Hard West

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 combination delivers exceptional performance in Hard West, a turn-based tactics title from 2015. The measured frames per second (FPS) across resolutions and settings show a system that is overwhelmingly capable, with the data indicating that the primary bottleneck shifts from the GPU at 4K to the CPU at 1080p. This analysis breaks down the measured performance, contextualizes the combo's standing, and offers guidance on optimal settings based strictly on the provided benchmark results.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is substantial, but the pattern reveals a classic GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions. At 1080p High, the combo produces 172 FPS. Moving to 1440p High reduces that to 109 FPS, a significant 37% decrease. Stepping up to 4K High yields 57 FPS, which is another 48% reduction from 1440p. This steep decline indicates that the rendering load is scaling heavily with pixel count, placing the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 under increasing strain as resolution rises.

However, the scaling behavior at lower settings tells a different story. At Low settings, the FPS goes from 274 at 1080p to 173 at 1440p, and finally to 91 at 4K. The percentage drops are 37% and 47%, respectively, nearly identical to the High setting drops. This consistency suggests that even when the graphical workload is reduced, the GPU remains the limiting factor at higher resolutions. The RTX 5070's 12 GB of GDDR7 memory and 672.0 GB/s bandwidth are being taxed by the sheer number of pixels, regardless of the visual complexity.

The most telling data point for understanding the limiting component is the performance at 1080p. Here, the frame rates are extraordinarily high across all settings. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 274 FPS, and even at Ultra, it maintains 129 FPS. These numbers are so high that they suggest the CPU, the Intel Core Ultra 5 225, is beginning to cap the frame rate. The scaling from Low to Medium at 1080p shows an 18% drop (274 to 224 FPS), but from Medium to High, it drops another 23% (224 to 172 FPS). The incremental drops are not purely linear, which is typical when the CPU's single-thread performance becomes a limiting factor at very high frame rates.

In contrast, at 4K, the FPS is much lower, and the scaling is more linear. From Low (91 FPS) to Medium (74 FPS) is an 19% drop, and from Medium to High (57 FPS) is a 23% drop. This linearity is a signature of a GPU-bound scenario, where the graphics card's fill rate and shading power dictate performance. The data clearly shows that at 4K, the RTX 5070 is the bottleneck, while at 1080p, the Core Ultra 5 225's capabilities are more relevant, as the GPU has ample headroom to render frames quickly.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the benchmark database, this specific configuration of the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 achieves a combo rank of 492 out of 2949 tested combinations for Hard West. This places it in the top 17% of all tested systems, indicating a very strong performance tier. The high ranking is unsurprising given the individual strengths of both components.

The GPU's contribution to this rank is substantial. The RTX 5070 sits in the 82nd percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40377. Its nearest rivals in the database, based on average score, are the AMD Radeon Pro 580 (with a delta of 0.1%), the AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 (0.8%), and the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 (-1.2%). While these are professional workstation cards, the data shows the RTX 5070's raw compute performance is in a similar ballpark, though its gaming-specific architecture for Hard West is clearly effective.

On the CPU side, the Core Ultra 5 225 is in the 85th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36938. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F (0% delta), AMD Ryzen 5 5500X3D (-0.2%), AMD Ryzen AI 7 PRO 450 (-0.4%), and Intel Core i9-12900T (-0.5%). These deltas are minimal, meaning the Ultra 5 225's overall processing power is nearly identical to these alternatives. This parity in synthetic benchmarks suggests that the combo's rank in Hard West is not due to an unusually strong CPU, but rather a balanced pairing that avoids significant bottlenecks.

The rank of 492 out of 2949 is a strong indicator. It suggests that most other tested combos, which likely include older or lower-tier components, cannot match the performance here. The combination of a high-percentile CPU and GPU working together without a major bottleneck is the reason for this excellent standing.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend heavily on the target resolution and desired frame rate. The data provides clear guidance for each resolution tier.

