Hard West

# Hard West with Intel Core Ultra 5 225 + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070

This combo ranks 621st out of 2,949 tested configurations for Hard West, placing it in the top 21% of all tested combos for this turn-based tactics title. The pairing of Intel's 10-core Core Ultra 5 225 with NVIDIA's RTX 4070 produces frame rates that range from a playable 40 FPS at 4K Ultra to a blistering 256 FPS at 1080p Low, with the data showing a system that is clearly GPU-limited at higher resolutions but capable of exceptional performance at 1080p and 1440p. Hard West, released in 2015, is a turn-based tactics game that does not demand current-generation hardware, so this modern mid-range pairing delivers headroom across all tested presets, though the scaling patterns reveal where the bottlenecks emerge.

How This Combo Ranks

The 621st position out of 2,949 combos indicates a strong overall showing, but the ranking context matters more than the raw position. This combo sits comfortably above the median tested configuration, outperforming roughly 79% of all recorded combinations for Hard West. The data suggests this pairing is well above average for this title, which makes sense given that the game's turn-based nature and 2015 release date mean even mid-range modern hardware can achieve high frame rates.

What stands out in the ranking data is the spread between the best and worst measured results. At 1080p Low, this combo produces 256 FPS average, while at 4K Ultra it drops to 40 FPS average. That six-fold difference between the easiest and hardest tested scenarios shows the combo's range, but it also reveals that the game's engine scales heavily with resolution and preset quality. The rank of 621 likely reflects the average across all tested configurations, which includes these extreme variations.

Compared to other combos in the database, this pairing's position suggests it is not an outlier in either direction. It is not a top-tier enthusiast configuration that would crack the top 100, nor is it a budget pairing struggling to maintain playable frame rates. The 621st rank places it in the upper-middle tier, consistent with what one might expect from a 2025-release CPU paired with a 2023 GPU in a 2015 tactics game. The CPU's 85th percentile ranking among all CPUs and the GPU's 81st percentile among all GPUs reinforce this interpretation — both components are above average individually, and their combination in this game produces a similarly above-average result.

The benchmark data shows the combo's strengths are most apparent at 1440p, where it achieves 102 FPS at High settings and 133 FPS at Medium. These are the "sweet spot" results that likely contribute most to the overall rank. At 4K, the combo still delivers playable frame rates at High (54 FPS) and Medium (70 FPS), which is notable for a game that does not heavily stress modern GPUs. The Ultra preset at 4K drops to 40 FPS, which is the weakest result in the dataset and likely drags the rank down from what it could be.

GPU Role

The RTX 4070 brings 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, delivering 504.2 GB/s of bandwidth. Its AD104 chip, built on TSMC's 5 nm process with 35,800 million transistors, operates at a base clock of 1920 MHz and boosts to 2475 MHz. The memory clock runs at 1313 MHz, translating to 21 Gbps effective. These specifications place the GPU in the 81st percentile of all tested GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37,648.

In Hard West, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution rises. At 1080p Low, the 256 FPS average suggests the GPU is barely challenged — the game's simple geometry and turn-based rendering demands are far below what this card can deliver. The GPU's 5,888 shading units and 184 texture mapping units are more than sufficient for a 2015 tactics title, and the 64 ROPs handle the pixel output without issue. The RTX 4070's 29.15 TFLOPS of FP32 compute power is vastly overprovisioned for this workload.

The GPU's memory subsystem also proves adequate. The 12 GB capacity is never a limiting factor in Hard West, which was designed for GPUs with far less VRAM. The 504.2 GB/s bandwidth provides ample headroom for texture streaming and scene data, even at 4K Ultra where the 40 FPS average is more likely a compute or fill-rate limitation than a memory bandwidth constraint. The GPU's 158.4 GPixel/s pixel rate and 455.4 GTexel/s texture rate are the specifications most relevant to Hard West's rendering workload, and they scale predictably with the measured frame rates.

