Hard West

FAQ

Q: What is the combo rank of the Intel Core i5-9400 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 in Hard West?

A: This combination ranks 434th out of 1699 tested combos in the game, placing it in the upper quartile of all systems analyzed.

Q: How does the RTX 5080 compare to its closest rivals in average benchmark score?

A: The RTX 5080 averages 59,188 points, which is 2.5% ahead of the Intel Arc A580 (57,756) and 1.9% behind the Intel Arc Pro A60 (60,326). It also leads the AMD Radeon Pro W5500X by 2.6%.

Q: What is the performance difference between the i5-9400 and its nearest rival?

A: The i5-9400 scores 2,305 on average, essentially matching the Intel Core i3-10305 (2,300, +0.2%) and the Intel Core i3-1125G4 (2,299, +0.2%), while trailing the Intel Core i7-8809G (2,319) by 0.6%.

Q: What memory configuration does the RTX 5080 use, and what is its bandwidth?

A: The GPU features 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus, delivering 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth with memory clocks running at 1875 MHz (30 Gbps effective).

Q: What is the CPU's core and thread configuration?

A: The Intel Core i5-9400 has 6 cores and 6 threads, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz, sharing 9 MB of L3 cache.

Q: Which resolution delivers the highest average FPS in Hard West?

A: At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 172.1 FPS, which is the maximum recorded across all tested configurations.

How This Combo Ranks

The data places the i5-9400 + RTX 5080 at position 434 out of 1,699 tested combinations in Hard West. That is roughly the 74th percentile, meaning this setup outperforms about three-quarters of all recorded systems while falling short of the top tier. The rank reflects a pairing where the GPU is the dominant component: the RTX 5080 sits at the 89th percentile among all GPUs, while the i5-9400 sits at exactly the 50th percentile among all CPUs. This asymmetry is typical for a turn-based tactics title like Hard West, where frame rates are less CPU-bound than in fast-paced shooters.

The CPU's average benchmark score of 2,305 places it in a tightly clustered group of rivals. The i3-10305 and i3-1125G4 both come within 0.2% of the i5-9400, and the Xeon E-2134 is just 0.4% behind. Only the i7-8809G edges ahead by 0.6%. In practical terms, the i5-9400 is neither a bottleneck nor a standout; it simply holds its ground among comparable mid-range parts from its generation.

On the GPU side, the RTX 5080's average score of 59,188 is competitive with a narrow band of rivals. The Intel Arc A570M is 1.6% slower, the Arc A580 is 2.5% slower, and the Radeon Pro W5500X is 2.6% slower. The Arc Pro A60 is the only one of these that beats it, by 1.9%. These margins are small enough that real-world game performance will depend more on drivers and specific workloads than on raw compute differences.

The combination's rank of 434 suggests that while the GPU is powerful, the CPU's mid-pack standing prevents this from being a top-100 setup. In a game like Hard West, which is turn-based and not heavily threaded, the i5-9400's six cores are adequate, but the data shows that many other combos with faster processors achieve higher frame rates.

GPU Role

The RTX 5080 is the clear performance driver in this pairing. Its 16 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is ample for Hard West's relatively modest texture and geometry demands. The GPU's base clock runs at 2,295 MHz with a boost of 2,617 MHz, and the memory operates at 1875 MHz (30 Gbps effective). These clocks are high enough that the card can push well past 100 FPS at most settings, as the measured results confirm.

The GPU's architecture, Blackwell 2.0 on a 5 nm process, includes 10,752 shading units, 336 TMUs, and 112 ROPs. The 84 RT cores and 336 tensor cores are present but largely irrelevant for Hard West, which does not use ray tracing or DLSS in this benchmark data. The card's FP32 throughput of 56.28 TFLOPS gives it massive raw compute headroom, but the game's turn-based nature means that headroom is rarely taxed.

The RTX 5080's 89th percentile ranking among all GPUs indicates it is a high-end part, and its performance in Hard West reflects that. At 1080p, even Ultra settings yield 132.8 FPS, and at 1440p the card stays above 100 FPS for all settings tested. The only configuration where the GPU appears to struggle is 4K Ultra, which drops to 52.2 FPS — still playable but showing the limits of even this hardware at maximum resolution and quality.

The GPU's 360 W TDP and dual-slot design are worth noting for system builders, but they do not affect the measured FPS data. The card's 16 GB of VRAM is more than sufficient for Hard West, which was released in 2015 and does not have demanding texture packs.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured results cover three resolutions (1080p, 1440p, 4K) and four settings (Low, Medium, High, Ultra). At 1080p, the combo delivers 172.1 FPS on Low, 162.2 FPS on Medium, 144.4 FPS on High, and 132.8 FPS on Ultra. The spread from Low to Ultra is 39.3 FPS, or about 23%, indicating that the GPU has enough headroom that even the heaviest settings are playable on high-refresh monitors.

At 1440p, the numbers are 149.8 FPS on Low, 137.7 FPS on Medium, 126.1 FPS on High, and 104.8 FPS on Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is modest: Low loses 22.3 FPS (13%), Medium loses 24.5 FPS (15%), High loses 18.3 FPS (13%), and Ultra loses 28.0 FPS (21%). The Ultra setting shows the largest relative decline, suggesting that the GPU is starting to feel the resolution increase when all quality options are maxed.

At 4K, the results are 114.4 FPS on Low, 94.4 FPS on Medium, 72.9 FPS on High, and 52.2 FPS on Ultra. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 62.2 FPS, or 54%, which is far larger than the 23% gap at 1080p. This indicates that Hard West's Ultra preset includes effects that scale heavily with resolution, such as shadow quality and draw distance, which tax the GPU's fill rate.

The minimum frame rates are not recorded in the data, so the analysis relies solely on averages. However, the consistency of the results across settings suggests that the i5-9400 is not causing frame-time spikes. In a turn-based game, even occasional dips would be less noticeable than in a fast-paced action title.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals which component is the limiting factor. At Low settings, the average FPS falls from 172.1 at 1080p to 114.4 at 4K, a decline of 33.5%. At Medium, the drop is from 162.2 to 94.4, or 41.8%. At High, it is from 144.4 to 72.9, or 49.5%. At Ultra, it is from 132.8 to 52.2, or 60.7%.

The pattern is clear: the higher the settings, the steeper the resolution penalty. This is classic GPU-bound behavior. When the CPU is the limiter, the FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is small because the GPU can still deliver frames faster than the CPU can feed it. Here, the drop increases with settings, showing that the RTX 5080 is doing progressively more work per pixel as quality rises.

The CPU's role is evident in the absolute numbers. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 172.1 FPS, but the i5-9400's six cores and six threads are likely near their limit for frame generation. The fact that 4K Low still achieves 114.4 FPS — only 33% below 1080p — suggests that the GPU is not fully saturated at lower settings, and the CPU is starting to cap the frame rate. If the CPU were the sole bottleneck, the 4K numbers would be much closer to the 1080p numbers.

Conversely, the 60.7% drop at Ultra settings indicates that the GPU is heavily loaded at 4K with all quality options enabled. The RTX 5080's 960.0 GB/s of bandwidth and 56.28 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput are being pushed hard, and the result is a frame rate that, while playable, is nearly half of what the same settings produce at 1080p.

For users targeting 4K, the data suggests sticking with High settings (72.9 FPS) rather than Ultra (52.2 FPS) for smoother gameplay. At 1440p, all settings exceed 100 FPS, making this resolution the sweet spot for high-refresh displays. The i5-9400 does not appear to be a meaningful constraint at any resolution tested, as the FPS scaling tracks the GPU's workload consistently.