Palworld

Palworld’s measured performance with the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and AMD Radeon RX 580 shows a system that is heavily constrained by the graphics card at higher resolutions, while the CPU provides enough headroom to keep frame rates consistent at lower settings. The dataset contains twelve measured FPS combinations across three resolutions and four quality presets, offering a clear picture of how this pairing scales. This analysis walks through those numbers, the role of each component, and what the results mean for playability.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is steep and consistent across all settings, indicating that the AMD Radeon RX 580 is the primary limiting factor as pixel count rises. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 81 FPS at 1920x1080 to 53 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 30 FPS at 3840x2160. That is a 63% reduction from 1080p to 4K. At High settings, the progression goes from 51 FPS at 1080p to 33 FPS at 1440p and 18 FPS at 4K, a 65% drop. The pattern is similar for Medium (66 to 43 to 24 FPS) and Ultra (38 to 25 to 14 FPS). The scaling is nearly linear with pixel count, which is the signature of a GPU-bound scenario.

The gap between 1080p and 1440p is roughly 35-38% across all presets, while the gap between 1440p and 4K is another 43-44%. This means the RX 580’s rendering throughput—its 6.175 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 256.0 GB/s memory bandwidth—is being saturated well before the CPU becomes a factor. The fact that even Low settings at 4K only reaches 30 FPS confirms that the GPU cannot keep up with the pixel workload, regardless of how much load is taken off the graphics pipeline. At 1080p, however, the scaling suggests the CPU starts to matter more; the jump from 51 FPS at High to 81 FPS at Low indicates that reducing graphical load allows the processor to push higher frame rates, but the ceiling is still set by the GPU.

Comparing resolution scaling across presets, the relative drop from 1080p to 4K is almost identical (63-65%), which implies the bottleneck does not shift with quality settings—it remains firmly on the GPU. If the CPU were the limiter, we would expect the percentage drop to shrink at lower resolutions, but that is not the case. The data shows a consistent, pixel-driven decline that points to the RX 580’s 8 GB GDDR5 memory and 32 ROPs as the binding constraints at 1440p and above.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU/GPU combo in Palworld?

A: Based on the measured data, 1920x1080 is the only resolution where all four settings achieve playable frame rates. Low hits 81 FPS, Medium 66 FPS, High 51 FPS, and even Ultra reaches 38 FPS. At 2560x1440, only Low (53 FPS) and Medium (43 FPS) exceed 30 FPS, while High drops to 33 FPS and Ultra falls to 25 FPS. At 3840x2160, none of the presets reach 30 FPS except Low at exactly 30 FPS.

Q: How does the RX 580 compare to its nearest rivals in this context?

A: The RX 580’s average benchmark score is 12928, which places it 0.1% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (12940) and 0.4% behind the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (12986). It is 0.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon 740M (12870) and 0.6% ahead of the AMD FirePro W5100 (12847). These deltas are negligible, so the RX 580’s Palworld performance is representative of that performance tier.

Q: Does the Core Ultra 5 245 bottleneck the RX 580 in Palworld?

A: The data suggests no. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 81 FPS, which is the highest measured value in the dataset. If the CPU were a bottleneck, we would expect frame rates to plateau across different settings at the same resolution. Instead, they scale from 38 FPS at Ultra to 81 FPS at Low, showing that the GPU workload reduction translates directly into higher FPS. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32924 and single-core score of 4648 indicate ample processing headroom.

Q: What is the difference between Low and Ultra settings at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, Low averages 81 FPS while Ultra averages 38 FPS, a difference of 43 FPS (53% lower). The Medium preset sits at 66 FPS and High at 51 FPS. This spread shows that Palworld’s visual settings have a significant impact on the RX 580, likely due to increased shading and texture work that stresses the GPU’s 2304 shading units and 144 texture mapping units.

Q: Is 4K playable with this hardware?

A: No. At 3840x2160, the highest average FPS is 30 with Low settings. Medium yields 24 FPS, High 18 FPS, and Ultra 14 FPS. Even with minimum settings, the frame rate is below the 30 FPS threshold that most players consider acceptable for a survival game. The RX 580’s 8 GB VRAM and 256-bit memory bus are insufficient for 4K workloads in Palworld.

Q: How does the combo rank among all tested combinations?

