Hard West

Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015, presents a fascinating benchmark scenario for the Intel Core i7-12700K and AMD Radeon RX 7600 combination. The measured data reveals that this pairing is heavily influenced by the graphics card, particularly at higher resolutions, while the processor's substantial multi-threading capabilities provide ample headroom. The results, which place this combo at rank 1164 out of 1699 tested configurations, show a performance curve that is typical for a modern mid-range GPU paired with a high-end CPU on a game with a lighter engine load.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K clearly demonstrates where the bottleneck lies. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the system delivers an average of 99 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440, that figure drops to 60.4 FPS, a reduction of approximately 38.9%. The most dramatic decline occurs when stepping up to 3840x2160, where the average plummets to 36 FPS, a further 40.4% decrease from the 1440p result. This scaling pattern is a textbook sign of a GPU-limited workload at higher resolutions.

The trend is consistent across all settings presets. At Low settings, the frame rate goes from 159 FPS at 1080p to 100.7 FPS at 1440p, and finally to 54.1 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset shows the same behavior, with 74.1 FPS at 1080p, 49.4 FPS at 1440p, and a near-unplayable 22.9 FPS at 4K. The consistent percentage drops between resolutions, regardless of the preset, indicate that the demand on the Radeon RX 7600’s rendering pipeline is scaling predictably with pixel count. The game is not showing signs of a CPU-side frame cap or a peculiar engine limitation; it is simply that the GPU's fill rate and shading power become the defining constraint as the number of pixels increases.

Specifically, the 4K Ultra result of 22.9 FPS is a clear outlier for playability, while 4K Low at 54.1 FPS becomes a viable, if not ideal, target. This data indicates that the Core i7-12700K is not the limiting factor in any resolution tested here; the performance delta is almost entirely attributable to the graphics card’s workload.

Settings Recommendations

The measured settings presets offer a clear hierarchy of performance, and the "best" choice depends on the target resolution. For 1920x1080, the Ultra preset is the most compelling option. The data shows an average of 74.1 FPS, which is more than sufficient for a smooth experience in a turn-based tactics game. The jump from High to Ultra is a modest 25% performance cost (99 FPS down to 74.1 FPS) for what is presumably the maximum visual fidelity. This makes Ultra the recommended setting for 1080p users seeking the best visual experience without sacrificing fluidity.

At 2560x1440, the selection becomes more nuanced. The High preset delivers 60.4 FPS, which is a solid baseline. However, the Medium preset achieves 83.4 FPS, providing a significant 38% performance uplift over High. Given that Hard West is a tactical game where a stable frame rate is more critical than the highest quality shadows, the Medium preset at 1440p offers the best balance. It is fast enough to ensure no perceptible stutter while still providing a significant visual upgrade over the Low preset's 100.7 FPS, which is unnecessarily fast for this genre.

For 3840x2160, the options are more restrictive. The High preset's 36 FPS is below the 60 FPS ideal, and the Ultra preset's 22.9 FPS is not a viable target. The Medium preset at 43.8 FPS is borderline, but the Low preset at 54.1 FPS is the only setting that approaches a consistently smooth experience. Therefore, for 4K, the recommendation is to sacrifice visual fidelity for performance and use the Low preset. The data clearly states that this configuration is not designed for maximum-detail 4K gaming in this title.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600, with its 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, is the decisive component in this benchmark. Its memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s is a crucial factor, as the frame rate drops at 4K suggest the GPU is struggling to feed its 2048 shading units with enough data. The card's boost clock of 2655 MHz and game clock of 2250 MHz are the driving forces behind its raw compute power, which is rated at 21.75 TFLOPS FP32. These specifications place it in a specific performance tier, and the measured data aligns perfectly with this positioning.

The GPU's benchmark scores confirm its standing. With a percentile rank of 63 against all GPUs and an average benchmark score of 20258, it sits in the mid-range. Its nearest rivals, such as the AMD Radeon RX 7600 XT (0.6% faster) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (1.3% slower), show that it is in a highly competitive segment where small performance differences are common. The data shows that in Hard West, the RX 7600 is the performance ceiling. At 1080p, it can push over 150 FPS on Low, but the 4K Ultra result of 22.9 FPS highlights its limitations. The VRAM capacity of 8 GB is not directly tested here, but the severe frame rate drops at 4K indicate that the combination of memory bandwidth and computational throughput is insufficient for the game's highest settings at that resolution. The graphics card is unequivocally the primary determinant of the final frame rate in this scenario.

FAQ

Q: Can this system run Hard West at 4K with maximum settings?

A: No. The benchmark data shows that at 3840x2160 with the Ultra preset, the average frame rate is only 22.9 FPS, which is not a smooth playable experience.

Q: What is the best resolution to play at for a high refresh rate experience?

A: The 1920x1080 resolution with the Low preset achieves an average of 159 FPS. The High preset at 1080p also delivers a very high 99 FPS, which is ideal for high-refresh-rate monitors.

Q: How does the CPU's performance compare to its direct rivals?

A: The Intel Core i7-12700K has an average benchmark score of 35684, which is 0.3% lower than the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 and 0.6% higher than the Intel Core i7-13700T, making them effectively equal in overall processing power.

Q: Is the game more dependent on the CPU or the GPU at 1440p?

A: The data indicates it is heavily GPU-dependent. At 2560x1440, the frame rate varies from 49.4 FPS on Ultra to 100.7 FPS on Low, showing a massive performance swing based purely on graphics settings. The CPU has enough headroom to feed the GPU at all settings.

Q: What is a smooth frame rate target for a turn-based strategy game?

A: While 60 FPS is a good target for most games, the data shows that even 36 FPS at 4K High might be acceptable for some players. However, the 49.4 FPS at 1440p Ultra and 74.1 FPS at 1080p Ultra show that achieving 60 FPS or higher is easily possible on this hardware with the right settings.

Q: How does the RX 7600's performance in this game compare to its closest rivals?

A: The RX 7600's average score of 20258 is marginally lower than the Intel Arc B570, which is 1.5% faster, and slightly higher than the AMD Radeon RX 460, which is 0.8% slower. The performance differences are minimal among these cards.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K plays a supporting, yet crucial, role in this benchmark. Its 12 cores and 20 threads, based on the Alder Lake architecture, provide a massive amount of parallel processing power that a game like Hard West, despite its age, can utilize for game logic, AI pathfinding, and background tasks. The processor's benchmark scores, such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29241 and a Geekbench multi-core score of 13892, place it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs. This immense headroom means that in the measured resolutions, the CPU is never the primary bottleneck.

The evidence for this is the significant frame rate drops as resolution increases. If the CPU were a limiting factor, we would expect to see similar frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, as the CPU's workload for drawing an individual frame would be similar. Instead, the frame rate at High settings drops from 99 FPS at 1080p to 60.4 FPS at 1440p, proving the GPU is becoming progressively more overwhelmed. The i7-12700K’s single-thread performance is also robust, with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4128, ensuring that the primary game thread is processed without delay. Its nearest rivals, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 and Intel Core i7-13700T, perform within a narrow 0.6% band of its average score, confirming that this level of CPU performance is not a differentiating factor in this test. The processor is simply providing a stable, fast foundation for the Radeon RX 7600 to work from.