Palworld

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Palworld with the Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 show a clear, predictable pattern as resolution increases. At the Ultra preset, the transition from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 drops the average from 166.1 FPS to 109.0 FPS, a reduction of approximately 34%. Moving from 2560x1440 to 3840x2160 at Ultra brings the average down to 62.4 FPS, which is another 43% reduction from the 1440p figure. This scaling behavior across the three resolutions is consistent with a system where the GPU becomes progressively more dominant as the pixel count rises.

Looking at the High preset, the same trend holds. The 1080p average measures 219.7 FPS, dropping to 141.3 FPS at 1440p and then to 82.6 FPS at 4K. The percentage drops between successive resolutions are roughly 36% and 42%, respectively. These figures indicate that the RTX 4090 is still the primary limiting factor at 4K, but the CPU has enough headroom to keep frame rates high at lower resolutions. The Low preset data reinforces this interpretation: 354.7 FPS at 1080p falls to 232.5 FPS at 1440p and then to 126.8 FPS at 4K. The proportional decline from 1080p to 1440p is about 34%, while the 1440p-to-4K drop is about 45%.

The scaling pattern suggests that at 1080p, the combination is not fully GPU-bound even at Ultra settings, as the frame rate of 166.1 FPS is well below what the RTX 4090 could theoretically deliver if the CPU were not a factor. However, the CPU's influence wanes quickly as resolution climbs. At 4K, the gap between Low and Ultra settings is 126.8 FPS versus 62.4 FPS, a difference of 64.4 FPS, which is primarily a GPU workload effect. The data shows that the RTX 4090's performance ceiling in this game is approached at 4K, where even the Low preset cannot exceed 126.8 FPS, indicating that the GPU is doing the heavy lifting at that resolution.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 in this configuration carries 24 GB of GDDR6X memory across a 384-bit bus, delivering 1.01 TB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock runs at 1313 MHz with 21 Gbps effective speed. These specifications are relevant to Palworld's open-world environments, which can place significant demands on texture streaming and memory capacity. The GPU's 16,384 shading units, 512 TMUs, and 176 ROPs provide the raw compute throughput, with a boost clock of 2520 MHz and a base clock of 2235 MHz.

In the measured results, the RTX 4090's role is most visible when comparing settings at a fixed resolution. At 3840x2160, the Ultra preset averages 62.4 FPS, while High reaches 82.6 FPS, Medium 104.7 FPS, and Low 126.8 FPS. The spread between Low and Ultra at 4K is 64.4 FPS, showing that the GPU has substantial headroom to handle reduced settings. At 2560x1440, the same settings range from 109.0 FPS (Ultra) to 232.5 FPS (Low), a spread of 123.5 FPS. This wider gap at 1440p indicates that the GPU is less constrained by the CPU at that resolution, allowing the settings to have a larger relative impact.

The RTX 4090's 24 GB frame buffer is unlikely to be a limiting factor in Palworld at these settings, as the game's texture demands are well within the card's capacity. The GPU's tensor cores and ray tracing capabilities are not directly reflected in these rasterized benchmark results, but the raw FP32 throughput of 82.58 TFLOPS underpins the high frame rates observed. The benchmark data shows that the RTX 4090 is capable of delivering playable frame rates at 4K Ultra, but the 62.4 FPS average suggests that users targeting 60 FPS should consider the High preset for a more comfortable margin.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the High preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance across all three resolutions. At 1920x1080, High averages 219.7 FPS, which is more than sufficient for any display refresh rate commonly in use, and it falls only 53.6 FPS short of the Low preset's 354.7 FPS. At 2560x1440, High delivers 141.3 FPS, a figure that comfortably exceeds the 100 FPS threshold for high-refresh monitors, while Medium sits at 188.5 FPS and Ultra at 109.0 FPS. The High preset at 1440p thus provides a solid experience without sacrificing the visual fidelity that Ultra might offer.

At 3840x2160, the choice becomes more critical. High averages 82.6 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS target for most 4K displays, while Ultra drops to 62.4 FPS, leaving little margin for demanding scenes. Medium at 104.7 FPS and Low at 126.8 FPS are also viable, but they reduce graphical quality more than necessary. The data suggests that High is the recommended preset for 4K, as it maintains a 20.2 FPS advantage over Ultra while still looking substantially better than Medium. For users with 144Hz or 165Hz displays at 1440p, the High preset's 141.3 FPS is close to matching the refresh rate, and dropping to Medium would push the average to 188.5 FPS, which is better suited for competitive play.