A: This pairing ranks 2685 out of 2944 tested combos, placing it in the bottom 9% of the database. That low rank is driven by the RX 580’s age (released 2017-04-17) and its 53rd percentile among all GPUs, while the CPU sits in the 90th percentile. The GPU is the clear weak link in this pairing.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 580 is the dominant factor in Palworld’s measured performance. Its 8 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256-bit bus provides 256.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is modest by modern standards but sufficient for 1080p gaming. The GPU’s base clock is 1257 MHz with a boost clock of 1340 MHz, and its memory runs at 2000 MHz (8 Gbps effective). These clocks are low compared to newer cards, and the GCN 4.0 architecture lacks the efficiency of later designs.

The RX 580’s compute capabilities are 6.175 TFLOPS FP32 and 6.175 TFLOPS FP16 (1:1), with a pixel rate of 42.88 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 193.0 GTexel/s. In Palworld, these specifications translate directly to the measured FPS. At 1080p Medium, the 66 FPS average with a minimum of 56 and maximum of 76 shows that the GPU can handle moderate loads. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 43 FPS (min 37, max 50), and at 4K Medium, it falls to 24 FPS (min 20, max 28). The min/max spread at Medium settings is tight, suggesting consistent frame pacing rather than spikes.

The GPU’s VRAM capacity of 8 GB is not exceeded at any measured setting, since even 4K Ultra only requires 14 FPS, which is far below the point where memory pressure would cause stutters. The limiting factor is raw shading throughput, not memory capacity. The RX 580’s 2304 shading units and 32 ROPs are the hardware that determines these results. The 14 nm process node and 5,700 million transistors on a 232 mm² die mean the card runs at 185 W TDP, but that is not directly relevant to game performance beyond thermal headroom.

The GPU’s benchmark percentile of 53 places it squarely in the middle of all GPUs, but its nearest rivals—the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile, GTX 1660 SUPER, Radeon 740M, and FirePro W5100—are all within 0.6% of its average score. This means the RX 580’s Palworld results are typical for its performance class. The lack of ray tracing cores and tensor cores (both null in the data) means Palworld’s visual effects rely entirely on traditional rasterization, which is where the GCN architecture still holds up at lower resolutions.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and AMD Radeon RX 580 combination ranks 2685 out of 2944 tested combos, putting it in the 9th percentile of all pairings in the database. This low rank is almost entirely attributable to the GPU, as the CPU’s percentileVsAllCpus is 90, meaning it outperforms 90% of all processors. The GPU’s percentileVsAllGpus is 53, indicating it is average. When a top-decile CPU is paired with a mid-tier GPU, the combination’s rank is dragged down by the weaker component.

The CPU’s average benchmark score is 48995, with nearest rivals including the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5755G (49196, 0.4% higher), AMD Ryzen 9 7900 (49228, 0.5% higher), Intel Xeon Gold 5318H (48698, 0.6% lower), and Intel Core i5-14600K (48618, 0.8% lower). This puts the Core Ultra 5 245 in a tight pack of high-end processors, none of which would be the limiting factor in a game like Palworld. The GPU’s average benchmark score is 12928, with rivals within 0.6%, so the RX 580 is firmly in the mid-range.

In practical terms, this rank means that most other tested combos deliver higher frame rates in Palworld. The 2685th position out of 2944 indicates that roughly 91% of pairings outperform this one. However, the data also shows that the CPU is not wasted—at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 81 FPS, which is higher than what a weaker CPU might allow with the same GPU. The ranking reflects the GPU’s inability to push high frame rates at 1440p and 4K, not any deficiency in the processor.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend on the target resolution and acceptable frame rate. At 1920x1080, the Medium preset offers the best balance: 66 FPS average with a minimum of 56 and maximum of 76. This is comfortably above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and the min/max spread shows minimal frame pacing issues. High settings at 1080p drop to 51 FPS, which is still playable but less fluid. Low settings reach 81 FPS, but the visual quality loss is significant for a survival game where environmental detail matters.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset (53 FPS) is the only one that approaches 60 FPS, while Medium (43 FPS) is the highest quality option that stays above 40 FPS. High settings fall to 33 FPS, which is borderline for a game with combat and exploration. Ultra at 1440p yields 25 FPS, which is not recommended. For 1440p, Medium is the sensible choice if visual fidelity is a priority, but players seeking smoother motion should use Low.

At 3840x2160, no setting is truly playable. Low achieves 30 FPS exactly, which is the minimum for console-style play, but the experience will feel sluggish. Medium (24 FPS) and High (18 FPS) are too slow, and Ultra (14 FPS) is effectively a slideshow. The recommendation is to avoid 4K entirely with this GPU; the RX 580’s 256.0 GB/s bandwidth and 32 ROPs cannot handle the pixel workload.

