Hard West

The Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the Intel Arc B580 delivers a remarkably consistent experience in Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015. The benchmark data reveals a system that is heavily GPU-limited at higher resolutions, yet capable of extremely high frame rates at 1080p. The most significant finding is the dramatic performance cliff at 4K Ultra, which suggests the game’s engine and the GPU’s driver overhead interact poorly at the highest settings, making the Medium preset the most balanced choice for demanding resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to Medium as the optimal preset for this combination, particularly when prioritizing frame rate stability across all resolutions. At 1080p, Medium produces 120.5 FPS, which is a 30% improvement over High (92.6 FPS) and a 67% improvement over Ultra (72.1 FPS). While Low pushes to 151.4 FPS, the jump from Low to Medium only costs about 20% performance while likely providing a substantial visual upgrade, making Medium the superior experience-per-frame option.

At 1440p, the argument for Medium strengthens. The preset delivers 79.2 FPS, which is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold, while High drops to 61.8 FPS and Ultra falls to 42.7 FPS. The data implies that High at 1440p is borderline playable, but Medium offers a significant safety margin without the visual degradation of Low (97.4 FPS). For users with 1440p displays, Medium is the clear choice for maintaining fluidity.

The 4K results present a more complex picture. Medium at 4K yields 42.5 FPS, which is playable for a turn-based game but not smooth. High manages only 32.7 FPS, and Ultra collapses to 20.9 FPS. The performance delta between Medium and High at 4K is 23%, while the delta between High and Ultra is a massive 36%. This suggests that the Ultra preset enables effects that disproportionately tax the Arc B580’s memory subsystem or shader throughput. For 4K, Medium is the only reasonable setting, as Low (48.6 FPS) is the only preset that approaches playability, but it sacrifices too much visual fidelity for a genre that doesn’t require twitch reflexes.

FAQ

*Q: Can this system run Hard West at 4K smoothly?*

A: No. The highest average FPS at 3840x2160 is 48.6 FPS on Low settings. Medium drops to 42.5 FPS, High to 32.7 FPS, and Ultra to 20.9 FPS. While the game is turn-based and less sensitive to frame drops, none of the 4K presets reach the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: 1080p is the only resolution where all settings produce playable frame rates. The lowest result at 1080p is 72.1 FPS on Ultra, which is still fluid. At 1440p, only Low and Medium stay above 60 FPS, and at 4K, no preset achieves that.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High?

A: The performance cost of Ultra over High is severe. At 1080p, Ultra drops to 72.1 FPS from High’s 92.6 FPS, a 22% reduction. At 1440p, the drop is 31% (61.8 to 42.7 FPS), and at 4K, the drop is 36% (32.7 to 20.9 FPS). The scaling suggests Ultra is poorly optimized for this GPU.

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 a bottleneck in this game?

A: The data suggests the CPU is not the primary bottleneck at high resolutions. At 4K, the frame rate drops significantly from Low (48.6) to Ultra (20.9), which is a GPU-bound behavior. However, at 1080p Low (151.4 FPS), the CPU’s 6-core, 6-thread configuration with a 2.90 GHz base clock may be limiting the absolute ceiling, but it remains sufficient for playable results.

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

A: The gap is substantial. Low produces 151.4 FPS, while Ultra produces 72.1 FPS. This represents a 52% performance loss for the highest visual quality. Medium sits in the middle at 120.5 FPS, offering a better balance.

Q: How does the Arc B580’s 12 GB VRAM factor into these results?

A: While the game is from 2015 and likely does not require large memory allocations, the 12 GB GDDR6 capacity and 456.0 GB/s bandwidth ensure that VRAM is not a limiting factor at any resolution. The performance drops are more likely tied to the GPU’s 2560 shading units and 2670 MHz boost clock.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 is the dominant component in this pairing, and the data shows it is the primary driver of frame rate variance. The GPU’s 12 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus provides 456.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for a 2015 title. The core configuration includes 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 80 ROPs, operating at a boost clock of 2670 MHz. These specifications yield a pixel rate of 213.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 427.2 GTexel/s.

The benchmark results indicate that the GPU’s performance scales poorly with the Ultra preset. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 3068 places the B580 in the 66th percentile of all GPUs, and its nearest rivals include the GeForce RTX 4060 with a delta of -0.7%. Despite this competitive standing, the game’s Ultra settings appear to trigger a disproportionate workload. The FP32 throughput of 13.67 TFLOPS should theoretically handle the game’s geometry, but the 20.9 FPS at 4K Ultra suggests either a driver inefficiency or a specific shader effect that the Xe2-HPG architecture struggles with.

