Hard West

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700K paired with the AMD Radeon RX 7600 lands at rank 2575 out of 3722 tested combos in Hard West. This places the configuration in the lower third of the database, which is notable given the individual component standings. The CPU sits at the 94th percentile among all processors, while the GPU rests at the 57th percentile, yet the combined result suggests the graphics card is the primary constraint in this turn-based tactics title. The rank indicates that roughly 69% of tested system pairings deliver higher average frame rates in this game, a sobering statistic for a modern mid-range combination. However, the context of Hard West's genre matters — turn-based tactics rarely demand the frame rates of fast-paced shooters, so the raw rank slightly overstates the practical impact of the lower placement. The delta between the combo rank and the CPU's strong percentile highlights a classic bottleneck dynamic, where the processor's headroom remains largely untapped because the GPU reaches its ceiling first. Compared to other pairings in the database, this combo is not an outlier in either direction; it sits within a dense cluster of systems that deliver playable but not exceptional performance at higher resolutions.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 7600 brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 2250 MHz, translating to 18 Gbps effective, while the base clock is 1720 MHz, the game clock is 2250 MHz, and the boost clock reaches 2655 MHz. In Hard West, these specifications produce a telling pattern across the measured FPS rows. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the GPU delivers 157 FPS average, which drops to 74 FPS at Ultra — a 53% reduction that shows how heavily the card's shading units and ROPs are taxed by the game's visual effects. The GPU's 2048 shading units and 64 ROPs, running at a theoretical pixel rate of 169.9 GPixel/s and texture rate of 339.8 GTexel/s, are sufficient for 1080p but begin to struggle as resolution climbs. The 8 GB frame buffer is not the limiting factor in Hard West, as even at 4K Ultra the average FPS of 25 suggests compute and fill-rate limits rather than memory capacity issues. The card's FP32 throughput of 21.75 TFLOPS is respectable for its class, but the data shows that Hard West's rendering pipeline saturates the GPU well before the CPU becomes relevant. The nearest rival data places the RX 7600 within 0.7% of the AMD Radeon 680M and 0.6% of the AMD Radeon Pro 560X in average benchmark score, though those comparisons come from generic compute tests, not this specific game. In Hard West specifically, the GPU's 57th percentile standing among all GPUs aligns with the measured FPS being playable but never stellar at higher settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to maintain 60+ FPS?

A: The data shows that at 1920x1080, all four settings presets deliver averages above 74 FPS, with Low at 157, Medium at 129, and High at 99. At 2560x1440, only Low (100 FPS) and Medium (82 FPS) exceed the 60 FPS threshold, while High drops to 63 FPS. At 3840x2160, no preset reaches 60 FPS, with the highest being Low at 52 FPS.

Q: How much FPS do you lose going from Low to Ultra at each resolution?

A: At 1080p, the drop from Low (157 FPS) to Ultra (74 FPS) is 83 FPS, a 53% reduction. At 1440p, Low (100 FPS) to Ultra (47 FPS) loses 53 FPS. At 4K, Low (52 FPS) to Ultra (25 FPS) loses 27 FPS. The percentage loss is consistent around 50-53% regardless of resolution.

Q: Does the 8 GB VRAM cause any issues at 4K in Hard West?

A: The measured data does not indicate VRAM capacity problems. At 3840x2160 Ultra, the average FPS is 25, and at 4K High it is 33. These low values are more consistent with raw compute and memory bandwidth limits — 288.0 GB/s — than with frame buffer exhaustion, since the game's art style is relatively simple for a 2015 title.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The benchmark results point clearly to the GPU. The i7-14700K ranks in the 94th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 69355, while the RX 7600 sits at the 57th percentile. The FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a near-linear decline with resolution, which is the signature of a GPU-bound scenario.

Q: What is the best settings preset for smooth gameplay at 1440p?

A: Medium at 2560x1440 delivers 82 FPS average with a minimum of 69 FPS, making it the highest preset that maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS. High at 1440p drops to 63 FPS average, which is borderline. Low at 1440p runs at 100 FPS but sacrifices visual quality.

Q: How does this combo compare to systems with similar GPU scores?

A: The RX 7600's nearest rivals are within 0.7% in average benchmark score — the GeForce RTX 3050 OEM at -0.2%, the Radeon 680M at -0.7%, and the Radeon Pro 560X at +0.6%. However, in Hard West, the actual measured FPS will depend heavily on the CPU pairingchers, and this combo's specific rank of 2575 out of 3722 reflects the GPU's mid-pack position.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete matrix across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves 157 FPS average, which is the highest score in the entire dataset. Medium at 1080p delivers 129 FPS with a minimum of 110 and maximum of 148, showing tight frame pacing. High at 1080p drops to 99 FPS, and Ultra falls to 74 FPS. The 1080p results show a clear step-function: each preset tier costs roughly 25-30 FPS compared to the one below it. Moving to 2560x1440, Low still manages 100 FPS, which is a strong result for a mid-range GPU. Medium at 1440p produces 82 FPS average, with minimum 69 and maximum 94 — the minimum staying above 60 is notable for gameplay consistency. High at 1440p drops to 63 FPS, which is exactly at the edge of smooth playability, and Ultra falls to 47 FPS. At 3840x2160, the results become more demanding: Low yields 52 FPS, Medium 43 FPS (with min 36 and max 49), High 33 FPS, and Ultra 25 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 25 FPS is the only sub-30 FPS measurement in the entire set, indicating that this combo is not viable for 4K gaming in Hard West at maximum settings. The Medium preset at 4K, with a 36 FPS minimum, shows visible stutter potential. Across all resolutions, the gap between Low and Ultra remains remarkably consistent at approximately 50%, which suggests the game's settings scale uniformly regardless of resolution.

