Palworld

Palworld pairs the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, a combination that lands at rank 112 out of 2944 tested combos. This puts the pairing in the top 4% of all configurations in the database, driven primarily by the GPU’s raw rasterization power. The CPU, with its 10 cores and 10 threads, provides a solid foundation, but the data indicates that at most settings, the RTX 4090 is the dominant force, especially at higher resolutions.

FAQ

Q: How well does this combo perform in Palworld compared to other tested systems?

A: It ranks 112th out of 2944 total combinations, placing it in the top 4% of all tested pairings. This indicates a very high level of performance, though it is not the absolute top configuration.

Q: Is the RTX 4090 a good match for the Core Ultra 5 225 in this game?

A: Yes. The RTX 4090 provides the overwhelming majority of the graphics horsepower. At 4K Ultra, the combo still delivers 61 FPS on average, showing the GPU is capable of handling the game's highest demands even when paired with this mid-range CPU.

Q: What kind of frame rates can I expect at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the average frame rates are exceptionally high. With Low settings, it hits 351 FPS, and even at Ultra settings, it maintains an average of 166 FPS. This makes the setup ideal for high-refresh-rate 1080p monitors.

Q: How does the CPU's core count affect Palworld performance?

A: The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 has 10 cores and 10 threads. The benchmark results suggest that this is sufficient to feed the RTX 4090 adequately at 4K, as the frame rates scale consistently with resolution, indicating the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at that point.

Q: What is the performance difference between the Low and Ultra settings at 1440p?

A: The jump is significant. At 2560x1440, the average FPS goes from 231 at Low to 109 at Ultra. This shows a roughly 53% drop in performance when maxing out the graphical settings, which is typical for a game like Palworld that has heavy visual effects.

Q: Does the combo perform better at 1080p or 4K relative to other components?

A: The data shows a clear GPU bottleneck at higher resolutions. At 1080p Low, the CPU is more of a limiting factor, but at 4K, the GPU is the main constraint. The combo's rank reflects its overall strength, but it is strongest at 4K where the RTX 4090 can stretch its legs.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is the central component in this pairing. It is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture and features a massive 24 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 1.01 TB/s. This memory configuration is crucial for Palworld at high resolutions and with high-detail textures, as it prevents VRAM capacity from becoming a bottleneck.

The GPU’s clock speeds are also notable. It has a base clock of 2235 MHz and a boost clock of 2520 MHz. This high boost clock allows for significant performance headroom. When we look at the measured results, the GPU's power is evident. At 3840x2160 with High settings, the combo achieves 80 FPS. Dropping to Low settings pushes that to 128 FPS, showcasing the GPU's ability to handle the lower graphical load with ease. The 24 GB VRAM buffer is a key asset; even at 4K Ultra, it is unlikely that memory capacity will be a limiting factor, allowing the GPU to focus on compute tasks.

The RTX 4090’s raw compute power, with 16,384 shading units and an FP32 throughput of 82.58 TFLOPS, is what drives the high frame rates. This is reflected in its strong benchmark scores, such as a Passmark G3D score of 38194. The GPU's percentile rank of 88 versus all other GPUs in the database confirms its top-tier standing. While its nearestRivals in the synthetic benchmark list are professional workstation cards like the AMD Radeon Pro W6600M (which is 2.5% slower), in actual gaming workloads like Palworld, the 4090’s architecture is specifically optimized for rasterization and features like ray tracing, which are not fully captured by those synthetic scores.

The relationship between the GPU's clock speed and the game's performance is clear. When the resolution increases, the demand on the GPU's shaders and memory bandwidth grows. The data shows that from 1080p to 4K at High settings, the average FPS drops from 219 to 80, a 63% reduction. This is a classic sign of a GPU-bound scenario, where the processor is waiting on the graphics card to finish rendering each frame.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 225 serves as the supporting pillar in this configuration. It is based on the Arrow Lake architecture (part of Core Ultra Series 2) and manufactured on a 3 nm process by TSMC. With 10 cores and 10 threads, it lacks hyper-threading, but its architecture is designed for efficiency and solid single-threaded performance, which is critical for game logic and physics.

With a base clock of 3.30 GHz and a boost clock of 4.90 GHz, the CPU can deliver strong performance when needed. In Palworld, a survival game with many concurrent entities and simulation elements, the CPU must handle the game's world state. The benchmark data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the combo achieves 351 FPS. This high frame rate suggests the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with enough draw calls to reach such a high number, but it is likely the point where the CPU becomes the primary limiter, as this is an extremely high frame rate for any processor to maintain.

The CPU’s cache hierarchy is also relevant. It has 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 per core. This helps keep frequently accessed data close to the processing cores, reducing latency. In the context of the measured results, we see that at 4K Ultra, the average FPS is 61. This is a significant drop from the 109 FPS at 1440p Ultra. The fact that the frame rate scales down with resolution at Ultra settings points to the GPU being the bottleneck, not the CPU. The CPU is likely still working hard to prepare frames, but the GPU is taking longer to render them, so the CPU is not the limiting factor at 4K.