The RTX 4070's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the NVIDIA Tesla P4 (deltaPct 0.1), AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (deltaPct 0.4), and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (deltaPct -1.3). The Tesla P4 and RX Vega 56 are significantly older architectures, yet they score within 0.4% of the RTX 4070 in average benchmark score. This tight grouping indicates that the RTX 4070's raw compute performance is not dramatically ahead of previous-generation flagships, but its efficiency and feature set (including Ada Lovelace architecture improvements) give it advantages that synthetic benchmarks may not fully capture.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern of GPU limitation emerging as resolution increases. From 1080p to 1440p at High settings, the average FPS drops from 161 to 102, a 37% reduction. From 1440p to 4K at High, the average drops from 102 to 54, a 47% reduction. These scaling factors are typical for a GPU-bound scenario — each resolution doubling approximately doubles the pixel count, and the frame rate drops accordingly.

At Low settings, the scaling is even more dramatic. The 1080p Low average of 256 FPS drops to 162 FPS at 1440p (37% reduction) and then to 85 FPS at 4K (48% reduction from 1440p). The fact that Low settings show similar percentage drops to High settings suggests the GPU's pixel throughput is the limiting factor regardless of preset quality. Even with minimal shading work, the GPU cannot maintain 4K frame rates proportional to its 1080p performance because the sheer number of pixels to fill becomes the bottleneck.

At Medium settings, the scaling pattern includes minimum and maximum FPS data. At 1080p Medium, the average is 210 FPS with a minimum of 178 FPS and maximum of 241 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 133 FPS (37% reduction) with minimum 113 FPS and maximum 153 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average is 70 FPS (47% reduction from 1440p) with minimum 59 FPS and maximum 80 FPS. The consistent 37% and 47% reductions across all settings presets confirm that resolution, not preset complexity, is the primary driver of performance changes.

Ultra settings show the most severe scaling. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 121 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 76 FPS (37% reduction). At 4K Ultra, it falls to 40 FPS (47% reduction from 1440p). These percentages match the other presets almost exactly, reinforcing that the game's resolution scaling is consistent regardless of graphical complexity. The CPU's role in this scaling is minimal — the Core Ultra 5 225 with its 10 cores and 10 threads is more than capable of feeding the GPU at all tested resolutions, and the consistent scaling pattern indicates the GPU is the limiting component throughout.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce a 256 FPS average, which is the highest measured frame rate in the entire dataset. Medium settings average 210 FPS, with a minimum of 178 FPS and maximum of 241 FPS. High settings average 161 FPS, and Ultra settings average 121 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 135 FPS, showing that the game's preset quality has a significant impact on performance even at lower resolutions. All 1080p results exceed 120 FPS, meaning this combo can drive high-refresh-rate monitors at this resolution regardless of quality settings.

At 2560x1440, the results remain strong but show the expected drop. Low settings average 162 FPS, which is still above 144 Hz refresh rates. Medium settings average 133 FPS, with a minimum of 113 FPS and maximum of 153 FPS. High settings average 102 FPS, and Ultra settings average 76 FPS. The 1440p results show that this combo can handle High settings at over 100 FPS, making it suitable for most gaming monitors. Even Ultra settings at 76 FPS remain comfortably playable, though not at high refresh rates.

At 3840x2160, the combo begins to show its limits. Low settings average 85 FPS, which is still playable but below the 100 FPS threshold. Medium settings average 70 FPS, with a minimum of 59 FPS and maximum of 80 FPS. High settings average 54 FPS, and Ultra settings average 40 FPS. The 4K results indicate that this combo is best suited for 4K gaming at Medium or Low settings, or at High settings if the player accepts frame rates in the 50s. Ultra at 4K dips to 40 FPS, which may be acceptable for a turn-based tactics game where twitch reflexes are not required, but it is the weakest result in the dataset.

The Medium preset is the only one with complete min/max data across all three resolutions. At 1080p, the minimum of 178 FPS and maximum of 241 FPS show a 63 FPS range. At 1440p, the range is 40 FPS (113 to 153). At 4K, the range is 21 FPS (59 to 80). The narrowing range at higher resolutions suggests that the GPU's workload becomes more consistent as it approaches saturation, with fewer frame-time spikes when the GPU is already near its limit.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 brings 10 cores and 10 threads, running at a base clock of 3.30 GHz and boosting to 4.90 GHz. Built on TSMC's 3 nm process with 17,800 million transistors, this Arrow Lake-S architecture CPU supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration with 102.4 GB/s bandwidth. The CPU's cache hierarchy includes 192 KB of L1 per core, 3 MB of L2 per core, and 20 MB of shared L3 cache. Its Cinebench R23 scores are 25,891 multi-core and 3,655 single-core, placing it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs.

