Palworld

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data for Palworld with the Intel Core i5-11400F and AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT reveals a predictable but steep scaling curve as resolution increases. At 1080p with Low settings, the combo produces 151.3 FPS, but this drops to 101.4 FPS at 1440p and further to 54.5 FPS at 4K. That represents a 28% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 46% reduction from 1440p to 4K. The pattern indicates that the RX 6600 XT becomes the dominant limiting factor as pixel count grows, which is expected given the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 128-bit memory bus.

The gap between Low and Ultra settings widens dramatically at higher resolutions. At 1080p, the spread from Low (151.3 FPS) to Ultra (73.4 FPS) is 77.9 FPS, showing substantial headroom. At 1440p, that spread narrows to 54.2 FPS (101.4 Low versus 47.2 Ultra). At 4K, the spread compresses further to 25.9 FPS (54.5 Low versus 28.6 Ultra). This compression at 4K signals that the GPU is saturated; even dropping to Low settings cannot rescue playable frame rates at 4K Ultra, which limps along at 28.6 FPS.

The data suggests that 1440p is the sweet spot for this pairing. High settings at 1440p yield 61 FPS, which is smooth for a survival title. Meanwhile, 1080p High at 93.8 FPS shows the CPU still has headroom to feed the GPU. The Intel Core i5-11400F, with its 6 cores and 12 threads, is not the bottleneck at lower resolutions; the benchmark results indicate that the GPU's RDNA 2 architecture shoulders the scaling burden.

Interestingly, the Medium preset at 4K (46.4 FPS) beats High at 4K (31.5 FPS) by nearly 15 FPS, suggesting that the jump from Medium to High carries a heavy cost in shadow and texture quality that the GPU cannot sustain at 4K. The same is true at 1440p, where Medium (83 FPS) outpaces High (61 FPS) by 22 FPS. This is typical of games where High and Ultra presets include expensive post-processing effects that disproportionately impact GPU-bound scenarios.

FAQ

Q: Can this combo run Palworld at 4K?

A: Yes, but only at playable levels on Low settings, where the average is 54.5 FPS. At 4K Ultra, the average drops to 28.6 FPS, which is below the generally accepted threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU-GPU pairing?

A: The data shows 1440p High at 61 FPS offers the best balance of visual fidelity and performance. At 1080p Ultra, the combo reaches 73.4 FPS, but 1440p High provides a sharper image with only a 12.4 FPS penalty.

Q: How much performance is lost going from Low to Ultra settings?

A: At 1080p, the drop is 77.9 FPS (from 151.3 to 73.4). At 1440p, the drop is 54.2 FPS (from 101.4 to 47.2). At 4K, the drop is 25.9 FPS (from 54.5 to 28.6). The absolute loss shrinks as resolution climbs because the GPU becomes the limiting factor.

Q: Is the i5-11400F holding back the RX 6600 XT?

A: No, not at standard resolutions. The 1080p Low result of 151.3 FPS indicates the CPU can feed the GPU well beyond 60 FPS. The bottleneck appears at higher resolutions, where the GPU's 8 GB VRAM and 256.0 GB/s bandwidth are strained.

Q: How does this combo rank relative to other configurations?

A: The combo ranks 1204 out of 1718 tested configurations for Palworld. This places it in the 70th percentile overall, which is respectable but not top-tier for the game.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Medium and High at 1440p?

A: Medium runs at 83 FPS while High runs at 61 FPS, a difference of 22 FPS. This suggests that High settings add significant GPU load beyond Medium, likely from shadows and ambient occlusion.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake generation, built on Intel's 14 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.60 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with 12 MB of shared L3 cache. This chip was released in March 2021 and is now end-of-life, but its benchmark results show it remains competitive. In Cinebench R23, it scores 14372 multi-core and 2029 single-core. The multi-core score is roughly 7x the single-core score, reflecting the 6-core/12-thread configuration.

For Palworld, which is a survival game with substantial world simulation and entity tracking, the CPU's thread count matters. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 5619 and max-thread score of 5652 indicate that the chip does not scale perfectly beyond 6 cores, but the 12 threads handle the game's background tasks efficiently. The PassMark multithread score of 16908 and physics score of 842 further confirm that the CPU can manage complex physics calculations without becoming a bottleneck in this title.

