Steamworld Build

Steamworld Build is a city builder where the CPU and GPU interact differently than in fast-paced shooters. The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combo shows a clear split: the GPU dominates at higher resolutions and quality settings, while the CPU’s six cores and twelve threads become the primary constraint when frame rates climb past the 180 FPS mark. Benchmark data for this pairing reveals a system that is exceptionally well-balanced for 1440p High settings, but which reveals its architectural limits at 4K Ultra. The measured frames per second across twelve configurations provide a detailed map of where this hardware excels and where it falls behind.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The AMD Ryzen 5 3600 is a 6-core, 12-thread processor built on the Zen 2 architecture, using the TSMC 7 nm process node. Its base clock is 3.60 GHz, which boosts to 4.20 GHz, and it draws a 65 W TDP. The processor features a 32 MB shared L3 cache, with 64 KB L1 and 512 KB L2 per core. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 15045 and a single-core score of 2124, while its Geekbench multi-core and single-core scores are 7372 and 1536, respectively. These numbers place the 3600 at the 71st percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 17035.

Relative to its nearest rivals, the Ryzen 5 3600 sits in a tight cluster. It is 0.2% faster than the Intel Core i7-1260P and the AMD EPYC 7742, while being 0.2% slower than the Intel Core i5-11400 and the AMD EPYC 7573X. This indicates that the 3600’s raw throughput is competitive with modern mid-range parts, but its single-thread performance, as evidenced by the 3DMark single-thread score of 696, is not exceptional. For Steamworld Build, which relies on simulation logic and entity updates, the CPU’s multi-threaded capabilities are more relevant than its peak single-core speed. The data supports this: at 1080p Low, the combo hits 227 FPS, a figure that approaches the practical ceiling for many displays and suggests the CPU is not the primary limiter in that configuration. However, when the resolution drops to 1080p High, the average FPS falls to 178, and at 1080p Ultra it drops further to 120 FPS. This downward trend at higher settings, even at the same resolution, indicates that the GPU is starting to take on more of the workload, but the CPU’s 12 threads still provide enough headroom to avoid becoming a bottleneck until the very highest settings are applied.

The 3DMark 16-thread score of 4605 versus the max-thread score of 4603 shows that the CPU scales well with additional threads, which is beneficial for a city builder that must track numerous independent agents and buildings. The Passmark multi-thread score of 17700 reinforces this strength. The CPU’s memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s over a dual-channel DDR4 bus is adequate for feeding the GPU, but it is not a distinguishing feature. The data suggests that for Steamworld Build, the Ryzen 5 3600 is a capable foundation that will not hold back the system until frame rates exceed 200 FPS, which is only achievable at 1080p with Low or Medium settings.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture, using a 5 nm process from TSMC. It features 5888 shading units, 184 texture mapping units, and 64 raster operation units, along with 46 ray tracing cores and 184 tensor cores. The GPU’s base clock is 1920 MHz, boosting to 2475 MHz, and it has a 200 W TDP. Memory is a crucial factor here: the RTX 4070 comes with 12 GB of GDDR6X on a 192-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. This VRAM capacity is substantial for a city builder that can have many unique textures on screen at once.

In terms of raw compute, the RTX 4070 achieves an FP32 performance of 29.15 TFLOPS. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 3854, and it reaches a Passmark G3D score of 26927. The GPU sits at the 81st percentile among all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 37648. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla P4 (0.1% faster), the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 (0.4% faster), and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile (1.3% faster). Notably, the RTX 4070 is 1.3% slower than the RTX 4080 Mobile, which is a laptop part, indicating that the desktop 4070’s performance is well within the range of high-end mobile solutions.

The GPU’s role in Steamworld Build becomes clear when examining the FPS data. At 4K Ultra, the combo produces 40 FPS, while at 4K High it produces 60 FPS. This 33% drop in frame rate from High to Ultra demonstrates that the 4K Ultra preset is extremely demanding, likely due to a combination of higher resolution textures and more complex post-processing effects that stress the 12 GB VRAM buffer and the GPU’s compute units. The 4K Medium configuration yields 80 FPS with a minimum of 68 FPS, showing that the GPU has enough headroom to maintain playable frame rates with some settings reduced. The RTX 4070’s memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s is likely sufficient for the game’s asset streaming, as the performance scales predictably with resolution rather than hitting a VRAM wall. The GPU’s boost clock of 2475 MHz is high, and the data indicates that the card is fully utilized at 4K, as the frame rates drop consistently with each settings tier.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS across three resolutions reveals a classic scaling pattern that points to the GPU as the dominant performance factor at higher resolutions. At 1080p High, the combo averages 178 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, the average drops to 113 FPS, a 36.5% reduction. At 4K High, the average is 60 FPS, which is a further 46.9% reduction from 1440p. This steep decline in frame rates as resolution increases is a clear indicator that the RTX 4070 is the limiting component in these configurations; the CPU is able to feed the GPU with enough data, but the GPU’s rendering throughput cannot keep pace with the increasing pixel count.

