Palworld

The Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 pairing in Palworld is a study in balance, but the data reveals a system that leans heavily on its graphics card. This combo ranks 1461st out of 1718 tested combinations, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database. The benchmark results show a clear pattern where the GTX 1070 becomes the limiting factor as resolution and settings climb, while the six-core, twelve-thread Comet Lake processor provides enough headroom at lower loads to keep frame rates respectable. The following analysis breaks down exactly how this hardware handles Palworld's demands, from 1080p to 4K, and where the smart settings choices are.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and tells a clear story about where the bottleneck sits. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 124.6 FPS, but at 4K Low it falls to 44.5 FPS — a 64.3% reduction. This dramatic scaling is typical of a GPU-limited scenario, where the GTX 1070's 8 GB of GDDR5 memory and 256-bit bus simply cannot feed the pixel count at 4K. The pattern holds across all settings: 1080p High delivers 78.3 FPS, but 4K High drops to 29.8 FPS, a 62% loss. The gap is even more pronounced at Ultra, where 1080p's 58.2 FPS craters to 22.9 FPS at 4K, a 60.7% decline that makes 4K Ultra effectively unplayable.

Interestingly, the scaling behavior shows that the CPU is not the primary constraint. The i5-10400F, with its 2.90 GHz base and 4.30 GHz boost clock, has enough single-thread performance to keep up with the GPU at lower resolutions. The 3DMark single-thread score of 688 and Cinebench R23 single-core score of 1453 indicate decent IPC for a 2020 part. At 1440p, the system still shows GPU dominance: Low settings yield 84.4 FPS, which is a 32.3% drop from 1080p Low, while High settings produce 49.6 FPS, a 36.7% drop. These consistent percentage drops suggest the GTX 1070's pixel throughput, measured at 107.7 GPixel/s, is the wall the system hits as resolution grows.

The real insight comes from comparing 1440p to 4K. At 1440p Medium, the combo hits 65.6 FPS, which is playable. But at 4K Medium, it falls to 34.7 FPS. That 47.1% drop is larger than the 1440p-to-1080p drops, indicating that 4K pushes the GPU past its comfortable operating range. The texture rate of 202.0 GTexel/s and FP32 performance of 6.463 TFLOPS are simply not enough for Palworld's dense environments at 4K. The data suggests that this system is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, with 4K reserved for Low settings at best, where the 44.5 FPS average is barely tolerable.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo in Palworld?

A: The data shows 1080p is the sweet spot, with all settings except Ultra exceeding 78 FPS. At 1440p, only Low settings (84.4 FPS) and Medium (65.6 FPS) remain smooth, while High (49.6 FPS) is borderline. 4K is only viable at Low (44.5 FPS), with Medium and High falling below 35 FPS.

Q: How does the GTX 1070 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The GTX 1070's average benchmark score is 12331, placing it 0.7% above the NVIDIA Quadro K4200 (12241) and 1.3% below the GeForce GTX 880M (12490). It is also 1.4% behind the GTX 1650 SUPER (12504), which makes these three cards nearly interchangeable in raw compute terms.

Q: Does the i5-10400F bottleneck the GTX 1070 at any resolution?

A: Benchmark results indicate the CPU is not the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the 124.6 FPS average suggests the GPU is still the primary driver, as the CPU's 6 cores and 12 threads with a 4.30 GHz boost provide sufficient headroom. The consistent FPS drops from 1080p to 4K across all settings are characteristic of GPU-bound performance.

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

A: The i5-10400F sits in the 73rd percentile of all CPUs tested, with an average benchmark score of 14168. This places it just 0.4% above the AMD EPYC 7552 (14115) and 1.1% above the Intel Core i5-8500 (14332), indicating solid mid-range performance for its generation.

Q: Is 4K Ultra ever playable with this hardware?

A: No. The measured 22.9 FPS average at 3840x2160 Ultra is well below playable thresholds. Even at 4K High, the 29.8 FPS average is too low for smooth gameplay. The only 4K option worth considering is Low at 44.5 FPS, which may be acceptable for slower-paced exploration but not for combat.

Q: How does the GPU's memory bandwidth affect Palworld performance?

A: The GTX 1070's 256.3 GB/s bandwidth is adequate for 1080p and 1440p, as shown by the playable frame rates. However, at 4K, the 8 GB frame buffer and bandwidth become strained, explaining why the FPS drops so sharply. The 256-bit bus width is a limiting factor at higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-10400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Comet Lake architecture, built on a 14 nm process. Its base clock of 2.90 GHz and boost clock of 4.30 GHz provide the single-thread performance that Palworld's engine requires for game logic and physics. The CPU's 3DMark scores show a clear scaling pattern: 1350 for 2 threads, 2560 for 4 threads, 3929 for 8 threads, and 4735 for max threads. This indicates that Palworld benefits from additional threads up to a point, but the game does not fully saturate all 12 threads, as the max-thread score of 4735 is only 20.5% higher than the 8-thread score.

The CPU's cache hierarchy is notable: 64 KB L1 per core, 256 KB L2 per core, and 12 MB shared L3. This L3 capacity helps with the game's asset streaming in open-world survival scenarios. In synthetic tests, the CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 10297 and a single-core score of 1453, with a PassMark multithread score of 12115. These numbers place it in the 73rd percentile of all CPUs, which is respectable for a 2020 release. However, the benchmark data from Palworld suggests that the CPU is rarely the bottleneck. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 124.6 FPS, which is high enough that the GPU's 6.463 TFLOPS FP32 performance is the limiting factor, not the CPU's processing power.

