPS, which is still a very playable figure. The variation from Low to Ultra is 55.7 FPS, showing that even the most demanding settings are easily handled at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance remains strong. The Low preset delivers 145 FPS, Medium delivers 124.7 FPS, and High delivers 93.5 FPS. The Ultra preset falls to 69.8 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra here is 75.2 FPS, indicating that the higher resolution amplifies the cost of the Ultra settings. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at High settings is 53.7 FPS, which is a substantial reduction but still leaves the user with a frame rate above 90 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the numbers tell a different story. The Low preset averages 82.2 FPS, which is excellent for 4K. Medium drops to 64.6 FPS, High falls to 49.6 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 39.3 FPS. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 4K is a 42.9 FPS spread, which is the narrowest of the three resolutions. This indicates that the GPU is the primary constraint, and the CPU's role is diminished. The 1080p to 4K transition at Ultra settings shows a 77.8 FPS loss, demonstrating the immense pixel throughput required at 3840x2160.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 is clearly the dominant component in this pairing. With 16 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, the memory bandwidth of 644.6 GB/s is more than sufficient for a 2015 title like Hard West. The GPU's boost clock of 2520 MHz and game clock of 2070 MHz ensure that the shader units are fed efficiently, but the benchmark results show that the card is not being fully utilized at 1080p, where the frame rates are likely capped by the CPU's ability to issue draw calls.

The GPU's RDNA 4.0 architecture, built on a 4 nm process, provides 3584 shading units and 128 ROPs. The pixel rate of 322.6 GPixel/s and texture rate of 564.5 GTexel/s are massive overkill for this game's visual complexity. The card's 79th percentile ranking among all GPUs, alongside its nearest rival the NVIDIA A2 (which it trails by only 0.2%), confirms that the RX 9070 is a high-end part. However, the 4K Ultra result of 39.3 FPS shows that even this powerful GPU struggles with the combination of high resolution and maximum settings in this title, likely due to the game's rendering pipeline being inefficient by modern standards.

The GPU's VRAM capacity of 16 GB is never a limiting factor in Hard West, as the game's textures are modest by contemporary standards. The measured data shows that the GPU's performance scales predictably with resolution, and the lack of a minimum frame rate metric means we cannot assess frame pacing, but the average FPS figures suggest a stable experience. The RX 9070's 36.13 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is far beyond what this game requires, yet the 4K Ultra result indicates that the card's raw compute is not the bottleneck; rather, it is the memory bandwidth and ROP throughput at that specific resolution and settings combination.