Palworld

Palworld presents an interesting scalability challenge for the Intel Core i5-9400 paired with the Intel Arc B580. The measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets reveal a system that is heavily influenced by both the CPU's six-thread limit and the GPU's raw throughput. The data indicates that the Arc B580 provides substantial headroom at lower resolutions, but the combination's overall ranking places it in the lower quartile of tested configurations.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is significant and clearly demonstrates a shift in the bottleneck. At 1080p with High settings, the combination produces an average of 91 FPS, which falls to 60 FPS at 1440p and further to 33 FPS at 4K. This represents a 34% reduction from 1080p to 1440p and a 45% reduction from 1440p to 4K, showing that the GPU is progressively becoming the limiting factor as pixel count increases. The scaling pattern suggests that at 1080p, the Intel Core i5-9400's six cores and six threads are likely constraining the frame rate, as the GPU has more capacity to spare. When moving to 1440p, the load shifts more toward the Arc B580, and at 4K, the GPU is clearly saturated, with the frame rate dropping below the 60 FPS threshold.

The Ultra preset amplifies this effect. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 69 FPS, which drops to 46 FPS at 1440p and 25 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops are consistent with the High preset, reinforcing that resolution scaling is primarily a GPU-bound operation. However, the Low preset tells a different story. At 1080p Low, the combination reaches 147 FPS, which is a 61% increase over High settings at the same resolution. This large jump indicates that at Low settings, the CPU becomes the primary bottleneck, as the reduced graphical load allows the GPU to push many more frames, but the i5-9400's processing power caps the output. The gap between Low and High settings narrows at 1440p (97 FPS versus 60 FPS) and 4K (54 FPS versus 33 FPS), which suggests that the GPU's workload begins to dominate as resolution increases, mitigating the CPU's influence.

The average frame times also show that the system is more consistent at lower resolutions. The Medium preset provides the only measured min and max FPS values, with a 37 FPS minimum and 50 FPS maximum at 4K, a 67 FPS minimum and 90 FPS maximum at 1440p, and a 101 FPS minimum and 137 FPS maximum at 1080p. The variance at 1080p Medium (36 FPS spread) is proportionally larger than at 4K (13 FPS spread), indicating that frame pacing is less stable when the CPU is more involved.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured data, the optimal experience for this combination is the High preset at 1440p. This configuration delivers an average of 60 FPS, which is the standard target for smooth gameplay on most displays. The Medium preset at 1440p offers a higher average of 78 FPS, but the High preset provides a better visual quality per frame, and the 18 FPS difference may not be worth the graphical reduction. At 1080p, the High preset at 91 FPS is the best balance for high-refresh-rate monitors, though the Medium preset at 119 FPS is a viable alternative for those prioritizing frame rate over visual fidelity.

For 4K displays, the data shows that only the Low preset reaches a playable average of 54 FPS, while Medium drops to 43 FPS and High falls to 33 FPS. The Ultra preset at 4K is not recommended, as the 25 FPS average is below the threshold for comfortable gameplay. The Low preset at 1080p, which produces 147 FPS, is only suitable for competitive scenarios where maximum frame rate is the sole priority, as the visual quality is significantly reduced. The Ultra preset is generally not recommended across all resolutions, as the measured averages of 69 FPS at 1080p, 46 FPS at 1440p, and 25 FPS at 4K show diminishing returns over High settings, which only cost a few frames at each resolution.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-9400 and Intel Arc B580 combination ranks 2798 out of 3711 tested combos in Palworld, placing it in the 25th percentile of all configurations. This is a below-average result, indicating that this pairing is not well-suited for the game's demands. The ranking suggests that many other CPU and GPU combinations deliver higher frame rates, even if the individual components have similar benchmark scores. The CPU's percentile ranking of 47% against all CPUs and the GPU's percentile ranking of 68% against all GPUs do not translate to a strong in-game performance, likely due to the specific workload characteristics of Palworld.

The nearest rivals for the CPU include the Intel Core i7-1068NG7, which scores 0.2% lower, and the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 1500, which scores 0.4% higher. The GPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP, which scores 0.2% lower, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, which scores 0.6% higher. These small differences in synthetic benchmarks do not reflect the large gap in real-world gaming performance, as the combo rank demonstrates. The data indicates that while the individual parts are moderately competitive in isolation, their combined performance in Palworld is hampered, likely by the CPU's limited thread count and the GPU's driver overhead in certain scenarios.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo to achieve 60 FPS?

A: The data shows that 1440p with High settings achieves exactly 60 FPS on average, while 1080p with High settings reaches 91 FPS. For 4K, the Low preset is the only one that exceeds 50 FPS, with an average of 54 FPS.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High in terms of performance cost?

