Palworld

Palworld’s measured performance with the Intel Core i5-9400 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 reveals a profound bottleneck at lower resolutions, where the six-core CPU limits what is otherwise a top-tier graphics card. At 4K Ultra, the combo manages 63.5 FPS, but the data indicates that this pairing is far more balanced at higher resolutions, where the GPU’s immense 24 GB VRAM and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth can stretch its legs. The RTX 4090 is the dominant force here, yet the i5-9400’s 6 threads consistently cap frame rates below what the GPU is capable of producing, especially at 1080p.

FAQ

Q: What is the best average FPS this combo achieves in Palworld?

A: The highest recorded average is 195.5 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 with Low settings. This drops to 151.8 FPS at the same resolution when settings are maxed out to Ultra.

Q: How does the Core i5-9400 compare to its closest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The i5-9400’s average benchmark score of 2305 places it 0.2% ahead of the Intel Core i3-10305 and 0.4% ahead of the Intel Xeon E-2134. It is 0.6% behind the Intel Core i7-8809G, making the group effectively tied in raw compute.

Q: Is the RTX 4090’s performance in Palworld limited by the CPU?

A: Yes, the evidence strongly suggests so. At 1080p, the difference between Low (195.5 FPS) and High (163.6 FPS) is just 31.9 FPS, while at 4K, the same settings gap is 50.3 FPS (130 FPS vs 79.7 FPS). This smaller delta at 1080p indicates the CPU is hitting its ceiling before the GPU can fully engage.

Q: What is the GPU’s standing compared to other tested hardware?

A: The RTX 4090 has a percentile rank of 91 versus all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 66,473. It performs 0.5% better than the NVIDIA Tesla P40 and 0.9% worse than the AMD Radeon Pro Vega 56 in the database’s aggregate tests.

Q: How many frames are lost when moving from 1080p to 4K on High settings?

A: The average FPS drops from 163.6 at 1920x1080 to 79.7 at 3840x2160, a reduction of 83.9 FPS. This represents a 51.3% decrease in performance.

Q: What is the combo’s overall ranking among tested configurations?

A: This specific CPU and GPU pairing ranks 277th out of 1,718 tested combos in Palworld, placing it in the top 16.1% of all configurations for this game.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the clear performance driver in this pairing, equipped with 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, yielding a massive 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. Its Ada Lovelace architecture, built on a 5 nm process at TSMC, includes 16,384 shading units and 128 RT cores, with a boost clock of 2520 MHz. These specifications translate directly to Palworld’s results: the GPU’s raw fill rate and memory bandwidth are the primary reasons the combo can push past 100 FPS at 4K Medium (105.6 FPS) and maintain playable rates at 4K Ultra (63.5 FPS).

The data shows that the GPU’s performance ceiling is only reached at higher resolutions. At 2560x1440, the spread between Low (169.2 FPS) and Ultra (112 FPS) is 57.2 FPS, which is a 33.8% reduction. This scaling indicates that the RTX 4090 is still the limiting factor at this resolution, but the margin narrows considerably at 1080p, where the Ultra-to-Low gap shrinks to just 43.7 FPS (151.8 vs 195.5). The GPU’s 450 W TDP and triple-slot cooler are necessary for sustaining these clock speeds, but the benchmark results suggest that the CPU is preventing the card from fully saturating its compute resources at lower resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination ranks 277th out of 1,718 tested combos, which is a strong showing but not a top-tier result given the presence of the RTX 4090. This ranking suggests that while the GPU is elite, the overall system is held back by the CPU, as the i5-9400’s 50th percentile standing among all CPUs drags the combo down. The data implies that pairing the RTX 4090 with a higher-end processor would likely push this combo into the top 100, but as measured, the 277th rank reflects a system that is powerful yet unbalanced.

In context, the RTX 4090 alone sits in the 91st percentile, but the combo’s rank of 277 out of 1,718 (top 16.1%) is lower than what the GPU alone would suggest. This discrepancy is a quantifiable sign of CPU limitation. The i5-9400’s nearest rivals, such as the Core i3-10305 and Xeon E-2134, all have nearly identical aggregate scores, meaning any of these CPUs would produce similar results in Palworld. The GPU’s average benchmark score is 66,473, dwarfing the CPU’s 2,305, but the game’s frame pacing at 1080p shows that the CPU still dictates the final output.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers 195.5 FPS on Low, 180.6 FPS on Medium, 163.6 FPS on High, and 151.8 FPS on Ultra. The progression shows diminishing returns as settings increase, with the Low-to-Ultra delta being 43.7 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440, the averages are 169.2 FPS (Low), 159.6 FPS (Medium), 144.7 FPS (High), and 112 FPS (Ultra). The Ultra setting at 1440p takes a significant hit, losing 32.7 FPS compared to High, which indicates that the game’s Ultra preset at this resolution begins to tax the GPU’s shading units more heavily.