Resolution Scaling

Analyzing the FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this combo. At Low settings, the progression goes 157 FPS at 1080p, 100 FPS at 1440p, and 52 FPS at 4K. This represents a 36% drop from 1080p to 1440p, and a 67% drop from 1080p to 4K. For Medium settings, the numbers are 129, 82, and 43 FPS — a 36% drop to 1440p and 67% to 4K. High settings show 99, 63, and 33 FPS, which is a 36% and 67% drop respectively. Ultra settings display 74, 47, and 25 FPS, with the same 36% and 66% reductions. The consistency of these percentages across all presets is striking — it indicates that the game's rendering workload scales almost perfectly with pixel count, with no sudden bottleneck shifts. The pixel count from 1080p to 1440p increases by 78%, but the FPS drops by only 36%, showing that the GPU is not purely pixel-limited at these settings. From 1440p to 4K, pixel count increases by 125%, yet FPS drops by 48%, again confirming a sub-linear relationship. This pattern suggests that Hard West's engine has some fixed overhead that becomes proportionally smaller at higher resolutions, or that the GPU's compute units are saturated differently. The limiting component is clearly the GPU, as the CPU's performance (94th percentile, 20 cores, 28 threads) would not show such uniform resolution scaling if it were the constraint. The data indicates that the RX 7600 operates in its efficiency sweet spot at 1080p and becomes progressively more stressed at 1440p and 4K, with the 4K results being borderline unplayable except at Low settings.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz. It features 33 MB of shared L3 cache, 2 MB of L2 per core, and 80 KB of L1 per core. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 33440.5 and single-core score of 2160, a Geekbench multi-core score of 20767 and single-core of 2569, and a Passmark multithread score of 52392. These numbers place it at the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 69355. The nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X at -0.2% delta, the AMD EPYC 9115 at +0.1%, and the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F at -0.9% — all within a single percentage point, showing the i7-14700K is at the top of its performance class. However, in Hard West, the CPU's role is largely passive. The measured FPS data shows no evidence of CPU limitation: the frame rates scale smoothly with GPU settings and resolution, with no sudden drops that would indicate thread saturation or cache misses. The game, being a turn-based tactics title from 2015, likely uses only a fraction of the available 28 threads. The CPU's single-core performance, measured at 4472 in Passmark single-thread tests, is more than sufficient for the game's logic and AI calculations. The data suggests that the i7-14700K is effectively idle in this workload, providing massive headroom that goes unused. This is reflected in the combo rank — the CPU's 94th percentile standing does not lift the overall rank because the GPU becomes the ceiling. The 4K Ultra result of 25 FPS is purely a GPU limit; the CPU could handle far more demanding scenarios without breaking a sweat. For a game like Hard West, the i7-14700K is extreme overkill, but this does not harm performance — it simply means the system is balanced around the GPU's capabilities.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal settings preset depends on the target resolution and desired frame rate. For 1080p gaming, the High preset at 99 FPS average provides the best balance of visual quality and speed, as it stays well above 60 FPS while offering richer detail than Medium (129 FPS) or Low (157 FPS). The Ultra preset at 1080p delivers 74 FPS, which is still smooth, but the 25 FPS gain from High to Ultra may not justify the visual difference in a turn-based game where motion is less frequent. For 1440p, the Medium preset is the clear recommendation — it achieves 82 FPS average with a 69 FPS minimum, ensuring no drops below 60 FPS. High at 1440p runs at 63 FPS average, which is playable but leaves less margin for complex scenes; the data shows Medium provides 30% more headroom. Low at 1440p (100 FPS) is viable for competitive play but sacrifices too much visual fidelity for a tactical game. For 4K gaming, the situation is more constrained. Low settings at 52 FPS average is the only preset that approaches playability, but even this has no minimum FPS data, suggesting potential stutter. Medium at 4K (43 FPS average, 36 FPS minimum) falls below the 60 FPS threshold and shows frame pacing issues. Therefore, the best overall experience for this combo is 1080p Ultra or 1440p Medium, depending on whether resolution or settings quality matters more to the user. The data indicates that 1440p Medium offers the most consistent experience across the board — it maintains a 69 FPS minimum, which is higher than the 1080p Ultra average of 74 FPS but with better resolution. For users prioritizing frame rate over resolution, 1080p Ultra at 74 FPS is the highest visual preset that stays comfortably in the smooth range. The 4K options are not recommended for this combo, as even Low settings barely exceed 50 FPS, and the drop to Ultra at 25 FPS makes the game feel sluggish in a genre where quick camera pans and unit selection benefit from responsiveness.