Palworld

Palworld, the survival title released in January 2024, presents a demanding workload for the AMD Ryzen 5 8400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 combination. Measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets reveal a system that scales predictably with resolution, with the GPU emerging as the primary constraint. The data shows a mid-pack combo ranking that belies the individual component percentiles, offering a clear picture of how this pairing handles Palworld's open-world environments.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a consistent, steep drop as resolution increases, a hallmark of GPU-bound performance. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 130.3 FPS at 1920x1080 to 86.3 FPS at 2560x1440, a 33.8% reduction, and then to 47.1 FPS at 3840x2160, a further 45.4% decline. The pattern repeats across all presets. At Low settings, the 1080p result of 204.2 FPS drops to 133 FPS at 1440p (34.9% loss) and then to 74.4 FPS at 4K (44.1% loss). Medium settings see 164.1 FPS at 1080p, 110 FPS at 1440p, and 57.4 FPS at 4K, with the 1440p-to-4K step losing 47.8% of performance. Ultra settings follow suit: 95.8 FPS at 1080p, 62.8 FPS at 1440p, and 32.7 FPS at 4K, a 47.9% drop between the latter two.

The consistency of these scaling factors—roughly one-third lost from 1080p to 1440p and nearly half lost from 1440p to 4K—indicates that the RTX 3070 is the limiting component. The CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads, with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, are not the bottleneck; if they were, the frame rate would plateau or show irregular scaling across resolutions. Instead, the smooth, predictable decline points squarely at the GPU's rendering capacity. At 4K Ultra, the 32.7 FPS average is below the 60 FPS threshold, while 1440p High at 86.3 FPS offers a playable experience, and 1080p High at 130.3 FPS is well above it.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 795th out of 1718 tested combinations, placing it in the lower half of the database. This is a notable result given the individual component standings: the CPU sits in the 82nd percentile of all processors, and the GPU in the 72nd percentile of all graphics cards. The gap between these percentiles and the combo's game-specific rank suggests that Palworld's engine does not fully exploit the hardware's theoretical capabilities.

The CPU's nearest rivals in average benchmark score are tightly clustered. The AMD Ryzen 7 2700X scores 25,057, a 0% delta from the 8400F's 25,064. The AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 scores 25,099 (-0.1%), the AMD EPYC 9474F scores 25,103 (-0.2%), and the AMD Ryzen 5 7500F scores 24,993 (0.3%). These sub-1% differences mean the 8400F is effectively tied with its closest competitors in raw compute. The GPU's nearest rivals show a similar pattern: the AMD FirePro S7150 scores 28,409 (-0.6%), the AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT scores 27,985 (0.9%), the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti scores 27,956 (1%), and the AMD Radeon R9 M295X scores 28,541 (-1.1%). The RTX 3070's average of 28,238 places it slightly above the RX 6600 XT and GTX 980 Ti, but the margins are thin.

Despite these competitive individual scores, the Palworld-specific rank of 795 out of 1718 indicates that many other combinations deliver better frame rates in this title. The data suggests that while the 8400F and RTX 3070 are solid mid-range performers, Palworld's optimization favors other hardware configurations, possibly those with different memory architectures or core counts.

GPU Role

The RTX 3070 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA104 chip, fabricated on Samsung's 8 nm process. It packs 17,400 million transistors into a 392 mm² die. The GPU's memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 256-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock is 1500 MHz, boosting to 1725 MHz, with memory running at 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). The 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output pipelines drive a pixel rate of 165.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 317.4 GTexel/s. The card also includes 46 RT cores and 184 tensor cores, supporting DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4.

In Palworld, the GPU's influence is unmistakable. The frame rate at 1080p Low reaches 204.2 FPS, but at 4K Ultra it collapses to 32.7 FPS. The 8 GB frame buffer may be a contributing factor at higher resolutions, where texture and geometry data can exceed that capacity, but the data does not isolate VRAM usage. What is clear is the GPU's role as the primary performance limiter. The consistent scaling across all presets—from Low to Ultra—confirms that the RTX 3070's compute and memory bandwidth are the binding constraints. The GPU's launch MSRP is 499 USD, and it is now end-of-life, having been succeeded by the GeForce 40 series.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p High settings?

A: The measured average is 130.3 FPS.

Q: How does the combo rank in Palworld?

A: It ranks 795th out of 1718 tested combinations.

Q: What is the CPU's percentile standing?

A: The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F is in the 82nd percentile of all CPUs.

Q: What is the GPU's memory size and bandwidth?

A: The RTX 3070 has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory with 448.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: What is the average FPS at 4K Ultra settings?

A: The measured average is 32.7 FPS.

Q: Which CPU rival is closest in average score?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 2700X has a 0% delta from the 8400F's average score.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 5 8400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Zen 4 (Phoenix) architecture, manufactured on TSMC's 4 nm process. It has a base clock of 4.20 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, with a TDP of 65 W. The CPU supports DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration, providing 83.2 GB/s of bandwidth, and features 16 MB of shared L3 cache. Its launch MSRP is $170. In synthetic benchmarks, the 8400F scores 20,851 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2,943 in single-core, while Passmark reports 24,530 multi-thread and 3,684 single-thread scores. These results place it in the 82nd percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 25,064.

In Palworld, the CPU's strong single-thread performance helps maintain high frame rates at lower resolutions. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 204.2 FPS, a figure that would be unattainable if the CPU were the bottleneck. The 6-core, 12-thread configuration is sufficient for the game's survival genre mechanics, which typically involve physics, AI, and world streaming. However, the resolution scaling data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor; the GPU is. The 8400F's nearest rivals—the Ryzen 7 2700X, Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340, EPYC 9474F, and Ryzen 5 7500F—all score within 0.3% of its average, indicating that the 8400F is a competitive mid-range option. Yet, in Palworld, the combo's rank of 795 out of 1718 suggests that the CPU's capabilities are not fully realized, likely due to the game's engine characteristics rather than a deficiency in the processor itself.