Looking at Low settings, the pattern is similar but with higher absolute numbers. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 227 FPS. At 1440p Low, it drops to 195 FPS, a 14.1% reduction. At 4K Low, it drops to 104 FPS, a 46.7% reduction from 1440p. The fact that 4K Low (104 FPS) is still significantly faster than 1080p Ultra (120 FPS) suggests that the game’s Ultra preset introduces graphical effects that are more taxing than the raw resolution increase. The performance gap between 1080p and 1440p at Low settings is relatively small (14.1%), which implies that the CPU is still a relevant contributor at these lower graphical loads. However, the massive drop from 1440p Low to 4K Low (46.7%) reinforces that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at 4K, regardless of settings.

The Medium settings provide the only data with minimum and maximum FPS values, which offers insight into frame pacing. At 1080p Medium, the average is 206 FPS with a minimum of 175 FPS and a maximum of 237 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average is 151 FPS with a minimum of 129 FPS and a maximum of 174 FPS. At 4K Medium, the average is 80 FPS with a minimum of 68 FPS and a maximum of 92 FPS. The variance between minimum and maximum FPS is relatively consistent across resolutions, suggesting that the game’s frame time spikes are not exacerbated by resolution scaling. The data shows that the combo is consistently GPU-bound at 4K, CPU-bound at 1080p with lower settings, and well-balanced at 1440p.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings for this combo depend heavily on the target resolution and refresh rate. For a standard 60 Hz display, the 4K High preset is the clear choice, as it delivers an average of 60 FPS. This provides the best visual fidelity at 4K without dropping into the territory of the 40 FPS average seen at 4K Ultra. The 4K Medium preset is also viable, offering 80 FPS, which would be beneficial for a 75 Hz or 90 Hz monitor, but the visual quality reduction from High to Medium is substantial enough that High is preferable for a cinematic experience.

For 1440p, the High preset at 113 FPS is the sweet spot for most users, as it provides a high refresh rate experience without the significant visual downgrade of the Medium preset, which runs at 151 FPS. The 1440p Ultra preset at 76 FPS is also playable, but the 33% frame rate penalty compared to High (113 FPS) is steep, and the visual difference between High and Ultra in a city builder is often less noticeable than in action games. The 1440p Low preset at 195 FPS is only recommended for competitive players who prioritize maximum frame rate over visual quality, which is rare for this genre.

At 1080p, the data shows that the High preset at 178 FPS and the Medium preset at 206 FPS are both excellent choices. The Ultra preset at 120 FPS is also perfectly playable and provides the best image quality, but the jump from High to Ultra costs 58 FPS, which is a 32.6% reduction. For most users, the 1080p High preset offers the best balance of visual quality and performance, as it is well above the 144 Hz threshold and only 28 FPS slower than the Medium preset. The 1080p Low preset at 227 FPS is overkill for most displays and sacrifices too much visual fidelity. The recommendation is to use 1440p High as the default target, as it provides the best combination of resolution, settings, and frame rate (113 FPS) for this hardware pairing.

How This Combo Ranks — use comboRankInGame vs other tested combos

In the grand scheme of all hardware combinations tested for Steamworld Build, the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 pairing ranks 1150th out of 3706 total combos. This places it in the 69th percentile of all tested systems, meaning it outperforms approximately 69% of the combinations in the database. This is a strong showing for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU, and it confirms that the Ryzen 5 3600 does not significantly bottleneck the RTX 4070 in this specific game.

The rank of 1150 indicates that while the combo is above average, there are still 1149 other systems that deliver higher average FPS across the tested configurations. This is expected, as combos with newer, higher-clock CPUs like the Ryzen 7000 series or Intel 13th/14th gen would likely rank higher. However, the data shows that the Ryzen 5 3600, despite being a 2019 part, is still capable of driving the RTX 4070 to respectable frame rates. The fact that the combo ranks in the top 31% of all tested systems suggests that the RTX 4070 is doing most of the heavy lifting, and the CPU is providing adequate support without becoming a major liability. The gap between this combo and the top-ranked systems is likely most pronounced at 1080p with Low settings, where the CPU’s single-thread performance becomes more critical, but even then, the 227 FPS average is far from a poor result.

FAQ — 4-6 Q&A pairs answerable from FACT PACK data

Q: What is the average FPS for this combo at 1440p High settings?

A: The measured average FPS for the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combo at 2560x1440 with High settings is 113 FPS.

Q: How much faster is the 1080p Medium preset compared to the 4K Medium preset?

A: The 1080p Medium preset averages 206 FPS, while the 4K Medium preset averages 80 FPS. This means the 1080p configuration is 126 FPS faster, or roughly 2.6 times higher frame rate.

Q: Does this combo achieve a stable 60 FPS at 4K resolution?

A: Yes, at 4K with High settings, the average FPS is exactly 60. However, at 4K Ultra, the average drops to 40 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS target. The 4K Medium preset provides a safer margin at 80 FPS.

Q: What is the GPU’s memory bandwidth and size?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s.

Q: How does the CPU’s multi-core performance compare to its nearest rival?

A: The Ryzen 5 3600 has an average benchmark score of 17035, which is 0.2% higher than the Intel Core i7-1260P (17007) and 0.2% lower than the Intel Core i5-11400 (17067).

Q: What is the minimum FPS recorded for this combo at 1440p Medium settings?

A: The minimum FPS measured at 2560x1440 with Medium settings is 129 FPS, with an average of 151 FPS and a maximum of 174 FPS.