Hard West

# FAQ

Q: What is the frame rate for Hard West at 4K Ultra settings with the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090?

A: At 3840x2160 Ultra settings, the measured average frame rate is 58 FPS. This is the lowest average FPS recorded across all settings at 4K resolution.

Q: How does the RTX 5090's average benchmark score compare to its nearest rival?

A: The RTX 5090 has an average benchmark score of 79842, which places it 0.3% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (score 79605) and 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (score 78940). It trails the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 64X by 1.4% (that card scores 80959).

Q: What is the CPU's percentile ranking among all processors?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 falls in the 90th percentile versus all CPUs. Its average benchmark score is 48995, and its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G, scores 49196, which is 0.4% higher.

Q: What is the highest average FPS recorded in the measured data?

A: The highest average FPS is 325, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The second-highest is 303 FPS at 1080p Medium settings.

Q: How much VRAM does the RTX 5090 have and what is its memory bandwidth?

A: The RTX 5090 features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. Its memory clock runs at 1750 MHz with 28 Gbps effective speed.

Q: What is the combo's rank among tested configurations for this game?

A: The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 38th out of 2949 tested combos for Hard West, placing it in the top 1.3% of all tested configurations.

# Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data across all three resolutions and four settings presets provides a clear picture of which settings level offers the optimal balance. At 1920x1080, the jump from Low to Medium costs only 22 FPS on average (325 down to 303), while the leap from Medium to High drops 69 FPS to 234. The Ultra preset at 1080p yields 175 FPS, which is still comfortably smooth but represents a 59 FPS reduction from High.

At 2560x1440, the pattern shifts. Low delivers 235 FPS, Medium produces 192 FPS, and High drops to 148 FPS. Ultra at 1440p yields 111 FPS. The step from Medium to High costs 44 FPS, while the step from High to Ultra costs 37 FPS. For 1440p users, Medium appears to be the sweet spot: it maintains a 192 FPS average with a minimum of 163 FPS and maximum of 221 FPS, providing substantial headroom above typical display refresh rates.

The 4K results show the most dramatic scaling. At 3840x2160, Low achieves 123 FPS, Medium reaches 101 FPS with a minimum of 86 FPS, High drops to 78 FPS, and Ultra falls to 58 FPS. The Medium preset at 4K is the only setting that combines a triple-digit average with a minimum above 60 FPS (86 FPS minimum). Given that the game is a turn-based tactics title where frame dips are less consequential than in fast-action genres, the High preset at 4K still provides a playable 78 FPS average.

The most balanced experience across all resolutions is the Medium preset. It delivers 303 FPS at 1080p, 192 FPS at 1440p, and 101 FPS at 4K, with minimums of 257, 163, and 86 FPS respectively. No other preset maintains such consistent performance headroom across the resolution spectrum. For users prioritizing visual fidelity over raw frame rate, High at 1440p (148 FPS) or High at 4K (78 FPS) are reasonable alternatives, but Medium offers the best combination of smoothness and visual quality per the measured data.

# Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals how this workload scales with pixel count. At Low settings, the progression is 325 FPS at 1080p, 235 FPS at 1440p, and 123 FPS at 4K. This represents a 34% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 62% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The 4K result is roughly 38% of the 1080p figure, which is close to the theoretical pixel-count ratio (4K has 4x the pixels of 1080p, but the game's workload is not purely pixel-bound at these extreme frame rates).

At Medium settings, the scaling is 303 FPS at 1080p, 192 FPS at 1440p, and 101 FPS at 4K. The reduction from 1080p to 1440p is 37%, and from 1080p to 4K is 67%. The 4K average is exactly one-third of the 1080p average, indicating that the GPU is becoming a more significant limiting factor as resolution increases.

The High preset shows 234 FPS at 1080p, 148 FPS at 1440p, and 78 FPS at 4K. This is a 37% drop to 1440p and a 67% drop to 4K. The Ultra preset delivers 175 FPS at 1080p, 111 FPS at 1440p, and 58 FPS at 4K — a 37% reduction to 1440p and a 67% reduction to 4K.

The consistency of the percentage drops across settings suggests a well-behaved scaling pattern. The fact that 1080p frame rates exceed 300 FPS at Low and Medium settings indicates that the CPU (Intel Core Ultra 5 245 with a 5.10 GHz boost clock) is capable of feeding the GPU adequately at lower resolutions. However, the relatively modest 4K frame rates — even at Low settings (123 FPS) — suggest that Hard West's rendering workload becomes GPU-limited at higher resolutions, as the RTX 5090's raw compute (104.8 TFLOPS FP32) is being exercised more fully.

# How This Combo Ranks

This configuration ranks 38th out of 2949 tested combos for Hard West, placing it in the 98.7th percentile of all tested configurations. Given that the game released in 2015 and is a turn-based tactics title, this ranking reflects the substantial headroom this modern hardware provides.

The CPU component of this combo, the Intel Core Ultra 5 245, sits in the 90th percentile versus all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 48995. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G, scores 49196 (0.4% higher), while the Intel Core i5-14600K scores 48618 (0.8% lower). The GPU, the RTX 5090, sits in the 92nd percentile versus all GPUs with an average score of 79842.

The rank of 38 out of 2949 is notable because it demonstrates that even with top-tier hardware — the RTX 5090 has 32 GB of VRAM and a 1.79 TB/s memory bandwidth — the combination does not crack the top 1% of tested combos. This suggests that other configurations in the database achieve higher frame rates, likely due to the game's age and its relatively modest demands on modern hardware. A turn-based tactics game from 2015 does not heavily stress a flagship 2025 GPU, so the ranking is more indicative of how the game responds to raw CPU performance at the highest frame rates.