The Core Ultra 5 225’s average benchmark score is 36938, placing it in the 85th percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rival, the AMD Ryzen 5 5600F, has nearly identical performance with a deltaPct of 0. This indicates that the CPU is a competent, mid-range performer. In this specific game, its 10 cores are likely sufficient, as Palworld may not be heavily optimized for more than that. The data suggests that while a more powerful CPU could push 1080p frame rates even higher, the current pairing is well-balanced for 1440p and 4K gaming, where the GPU's workload is much more substantial.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's rank of 112 out of 2944 tested combinations places it in the 96th percentile of all systems tested. This is a dominant position, indicating that this pairing is faster than the vast majority of other CPU-GPU combinations in the database for Palworld. This high rank is almost entirely attributable to the RTX 4090's performance. The GPU is in the 88th percentile of all GPUs, and its raw power is so high that it can overcome any potential imbalance from the lower-tier CPU.

When we look at the numbers, the combo's strength is most apparent at 4K. At 3840x2160 with High settings, it hits 80 FPS, which is very playable. The fact that this is a high rank suggests that many other combos, even those with more expensive CPUs, do not achieve this level of performance because they lack the 4090's sheer rendering power. The CPU, while ranking in the 85th percentile, is not a top-tier part. However, the ranking of the combo shows that the GPU is the deciding factor.

The deltaPct values for the CPU's rivals show that the Ultra 5 225 is positioned right at the edge of a performance tier. For instance, it is 0.5% slower than the Intel Core i9-12900T in the average benchmark score. But in a game like Palworld, this small difference is negligible. The combo's rank reflects how a high-end GPU can boost a mid-range CPU. The data shows that users with this setup will experience top-tier performance, especially at higher resolutions, which is where the ranking is most meaningful. The gap between this combo and the #1 combo is likely due to using a more powerful CPU to push even higher frame rates at 1080p, but for 4K gaming, this pairing is nearly at the peak of what is available.

Resolution Scaling

The performance scaling across resolutions reveals a classic GPU-bound workload. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the average FPS is 219. Moving to 2560x1440, it drops to 144 FPS, a 34% decrease. Further moving to 3840x2160, it drops to 80 FPS, a 63% decrease from 1080p. This pattern is consistent with the GPU being the primary bottleneck: as the pixel count increases, the workload on the GPU's rasterizers and memory increases proportionally.

This is a clear indicator that the limiting component in this combo is the GPU. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see a smaller difference between the 1080p and 1440p results, as the CPU would be struggling to keep up in both scenarios. Instead, the frame rates scale almost linearly with the resolution, which is the hallmark of a GPU-limited system. For example, going from 1440p to 4K reduces the frame rate by roughly 44% (from 144 to 80 FPS), which is closer to the 2.25x increase in pixel count, though not perfectly linear due to other memory and bandwidth factors.

The RTX 4090's 24 GB of VRAM and 1.01 TB/s bandwidth are crucial here. At 4K, the game can allocate large textures without spilling over into slower system memory, allowing the GPU to maintain high frame rates. The Ultra settings at 4K (61 FPS) show a significant drop from High (80 FPS), indicating that the most demanding settings, such as shadows and effects, tax the GPU heavily. This data suggests that for a smooth 60 FPS experience at 4K, High settings are the sweet spot. For 1440p, Ultra is viable at 109 FPS, and for 1080p, even Ultra is highly playable at 166 FPS.

Measured FPS Breakdown

Here is the exact measured performance data for Palworld with the Intel Core Ultra 5 225 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.

1920x1080 (1080p):

• Low: Average FPS of 351.
• Medium: Average FPS of 285, with a minimum of 242 and a maximum of 327.
• High: Average FPS of 219.
• Ultra: Average FPS of 166.

2560x1440 (1440p):

• Low: Average FPS of 231.
• Medium: Average FPS of 187, with a minimum of 159 and a maximum of 215.
• High: Average FPS of 144.
• Ultra: Average FPS of 109.

3840x2160 (4K):

• Low: Average FPS of 128.
• Medium: Average FPS of 104, with a minimum of 88 and a maximum of 120.
• High: Average FPS of 80.
• Ultra: Average FPS of 61.

The data shows a consistent step-down in performance as settings increase. At 1080p, the Medium preset shows a min FPS of 242, which is still very high. The jump from Medium to High at 1080p is a 23% drop (from 285 to 219 FPS), while the jump from High to Ultra is a 24% drop (from 219 to 166 FPS). This shows that each preset level adds a significant load. At 4K, the Medium preset has a min FPS of 88, ensuring a mostly smooth experience, but the Ultra preset dips to an average of 61 FPS, which is right at the edge of typical 60 Hz display refresh rates. This breakdown shows that the combo is most comfortable at 1440p with High or Ultra settings, delivering a high-refresh-rate experience. For 4K, players will need to choose between High (80 FPS) for a smoother experience or Ultra (61 FPS) for maximum visual fidelity.