The CPU's relationship to the GPU in Palworld is one of support rather than constraint. The i5-10400F's 42.7 GB/s memory bandwidth and DDR4 support ensure that data can flow to the GPU without stalling. The PCIe Gen 3, 16-lane interface provides adequate bandwidth for the GTX 1070, which also uses PCIe 3.0 x16. In practice, this means that as resolution increases and the GPU becomes more strained, the CPU has enough headroom to maintain consistent frame pacing. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 4748 and 2-thread score of 1350 show that the CPU can handle both lightly-threaded and heavily-threaded workloads, making it a flexible partner for the aging GPU.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core i5-10400F and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 ranks 1461st out of 1718 tested combos in Palworld, placing it in the bottom 15% of all configurations. This low rank is primarily due to the GPU's age — the GTX 1070 sits in the 51st percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 12331. The CPU, by contrast, is more capable, ranking in the 73rd percentile. The disparity between the CPU's relative strength and the GPU's mediocrity means the combo's overall ranking is dragged down by the graphics card.

In the context of the database, this combo is not a high performer, but it is not an outlier either. The GTX 1070's nearest rivals — the Quadro K4200 (0.7% higher score), GTX 880M (1.3% lower), and GTX 1650 SUPER (1.4% lower) — all fall within a narrow performance band. This suggests that the GPU is a known quantity with predictable behavior. The CPU's rivals, such as the AMD EPYC 7552 (0.4% higher) and Ryzen 3 7320C (0.8% lower), also cluster closely, indicating that the i5-10400F is a stable mid-range choice.

What the rank of 1461/1718 means practically is that this system will struggle with modern titles at high settings, but it can still deliver playable experiences at lower presets. The measured FPS data confirms this: at 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 104 FPS, which is smooth. At 1440p High, it drops to 49.6 FPS, which is playable but not ideal. The rank reflects a system that was once mid-range but has been overtaken by newer hardware. For Palworld specifically, the combination is adequate for 1080p gaming but requires settings compromises at higher resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data provides a complete picture of the combo's capabilities across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the system delivers 124.6 FPS on Low, 104 FPS on Medium, 78.3 FPS on High, and 58.2 FPS on Ultra. These numbers show a clear progression: dropping from Low to Ultra costs 53.3% of the frame rate. At 2560x1440, the figures are 84.4 FPS on Low, 65.6 FPS on Medium, 49.6 FPS on High, and 37.1 FPS on Ultra. The step from Low to Ultra at 1440p represents a 56.1% reduction, slightly steeper than at 1080p, indicating the GPU is working harder.

At 3840x2160, the performance collapses. Low settings yield 44.5 FPS, Medium drops to 34.7 FPS, High falls to 29.8 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 22.9 FPS. The delta between Low and Ultra at 4K is 48.5%, which is less steep than at lower resolutions because the GPU is already so strained that even Low settings cannot compensate for the pixel count. The scaling from 1080p to 4K at each setting is consistent: Low drops from 124.6 to 44.5 (64.3% loss), Medium from 104 to 34.7 (66.6% loss), High from 78.3 to 29.8 (61.9% loss), and Ultra from 58.2 to 22.9 (60.7% loss).

These numbers indicate that the GTX 1070's performance ceiling is around 125 FPS at 1080p Low, and its floor is about 23 FPS at 4K Ultra. The GPU's 8 GB memory and 256-bit bus are the primary constraints, as the 107.7 GPixel/s pixel rate is insufficient for 4K. For a builder looking at this data, the takeaway is that 1080p is fully playable at all settings, 1440p is playable up to High, and 4K is only viable at Low with significant compromises.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1080p, the High preset at 78.3 FPS is the best balance of visual quality and performance. It offers a 24.7% improvement over Ultra's 58.2 FPS while providing noticeably better visuals than Medium's 104 FPS. The Ultra preset is only worth considering if you prioritize image quality over smoothness, but the 58.2 FPS average is below the 60 FPS threshold that most players prefer.

At 1440p, the Medium preset at 65.6 FPS is the recommended choice. It provides a smooth experience that is 32.3% faster than High's 49.6 FPS, while the Low preset at 84.4 FPS sacrifices too much visual fidelity for marginal gains. The Ultra preset at 37.1 FPS is not viable for action-heavy gameplay. For 4K, only the Low preset at 44.5 FPS is worth trying, and even then, it may feel choppy in dense areas. The Medium preset at 34.7 FPS and High at 29.8 FPS are both below playable thresholds.

The data suggests a settings hierarchy: 1080p High is the best overall experience, 1440p Medium is a solid alternative for higher resolution, and 4K Low is a last resort. The GPU's 51st percentile ranking means it performs at the median of all GPUs, so these recommendations are conservative. For players who prefer higher frame rates over visual fidelity, dropping from High to Medium at 1080p yields a 32.8% improvement (from 78.3 to 104 FPS). Conversely, for players with VRR displays, the 49.6 FPS at 1440p High may be acceptable, but the 65.6 FPS at Medium is a safer bet for consistent smoothness. Ultimately, this combo is best served by sticking to 1080p or 1440p with Medium-to-High settings, avoiding Ultra at all resolutions and 4K entirely except for Low settings.