Palworld

Palworld, a survival title from early 2024, presents a demanding workload for the Intel Core i5-13400F and AMD Radeon RX 570 pairing. The measured data reveals a system where the graphics card is consistently the primary bottleneck, with the CPU's substantial multi-threading capabilities remaining largely underutilized as resolution scales upward.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS progression from 1080p to 4K clearly demonstrates a GPU-bound scenario. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combo achieves 72.1 FPS, but this drops by 36% to 46 FPS at 2560x1440, and further to 29.1 FPS at 3840x2160. This steep decline — a 60% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings — is a classic signature of pixel-throughput limitation, where the RX 570's 224.0 GB/s memory bandwidth and 39.81 GPixel/s pixel rate become the determining factors.

The pattern intensifies with higher settings. At Ultra, the drop from 1080p's 37.5 FPS to 1440p's 25 FPS represents a 33% loss, while the 4K Ultra result of 12.7 FPS is a mere 34% of the 1080p figure. This nonlinear degradation suggests that beyond raw resolution, the increased shading complexity and texture loads are overwhelming the GPU's 4 GB GDDR5 buffer and 5.095 TFLOPS of FP32 compute. The data implies that at 4K, the system is not merely rendering more pixels but is also likely hitting memory capacity limits, causing severe performance collapse.

GPU Role

The Radeon RX 570, built on the GCN 4.0 architecture and Polaris 20 chip, operates with a base clock of 1168 MHz and a boost clock of 1244 MHz. Its 2048 shading units and 128 TMUs deliver 159.2 GTexel/s of texture rate, yet the measured FPS indicates these resources are insufficient for Palworld's demands at higher presets. The 4 GB GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 224.0 GB/s bandwidth, which appears to be a critical constraint.

Comparatively, the GPU's average benchmark score of 30158 places it near the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (deltaPct 0.2%) and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (deltaPct 0.2%), yet in Palworld, the practical results tell a different story. At 1080p Medium, the card produces 59 FPS, but this falls to 41.5 FPS at 1440p and 19.7 FPS at 4K. The Ultra preset at 4K yielding 12.7 FPS suggests that the card's 32 ROPs and 39.81 GPixel/s pixel fill rate are severely taxed. The data indicates that the RX 570's role in this combo is to provide playable frame rates only at 1080p with reduced settings, as the GPU's architecture from 2017 struggles with modern survival-game rendering demands.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal experience balances frame rate against visual fidelity. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 72.1 FPS, which is the only configuration exceeding the 60 FPS threshold in this dataset. The Medium preset at 59 FPS is nearly acceptable, but the 18% drop from Low to Medium suggests diminishing returns. The High preset at 44.4 FPS and Ultra at 37.5 FPS represent progressively worse trade-offs.

For 2560x1440, the Low preset at 46 FPS is the only playable option, as Medium drops to 41.5 FPS and High falls to 27.7 FPS. The Ultra preset at 25 FPS is marginal at best. At 3840x2160, no preset achieves 30 FPS; the closest is Low at 29.1 FPS, which is technically below the playability line. The data suggests that 1080p Medium or 1440p Low are the practical ceilings for this combo, with the 4K resolution being effectively unplayable across all settings.

How This Combo Ranks

This specific combination of Intel Core i5-13400F and AMD Radeon RX 570 ranks 1648 out of 1718 tested combos in Palworld, placing it in the bottom 4% of configurations. This low ranking is striking given that the CPU itself holds an 82nd percentile rank among all processors, and the GPU holds a 74th percentile rank among all GPUs. The discrepancy between component-level percentiles and the combo's game-specific rank underscores how Palworld's engine is heavily GPU-dependent and does not benefit significantly from the CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads.

The CPU's nearest rivals — Intel Core i7-13620H (deltaPct 0.1%), AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (deltaPct -0.5%), AMD EPYC 9474F (deltaPct 0.5%), and AMD Ryzen AI 5 PRO 340 (deltaPct 0.5%) — all exhibit nearly identical average benchmark scores, yet none of that compute headroom translates into Palworld performance gains. The GPU's nearest rivals, including the RTX 5060 and RX 7700 XT, show similar average scores, but the RX 570's real-world Palworld results are far below what those scores might predict, indicating that the game's specific rendering paths are not well-served by the older GCN architecture.

FAQ

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

A: The data clearly shows 1920x1080 as the only resolution where any preset reaches 60 FPS, with Low achieving 72.1 FPS and Medium 59 FPS.

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

A: No. The highest 4K result is Low at 29.1 FPS, and Ultra falls to 12.7 FPS, making all 3840x2160 presets unplayable.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The i5-13400F's average score of 25236 is within 0.5% of the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (25365) and 0.1% of the Intel Core i7-13620H (25201), showing near-identical synthetic performance.

Q: What is the GPU's memory configuration?

A: The RX 570 features 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus, providing 224.0 GB/s of bandwidth and running at 1750 MHz.

Q: Why is the combo rank so low despite decent component scores?

A: The combo ranks 1648 of 1718, indicating that Palworld's engine does not leverage the CPU's 10 cores or the GPU's compute capabilities effectively, likely due to the RX 570's limited 4 GB VRAM.

Q: What are the FPS differences between Low and Ultra at 1080p?

A: Low achieves 72.1 FPS, while Ultra drops to 37.5 FPS, a 48% reduction that suggests visual fidelity comes at a steep performance cost.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the results are uniformly poor: Low averages 29.1 FPS, Medium 19.7 FPS, High 19.8 FPS, and Ultra 12.7 FPS. The near-identical Medium and High results (19.7 vs 19.8) suggest a hard bottleneck, likely VRAM capacity or memory bandwidth, rather than compute shading. The 2560x1440 resolution shows more differentiation: Low leads with 46 FPS, followed by Medium at 41.5 FPS, High at 27.7 FPS, and Ultra at 25 FPS. The gap between Medium and High (33%) indicates that the High preset introduces effects that disproportionately stress the GPU.

The 1920x1080 data provides the most usable range: Low at 72.1 FPS, Medium at 59 FPS, High at 44.4 FPS, and Ultra at 37.5 FPS. The progression from Low to Medium (18% drop) is modest, but Medium to High (25% drop) and High to Ultra (16% drop) show that each preset tier costs more relative performance. Notably, the 1080p Medium result of 59 FPS is nearly 30 FPS higher than the 1440p Low result, reinforcing that resolution scaling is the dominant factor in this game.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and boost clock of 4.60 GHz. Its 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB per-core L2 cache provide substantial data locality, and its Cinebench R23 scores of 21279 (multi-core) and 3004 (single-core) demonstrate strong computational throughput. However, in Palworld, the CPU's role appears secondary.

The measured FPS patterns do not show CPU-induced scaling anomalies. At 1080p Low, the 72.1 FPS result is not limited by the CPU, as its 16 threads and 82nd percentile ranking among all CPUs suggest it can handle far higher frame rates. The 3DMark scores — 7314 for 16 threads and 960 for single-thread — indicate balanced multi-threading capability, but Palworld's survival genre typically stresses game logic and entity updates rather than raw compute. The CPU's nearest rivals, such as the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D with a deltaPct of -0.5%, would likely perform identically in this game, as the GPU is clearly the limiting component. The data implies that upgrading the CPU would yield no measurable FPS improvement in Palworld, while a GPU upgrade would provide direct gains, as evidenced by the sharp FPS drops with increasing resolution.