For 4K (3840x2160), the High preset yields an average of 57 FPS. This is just below the 60 FPS target that many users consider ideal, but it is playable for a turn-based tactics game. The Medium preset offers a more comfortable 74 FPS, which is a 30% improvement over High. Given that Hard West is a turn-based game where fluid motion is less critical than in fast-paced action titles, the High preset at 57 FPS is acceptable. However, for a smoother experience with headroom for framerate dips, the Medium preset at 74 FPS is the recommended choice. The Ultra preset drops to 43 FPS, which is not recommended, and the Low preset at 91 FPS sacrifices too much visual fidelity for a marginal gain over Medium.

For 1440p (2560x1440), the High preset delivers 109 FPS, which is excellent. This is the sweet spot for this resolution, providing high visual quality with a frame rate that is well above the threshold for smooth gameplay. The Ultra preset at 82 FPS is also viable, offering a 25% reduction in FPS for presumably higher visual fidelity, but High is the better balance. The Medium preset at 142 FPS is overkill for a turn-based title, and the Low preset at 173 FPS offers no tangible benefit.

For 1080p (1920x1080), the Ultra preset at 129 FPS is the clear recommendation. The GPU has so much headroom at this resolution that even the highest settings produce a frame rate that far exceeds display refresh rates of 120Hz or 144Hz. The High preset at 172 FPS is also great, but the Ultra preset's 129 FPS is still incredibly smooth. The data shows that the CPU begins to limit performance at this resolution, but it does so at a level that is imperceptible to the user. The Medium (224 FPS) and Low (274 FPS) presets are unnecessary, as they do not provide a visible improvement in smoothness to justify the reduction in graphical quality.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The following breakdown provides the exact measured FPS for each resolution and settings preset. All values are taken directly from the dataset.

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: Average FPS 91. No min/max data available.
• Medium: Average FPS 74, with a minimum of 63 and a maximum of 86.
• High: Average FPS 57. No min/max data available.
• Ultra: Average FPS 43. No min/max data available.

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: Average FPS 173. No min/max data available.
• Medium: Average FPS 142, with a minimum of 121 and a maximum of 163.
• High: Average FPS 109. No min/max data available.
• Ultra: Average FPS 82. No min/max data available.

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: Average FPS 274. No min/max data available.
• Medium: Average FPS 224, with a minimum of 191 and a maximum of 258.
• High: Average FPS 172. No min/max data available.
• Ultra: Average FPS 129. No min/max data available.

The Medium preset is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum FPS values. At 4K Medium, the framerate fluctuates between 63 and 86 FPS, and at 1440p Medium, it ranges from 121 to 163 FPS. At 1080p Medium, the range is 191 to 258 FPS. These fluctuations are likely due to scene complexity variations in the game, but the averages are stable enough to provide a reliable experience.

The most significant FPS jump occurs when moving from Ultra to High at 4K (43 to 57 FPS, a 33% increase). The jump from High to Medium at 4K is also notable (57 to 74 FPS, a 30% increase). These diminishing returns highlight that the GPU's shading units and ROPs are the bottleneck at 4K Ultra. At 1080p, the jumps are smaller in percentage terms, but the absolute values are still high, reinforcing that the system is overperforming for this title at lower resolutions.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 is the primary driver of performance at higher resolutions. Its architecture, Blackwell 2.0, built on a 5 nm process, contains 31,100 million transistors on a 263 mm² die. The GPU operates at a base clock of 2325 MHz and a boost clock of 2512 MHz. These clocks are relatively high and contribute to the GPU's ability to maintain strong frame rates.

The memory subsystem is a key factor in the 4K results. The 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 672.0 GB/s. This bandwidth is crucial for feeding the 6144 shading units and 80 ROPs at high resolutions. The data suggests that at 4K Ultra, the combination of the 43 FPS average and the high memory bandwidth requirement points to the GPU's compute and memory throughput being the limiting factor. The RTX 5070's 30.87 TFLOPS of FP32 performance is substantial, but Hard West's rendering at 4K seems to be saturating it.

The GPU's texture rate of 482.3 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 201.0 GPixel/s are also relevant. The pixel rate, in particular, determines how quickly the GPU can fill the screen. At 4K, there are over 8 million pixels to process, and the 43 FPS at Ultra suggests the pixel fill rate is being challenged. The transition from Ultra to Low at 4K (43 to 91 FPS) shows a 112% increase in performance, which is a strong indicator that reducing the pixel shading load and texture sampling has a massive impact, further confirming the GPU-bound nature of the title at this resolution.