At 3840x2160, the results are 130 FPS (Low), 105.6 FPS (Medium), 79.7 FPS (High), and 63.5 FPS (Ultra). The 4K Low result is notably strong, staying above 120 FPS, but the Ultra preset drops to just above the 60 FPS threshold. The data shows a clear pattern: each resolution step up reduces the gap between settings, with the 1080p Low-to-Ultra gap of 43.7 FPS shrinking to 66.5 FPS at 4K. This is because the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at 4K, while the CPU’s limits are more apparent at 1080p.

Resolution Scaling

Scaling from 1080p to 4K on High settings, the average FPS drops from 163.6 to 79.7, a 51.3% reduction. This is a significant decline, but it is less severe than the scaling on Low settings, which drops from 195.5 to 130 FPS, a 33.5% reduction. The difference in scaling percentages reveals the bottleneck: at Low settings, the CPU is so dominant that even a 4x increase in pixel count only reduces FPS by a third. On Ultra, the drop is from 151.8 to 63.5 FPS, a 58.2% reduction, showing that the GPU’s workload scales more predictably with resolution when the CPU has less overhead.

The data indicates that the limiting component shifts with resolution. At 1080p, the i5-9400’s 6 cores and 6 threads are saturated, preventing the RTX 4090 from delivering its full potential. At 4K, the GPU’s 16,384 shading units are the primary constraint, as evidenced by the 63.5 FPS result at Ultra. The sweet spot for this combo appears to be 2560x1440, where the FPS drop from Low to Ultra is 57.2 FPS, but the absolute numbers remain high (169.2 to 112 FPS). This suggests that 1440p is where the CPU and GPU are best balanced, with neither component fully idle nor fully maxed out.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-9400 is a 6-core, 6-thread processor from the Coffee Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.90 GHz and a boost clock of 4.10 GHz. Its 9 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel DDR4 memory support (42.7 GB/s bandwidth) are modest by modern standards, and its Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 7969 places it at the 50th percentile of all CPUs. In Palworld, these specs prove to be the limiting factor at lower resolutions, as the CPU’s thread count is insufficient to feed the RTX 4090’s massive throughput.

The benchmark results show that the CPU’s bottleneck is most pronounced at 1080p. The FPS difference between Low and Medium is just 14.9 FPS (195.5 vs 180.6), while the difference between Medium and High is 17 FPS (180.6 vs 163.6). These small gaps suggest that the CPU is already near its maximum output, and changing graphical settings has little effect because the processor cannot process frames any faster. At 4K, the same settings gaps are larger (24.4 FPS between Low and Medium), confirming that the GPU is now the limiting factor. The i5-9400’s nearest rivals, such as the Core i3-10305, have nearly identical scores (2300 vs 2305), so any of these CPUs would produce similar Palworld results.

Settings Recommendations

For the best balance of visual quality and frame rate, the 2560x1440 High preset is the recommended choice, delivering 144.7 FPS. This setting provides a 22.7% performance headroom over the 60 FPS target while offering significantly better visuals than Medium (159.6 FPS). The data shows that at 1440p, High is the sweet spot: it loses only 14.9 FPS compared to Medium but gains substantial graphical fidelity over the lower preset.

If the user prefers maximum fidelity, 4K Ultra is playable at 63.5 FPS, just above the 60 FPS threshold, but the 4K High preset at 79.7 FPS offers a more comfortable margin with a minor visual trade-off. The 4K Low preset at 130 FPS is unnecessary for most users, as the visual compromise is too steep for the performance gain. For competitive play, the 1080p Low preset at 195.5 FPS is the fastest option, but the 1080p Medium preset at 180.6 FPS provides a better balance for those who want high refresh rates without sacrificing all detail. Overall, the 1440p High preset is the optimal choice for this combo, as it leverages the GPU’s strength while mitigating the CPU’s weakness.