The data shows that Medium settings provide the most consistent frame times, as evidenced by the only min/max values reported in the dataset: 1080p Medium (56-76), 1440p Medium (37-50), and 4K Medium (20-28). These ranges are narrow, suggesting that Medium settings avoid the spikes that can occur at other presets. For a survival game where you might be building, exploring, and fighting simultaneously, the stability of Medium at 1080p is the best measured option.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average frame rates are 81 FPS at Low, 66 FPS at Medium (min 56, max 76), 51 FPS at High, and 38 FPS at Ultra. The progression shows a consistent 15-20 FPS drop for each quality tier from Low to Medium to High, with a larger 13 FPS drop from High to Ultra. This suggests that Ultra settings introduce effects that disproportionately tax the RX 580’s shading units.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 53 FPS at Low, 43 FPS at Medium (min 37, max 50), 33 FPS at High, and 25 FPS at Ultra. The relative drops are smaller in absolute terms but similar in percentage: Low to Medium is 19%, Medium to High is 23%, and High to Ultra is 24%. The narrower range between Low and Medium at 1440p compared to 1080p indicates that the GPU is already becoming the constraint at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 30 FPS at Low, 24 FPS at Medium (min 20, max 28), 18 FPS at High, and 14 FPS at Ultra. Here, the drops are 20% from Low to Medium, 25% from Medium to High, and 22% from High to Ultra. The 4K numbers are all below the 30 FPS playability threshold except Low, which hits exactly 30. The min/max values at 4K Medium (20-28) show that even the best-case frame times are poor.

Across all resolutions, the Low preset consistently delivers roughly 1.5-1.7 times the frame rate of Ultra. At 1080p, that ratio is 81/38 = 2.13, at 1440p it is 53/25 = 2.12, and at 4K it is 30/14 = 2.14. This consistent ratio indicates that the performance difference between Low and Ultra is resolution-independent, reinforcing that the GPU is the bottleneck at every pixel count.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 has 14 cores and 14 threads, with a base clock of 3.50 GHz and a boost clock of 5.10 GHz. Its architecture is Arrow Lake-S on a 3 nm process node from TSMC, with 24 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 cache per core. The CPU’s memory support is DDR5 with dual-channel bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. These specifications place it firmly in the high-performance desktop segment, and its benchmarks confirm this: Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 32924 and single-core score of 4648, with a PassMark multithread score of 38706 and single-thread score of 4394.

In Palworld, the CPU’s role is to handle game logic, AI, and physics, while the GPU renders frames. The measured FPS data shows that the Core Ultra 5 245 is not the limiting factor at any resolution. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 81 FPS, which is the highest measured value. If the CPU were holding back the GPU, we would expect frame rates to cap at a lower value regardless of settings. Instead, the FPS scales with graphical load, indicating that the CPU can feed the GPU faster than the GPU can render.

The CPU’s 14 cores and 14 threads (note: no hyperthreading, as threads equal cores) are more than sufficient for Palworld’s survival-game workload, which typically uses fewer than 8 threads. The boost clock of 5.10 GHz provides strong single-thread performance, which is critical for games that rely on a main simulation thread. The Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4648 is 0.8% higher than the Intel Core i5-14600K’s average score of 48618 (which is a multi-core comparison, not single-core), but the point is that the Core Ultra 5 245 is competitive with top-tier CPUs.

The CPU’s 90th percentile rank among all processors means it outperforms 90% of CPUs in the database. In Palworld, this headroom means that even at 1080p Low with 81 FPS, the CPU is likely not at full utilization. The GPU’s 53rd percentile is the constraining factor. If a stronger GPU were paired with this CPU, frame rates would likely improve significantly, especially at 1440p and 4K. The data does not include such a pairing, but the CPU’s benchmarks suggest it could support much higher FPS than the RX 580 delivers.

The CPU’s integrated graphics (Arc Xe-LPG Graphics 64EU) are not used in this test, as the discrete RX 580 handles rendering. The CPU’s memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s is ample for feeding the GPU, and its PCIe Gen 5, 20 lanes (CPU only) provide a high-bandwidth connection, though the RX 580 uses PCIe 3.0 x16. This means the GPU is limited by its own bus interface, not the CPU’s capability. The CPU’s TDP of 65 W and socket LGA 1851 are platform details that do not directly impact game performance but indicate the processor’s efficiency class. In summary, the Core Ultra 5 245 is a high-end CPU that is wasted on a mid-range GPU like the RX 580, but it ensures that no CPU-related bottlenecks appear in the measured results.