The delta between this combo's rank and the individual component percentiles (90th for CPU, 92nd for GPU) indicates that the game's performance ceiling is reached with this hardware, and additional GPU or CPU headroom would not meaningfully improve the results. The 1080p Low result of 325 FPS already approaches practical display limits.

# GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB202 chip, fabricated on a 5 nm process at TSMC with 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die. Its base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz. The memory subsystem consists of 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective).

In Hard West, the GPU's role becomes increasingly dominant as resolution increases. At 1080p Low settings, the RTX 5090 produces 325 FPS, which indicates the GPU is not the primary constraint at this resolution and settings level. However, at 4K Ultra, the average drops to 58 FPS, showing that the GPU's rendering workload at maximum settings and 4K resolution exceeds what even this flagship can handle at high frame rates.

The GPU's memory configuration is far beyond what Hard West requires. With 32 GB of VRAM, the game's texture and geometry data would occupy only a fraction of available memory, meaning there is no risk of memory capacity limiting performance. The 1.79 TB/s bandwidth provides ample headroom for the game's data transfer needs.

The benchmark data for the RTX 5090 shows a PassMark G3D score of 39650 and a DirectX 12 score of 185. The GPU's percentile ranking of 92 versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 79842, places it in elite company. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (0.3% higher) and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (1.1% higher), though these are workstation and mobile parts respectively.

The scaling from 1080p to 4K at Medium settings (303 to 101 FPS, a 67% reduction) aligns with the GPU becoming the limiting factor at higher resolutions. The fact that 4K Ultra still achieves 58 FPS — a playable frame rate for a turn-based tactics game — demonstrates that the RTX 5090's 104.8 TFLOPS FP32 compute and 423.6 GPixel/s pixel rate are sufficient to handle this title's demands even at maximum settings.

# Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results show a wide spread across settings. Low settings produce an average of 325 FPS. Medium settings yield 303 FPS average with a minimum of 257 FPS and maximum of 348 FPS. High settings deliver 234 FPS average. Ultra settings produce 175 FPS average. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 46% reduction in average frame rate, from 325 to 175 FPS.

At 2560x1440, Low settings achieve 235 FPS average. Medium settings produce 192 FPS average with a minimum of 163 FPS and maximum of 221 FPS. High settings deliver 148 FPS average. Ultra settings yield 111 FPS average. The reduction from Low to Ultra at 1440p is 53%, slightly steeper than the 1080p reduction.

At 3840x2160, Low settings achieve 123 FPS average. Medium settings produce 101 FPS average with a minimum of 86 FPS and maximum of 116 FPS. High settings deliver 78 FPS average. Ultra settings yield 58 FPS average. The reduction from Low to Ultra at 4K is 53%, matching the 1440p scaling pattern.

The Medium preset is the only one with recorded minimum and maximum FPS values across all three resolutions, providing the most complete data profile. At 1080p Medium, the range is 257-348 FPS (a 91 FPS spread). At 1440p Medium, the range is 163-221 FPS (a 58 FPS spread). At 4K Medium, the range is 86-116 FPS (a 30 FPS spread). This narrowing range at higher resolutions further confirms the GPU becoming the limiting factor as pixel count increases.

The step between Low and Medium is modest at 1080p (22 FPS difference) and 1440p (43 FPS difference), but more significant at 4K (22 FPS difference). The step between High and Ultra is substantial at all resolutions: 59 FPS at 1080p, 37 FPS at 1440p, and 20 FPS at 4K. This suggests that the Ultra preset imposes a significant additional rendering cost over High, particularly at lower resolutions where the GPU has more headroom.

# CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is a 14-core, 14-thread processor from the Core Ultra Series 2 (Arrow Lake architecture), built on a 3 nm process at TSMC. It has a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz, with 24 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration with 102.4 GB/s memory bandwidth and integrates Arc Xe-LPG Graphics with 64 execution units.

In Hard West, the CPU's role is most evident at lower resolutions and settings where frame rates exceed 300 FPS. At 1080p Low, the 325 FPS average indicates that the CPU is successfully feeding the GPU with enough draw calls and game logic updates to sustain extremely high frame rates. The boost clock of 5.10 GHz provides strong single-thread performance, which is important for a turn-based tactics game that may rely heavily on single-threaded game logic.

The CPU's benchmark results support its capability for this workload. In Cinebench R23, it scores 32924 multicore and 4648 singlecore. In PassMark, it achieves 38706 multithread, 4394 single thread, and 2569 in physics tests. The single-thread performance is particularly relevant for Hard West, as turn-based tactics games often have serial game logic that cannot fully utilize many cores.

The CPU's 14 cores and 14 threads (no hyperthreading) provide adequate parallelism for background tasks and system overhead while gaming, but the game itself likely does not scale across all cores given its 2015 release. The 24 MB of L3 cache helps reduce memory latency for frequently accessed game data.

The pairing with the RTX 5090 is well-balanced for this title. At 1080p Low, the 325 FPS result is likely near the game's engine ceiling, meaning the CPU is not a bottleneck at these frame rates. However, at 4K Ultra, the 58 FPS result suggests the GPU is the limiting factor, as the CPU's job of preparing frames is comparatively easier at lower frame rates.

The CPU's 90th percentile ranking versus all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 48995, places it near the AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49228, 0.5% higher) and above the Intel Core i5-14600K (48618, 0.8% lower). This positioning indicates that the Ultra 5 245 provides sufficient processing power to avoid becoming a constraint in Hard West, allowing the RTX 5090 to perform at its measured levels.