Palworld

FAQ

Q: How does the Intel Core i5-12400 compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Core i5-12400 posts an average benchmark score of 19850, placing it in the 77th percentile among all CPUs. It is effectively tied with the Intel Core i7-9700 (deltaPct 0.1), marginally ahead of the Intel Core i5-11600K (deltaPct 0.4), and slightly behind the Intel Core i7-8700 (deltaPct -0.2) and AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5995WX (deltaPct -0.4). The differences are within a fraction of a percent, indicating near-parity with these rivals.

Q: What is the performance class of the AMD Radeon RX 6600 based on its benchmark scores?

A: The RX 6600 achieves an average benchmark score of 25235 and sits in the 69th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rival is the AMD Radeon 890M with a deltaPct of 0, showing identical average scores, while the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP trails by 0.2%. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti is 0.5% ahead, and the AMD Radeon RX 6700M is 0.2% ahead.

Q: What frame rates can this combo achieve at 1080p with High settings in Palworld?

A: At 1920x1080 with High settings, the system delivers an average of 85 FPS. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, though far from the 140.5 FPS achievable at Low settings.

Q: How does the combo perform at 4K resolution?

A: At 3840x2160, the average frame rates range from 26.3 FPS at Ultra settings to 54 FPS at Low settings. High settings yield 32 FPS and Medium settings produce 41.7 FPS. Only the Low preset approaches playability at this resolution, and even then it falls short of 60 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this game?

A: The data indicates the GPU is the primary constraint at higher resolutions. Between 1080p and 4K at High settings, frame rates drop from 85 FPS to 32 FPS, a 62% reduction. This steep scaling with resolution is characteristic of a GPU-bound scenario, as the CPU's workload does not increase proportionally with pixel count.

Q: What is the best settings preset for a balanced experience at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the Medium preset provides 72 FPS, which is the highest frame rate above the 60 FPS threshold among the tested presets. High settings yield 56.7 FPS, slightly below that mark, while Ultra drops to 44.4 FPS and Low reaches 92.8 FPS. Medium offers the best combination of visual quality and playability.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP and 18 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory and connects via PCIe Gen 5 with 16 lanes. Its synthetic benchmark results show a single-thread score of 910 in 3dmark and a max-thread score of 5890, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 15935 and single-core score of 2249.

In Palworld, the CPU's role is to handle game logic, world simulation, and entity updates. The 6-core/12-thread configuration provides ample parallel processing for these tasks. The 3dmark 16-thread score of 5873 is nearly identical to the max-thread score of 5890, suggesting that scaling beyond 16 threads yields minimal gains, which aligns with the game's typical thread utilization. The Passmark multithread score of 18747 and integer math score of 58366 indicate strong general-purpose compute capabilities.

The CPU's performance class, as measured by its 77th percentile ranking, is sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the GPU in most scenarios. The 3dmark 2-thread score of 1692 and 4-thread score of 3012 show that even lightly threaded workloads are handled competently. The Passmark single-thread score of 3456 confirms solid per-core performance, which matters for game engines that rely on a main thread for critical tasks.

Given that the frame rates scale dramatically with resolution and settings, the CPU is not the limiting component in this configuration. At 1080p Low, the system reaches 140.5 FPS, and the fact that this is the highest measured value indicates the CPU can push frames well beyond typical display refresh rates. The CPU's 77th percentile ranking among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 19850, places it in the upper tier of processors, capable of feeding the GPU effectively.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 6600 is built on the RDNA 2.0 architecture with the Navi 23 chip, manufactured on TSMC's 7 nm process. It features 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU has a base clock of 1626 MHz, a boost clock of 2491 MHz, and a game clock of 2044 MHz. It contains 1792 shading units, 112 TMUs, and 64 ROPs, with 28 ray tracing cores. The FP32 performance is 8.928 TFLOPS, and the pixel rate is 159.4 GPixel/s.

In Palworld, the GPU is the primary determinant of frame rates across all tested configurations. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is adequate for the game's textures and assets at 1080p and 1440p, but the bandwidth and compute resources become strained at 4K. The GPU's 69th percentile ranking and average benchmark score of 25235 place it in the mid-range segment, capable of handling esports titles and older games at high refresh rates, but it struggles with demanding modern games at high resolutions.

The Passmark G3D score of 15096 and DirectX 12 score of 51 indicate moderate DirectX 12 performance. The Geekbench Vulkan score of 80492 and OpenCL score of 73130 show the GPU's compute capabilities. These scores correlate with the measured frame rates in Palworld, where the GPU-bound nature of the workload is evident from the steep FPS drops as resolution increases.

The GPU's memory bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s is a limiting factor at 4K, where the higher pixel count demands more memory throughput. The texture rate of 279.0 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 159.4 GPixel/s are sufficient for 1080p and 1440p gaming but fall short at 4K, where the Ultra preset only manages 26.3 FPS. The GPU's 132 W TDP and suggested 300 W PSU indicate a power-efficient design, but the performance ceiling is clear from the benchmark data.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates for Palworld with this combo show a clear performance hierarchy across resolutions and settings.

