Palworld

Palworld on the Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 combo demonstrates a clear GPU-bound trajectory as resolution climbs, though the margins between settings reveal how the CPU holds the line at lower resolutions. The data shows a 1080p High average of 151.1 FPS, which is already well above the 60 FPS threshold, but the jump to 1440p High yields 100 FPS, a 33.8% reduction, and 4K High drops further to 56.3 FPS, a 43.7% reduction from 1440p. This scaling pattern is classic GPU dominance: the RTX 3080’s rendering workload expands faster than the CPU’s frame delivery limit, so the i5-12400F is not the primary constraint past 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS curve across resolutions tells a story of diminishing returns for the CPU and escalating pressure on the GPU. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 239.6 FPS, which is suspiciously close to a typical high-refresh ceiling, suggesting the i5-12400F’s 6 cores and 12 threads are feeding frames as fast as the engine allows at that setting. Moving to 1440p Low, the average drops to 160 FPS, a 33.2% decline, and 4K Low sits at 88 FPS, a 45% drop from 1440p. This pattern holds across all settings: the percentage loss from 1080p to 4K is roughly 62-63% for Low, Medium, and High, but Ultra shows a steeper 62.7% drop (111.5 to 41.6 FPS), indicating that the highest preset adds shading and texture work that disproportionately taxes the RTX 3080’s 10 GB VRAM and 320-bit bus.

The limiting component shifts decisively with resolution. At 1080p, the i5-12400F’s boost clock of 4.40 GHz and 18 MB L3 cache are sufficient to keep the GPU fed, evidenced by the 239.6 FPS Low result versus 195 FPS Medium and 151.1 FPS High. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 128.1 FPS, a 53.5% swing, which is larger than the 86.4 FPS gap at 1440p and the 46.4 FPS gap at 4K. This compression at higher resolutions is the hallmark of GPU saturation: the RTX 3080’s 29.77 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 760.3 GB/s bandwidth become the bottleneck, while the CPU’s 3dmark max threads score of 5912 suggests it has headroom left untapped.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a 6-core, 12-thread Alder Lake-S part with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, built on Intel’s 10 nm process. Its benchmark data shows a 3dmark single-thread score of 909 and a max threads score of 5912, which places it in the 77th percentile among all CPUs. In Palworld, this translates to a CPU that can comfortably exceed 200 FPS in low-detail scenarios, as the 1080p Low result of 239.6 FPS indicates. However, the CPU’s role diminishes as resolution climbs because the game’s physics and AI, typical of the Survival genre, are not so demanding that they starve the GPU at 1440p or 4K.

The nearest rival data reinforces this: the i5-12400F’s average benchmark score of 19221 is within 0.1% of the Intel Core i7-8700K (19210) and 0.3% of the Intel Core i5-1335U (19167), yet it trails the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS by 0.7% and the AMD EPYC 7773X by 1.3%. These margins are trivial, meaning the i5-12400F is not a standout for multi-threaded workloads, but its single-thread performance (cinebench R23 single-core score of 2332) is what matters for Palworld’s frame pacing. The data shows that at 1080p Medium (195 FPS) and High (151.1 FPS), the CPU is still the limiting factor, because the GPU is underutilized; only at Ultra (111.5 FPS) does the GPU start to catch up, but the CPU still has enough headroom to avoid becoming a stutter source.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is the dominant component in this pairing, with an 80th percentile ranking among all GPUs and an average benchmark score of 35787. Its GA102 chip on Samsung’s 8 nm process packs 28,300 million transistors, 8704 shading units, and 68 RT cores, running at a base clock of 1440 MHz and boost of 1710 MHz. The 10 GB GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus provides 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth, which is crucial for Palworld’s open-world streaming. The GPU’s benchmark scores show a 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 result of 4407, a Passmark G3D score of 25086, and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 167014, indicating strong raw compute that scales well with resolution.

In Palworld, the RTX 3080’s VRAM capacity becomes a factor at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS falls to 41.6. This is the only setting where the combo dips below 50 FPS, and it suggests that the 10 GB frame buffer is stressed by Ultra textures at 3840x2160. The gap between 4K High (56.3 FPS) and 4K Medium (69.5 FPS) is 13.2 FPS, while the gap between Medium and Low (88 FPS) is 18.5 FPS, showing that the GPU’s shading units and memory bandwidth are the primary drivers. The RTX 3080’s nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 7900 GRE (avg score 36101, 0.9% higher) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti Mobile (35435, 1% lower), but in game-specific terms, the 3080’s 29.77 TFLOPS FP32 is what delivers playable 4K on High, just not Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 495th out of 1718 tested combinations in Palworld, placing it in the top 28.8% of all systems. This percentile is lower than the individual component percentiles (CPU at 77th, GPU at 80th), which indicates that the pairing is not optimally balanced for this specific game. The data suggests that while each part is above average, the combination does not synergize as well as higher-ranked pairs, likely because the i5-12400F’s 6 cores are sufficient but not exceptional for Palworld’s threading model, and the RTX 3080’s 10 GB VRAM is a limiting factor at extreme settings. Compared to the 1718 total combos, this rank means there are 1223 systems that deliver higher average FPS, which is a significant margin for a CPU that is 0.1% behind the i7-8700K and a GPU that is 0.2% behind the Radeon Pro Duo.

The rank is driven by the 4K Ultra result of 41.6 FPS, which drags down the overall average. At 1080p and 1440p, the combo performs admirably, with 1440p High at 100 FPS being a solid high-refresh experience. However, the 495th rank suggests that many combos with newer GPUs or more VRAM (e.g., 16 GB or 24 GB cards) can sustain higher Ultra settings, even if their raw benchmark scores are similar. The data shows that the RTX 3080’s 10 GB capacity is a liability in Palworld’s most demanding preset, which is a key takeaway for users targeting 4K Ultra.

FAQ

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

A: The combo achieves 151.1 FPS at 1920x1080 with High settings, which is well above the 60 FPS target for smooth gameplay.

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

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS drops to 41.6, which is below the 60 FPS threshold and indicates the RTX 3080’s 10 GB VRAM is a limiting factor.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the bottleneck at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, the data shows a 100 FPS average on High, and the scaling from 1080p (151.1 FPS) to 1440p (100 FPS) suggests the GPU is becoming the primary constraint, while the CPU still has headroom.

Q: What is the combo’s rank among all tested systems in Palworld?

A: The combo ranks 495th out of 1718 tested combinations, placing it in the top 28.8% of all systems.

Q: How does the i5-12400F compare to its nearest rival in CPU benchmarks?

A: The i5-12400F has an average benchmark score of 19221, which is 0.1% higher than the Intel Core i7-8700K (19210) and 0.3% higher than the Intel Core i5-1335U (19167), but 0.7% lower than the AMD Ryzen 5 7533HS (19364).

Q: What is the RTX 3080’s memory bandwidth and how does it affect Palworld?

A: The RTX 3080 has 10 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 320-bit bus with 760.3 GB/s bandwidth, which is sufficient for 1440p High but struggles at 4K Ultra, where the average FPS falls to 41.6.