Hard West

Hard West is a turn-based tactics title from 2015, and the measured performance of the Intel Core i7-14700F paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 shows a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics card at higher settings. The data indicates that this combo ranks 973rd out of 1699 tested combinations, placing it in the lower-middle portion of the pack. This is not a system that will max out every modern title, but for a game of this genre, the focus should be on smooth, consistent frame delivery rather than raw graphical extremes.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows make the optimal settings path clear. At 1920x1080, the High preset delivers an average of 119.8 FPS, which is an excellent experience for a turn-based strategy game. Moving down to Medium only increases the average to 154.2 FPS, a gain that is unlikely to be perceptible given the genre's pacing. Conversely, the Ultra preset drops the average to 85.7 FPS, which is still playable but represents a significant 28% performance penalty for visual gains that are often marginal in this art style. The data suggests that High is the sweet spot at 1080p.

Stepping up to 2560x1440, the High preset yields 77.1 FPS, which remains very smooth. The Medium preset provides a more comfortable buffer at 94.4 FPS. Given the relatively modest visual differences between Medium and High in a game of this vintage, Medium at 1440p is the safer recommendation for maintaining a high refresh rate experience. The Ultra preset at this resolution falls to 54 FPS, which is below the ideal threshold for smooth mouse movement and camera panning.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more demanding. The High preset averages 40.5 FPS, which is on the lower edge of playability for a tactical game. The Low preset is the only option that breaks the 60 FPS barrier, hitting 63.5 FPS. The Medium preset sits at 52.6 FPS. For 4K play, the choice is between Low for a fluid 60+ FPS experience or Medium for a more visually rich but slightly less responsive 52.6 FPS. Given that tactical decisions do not require twitch reflexes, Medium at 4K is a viable compromise, but Low is the choice for strict frame pacing.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. In synthetic benchmarks, it scores 35,443 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 5,003 in single-core. These figures place the CPU in the 94th percentile of all processors, indicating a high-end part. However, for a game like Hard West, which is turn-based and does not have complex simulation loops that stress many cores, this processing power is largely underutilized.

The game's performance scaling is a clear indicator of where the bottleneck lies. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo achieves 186.4 FPS. This high frame rate demonstrates that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough data to produce a very high output. The CPU's strong single-core performance, evidenced by its 5,003 Cinebench R23 single-core score, is more relevant here than its multi-core might. Turn-based tactics often rely on a few primary threads for game logic and AI, so the high boost clock is beneficial.

Compared to its nearest rivals, the i7-14700F is essentially tied with the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, which has an average score just 0.6% higher, and the Ryzen 9 9900X3D, which is a mere 1.1% higher. This indicates that despite the lower core count compared to some, the i7-14700F provides top-tier processing capability. In this specific game, however, the CPU's role is to ensure that frame times remain consistent and that the GPU is never starved of draw calls. The data suggests it performs this role flawlessly, as the FPS drops are almost entirely attributable to the GPU's workload at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 is the primary determinant of performance in Hard West. It features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 272.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its boost clock is 2460 MHz, and it has 3072 shading units. In the Passmark G3D benchmark, it scores 19,545, placing it in the 66th percentile of all GPUs. This is a mid-range card, and the measured FPS reflects that.

The GPU's memory capacity and bandwidth are sufficient for Hard West's textures and geometry, which are not exceptionally demanding. The core clock speed and shading unit count are the limiting factors. This is evident when looking at the performance drop from 1080p High (119.8 FPS) to 1440p High (77.1 FPS), a 36% reduction. This is a classic sign of GPU-bound rendering, where the pixel fill rate and shader complexity become the bottleneck.

When compared to its nearest rivals, the RTX 4060 is very closely matched with the AMD Radeon RX 6600M (0.6% slower) and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti (0.7% slower). It is slightly faster than the Intel Arc B580, which is 0.7% behind. This places the RTX 4060 in a competitive mid-range segment, but it is clearly not a high-end card. For a game released in 2015, the RTX 4060 is more than adequate to run the game at high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but the 4K ultra preset is far beyond its capabilities, as evidenced by the 27.6 FPS result.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 973 out of 1699 tested combinations puts this system firmly in the lower half of the database. This is a sobering statistic, but it must be interpreted in context. This rank is against all possible CPU and GPU pairings, including those with top-tier graphics cards like the RTX 4090 or the RX 7900 XTX. For a mid-range GPU like the RTX 4060 paired with a high-end CPU, this rank is expected.

The data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor. The CPU's percentile rank of 94 is far higher than the GPU's percentile rank of 66. The performance ceiling of this combo is set by the RTX 4060. The i7-14700F is capable of driving much more powerful graphics cards, but it is harnessed to a mid-range part. This creates an imbalance where the system's overall ranking is dragged down by the GPU. The 973rd rank is a reflection of the GPU's position in the market, not a sign of a poorly matched pair.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K clearly illustrates the GPU bottleneck. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 119.8 at 1080p to 77.1 at 1440p, and then to 40.5 at 4K. This is a 66% reduction in FPS from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is consistent with a GPU that is running out of pixel processing power.

The CPU's influence is negligible in this scaling. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would see a much smaller FPS drop when lowering the resolution, as the CPU workload would remain constant. Instead, we see a steep decline, which is a textbook GPU-bound scenario. The RTX 4060's 8 GB VRAM is also a factor, but for this game, it is more about the raw compute power. The 4K Low preset still manages 63.5 FPS, which suggests that the card can handle the geometry, but the higher settings' shader and texture demands at 4K are too much. The result is that 4K play requires a significant settings compromise, while 1440p is the practical maximum for a high-quality experience.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The exact measured FPS values are as follows:

1920x1080:

• Low: 186.4 FPS
• Medium: 154.2 FPS
• High: 119.8 FPS
• Ultra: 85.7 FPS

2560x1440:

• Low: 119.7 FPS
• Medium: 94.4 FPS
• High: 77.1 FPS
• Ultra: 54.0 FPS

3840x2160:

• Low: 63.5 FPS
• Medium: 52.6 FPS
• High: 40.5 FPS
• Ultra: 27.6 FPS

This data reveals a clear pattern. The jump from Low to Ultra at any resolution incurs a significant cost. At 1080p, the difference between Low and Ultra is 100.7 FPS, a 54% reduction. At 1440p, the difference is 65.7 FPS, a 55% reduction. At 4K, the difference is 35.9 FPS, a 57% reduction. The consistency of this percentage drop strongly suggests that the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints, and that the game's Ultra preset is designed for more powerful hardware than the RTX 4060 offers. For a smooth experience, the data consistently points to High settings at 1080p or Medium settings at 1440p as the best balance of visual fidelity and frame rate for this specific combo.