At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers the highest average of 140.5 FPS. Medium settings produce 111 FPS, High settings yield 85 FPS, and Ultra settings drop to 63.9 FPS. All presets at this resolution are above 60 FPS, making 1080p the most playable resolution for this system.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset maintains 92.8 FPS, while Medium drops to 72 FPS. High settings produce 56.7 FPS, just below the 60 FPS threshold, and Ultra settings fall to 44.4 FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs 20.8 FPS, while the step from Medium to High costs 15.3 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 12.3 FPS.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 54 FPS, which is the only preset that approaches playability. Medium settings drop to 41.7 FPS, High settings to 32 FPS, and Ultra settings to 26.3 FPS. All 4K presets fall below 60 FPS, indicating that this resolution is not viable for smooth gameplay with this hardware.

The data shows diminishing returns from higher settings at each resolution. At 1080p, the gap between Low and Ultra is 76.6 FPS, while at 4K, the gap narrows to 27.7 FPS. This compression of frame rates at higher resolutions further confirms that the GPU is the bottleneck, as the absolute performance ceiling is lower.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate scaling from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU-bound nature of this configuration. At High settings, the average FPS drops from 85 at 1920x1080 to 56.7 at 2560x1440, a 33.3% reduction, and then to 32 at 3840x2160, a 62.4% reduction from the 1080p baseline. This scaling pattern is consistent with a GPU-limited scenario, where the pixel count increases quadratically with resolution.

At Low settings, the scaling is similar: 140.5 FPS at 1080p drops to 92.8 FPS at 1440p (a 34% reduction) and then to 54 FPS at 4K (a 61.6% reduction from 1080p). The consistency of these percentages across settings indicates that resolution scaling is independent of the preset, reinforcing that the GPU's rendering pipeline is the limiting factor.

The CPU's role in this scaling is minimal. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the frame rates would remain relatively flat across resolutions, as the CPU workload does not increase with pixel count. The data shows the opposite: frame rates drop steeply with resolution, which is the hallmark of GPU-bound performance. The CPU's 77th percentile ranking and strong single-thread performance ensure it can keep up with the GPU's demands at all tested resolutions.

The implication is that players seeking higher frame rates should prioritize reducing resolution over lowering settings. At 1440p Medium, the system achieves 72 FPS, which is higher than any 4K preset. Similarly, 1080p Ultra at 63.9 FPS outperforms all 1440p presets except Low and Medium. This suggests that resolution has a more significant impact on performance than settings, a direct consequence of the GPU's memory bandwidth and compute limitations.

Settings Recommendations

The optimal settings preset depends on the target resolution and desired frame rate. At 1920x1080, all presets exceed 60 FPS, making the choice a matter of visual preference. Ultra settings at 63.9 FPS provide the best visual quality while remaining playable, though players prioritizing high refresh rates can opt for Low at 140.5 FPS or Medium at 111 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the Medium preset stands out as the best balance, delivering 72 FPS. This is the only preset above 60 FPS at this resolution, aside from Low at 92.8 FPS. High settings at 56.7 FPS are marginally below the threshold, and Ultra at 44.4 FPS is noticeably less smooth. For players who prefer visual fidelity over frame rate, High is acceptable, but Medium offers the best compromise.

At 3840x2160, no preset achieves 60 FPS. The Low preset at 54 FPS is the most playable option, but even this falls short of the standard smoothness threshold. Medium at 41.7 FPS and High at 32 FPS are playable for slower-paced content, but Ultra at 26.3 FPS is not recommended. The data clearly indicates that 4K is not a viable resolution for this hardware in Palworld.

The measured data suggests that the default "High" preset, while common, is not the optimal choice for this combo. At 1080p, High produces 85 FPS, which is fine, but at 1440p it drops below 60 FPS. The Medium preset provides a more consistent experience across resolutions, maintaining 72 FPS at 1440p and 111 FPS at 1080p. For the best overall experience, Medium at 1440p or Ultra at 1080p are the recommended configurations.

How This Combo Ranks

This combination of Intel Core i5-12400 and AMD Radeon RX 6600 ranks 1395 out of 1718 tested combos in Palworld. This places it in the lower 19% of all combinations, which is surprising given the individual component rankings. The CPU's 77th percentile and GPU's 69th percentile might suggest a mid-range position, but the combo's rank indicates that Palworld is particularly demanding on this hardware.

The disparity between component percentiles and combo rank suggests that the game's optimization favors higher-end GPUs more than the CPU. The RX 6600's 8 GB VRAM and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are likely insufficient for the game's memory demands at higher settings, dragging the combo down. The CPU's performance is adequate, as evidenced by the high frame rates at lower resolutions, but the GPU becomes the limiting factor.

Compared to other combos in the database, this pairing sits near the bottom quartile. The rank of 1395 out of 1718 means that 323 combos perform worse, while 1394 perform better. This positions the combo as a lower-mid-range option, suitable for 1080p gaming and some 1440p titles, but struggling with higher resolutions and demanding settings.

The data suggests that players using this combo should temper their expectations. While the CPU is capable of driving high frame rates, the GPU's limitations cap the overall performance. The measured frame rates at 1080p are generally playable, but the combo's rank reflects that many other hardware combinations deliver better performance in Palworld. For those seeking higher frame rates or better visual quality at higher resolutions, a more powerful GPU would be necessary to improve the combo's standing.