Hard West

The Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combination delivers a performance profile in Hard West that is heavily dictated by resolution and graphics settings. At 1080p, the system produces exceptionally high frame rates that exceed the refresh rate capabilities of most standard displays, while at 4K Ultra, it struggles to maintain smooth gameplay. This data indicates a system where the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck as resolution and settings increase, a common pattern for a turn-based tactics title that does not heavily tax the CPU.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial and reveals the expected scaling behavior for this hardware. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 158.6 FPS at 1920x1080 to 100.1 FPS at 2560x1440, and finally to 55.1 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a significant 65.3% reduction in performance from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the rendering workload is scaling directly with pixel count.

The scaling pattern shifts dramatically when comparing Low and Ultra settings. At Low settings, the system achieves 256.7 FPS at 1080p, which drops to 88.1 FPS at 4K — a 65.7% decrease. At Ultra settings, the frame rate goes from 123.6 FPS at 1080p to 41.1 FPS at 4K, a 66.7% reduction. The consistency of these percentage drops across all settings suggests that the limiting component is purely the GPU's rendering throughput, as the CPU overhead remains constant regardless of resolution.

The data shows that the transition from 1440p to 4K is particularly punishing. At Medium settings, the system delivers 132.8 FPS at 1440p but only 69.5 FPS at 4K, cutting performance nearly in half. This steep drop-off indicates that the RTX 4070's memory bandwidth and compute resources are being saturated at 4K, particularly when higher quality textures and effects are enabled.

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. For a turn-based tactics game like Hard West, the CPU's role is primarily managing game logic, unit AI, and pathfinding calculations, which are typically single-threaded or lightly threaded workloads. The high boost clock of 5.40 GHz provides strong single-core performance, which is critical for these tasks.

Benchmark results place this CPU in the 94th percentile versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 54097. In multi-threaded workloads like Cinebench R23, it scores 35443, while in single-threaded tests it achieves 5003. These numbers indicate a processor that is more than capable of handling the computational demands of Hard West without becoming a bottleneck. The CPU sits within 1.2% of the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 and 1.7% of the AMD EPYC 7313P in average benchmark scores, showing it is competitive with enterprise-class multi-core parts.

Given that the frame rates at 1080p Low reach 256.7 FPS, the CPU is clearly not limiting performance in this scenario. The data suggests that even at the highest frame rates measured, the i7-14700F has sufficient headroom to feed the GPU with draw calls and game state updates. The 33 MB of shared L3 cache provides ample fast storage for game data, reducing latency for frequently accessed information.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, featuring 5888 shading units and 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus. The memory operates at 1313 MHz, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's boost clock of 2475 MHz allows it to maintain high throughput across various workloads. This hardware configuration places the RTX 4070 in the 81st percentile versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37283.

The GPU's role in Hard West is paramount, as the scaling data clearly shows. The RTX 4070 is within 0.6% of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 in average benchmark scores, indicating similar raw compute capabilities. However, the Ada Lovelace architecture provides features like DirectX 12 Ultimate support and hardware ray tracing cores, which may not be fully utilized in this older title from 2015.

At 4K Ultra, the frame rate drops to 41.1 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold typically desired for smooth gameplay. This indicates that the RTX 4070's 12 GB of VRAM and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the highest settings at 4K in this game. The 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 compute is being fully utilized, and the GPU becomes the sole limiting factor. The transition from Medium to Ultra at 4K shows a 40.9% performance penalty, from 69.5 FPS to 41.1 FPS, which is substantial.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers excellent performance across all settings. Low settings produce 256.7 FPS, Medium reaches 207.5 FPS, High achieves 158.6 FPS, and Ultra still manages a very playable 123.6 FPS. These numbers suggest that at 1080p, the GPU is rarely the bottleneck, and the system can easily drive high-refresh-rate monitors.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain strong but show the expected decline. Low settings yield 161.8 FPS, Medium delivers 132.8 FPS, High maintains 100.1 FPS, and Ultra drops to 78.9 FPS. The 1440p results indicate that High settings are the sweet spot for maintaining frame rates above 100 FPS, while Ultra still provides smooth gameplay above 75 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the performance picture changes significantly. Low settings produce 88.1 FPS, Medium achieves 69.5 FPS, High falls to 55.1 FPS, and Ultra drops to 41.1 FPS. The 4K results show that players targeting 4K will need to compromise on settings to achieve 60 FPS. Medium settings at 69.5 FPS are the highest quality option that maintains smooth gameplay, while High and Ultra require accepting frame rates below 60 FPS.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ranks 399th out of 1699 tested combos in Hard West, placing it in the top 23.5% of all configurations. This ranking reflects the strong performance of both components, but also shows that there is room for higher-end hardware to achieve better results in this title.

The CPU's percentile ranking of 94th versus all CPUs and the GPU's 81st percentile ranking versus all GPUs suggest that this combo is well-balanced, with the CPU being relatively stronger than the GPU. This balance is reflected in the game's performance, where the GPU becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions. The ranking indicates that this system is suitable for high-refresh-rate 1080p gaming and capable 1440p gaming, but it is not optimized for 4K Ultra settings in Hard West.

The measured data confirms that the combo's performance is consistent with its ranking. At 1080p High, the system produces 158.6 FPS, which is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay. At 1440p Ultra, the 78.9 FPS result is still playable, while 4K Ultra at 41.1 FPS falls below the ideal range. This suggests that the combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where it can deliver high frame rates without compromise.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Hard West?*

A: The data shows that 2560x1440 at High settings delivers 100.1 FPS, making it the optimal balance of visual quality and performance. At 1920x1080, frame rates exceed 158 FPS at High settings, which is excellent for high-refresh-rate displays.

*Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Hard West?*

A: At 4K, Medium settings produce 69.5 FPS, which is playable. However, High settings drop to 55.1 FPS and Ultra falls to 41.1 FPS, indicating that 4K requires reduced settings for smooth gameplay.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Intel Core i7-14700F has an average benchmark score of 54097, which is 0.6% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and 1.1% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X3D. It is 1.2% higher than the Intel Xeon Phi 7290 and 1.7% higher than the AMD EPYC 7313P.

Q: What is the GPU's performance ranking relative to other GPUs?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ranks in the 81st percentile versus all GPUs. It is within 0.6% of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 and 2.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 5300M in average benchmark scores.

Q: Does the game become CPU-bound at any settings?

A: Based on the frame rate data, the game does not appear to be CPU-bound. Even at 1080p Low with 256.7 FPS, the system continues to scale with GPU settings, indicating the CPU has sufficient headroom.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, Low settings produce 161.8 FPS while Ultra produces 78.9 FPS, representing a 51.2% difference. This shows that Ultra settings impose a significant load on the GPU.