The Low preset is not recommended for any resolution, as the frame rate gains over Medium are relatively modest—67.5 FPS at 1080p, 44.0 FPS at 1440p, and 22.1 FPS at 4K—while the visual degradation would be significant in a game that relies on environmental detail for its survival gameplay. Ultra is only advisable at 1080p, where the 166.1 FPS average is still high enough for smooth gameplay, but at 1440p and above, the 109.0 FPS and 62.4 FPS averages respectively make it a marginal choice.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-14700F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 combination ranks 41st out of 1,718 tested combos in Palworld. This places it in the top 2.4% of all configurations, which is an exceptional result. The ranking reflects the raw performance of both components, but it also indicates that there are 40 other combinations that achieve higher average frame rates in this specific game. Given the RTX 4090's status as one of the fastest consumer GPUs available, the fact that it does not rank higher suggests that other factors, such as CPU choice or memory configuration, can push performance even further.

The combo's position in the 41st spot out of 1,718 is notable because the RTX 4090 alone sits at the 91st percentile among all GPUs, and the i7-14700F sits at the 94th percentile among all CPUs. The combination of two top-tier components yields a result that is better than either percentile individually, but the ranking shows that Palworld's engine may not scale perfectly with the RTX 4090's full capabilities. The data indicates that a different CPU pairing could yield better results, as the i7-14700F's nearest rivals—such as the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X with an average benchmark score of 54,450 and a delta of -0.6%—show that CPU performance differences are small in synthetic tests but could translate to larger gains in a game like Palworld.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.10 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz. Its 33 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 provide the memory bandwidth necessary for feeding a high-end GPU. In synthetic benchmarks, the i7-14700F scores 35,443 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 5,003 in single-core, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 16,571 and single-core of 2,711. These numbers demonstrate strong multi-threaded capability, which is relevant for Palworld's simulation-heavy gameplay that involves creature AI and world state updates.

The CPU's role in this combo becomes apparent when examining the frame rate data at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the Low preset achieves 354.7 FPS, which is a high figure that still does not fully saturate the RTX 4090's potential. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 188.6 FPS, and this spread narrows as resolution increases—at 1440p it is 123.5 FPS, and at 4K it is 64.4 FPS. This pattern confirms that the CPU is more of a factor at 1080p, where the GPU can render frames faster than the CPU can issue draw calls. The i7-14700F's boost clock of 5.40 GHz helps in this regard, as single-threaded performance is critical for game logic.

The CPU's 20 cores and 28 threads are more than adequate for Palworld, and the data shows that the i7-14700F does not become a bottleneck until frame rates exceed 300 FPS at 1080p Low. At 4K, the CPU's influence is minimal, as the GPU is clearly the limiting component. The processor's 65 W TDP is modest for a chip with this core count, and its 94th percentile ranking among all CPUs indicates that it is a strong performer, but the nearest rivals show that the Ryzen 9 9900X is marginally faster in average benchmark scores, suggesting that a different CPU could extract slightly more performance in CPU-bound scenarios.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are as follows: Low settings produce 354.7 FPS, Medium produces 287.2 FPS, High produces 219.7 FPS, and Ultra produces 166.1 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a consistent reduction, with each step up in settings costing roughly 60-70 FPS. The 1080p results demonstrate that this combo is capable of driving high-refresh-rate monitors at any preset, with even Ultra exceeding 165 FPS.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 232.5 FPS for Low, 188.5 FPS for Medium, 141.3 FPS for High, and 109.0 FPS for Ultra. The drop from 1080p to 1440p is significant but expected, with the Low preset losing 122.2 FPS and Ultra losing 57.1 FPS. The 1440p results show that the RTX 4090 can handle this resolution with ease, and the i7-14700F still provides enough headroom for the GPU to stretch its legs.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 126.8 FPS for Low, 104.7 FPS for Medium, 82.6 FPS for High, and 62.4 FPS for Ultra. The 4K data reveals that even the Low preset delivers over 120 FPS, which is remarkable for a game of Palworld's scope. The Ultra preset at 62.4 FPS is just above the 60 FPS threshold, making it playable but not ideal for high-refresh displays. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is 64.4 FPS, which is the smallest absolute spread across all resolutions, underscoring the GPU-bound nature of 4K gaming in this title.