The GPU’s memory clock of 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective) is a bright spot, allowing the card to maintain high fill rates at 1080p. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the card achieves 151.4 FPS, indicating that the memory subsystem is not a bottleneck. However, the 45 mm width and dual-slot design suggest a substantial cooler, which may help maintain the 2670 MHz boost under sustained load, though no thermal data is provided.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and Intel Arc B580 ranks 1339th out of 1699 tested combos in Hard West, placing it in the lower third of all configurations. This ranking is surprising given the individual component performance. The CPU holds a 50th percentile rank among all processors, while the GPU sits at the 66th percentile. The combo’s low rank implies that Hard West is not particularly well-optimized for this hardware pairing, or that the game’s engine favors other architectures.

The CPU’s nearest rivals include the Intel Core i3-10305 (deltaPct 0.2%) and the Intel Core i7-8809G (deltaPct -0.6%), indicating that the i5-9400 is a mid-pack performer. The GPU’s nearest rival is the GeForce RTX 4060 (deltaPct -0.7%), which is a strong comparison. Yet, the combo rank of 1339 out of 1699 suggests that many pairings with weaker individual components outperform this setup in the game. This could be due to the game’s single-threaded nature, which might not fully utilize the CPU’s 6 cores, or the GPU’s driver overhead in an older DirectX title.

The ranking implies that users should not expect top-tier performance in Hard West from this combo, despite the hardware’s capabilities in synthetic benchmarks. The measured FPS data confirms this, as even at 1080p Ultra, the system only achieves 72.1 FPS, which is below what a 66th percentile GPU should deliver in a turn-based game from 2015.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound pattern, but with an alarming cliff at 4K Ultra. At Medium settings, the frame rate drops from 120.5 FPS at 1080p to 79.2 FPS at 1440p (a 34% drop) and then to 42.5 FPS at 4K (a further 46% drop). This scaling is roughly proportional to the pixel count increase, indicating the GPU is the limiting component.

However, the Ultra preset defies this pattern. The transition from 1080p Ultra (72.1 FPS) to 1440p Ultra (42.7 FPS) represents a 41% drop, which is steeper than the pixel count increase (78% more pixels). The jump to 4K Ultra (20.9 FPS) is even more catastrophic, a 51% drop from 1440p. This non-linear scaling suggests that the Ultra preset enables a specific rendering feature, such as high-quality shadows or post-processing, that overwhelms the GPU’s 80 ROPs or 160 TMUs at higher resolutions.

The Low preset scales most predictably: 151.4 FPS at 1080p to 97.4 FPS at 1440p (36% drop) to 48.6 FPS at 4K (50% drop). The data indicates that at Low settings, the system is still GPU-bound, but the GPU is operating within its efficient range. The implication is that the Intel Arc B580 has ample headroom at 1080p but loses its advantage quickly as pixel count increases, especially when the game’s visual effects are maxed out.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its best results. Low settings produce 151.4 FPS, Medium 120.5 FPS, High 92.6 FPS, and Ultra 72.1 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 79.3 FPS, with the largest single drop occurring between Medium and High (27.9 FPS). This suggests that High enables effects that cost significantly more than Medium.

At 2560x1440, the results are 97.4 FPS (Low), 79.2 FPS (Medium), 61.8 FPS (High), and 42.7 FPS (Ultra). The drop from Low to Medium is 18.2 FPS, which is less severe than at 1080p, indicating that the GPU is starting to saturate its fill rate. The High preset remains above 60 FPS, but Ultra falls well below, making it unsuitable for smooth gameplay.

At 3840x2160, the results are 48.6 FPS (Low), 42.5 FPS (Medium), 32.7 FPS (High), and 20.9 FPS (Ultra). The gap between Low and Medium is only 6.1 FPS, suggesting that Medium is nearly as efficient as Low at this resolution. The drop from High to Ultra is 11.8 FPS, which is the largest single jump between any adjacent settings at any resolution. This confirms that Ultra is the least efficient preset for this GPU.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 provides six physical cores and six threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. This Coffee Lake architecture processor has 9 MB of shared L3 cache and supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. In synthetic benchmarks, the CPU scores 7969 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 1125 in single-core, placing it in the 50th percentile of all CPUs.

In Hard West, the CPU’s role appears secondary to the GPU. The game is turn-based, so the demand for high thread counts is limited. The data shows that at 1080p Low, the system reaches 151.4 FPS, which suggests the CPU can feed the GPU adequately. However, the single-core score of 1125 is modest, and the CPU’s nearest rival, the Intel Core i3-10305 with a delta of only 0.2%, indicates that this is not a high-end part.

The CPU’s 6 threads are likely sufficient for Hard West’s game logic and AI, but the 4.10 GHz boost clock may be the limiting factor for maximum frame rates. At 1080p Low, the frame rate is high but not exceptional, implying that the CPU is keeping up. The lack of a launch MSRP for the CPU, combined with its end-of-life status, suggests it is a mature platform. The benchmark data indicates that upgrading the CPU would not yield significant gains in Hard West, as the GPU is the clear bottleneck at resolutions above 1080p, and even at 1080p Ultra, the 72.1 FPS result is more likely GPU-limited than CPU-limited.