Hard West

Hard West is a turn-based tactics title from 2015, and the measured results with an Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 show a game that is far more demanding at its upper limits than its age suggests. The data reveals a configuration that delivers exceptional frame rates across most settings, but the scaling curve from 1080p to 4K exposes where the bottleneck shifts and where the RTX 4090's immense power is neutralized by the game's engine.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a clear and consistent drop in performance as resolution increases, but the magnitude of that drop varies dramatically depending on the quality preset. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 sees average FPS fall from 331.7 to 233.2, a reduction of roughly 30%. Moving further to 3840x2160 at Low settings yields 122.1 average FPS, which is about 48% lower than the 1440p result. This steep decline at lower presets indicates that the GPU is becoming the primary limiting factor, as the CPU has ample headroom to feed frames at these lower graphical loads.

The scaling behavior shifts noticeably at Higher presets. At High settings, the 1080p result is 227.9 FPS, dropping to 143.7 FPS at 1440p (a 37% decrease) and then to 76.7 FPS at 4K (a 47% decrease from 1440p). The pattern is similar for Medium settings, where 299.8 FPS at 1080p falls to 186.2 FPS at 1440p and then 97.4 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset tells a different story: 169.7 FPS at 1080p drops to 110.4 FPS at 1440p (a 35% reduction) and then to 57.3 FPS at 4K (a 48% reduction from 1440p).

The data indicates that at 1080p, even the most demanding Ultra preset produces frame rates well above 150 FPS, which suggests the CPU and GPU combination is not stressed. However, the 4K Ultra result of 57.3 FPS is a dramatic outlier, showing that Hard West's Ultra settings at 4K impose a rendering load that even the RTX 4090 cannot brute-force into high refresh rate territory. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is consistently the largest percentage drop across all presets, confirming that pixel count is the dominant variable in this game's performance equation. This is a game where the RTX 4090 is the clear limiting component at 4K, while at 1080p the CPU is likely the ceiling for Low and Medium presets, given the exceptionally high frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with a 5 nm process from TSMC, housing 76,300 million transistors on a 609 mm² die. Its 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s, which is substantial for texture-heavy scenes. The GPU operates with a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz, with memory running at an effective 21 Gbps. These specifications place the RTX 4090 in the 91st percentile of all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 66473.

In Hard West, the GPU's role is clearly defined by the resolution scaling. At 1080p, the RTX 4090's raw compute power — 82.58 TFLOPS of FP32 performance across 16,384 shading units — is more than sufficient to push frame rates past 300 FPS at Low settings. The 4K Ultra result of 57.3 FPS, however, shows that the game's Ultra preset likely engages effects that stress the memory subsystem and shading units simultaneously. The 1.01 TB/s bandwidth is not enough to prevent a near-halving of performance from 1440p to 4K at Ultra settings, indicating a rendering path that is extremely bandwidth-hungry.

The GPU's 128 RT cores and 512 tensor cores are present, but Hard West is a 2015 turn-based tactics game, so ray tracing and DLSS features are not relevant to its measured performance. The data shows that the RTX 4090's advantage is most pronounced at lower settings and resolutions, where it can operate at its boost clock ceiling without thermal or power constraints. The 450 W TDP and triple-slot cooler are clearly adequate for this workload, as the measured frame rates do not indicate any throttling, even at 4K Ultra where the GPU is most heavily loaded.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS achieved at 3840x2160?

A: The best 4K result is 122.1 FPS at Low settings, which is more than double the 57.3 FPS seen at Ultra settings.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High at 2560x1440?

A: At 1440p, Ultra delivers 110.4 FPS average, while High achieves 143.7 FPS. This represents a 23% performance advantage for High over Ultra.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1920x1080 Low settings?

A: The 331.7 FPS result at 1080p Low is exceptionally high, and given the Intel Core i9-14900K's 97th percentile ranking among all CPUs, it is likely that the game's engine or the CPU's single-thread performance is the limiting factor at this extreme frame rate.

Q: What is the frame rate drop from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings?

A: Medium settings see average FPS fall from 299.8 at 1080p to 97.4 at 4K, a reduction of approximately 68% — the largest relative drop across all presets.

Q: Does the RTX 4090's 24 GB VRAM make a difference in Hard West?

A: The measured data does not show VRAM capacity as a limiting factor, as even the most demanding 4K Ultra result of 57.3 FPS operates without memory-related issues, but the 1.01 TB/s bandwidth appears insufficient to maintain high frame rates at Ultra settings.

Q: How does the i9-14900K's performance compare to its nearest rival in general benchmarks?

A: The Intel Core i9-14900K has an average benchmark score of 79824, which is 0.7% higher than the Intel Core i9-14900KF and 0.9% higher than the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data provides a clear hierarchy for the best experience in Hard West. At 3840x2160, High settings with an average of 76.7 FPS offer the best balance of visual fidelity and smoothness, as Medium (97.4 FPS) and Low (122.1 FPS) sacrifice too much quality for marginal gains, while Ultra (57.3 FPS) falls below the 60 FPS threshold that most players consider playable. The 4K High result is the only preset at this resolution that stays comfortably above 60 FPS while still providing meaningful graphical detail.

For 2560x1440, the High preset at 143.7 FPS is the recommended choice, as it provides a smooth high-refresh-rate experience without the steep performance penalty of Ultra (110.4 FPS). Medium at 186.2 FPS is a viable alternative for competitive play, but the visual difference between Medium and High is often worth the 42 FPS trade-off. At 1920x1080, all presets produce frame rates above 169 FPS, so the choice comes down to preference: Ultra at 169.7 FPS is the highest-quality option and still delivers excellent smoothness, making it the clear recommendation for 1080p users who want the best-looking version of the game.

The data suggests that High is the "sweet spot" preset across all resolutions, as it consistently offers a significant visual upgrade over Medium while avoiding the disproportionate performance cost of Ultra. For players with 4K displays, High is the only sensible choice. For 1440p and 1080p users, Ultra is only recommended if the frame rate drop to 110.4 FPS or 169.7 FPS, respectively, is acceptable in exchange for maximum graphical settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are as follows: Low settings achieve 331.7 FPS, Medium settings reach 299.8 FPS, High settings produce 227.9 FPS, and Ultra settings yield 169.7 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 162 FPS, with each step up in quality costing a significant number of frames. The transition from Low to Medium costs 31.9 FPS, Medium to High costs 71.9 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 58.2 FPS. This indicates that the High preset is the first substantial visual upgrade that meaningfully impacts performance.

At 2560x1440, the results are: Low at 233.2 FPS, Medium at 186.2 FPS, High at 143.7 FPS, and Ultra at 110.4 FPS. The total spread narrows to 122.8 FPS, with the largest single drop occurring between Medium and High (42.5 FPS). The 1440p results show that the game remains highly playable at all settings, with even Ultra staying above 110 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the data shows: Low at 122.1 FPS, Medium at 97.4 FPS, High at 76.7 FPS, and Ultra at 57.3 FPS. The spread is 64.8 FPS, and the pattern of diminishing returns is stark. The drop from Low to Medium is 24.7 FPS, Medium to High is 20.7 FPS, and High to Ultra is 19.4 FPS. This consistent ~20 FPS cost per preset step at 4K highlights how resolution scaling amplifies the GPU workload. The 4K Ultra result of 57.3 FPS is notably below the 60 FPS target, while all other 4K presets exceed it, making High the highest-quality option that maintains a smooth experience at this resolution.