In Hard West, the CPU's role is relatively minor due to the game's turn-based nature. The game's logic, pathfinding, and AI calculations are not heavily threaded, so the 10 cores and 10 threads are largely underutilized. The CPU's strong single-core performance, evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3,655, is more relevant to this game than its multi-core capabilities. The 4.90 GHz boost clock ensures that single-threaded game logic runs at maximum speed, preventing CPU bottlenecks even at 1080p Low where the GPU is producing 256 FPS.

The CPU's PassMark scores provide additional context. Its multithread score of 30,459 and single-thread score of 4,412 indicate balanced performance, but the data compression score of 302,811 and floating point math score of 92,038 suggest the CPU excels at workloads that Hard West does not heavily utilize. The find prime numbers score of 358 is notably low, but this is a synthetic test that does not reflect gaming performance.

The CPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (deltaPct 0), AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (deltaPct -0.2), AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (deltaPct -0.4), and Intel Core i9-12900T (deltaPct -0.5). These rivals all score within 0.5% of the Core Ultra 5 225 in average benchmark score, indicating that the CPU's performance is similar to several other mid-range and previous-generation high-end options. For Hard West specifically, any of these CPUs would likely produce nearly identical frame rates because the game's CPU demands are modest.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and 20 MB of L3 cache are adequate for this workload. The L3 cache size is sufficient to hold the game's frequently accessed data, and the dual-channel DDR5 memory at 102.4 GB/s provides ample bandwidth for the CPU to feed the GPU. The PCIe Gen 5 support with 20 lanes ensures the RTX 4070, which uses PCIe 4.0 x16, has full bandwidth available. The CPU's integrated Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 16 execution units are not used in this configuration, as the discrete RTX 4070 handles all rendering.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance for optimal settings at each resolution. At 1080p, the Medium preset at 210 FPS average offers the best balance of visual quality and performance, with the minimum of 178 FPS ensuring no drops below high-refresh-rate territory. The High preset at 161 FPS is also excellent, and even Ultra at 121 FPS remains above 120 FPS. For most players at 1080p, High settings provide near-maximum visual quality while maintaining frame rates that exceed any display's refresh rate, making Ultra's 121 FPS a reasonable choice only for those who prioritize visual fidelity over the small performance margin.

At 1440p, the High preset at 102 FPS is the recommended choice. It delivers over 100 FPS average, which is smooth on most monitors, while providing better visual quality than Medium's 133 FPS. The Medium preset with its 113 FPS minimum is the safer choice for players with 144 Hz displays who want to avoid any frame rate dips, and the Ultra preset at 76 FPS is viable for turn-based tactics where reaction time is not critical. Players should choose between High and Ultra based on their preference for visual fidelity versus frame rate headroom, with High offering 26 FPS more than Ultra at this resolution.

At 4K, the Medium preset at 70 FPS is the best recommendation. It provides the highest average frame rate that remains above 60 FPS, with a minimum of 59 FPS that only occasionally dips below the 60 FPS threshold. The Low preset at 85 FPS is smoother but sacrifices significant visual quality, and the High preset at 54 FPS is playable but noticeably less smooth. The Ultra preset at 40 FPS is not recommended for 4K, as the frame rate drops to a level where even turn-based gameplay may feel sluggish during camera movements and animations.

Across all resolutions, the Medium preset shows the most consistent performance with complete min/max data, making it the safest recommendation. The data indicates that this combo's performance envelope in Hard West is defined more by resolution than by preset quality — the resolution scaling percentages are nearly identical across all presets, suggesting that players should first choose their target resolution and then select the highest preset that maintains their desired frame rate. For most users, 1440p High at 102 FPS or 4K Medium at 70 FPS will provide the best experience, depending on their display's native resolution and refresh rate capabilities.