Hard West

# Hard West with Intel Core i9-14900K + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090

Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015, presents a distinctive workload that scales unusually across resolution and quality settings. The data shows this combination of Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 delivers frame rates that range from a low of 61.6 FPS at 4K Ultra to a high of 332 FPS at 1080p Low. The spread between these extremes—roughly a fivefold difference—reveals a system that is heavily influenced by both GPU workload and CPU throughput, depending on the configuration chosen.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern: as resolution increases, frame rates drop substantially, indicating that the GPU becomes the limiting component at higher pixel counts. At 1080p High, the combination produces 234.9 FPS, but moving to 1440p High reduces this to 152.6 FPS, a decline of approximately 35%. Scaling further to 4K High yields 78.5 FPS, which represents a 66% reduction from the 1080p High figure. This steep falloff across resolution steps is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario at higher pixel counts, where the RTX 5090's workload grows with each additional pixel rendered.

The pattern intensifies when examining the Ultra settings. At 1080p Ultra, the system achieves 179.7 FPS, which drops to 109.4 FPS at 1440p Ultra and then to 61.6 FPS at 4K Ultra. The 4K Ultra result is the only measured configuration that falls below 60 FPS, suggesting that Hard West's Ultra preset at native 4K pushes the RTX 5090 to its limits in this title. Conversely, at 1080p Low, the 332 FPS result indicates that the CPU—with its 24 cores and 32 threads—is capable of feeding the GPU far beyond what the GPU can render at lower resolutions, where the rendering workload is comparatively light.

The Low settings data reinforces this interpretation. At 1440p Low, the system hits 238.6 FPS, while at 4K Low it reaches 123 FPS. The scaling from 1080p Low (332 FPS) to 1440p Low (238.6 FPS) shows a 28% reduction, while the step from 1440p Low to 4K Low is a 48% reduction. This increasingly aggressive drop-off as resolution climbs is consistent with the GPU becoming progressively more saturated, confirming that Hard West's rendering engine scales predictably with pixel count.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific combination of Intel Core i9-14900K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 holds a combo rank of 4 out of 1,699 tested combinations for Hard West. This places the system in the top 0.24% of all tested configs, a strong indication that only a handful of alternative pairings produce higher average frame rates in this title. The rank reflects the aggregate performance across all measured resolutions and settings, not just peak FPS at a single configuration.

The CPU's contribution to this ranking is notable when compared to its nearest rivals. The Intel Core i9-14900K has an average benchmark score of 79,824, which sits just 0.3% below the AMD EPYC 7413's 80,041 and 0.7% above both the Intel Core i9-14900KF (79,245) and Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF (79,240). The Intel Core Ultra 7 265K trails slightly at 79,102, a 0.9% delta. These tight margins indicate that the i9-14900K's processing power is competitive with the top alternatives, though not decisively ahead, which helps explain why the combo rank is 4th rather than 1st.

On the GPU side, the RTX 5090's average benchmark score of 84,306 places it at the 94th percentile among all GPUs. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D, scores 84,241—a difference of just 0.1%—while the RTX 5050 Mobile is 0.2% behind at 84,171. The AMD Radeon PRO W6600 trails by 1.3% at 83,209, and the NVIDIA CMP 40HX actually leads by 1.6% at 85,637. These narrow deltas suggest that the RTX 5090 is at the top of the GPU hierarchy, but not by a wide margin over its closest competitors.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 brings substantial hardware resources to Hard West, including 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus. The memory operates at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed, yielding a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s—far more than a turn-based tactics title from 2015 would typically require. This surplus bandwidth explains why memory capacity is never a constraint in the measured results; even at 4K Ultra, the game's modest asset sizes are unlikely to approach the 32 GB limit.

The GPU's clock behavior shows a base speed of 2017 MHz and a boost of 2407 MHz. These clocks, combined with 21,760 shading units and 680 texture mapping units, drive the measured frame rates across all configurations. The 176 ROPs and 170 ray tracing cores are present, though Hard West's rendering engine—being a 2015 release—does not leverage ray tracing, so the RT cores remain idle. Instead, the raw rasterization throughput, measured at 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate and 1,636.8 GTexel/s texture rate, does the heavy lifting.

The FP32 compute capability of 104.8 TFLOPS provides ample headroom for the game's simulation and rendering logic. At 4K Ultra, where the system produces 61.6 FPS, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, as evidenced by the steep performance drop from the 109.4 FPS at 1440p Ultra. The fact that 1080p Ultra achieves 179.7 FPS while 4K Ultra drops to 61.6 FPS—a 66% reduction—shows that the RTX 5090's rendering pipeline becomes progressively overwhelmed as pixel count quadruples, despite its massive bandwidth and compute resources.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system delivers its highest frame rates across all settings. Low settings produce 332 FPS, which represents the absolute ceiling for this combination in Hard West. Medium settings yield 305.6 FPS, a modest 8% reduction from Low, while High settings achieve 234.9 FPS. Ultra settings at 1080p produce 179.7 FPS, which is 46% lower than Low but still well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The relatively small gap between Low and Medium—just 26.4 FPS—suggests that the Medium preset does not impose a significantly heavier load than Low at this resolution.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain robust but show the expected decline. Low settings hit 238.6 FPS, down 28% from the 1080p Low result. Medium settings achieve 193.3 FPS, while High settings produce 152.6 FPS. Ultra at 1440p yields 109.4 FPS, which is still comfortably above 60 FPS and represents a 39% drop from the 1080p Ultra figure. The scaling from Low to Ultra at 1440p shows a 54% reduction, indicating that the Ultra preset's additional effects and geometry take a significant toll on the GPU.

At 3840x2160, the performance landscape changes dramatically. Low settings produce 123 FPS, which is the only 4K configuration to exceed 120 FPS. Medium settings drop to 100.2 FPS, while High settings yield 78.5 FPS. Ultra at 4K is the most demanding configuration measured, producing just 61.6 FPS. This is only 1.6 FPS above the 60 FPS threshold, making it the only setting where the combination approaches the limits of smooth playability. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K—from 123 FPS to 61.6 FPS, a 50% reduction—shows that even a flagship GPU like the RTX 5090 cannot fully overcome the Ultra preset's demands at native 4K in this title.

FAQ

Q: What is the best-performing settings configuration for this combo in Hard West?

A: The highest measured frame rate is 332 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. For a balance of visual quality and performance, 1440p High at 152.6 FPS offers strong results, while 4K High at 78.5 FPS remains playable.

Q: Is 4K Ultra playable with this hardware?

A: The 4K Ultra configuration produces 61.6 FPS average, which is just above the 60 FPS threshold. It is technically playable but leaves minimal headroom for demanding scenes, unlike 4K High at 78.5 FPS.

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

A: The Intel Core i9-14900K scores 79,824 on average, which is 0.3% behind the AMD EPYC 7413 and 0.7% behind the Intel Core i9-14900KF. It edges out the Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF by 0.7% and the Intel Core Ultra 7 265K by 0.9%.

Q: What GPU memory configuration does the RTX 5090 use?

A: The RTX 5090 features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, with memory clocked at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective) for a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s.

Q: Which resolution shows the biggest performance drop for this combo?

A: The steepest relative drop occurs from 1080p High (234.9 FPS) to 1440p High (152.6 FPS), a 35% reduction. The absolute largest drop is from 1080p Low (332 FPS) to 4K Low (123 FPS), a 63% reduction.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 rank among all GPUs in the database?

A: The RTX 5090 sits at the 94th percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 84,306. Its closest rival, the RTX 5090 D, is just 0.1% ahead at 84,241.