The presence of 48 RT cores and 192 tensor cores is noted, but for a turn-based tactics game like Hard West, these are likely not heavily utilized. The game's release in 2015 predates the widespread adoption of real-time ray tracing, so the standard rasterization performance of the 6144 shading units is what matters most here.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 plays a more significant role at lower resolutions where the GPU is not the bottleneck. This CPU, part of the Core Ultra Series 2, has 10 cores and 10 threads, with a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz. Its architecture, Arrow Lake, is built on a 3 nm process by TSMC.

At 1080p, the CPU's performance is critical. The fact that the FPS scales from 129 at Ultra to 274 at Low indicates that the CPU can feed frames to the GPU faster than the GPU can render them at low settings. The CPU's single-thread performance is key here. Its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3655 and Passmark single-thread score of 4412 are strong indicators of its ability to handle game logic and draw calls efficiently. The 10 cores and 10 threads, while not having hyper-threading, are sufficient for a game from 2015.

The CPU's cache hierarchy also contributes to its performance. It has a 192 KB L1 cache per core, a 3 MB L2 cache per core, and a 20 MB shared L3 cache. This large L3 cache is beneficial for keeping frequently accessed game data close to the cores, reducing latency. However, the data shows that even with this cache, the CPU becomes the limiting factor at 1080p, as the frame rates plateau around the 200 FPS mark, suggesting a ceiling in how quickly the CPU can process the game's simulation and issue rendering commands.

The CPU's memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s, using dual-channel DDR5, is another factor. At very high frame rates, the CPU needs to communicate with memory quickly to keep the GPU fed. The benchmark results indicate that the CPU's performance is well-balanced with the GPU at 1440p, where the 109 FPS High result shows a good compromise. The Core Ultra 5 225's 85th percentile ranking against all CPUs confirms its strong overall performance, but in this specific game, its role is to avoid being a bottleneck, which it does admirably until the frame rate climbs past 200 FPS.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this system in Hard West?*

A: Based on the measured data, the optimal experience is at 1440p with the High preset, yielding 109 FPS. This provides high visual quality with a frame rate that is well above smooth gameplay thresholds. At 4K, the Medium preset at 74 FPS is the best balance, while at 1080p, the Ultra preset at 129 FPS is recommended.

*Q: Is this combo capable of 4K gaming in Hard West?*

A: Yes, it is. The data shows that at 4K High, the system averages 57 FPS, which is playable. For a more consistent experience, the 4K Medium preset averages 74 FPS, which is very smooth. The 4K Ultra preset is the only option that dips below 50 FPS, averaging 43 FPS.

Q: Why are the 1080p frame rates so high?

A: The high frame rates at 1080p are due to the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 having far more rendering power than needed for this resolution. The GPU's 6144 shading units and 672.0 GB/s bandwidth are underutilized, allowing the CPU to become the limiting factor. The Intel Core Ultra 5 225's strong single-thread performance, evidenced by its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3655, allows it to push frame rates past 200 FPS at lower settings.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other tested systems?

A: This combo ranks 492nd out of 2949 tested combinations for Hard West. This places it in the top 17% of all tested systems. This high ranking is a result of both the CPU and GPU being in the 82nd and 85th percentiles of their respective categories.

Q: Does the game use the RTX 5070's ray tracing capabilities?

A: The data does not indicate specific ray tracing performance. Given that Hard West was released in 2015, its rendering engine is likely based on traditional rasterization. The GPU's 48 RT cores are present, but the measured FPS is primarily determined by the standard shading performance of the 6144 shading units.

Q: What is the limiting factor at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The GPU is the limiting factor at 4K Ultra. The 43 FPS average is significantly lower than the 74 FPS at Medium settings, indicating that the GPU's pixel fill rate and shading power are being saturated. The RTX 5070's 201.0 GPixel/s pixel rate and 30.87 TFLOPS of FP32 performance are insufficient to maintain higher frame rates at this demanding setting.