A: The Ultra preset consistently lowers the average FPS by roughly 20-25% compared to High across all resolutions. At 1080p, it drops from 91 FPS to 69 FPS, at 1440p from 60 FPS to 46 FPS, and at 4K from 33 FPS to 25 FPS.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the primary bottleneck at 1080p?

A: The large jump from High to Low settings at 1080p, from 91 FPS to 147 FPS, indicates that the Intel Core i5-9400 is likely the limiting factor, as the GPU has enough headroom to render more frames when the graphical load is reduced.

Q: Does the Arc B580 have sufficient memory for 4K?

A: The GPU features 12 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 192-bit bus and 456.0 GB/s bandwidth. The measured 4K frame rates suggest that memory capacity is not the primary constraint, as the performance drop is consistent with compute-bound scaling.

Q: How does this combo rank against all tested combinations?

A: It ranks 2798 out of 3711 combos, which places it in the lower 25% of all tested configurations for Palworld, despite the GPU having a higher individual percentile ranking.

Q: Which preset offers the most stable frame pacing?

A: The Medium preset is the only one with measured min and max FPS values. At 1080p, the spread is 36 FPS (101 to 137), at 1440p it is 23 FPS (67 to 90), and at 4K it is 13 FPS (37 to 50), indicating that frame pacing becomes more stable as resolution increases.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B580 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture and features 2560 shading units, 160 texture mapping units, and 80 render output units. Its boost clock is fixed at 2670 MHz, and it operates with a 12 GB GDDR6 memory pool on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 456.0 GB/s. The GPU's raw compute capabilities include a FP32 throughput of 13.67 TFLOPS and a texture rate of 427.2 GTexel/s, which are substantial for a mid-range card. In Palworld, the GPU's role becomes more pronounced at higher resolutions, as the measured frame rates drop consistently from 1080p to 4K across all settings. The GPU's pixel rate of 213.6 GPixel/s suggests it can handle fill-rate-heavy scenes, but the game's rendering demands at 4K Ultra prove too heavy, resulting in a 25 FPS average.

The GPU's benchmark performance shows a Passmark G3D score of 15748 and a 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 3068, which place it in the 68th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080, which scores 0.6% higher, and the AMD Radeon RX 580 2048SP, which scores 0.2% lower. These results indicate that the Arc B580 is a capable performer in synthetic tests, but its real-world gaming performance in Palworld is limited by the CPU pairing. The GPU's memory clock of 2375 MHz and effective 19 Gbps speed are well-suited for bandwidth-intensive tasks, yet the 4K Ultra result of 25 FPS shows that the card is not designed for maximum settings at high resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a six-core, six-thread processor based on the Coffee Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. It has a 9 MB shared L3 cache and supports dual-channel DDR4 memory with a bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s. The CPU's benchmark scores include a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 6629 and a single-core score of 935, placing it in the 47th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals show similar synthetic performance, with the Intel Core i7-10710U scoring 0.3% higher and the Intel Core i3-10305 scoring 0.4% lower. In Palworld, the CPU's role is most evident at 1080p with Low settings, where the frame rate reaches 147 FPS, suggesting that the six threads are the limiting factor beyond that point.

The lack of hyper-threading means the CPU can only handle six concurrent threads, which can be a bottleneck in games that utilize more than six cores. The measured FPS data supports this, as the jump from High to Low settings at 1080p is substantial, but the gains are much smaller at 4K where the GPU dominates. The CPU's memory bandwidth of 42.7 GB/s is adequate for this game, but it may limit performance in scenarios with heavy asset streaming. The processor's 65 W TDP and end-of-life production status indicate it is an older design, and its performance in Palworld ranks the combo in the 25th percentile, highlighting that the CPU is a significant contributor to the overall below-average result.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combination produces an average of 147 FPS on Low settings, 119 FPS on Medium, 91 FPS on High, and 69 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset shows a min of 101 FPS and a max of 137 FPS, indicating a 36 FPS variance. At 2560x1440, the averages are 97 FPS on Low, 78 FPS on Medium, 60 FPS on High, and 46 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at this resolution has a min of 67 FPS and a max of 90 FPS, with a 23 FPS variance. At 3840x2160, the averages are 54 FPS on Low, 43 FPS on Medium, 33 FPS on High, and 25 FPS on Ultra. The Medium preset at 4K has a min of 37 FPS and a max of 50 FPS, showing a 13 FPS variance.

The data reveals a consistent pattern of performance degradation with increased graphical fidelity and resolution. The difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p is 78 FPS, at 1440p it is 51 FPS, and at 4K it is 29 FPS. This narrowing gap indicates that the GPU's workload becomes more dominant at higher resolutions, reducing the relative impact of the CPU. The Medium preset is the only one with complete min and max data, and it shows that frame time consistency improves as resolution increases, with the variance shrinking from 36 FPS at 1080p to 13 FPS at 4K. This suggests that at lower resolutions, the CPU's frame production is less uniform, leading to more significant frame rate fluctuations.