Palworld

Palworld presents an unusually demanding workload for the Intel Core i7-12700K and AMD Radeon RX 570 pairing, with the data showing a combination that ranks 1637th out of 1718 tested combos in this game. This places the system in the bottom 5% of all configurations, indicating that this is a setup struggling to keep pace with the survival game's demands. The benchmark results consistently show the Radeon RX 570 as the primary constraint, with the Core i7-12700K's strong synthetic scores doing little to alleviate the GPU-bound performance at most settings.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a clear and predictable pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, but the severity of the drop is notable. At 1920x1080 with Low settings, the combination achieves an average of 72.5 FPS, which is the only playable result in the entire dataset. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same Low settings drops the average to 45.8 FPS, a 36.8% reduction. Pushing to 3840x2160 at Low further reduces performance to 29.9 FPS, showing that even the least demanding settings cannot sustain a smooth experience at 4K.

The scaling behavior points directly at the GPU as the limiting factor. From 1080p Low to 1440p Low, the frame rate drops by 26.7 FPS, and from 1440p Low to 4K Low, it drops another 15.9 FPS. This consistent degradation with pixel count is the signature of a graphics card that has reached its fill-rate and bandwidth ceiling. The RX 570's 4 GB GDDR5 memory and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth are simply insufficient for the higher resolutions, as the data shows the gap between settings narrowing at 4K, where even Low (29.9 FPS) and Medium (24.3 FPS) are both firmly in unplayable territory.

At 1080p, the scaling between settings reveals where the GPU starts to buckle. The jump from Low (72.5 FPS) to Medium (62.1 FPS) is a 10.4 FPS loss, while High (48.7 FPS) and Ultra (37.2 FPS) continue the steep descent. The 1080p Ultra result of 37.2 FPS is only slightly better than the 1440p Low result, indicating that the GPU is equally strained by high settings at 1080p as it is by moderate resolution increases. This data suggests that users are forced to choose between resolution and visual fidelity, with no configuration offering both.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combination for this hardware in Palworld?

A: The only configuration that delivers a consistently smooth experience is 1920x1080 with Low settings, achieving an average of 72.5 FPS. Every other tested combination falls below 63 FPS, with 1080p Medium at 62.1 FPS being the next best option.

Q: How does the Core i7-12700K perform relative to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The Core i7-12700K's average benchmark score of 35684 places it 0.3% behind the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5845 (35802) and 0.7% behind the Intel Core i5-14500HX (35940). It is 0.6% ahead of the Intel Core i7-13700T (35468) and 0.8% ahead of the Intel Core i7-13800H (35416).

Q: Is this setup capable of running Palworld at 4K?

A: No. The best 4K result is 29.9 FPS at Low settings, with High settings dropping to 18.5 FPS and Ultra falling to 10.8 FPS. All 3840x2160 results are well below playable thresholds.

Q: How does the RX 570 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in average benchmark scores?

A: The RX 570's average score of 30158 is 0.2% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 (30109) and the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT (30097). It is 0.6% ahead of the NVIDIA Tesla M60 (29969) and 0.8% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Mobile (29928).

Q: What is the impact of Ultra settings across different resolutions?

A: Ultra settings are consistently punishing. At 1080p, Ultra yields 37.2 FPS, at 1440p it drops to 20.6 FPS, and at 4K it falls to 10.8 FPS. The data shows Ultra settings are not viable at any resolution for this combination.

Q: Which component is the bottleneck in this system for Palworld?

A: The GPU is the clear bottleneck. While the Core i7-12700K has a 3dmark single-thread score of 1043 and a Geekbench single-core score of 2561, the RX 570's performance ceiling is far lower. The consistent frame rate drops with resolution and settings indicate a graphics-card-limited scenario.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo rank of 1637 out of 1718 places this Intel and AMD pairing in the bottom 5% of all tested configurations for Palworld. This is a remarkably low ranking that underscores the fundamental mismatch between the CPU's capabilities and the GPU's limitations. The Core i7-12700K is a high-end processor, sitting in the 89th percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 35684, yet it is paired with a GPU that ranks in the 74th percentile with an average score of 30158. The gap in relative performance is significant, and Palworld's engine appears to amplify this disparity.