The i5-11400F's nearest rivals, according to benchmark averages, include the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U (deltaPct 0) and Intel Core i7-1260P (deltaPct -0.2). These comparisons show that the i5-11400F sits in a performance band where small differences in average scores do not translate into meaningful in-game FPS gaps. The chip's 75th percentile ranking against all CPUs underscores its mid-high-tier standing.

In Palworld specifically, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p Low, where the combo hits 151.3 FPS. At this resolution and setting, the GPU has less work, so the CPU's 4.40 GHz boost clock and 12 threads ensure the frame rate is not CPU-limited. The single-thread score of 2029 in Cinebench R23 is adequate for the game's main thread, which handles player input and world logic. The L3 cache of 12 MB helps with the game's streaming assets, reducing stutter during exploration.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the RX 6600 XT delivers its strongest results. Low settings produce 151.3 FPS, Medium 125.4 FPS, High 93.8 FPS, and Ultra 73.4 FPS. The step from Medium to High costs 31.6 FPS, which is the largest single-setting drop at 1080p, indicating that High enables computationally expensive effects. Ultra further reduces performance by 20.4 FPS over High, showing diminishing returns for the highest preset.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain solid but show the GPU starting to strain. Low runs at 101.4 FPS, Medium at 83 FPS, High at 61 FPS, and Ultra at 47.2 FPS. The 1440p High result is exactly 61 FPS, which is a comfortable margin for a 60 Hz display. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 54.2 FPS, which is tighter than the 77.9 FPS gap at 1080p, reinforcing that the GPU is becoming the limiting factor.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes dramatically. Low settings yield 54.5 FPS, Medium 46.4 FPS, High 31.5 FPS, and Ultra 28.6 FPS. Only Low and Medium exceed 30 FPS, and neither reaches 60 FPS. The 4K Ultra result of 28.6 FPS is the worst measured figure, just 2 FPS better than the 4K High result of 31.5 FPS. This suggests that the Ultra preset at 4K adds minimal visual benefit while costing 2.9 FPS over High, which is already at the edge of playability.

The overall pattern across resolutions shows that the combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming. At 1080p, every preset exceeds 70 FPS, making it capable of high-refresh-rate gaming on a 144 Hz monitor if the user selects Medium or Low. At 1440p, users must choose between High (61 FPS) and Medium (83 FPS) depending on whether they prioritize image quality or frame rate. At 4K, the data indicates that only Low settings provide a consistently playable experience, and even then, the average of 54.5 FPS leaves no headroom for demanding scenes.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 XT is built on the RDNA 2 architecture using TSMC's 7 nm process, with a 237 mm² die containing 11,060 million transistors. It has 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units, along with 32 ray tracing cores. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1968 MHz, a game clock of 2359 MHz, and a boost clock of 2589 MHz. Memory is 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, providing 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth.

For Palworld, the GPU's memory configuration is a critical factor. The 8 GB VRAM is sufficient for 1080p and 1440p at most settings, but at 4K Ultra, the combination of high-resolution textures and the game's open-world streaming can push memory usage near capacity, contributing to the low 28.6 FPS result. The 256.0 GB/s bandwidth is also modest for 4K workloads, which require high data throughput for large frame buffers.

The GPU's benchmark scores show it is a solid mid-range performer. The PassMark G3D score of 16461 and the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1804 place it in the 71st percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti (deltaPct 0.1), which is an older but comparable card, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 (deltaPct -0.9), which scores slightly higher. The deltaPct values indicate that the RX 6600 XT is within 1% of the RTX 3070 in average benchmark scores, though the RTX 3070 typically has more VRAM.

In Palworld, the GPU role is most evident in the scaling from 1080p to 4K. The frame rate drops by 64% from 1080p Low (151.3 FPS) to 4K Low (54.5 FPS), which is a direct consequence of the GPU having to render four times as many pixels. The FP32 performance of 10.60 TFLOPS and texture rate of 331.4 GTexel/s are adequate for 1080p and 1440p but fall short at 4K Ultra, where the pixel rate of 165.7 GPixel/s is insufficient to maintain fluid motion. The GPU's 32 ray tracing cores are not heavily utilized in Palworld, as the game does not feature RT effects, so the rasterization performance is the primary driver of the measured results.