Hard West

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates across resolutions paint a clear picture of where this combo's bottleneck lies. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the system delivers 174.7 FPS, dropping to 143.5 FPS on High and 130.9 FPS on Ultra. Moving to 2560x1440, the same settings yield 148.1 FPS (Low), 124.1 FPS (High), and 110.4 FPS (Ultra). The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is relatively mild — approximately 15-18% performance loss across all presets — suggesting the CPU has enough headroom to keep feeding the GPU as pixel count rises.

The jump to 3840x2160 is where the curve steepens dramatically. At 4K Ultra, average FPS falls to 57.8, while High manages 77.5 FPS. Low at 4K still produces 117.7 FPS, which is impressive for a turn-based tactics title. The delta between 1440p and 4K is roughly 45-50% depending on preset, a much larger drop than the 1080p-to-1440p transition. This nonlinear scaling indicates that at 4K, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090's raw throughput becomes the limiting factor, particularly with Ultra settings that likely enable heavy post-processing or shadow effects.

Notably, the gap between Medium and High at 4K is 21.8 FPS (99.3 vs 77.5), while the gap between High and Ultra is 19.7 FPS (77.5 vs 57.8). This shows diminishing returns as settings climb — each tier costs roughly the same absolute frame rate, but the percentage penalty grows from 22% (Medium to High) to 25% (High to Ultra). For a game from 2015, Hard West appears to have settings that scale predictably with resolution, and the data suggests the RTX 4090 is never truly idle even at 4K Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 ranks 378th out of 1,699 tested combos in Hard West, placing it in the top 22% of all configurations. That rank is surprisingly modest given the GPU's raw power — the RTX 4090 sits at the 91st percentile among all GPUs, while the i5-9400 is at the 50th percentile among all CPUs. This mismatch highlights a classic pairing of a mid-range six-core processor with a flagship graphics card.

The CPU's benchmark scores reinforce this imbalance. In Cinebench R23, the i5-9400 scores 7,969 multi-core and 1,125 single-core. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Core i3-10305 (average score 2,300, just 0.2% ahead) and the Intel Core i7-8809G (average score 2,319, 0.6% behind). These close margins show the i5-9400 is competitive with other mid-range parts of its era, but none of these rivals approach the RTX 4090's performance tier. The GPU's average benchmark score of 66,473 dwarfs its nearest rivals — the NVIDIA Tesla T4 (66,733, 0.4% higher) and AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 (67,097, 0.9% higher) — but those are workstation cards, not gaming-focused silicon.

For Hard West specifically, the rank of 378 of 1,699 means the combo outperforms the majority of systems tested, but it doesn't crack the top 350. This suggests that in a turn-based tactics game, the CPU's single-threaded performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1,125) and six threads may hold back the RTX 4090 in certain scenes, particularly at lower resolutions where CPU overhead matters more. At 1080p Ultra, the combo hits 130.9 FPS, which is respectable but far from the 174.7 FPS achievable at Low — a 33% spread that points to CPU limitations at high settings.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data offers a clear hierarchy of playable presets. At 1920x1080, all settings produce well above 130 FPS, so the choice comes down to visual fidelity versus headroom. Ultra delivers 130.9 FPS, which is smooth for any display, while Medium hits 161.6 FPS and Low reaches 174.7 FPS. For most users, Ultra at 1080p is the obvious pick — the 43.8 FPS difference between Ultra and Low is unlikely to be perceptible on a 60Hz or even 144Hz monitor, and the visual upgrade from Low to Ultra is substantial.

At 2560x1440, the story shifts slightly. Ultra maintains 110.4 FPS, which is still comfortably above 60 FPS and even 100 FPS thresholds. High offers 124.1 FPS, while Medium sits at 136.6 FPS. The gap between Ultra and Low is 37.7 FPS (110.4 vs 148.1), a smaller absolute difference than at 1080p. Given that 1440p Ultra is 13.7% slower than High but likely offers meaningful visual improvements, users with high-refresh 1440p panels can still opt for Ultra without dropping below 100 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the recommendations become more conservative. Ultra drops to 57.8 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target for many displays — technically playable but not ideal for fast-paced sequences. High at 77.5 FPS is the sweet spot for 4K, offering a 34% improvement over Ultra while still looking polished. Medium at 99.3 FPS is the choice for those prioritizing frame rate over fidelity, and Low at 117.7 FPS remains viable for competitive play. The data strongly suggests that 4K Ultra is the only preset that risks dipping below 60 FPS, so users should default to High at 4K unless they have a variable refresh rate monitor that can handle 58 FPS gracefully.

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Core i5-9400 sufficient for the RTX 4090 in Hard West?

A: The benchmark data shows the combo ranks 378th out of 1,699 tested, which is strong but not top-tier. The CPU's Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7,969 and single-core score of 1,125 place it at the 50th percentile, meaning it's an average performer — adequate for this turn-based tactics game, but likely the limiting factor at 1080p where frame rates peak at 174.7 FPS.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: At 2560x1440, the system delivers 110.4 FPS on Ultra and 124.1 FPS on High, which is an excellent balance of image quality and performance. 4K Ultra drops to 57.8 FPS, so 1440p Ultra is the highest resolution that maintains both full settings and a frame rate above 100 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4090 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The RTX 4090's average benchmark score of 66,473 is within 1.3% of the NVIDIA Quadro P6000 (67,320) and 0.9% of the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 (67,097). It sits at the 91st percentile among all GPUs, indicating it's one of the fastest cards tested.

Q: Does Hard West benefit more from CPU or GPU upgrades?

A: The scaling data shows that at 1080p, dropping from Ultra to Low improves FPS from 130.9 to 174.7 (a 33% gain), while at 4K the same settings change yields a 104% gain (57.8 to 117.7). This indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K, while the CPU becomes more relevant at lower resolutions.

Q: What is the launch MSRP of this GPU?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 has a launch MSRP of 1,599 USD. Note that this card is now end-of-life, with the GeForce 50-series as its successor.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the dominant component in this pairing, built on the AD102 chip with an Ada Lovelace architecture and a 5 nm process from TSMC. It packs 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die, with 16,384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs. Clock speeds are substantial — a base of 2235 MHz and a boost of 2520 MHz — while memory runs at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective speed. The 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth, which is more than sufficient for a 2015 turn-based tactics title.

In Hard West, the GPU's role is most evident at 4K Ultra, where the 57.8 FPS result represents the only preset that dips below 60 FPS across all tested combinations. The pixel rate of 443.5 GPixel/s and texture rate of 1,290.2 GTexel/s handle the game's relatively simple geometry with ease, but the 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 compute suggests the card is barely stressed by this title's graphical demands. The RTX 4090's DirectX 12 Ultimate support (12_2) ensures full compatibility, though Hard West's 2015 release predates many modern features.

The GPU's percentile ranking at 91st overall, with an average benchmark score of 66,473, places it in elite company — its nearest rivals are all workstation-class cards (Tesla T4, Tesla P40, Radeon Pro Vega 56, Quadro P6000), none of which are designed for gaming. This means the RTX 4090 is overkill for Hard West's modest rendering requirements, but the measured FPS data shows it still scales predictably with settings and resolution. The 24 GB VRAM is never a constraint at any resolution tested, and the 1.01 TB/s bandwidth ensures texture streaming is never a bottleneck. For this game, the GPU is clearly not the limiting factor except at 4K Ultra, where its raw compute is finally pushed.