Looking at the synthetic benchmarks, the CPU shows strong multi-threaded capabilities with a Passmark multi-thread score of 34404 and a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 29241. However, these scores have little bearing on the gaming results here, as the RX 570 cannot translate CPU headroom into frame rate. The data shows that even a weaker CPU paired with a stronger GPU would likely outperform this combination in Palworld, as the game's performance is primarily determined by the graphics subsystem.

The ranking also reveals that this combination is far below what most users would consider acceptable for a modern game. With 81 other combinations performing worse, the system is functionally at the bottom tier of Palworld performance. The measured FPS data supports this, as the majority of tested settings produce averages below 40 FPS, which is generally considered the minimum threshold for playable performance in fast-paced action games.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The complete FPS dataset provides a comprehensive picture of this combination's capabilities across all resolutions and settings. Starting at 1920x1080, the results show a range from 72.5 FPS at Low to 37.2 FPS at Ultra. The progression is linear: Low (72.5), Medium (62.1), High (48.7), and Ultra (37.2). Each settings tier costs roughly 10-14 FPS on average, which is a steep price for visual improvements on this GPU.

At 2560x1440, the performance drops significantly across the board. Low settings produce 45.8 FPS, which is the only result above 40 FPS at this resolution. Medium yields 38.2 FPS, High drops to 28.0 FPS, and Ultra falls to 20.6 FPS. The delta between 1080p and 1440p is consistent at approximately 26-27 FPS for Low and Medium settings, but narrows to 20.7 FPS for High and 16.6 FPS for Ultra. This narrowing suggests that at higher settings, the GPU is already so saturated that resolution increases have a smaller marginal impact.

The 3840x2160 results are uniformly poor. Low settings achieve 29.9 FPS, which is the only result above 25 FPS. Medium produces 24.3 FPS, High drops to 18.5 FPS, and Ultra falls to 10.8 FPS. The gap between Low and Ultra at 4K is 19.1 FPS, which is the largest absolute spread across any resolution, but all values are below playable thresholds. The data shows that 4K is effectively unusable for this combination, regardless of settings.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 570's role in these results is defined by its modest specifications and the game's apparent appetite for graphics resources. The GPU features 2048 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs, with a boost clock of 1244 MHz. These specifications produce a theoretical FP32 performance of 5.095 TFLOPS, which is the primary metric driving the frame rates seen in the measured data.

The memory subsystem is a critical limitation. The 4 GB GDDR5 memory operates at 1750 MHz (7 Gbps effective) across a 256-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 224.0 GB/s. In Palworld, where open-world environments and numerous entities require substantial memory traffic, this bandwidth is insufficient. The data shows that the GPU's memory capacity is also a concern, as the steep drop from Low to Medium settings at 1080p (10.4 FPS) suggests the game is exceeding the 4 GB frame buffer at higher quality levels.

The GPU's synthetic benchmark scores reflect its mid-range positioning. With a Geekbench OpenCL score of 32084 and a 3dmark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 880, the RX 570 is clearly outclassed by modern GPUs. Its nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 and AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT, both of which score nearly identically in average benchmarks (30109 and 30097, respectively) but represent significantly newer architectures. The 14 nm process node and GCN 4.0 architecture are aging, and the data shows this in Palworld's performance. The pixel rate of 39.81 GPixel/s and texture rate of 159.2 GTexel/s are the hard limits that manifest in the 37.2 FPS ceiling at 1080p Ultra, while the 4K results at 10.8 FPS demonstrate the GPU's inability to handle the pixel throughput required at that resolution.