Hard West

Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015, presents an interesting scenario for the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER pairing. The benchmark data shows this combination is highly capable, but the game's age and genre mean the performance ceiling is dictated more by the CPU's single-threaded capabilities than the GPU's raw power. The measured frame rates across all settings and resolutions remain exceptionally high, with the lowest average being 48 FPS at 4K Ultra, indicating a smooth experience even under maximum load.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The benchmark results show an average of 133.1 FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings. This is a significant drop from the 174.9 FPS achieved at Low settings, but it remains well above the refresh rate of most standard monitors.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-core performance compare to its closest rivals?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 has an average benchmark score of 2305. This puts it 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i3-10305 and the Intel Core i3-1125G4, and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Xeon E-2134. It trails the Intel Core i7-8809G by 0.6%.

Q: What is the performance difference between 1080p and 4K at High settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with High settings, the average FPS is 145.9. When the resolution is increased to 3840x2160, the average FPS drops to 61.4. This represents a substantial decrease of 84.5 FPS, indicating that the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions.

Q: Is the RTX 4070 SUPER's performance similar to any other GPUs in the database?

A: The GPU's average benchmark score is 42576. Its closest rival is the NVIDIA RTX A6000, which scores 42653, a negligible difference of -0.2%. The AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE is also very close, with a score of 42723, putting it 0.3% ahead.

Q: What is the best average FPS recorded for this combo in Hard West?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 174.9 FPS, which occurs at 1920x1080 resolution with Low settings. This suggests the game is heavily CPU-bound at this setting, as the GPU has plenty of headroom.

Q: How much VRAM does the GPU have, and what type is it?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is equipped with 12 GB of GDDR6X memory. This is more than sufficient for Hard West, which is a 2015 title and likely has modest VRAM requirements.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture. It operates at a base clock of 2.90 GHz and can boost up to 4.10 GHz. While the data shows it has a respectable multi-core score of 3346 in Cinebench R20, its single-core performance, evidenced by a score of 472 in the same test, is what drives performance in a game like Hard West. Turn-based tactics rely heavily on single-threaded game logic, AI pathfinding, and scene management, which are not highly parallelized tasks.

The benchmark results support this interpretation. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 174.9 FPS. This high frame rate, even at lower resolutions, suggests the CPU is the limiting factor. The CPU's performance percentile is at the 50th mark compared to all CPUs, indicating it is a mid-range part. In this specific game, its single-core strength is sufficient to push frame rates to very high levels, but it is the component that will cap performance before the GPU does. The data shows that from Low to Medium settings at 1080p, the FPS drops from 174.9 to 162.3, a relatively small change, reinforcing that the CPU is handling the core simulation while the GPU has spare capacity. The 9 MB of shared L3 cache likely helps keep the game's data close at hand, but the 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth on a dual-channel DDR4 interface is a more significant factor for overall system throughput.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is a modern, high-end GPU built on the Ada Lovelace architecture. It features 7168 shading units and 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. Its performance is substantial, ranking in the 84th percentile of all GPUs. In the context of Hard West, this GPU is massively overqualified. The game's visuals, while stylized, are not demanding by modern standards.

The GPU's role becomes evident when analyzing the performance scaling with resolution. At 1080p High, the combo hits 145.9 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, the average is 112.3 FPS. At 4K High, it drops to 61.4 FPS. This consistent drop as resolution increases is the classic signature of GPU-bound performance. The RTX 4070 SUPER's raw compute power, measured at 35.48 TFLOPS for FP32, is what allows it to maintain playable frame rates even at 4K Ultra, where it still manages an average of 48 FPS. The GPU's high pixel rate of 198.0 GPixel/s is also a critical factor in handling the increased pixel count at 4K resolution. While the GPU is not the limiting factor at 1080p, it becomes the primary bottleneck as the resolution scales, which is the expected behavior for a high-end GPU paired with a mid-range CPU.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a clear picture of how this combo performs across different settings and resolutions. At 1920x1080, the frame rates are consistently high across all settings. The average FPS ranges from 174.9 at Low to 133.1 at Ultra. The difference between Low and Ultra is 41.8 FPS, showing that the graphical settings have a moderate impact at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the performance begins to show more variation. The average FPS at Low is 144.9, which drops to 134.7 at Medium and 112.3 at High. The most demanding setting, Ultra, yields an average of 82.6 FPS. This shows a clear performance penalty for enabling the highest quality presets. The gap between Low and Ultra is 62.3 FPS, indicating that the GPU is starting to work harder.

At 3840x2160, the GPU is clearly the dominant factor. The average FPS at Low is 97, which is still very playable. Medium settings produce an average of 78.9 FPS, while High settings result in 61.4 FPS. At Ultra, the average FPS drops to 48. This is the only scenario where the frame rate dips below 60 FPS. The data shows a clear progression: as resolution increases, the performance gap between Low and Ultra settings widens, confirming the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The resolution scaling behavior is a key indicator of the system's balance. From 1080p to 1440p at High settings, the average FPS drops from 145.9 to 112.3, a decrease of 23%. Continuing to 4K, the FPS falls to 61.4, which is a further 45% drop from the 1440p result. This steep decline is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario.

At Ultra settings, the scaling is even more pronounced. The average FPS at 1080p is 133.1, which drops to 82.6 at 1440p (a 38% decrease) and then to 48 at 4K (a 42% decrease from 1440p). The fact that the FPS nearly halves at each resolution step at Ultra settings further solidifies the conclusion that the RTX 4070 SUPER is the limiting component at higher resolutions.

Conversely, at Low settings, the frame rate drop from 1080p to 1440p is 174.9 to 144.9, a much smaller 17% decrease. From 1440p to 4K, the drop is from 144.9 to 97, a 33% decrease. The more moderate scaling at Low settings suggests that the CPU is playing a larger role in limiting performance at 1080p, as the GPU is not being fully utilized. This is a classic sign of a CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions, where the game's single-threaded logic cannot feed the GPU fast enough. As resolution increases, the GPU's workload grows, and it becomes the definitive bottleneck. The data shows that this system is well-balanced for high-refresh-rate 1080p and 1440p gaming, but for 4K, the GPU's performance is the determining factor.