Palworld

Palworld with the AMD Ryzen 7 9700X and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER presents a clear performance profile across resolutions. The measured data shows a system that is strongly capable at 1080p and 1440p, with 4K Ultra proving to be the only setting that pushes the hardware to its limits. The combination of the Zen 5 processor and Ada Lovelace GPU yields a top-tier result, ranking 285th out of 1,718 tested combinations, placing it in the 84th percentile for GPUs and the 89th percentile for CPUs.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a typical GPU-bound curve, but the magnitude of the drop is substantial. At High settings, the average frame rate falls from 171.6 FPS at 1920x1080 to 115.4 FPS at 2560x1440, and finally to 66 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 61.5% reduction in frame rate from 1080p to 4K, indicating that the RTX 4070 SUPER is the primary limiting factor at higher resolutions.

The scaling pattern is consistent across all presets. At Low settings, the system delivers 275.4 FPS at 1080p, dropping to 179.8 FPS at 1440p and 99.7 FPS at 4K. The 4K result at Low settings is still higher than the 1080p result at Ultra (128.8 FPS), which demonstrates that the GPU has substantial headroom when graphical load is reduced. The data suggests that Palworld is heavily dependent on pixel throughput, with the 4K resolution demanding more than double the processing power of 1080p.

The gap between Medium and High settings narrows as resolution increases. At 1080p, the difference is 56.3 FPS (227.9 vs 171.6), but at 4K, the gap shrinks to 18.9 FPS (84.9 vs 66). This compression indicates that the GPU becomes the bottleneck at 4K regardless of preset, while at lower resolutions, the settings have a more pronounced effect on performance. The Ultra preset shows the steepest scaling curve, with 128.8 FPS at 1080p falling to 87.6 FPS at 1440p and 48.7 FPS at 4K, the only measured configuration that dips below 50 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

For players targeting 60 FPS as a baseline, the data shows that 4K Ultra is the only configuration that fails to meet this threshold, averaging 48.7 FPS. The 4K High preset achieves 66 FPS, which is playable but leaves little margin for demanding scenes. At 1440p, all presets exceed 87 FPS, with Ultra delivering 87.6 FPS and High reaching 115.4 FPS. This makes 1440p High the sweet spot for visual fidelity and smoothness, offering a 31.7% improvement over Ultra while maintaining a substantial frame rate cushion.

At 1080p, the system is overpowered for most settings. Ultra averages 128.8 FPS, which is already well above the threshold for high refresh rate displays. However, the jump to High at 171.6 FPS represents a 33.2% increase, and Medium reaches 227.9 FPS. For competitive play or 240Hz displays, the Low preset at 275.4 FPS provides the maximum frame rate, though it sacrifices visual quality. The data suggests that High settings at 1080p is the most balanced choice, as it provides more than double the frame rate of 4K Ultra while maintaining acceptable visual detail.

The 1440p Medium preset at 150.9 FPS is noteworthy for users with 144Hz monitors, as it offers 30.7% more performance than High while still delivering a visually rich experience. Conversely, the 4K Medium preset at 84.9 FPS is the best choice for 4K displays that prioritize smoothness over maximum detail, as it outperforms High by 28.6% and Ultra by 74.3%. The measured data indicates that the RTX 4070 SUPER is best utilized at 1440p, where it can maintain high frame rates across all presets, with 4K reserved for High or Medium settings.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with an AD104 chip manufactured on a 5 nm process at TSMC. It features 7,168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output pipelines, along with 56 RT cores and 224 tensor cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1980 MHz and boosts to 2475 MHz, with memory running at 1313 MHz (21 Gbps effective). The 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus provides a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 84th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 42,576. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA RTX A6000, scores 42,653, a delta of -0.2%, indicating the 4070 SUPER is essentially tied with that workstation card. The AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE scores 42,723, putting the 4070 SUPER 0.3% behind, while the AMD Radeon Pro 580X and NVIDIA Tesla M40 trail by 1.4% and 1.6% respectively. These results show that the 4070 SUPER sits in a highly competitive performance band, with no clear leader among its nearest competitors.

The 12 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient for Palworld at all tested settings, as the game does not appear to exceed this limit at any resolution. The 504.2 GB/s memory bandwidth supports the high frame rates observed at 1080p and 1440p, where the GPU is able to feed its 35.48 TFLOPS of FP32 compute performance. The pixel rate of 198.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 554.4 GTexel/s are key factors in the 4K performance, where the GPU's fill rate becomes the limiting constraint.

FAQ

Q: What is the maximum frame rate achievable with this hardware combination?

A: The highest measured average is 275.4 FPS at 1920x1080 with Low settings. The Ultra preset at the same resolution reaches 128.8 FPS.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Palworld?

A: Yes, but with caveats. At 4K High, the average is 66 FPS, while Medium reaches 84.9 FPS. Ultra drops to 48.7 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the RTX 4070 SUPER compare to its closest rival?

A: The RTX 4070 SUPER scores 42,576 on average, placing it 0.2% behind the NVIDIA RTX A6000 (42,653) and 0.3% behind the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE (42,723).

Q: What is the best resolution for this system?

A: The data shows 2560x1440 provides the best balance, with all presets exceeding 87 FPS. High settings at 1440p deliver 115.4 FPS, which is 74.8% higher than 4K High.

Q: Does the GPU or CPU limit performance in Palworld?

A: The scaling pattern from 1080p to 4K indicates the GPU is the primary bottleneck. The frame rate drops by 61.5% from 1080p to 4K at High settings, while the CPU's multi-threaded performance remains constant.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra presets?

A: At 1080p, the difference is 146.6 FPS (275.4 vs 128.8). At 1440p, it narrows to 92.2 FPS (179.8 vs 87.6), and at 4K, it shrinks to 51 FPS (99.7 vs 48.7).

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700X is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 5 architecture, codenamed Granite Ridge, manufactured on a 4 nm process at TSMC. It features a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The processor includes 80 KB of L1 cache per core, 1 MB of L2 cache per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support includes DDR5 with dual-channel configuration and a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s.

The CPU's benchmark results place it in the 89th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 36,029. Its nearest rival, the Intel Core i5-14500HX, scores 35,940, a delta of 0.2%, making the 9700X marginally faster. The Intel Core Ultra 9 185H scores 36,165, putting the 9700X 0.4% behind, while the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 trails by 0.6% and the Intel Core Ultra 5 225H leads by 0.8%. These tight deltas indicate that the 9700X is positioned in a highly competitive mid-range segment.

In Palworld, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU at higher resolutions, but it provides sufficient headroom to avoid bottlenecking at 1080p. The multi-threaded performance, demonstrated by a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 31,588, ensures that the processor can handle the game's simulation and AI workloads without limiting frame rates. The single-thread score of 4,459 in Cinebench R23 is particularly relevant for Palworld's game logic, which typically relies on a few heavily loaded threads. The 3DMark scores show scaling from 2,525 at 2 threads to 9,771 at max threads, indicating good multi-threading efficiency. The PassMark multithread score of 37,161 and single-thread score of 4,654 further confirm that the 9700X provides balanced performance that complements the RTX 4070 SUPER across all tested settings.