Steamworld Build

The Ryzen 9 9900X and Intel Arc B570 pairing in Steamworld Build produces a spread of results that are heavily dependent on the settings chosen. The measured data shows a clear trade-off between visual fidelity and frame rate, with the system capable of high refresh rates at lower settings but struggling to maintain playable performance at the highest presets in 4K. This combination ranks in the lower portion of tested configurations, indicating that while it can handle the game, it is not among the top performers for this specific title.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combo points to Medium as the most balanced preset for most users. At 1920x1080, Medium delivers 124 FPS average, which is a substantial 61 FPS higher than High (93 FPS) and nearly double the Ultra preset's 63 FPS. The Medium preset also provides the only measured minimum FPS values in the dataset, with a 106 FPS floor at 1080p, suggesting a more consistent frame pacing compared to other settings where minimums are not recorded. This consistency is valuable in a city builder where camera panning over a growing metropolis can cause sudden dips.

For 2560x1440, the Medium preset again stands out with an 79 FPS average and a 67 FPS minimum, keeping gameplay smooth on higher-resolution displays. The High preset at 1440p drops to 59 FPS, which is still playable but leaves less headroom for complex scenes with many structures and citizens. Low at 1440p offers 103 FPS, but the visual compromise in a game where you are constantly observing your city's details may not be worth the extra frames.

At 3840x2160, the situation becomes more constrained. Medium is the only preset with a recorded minimum (35 FPS) and provides a 42 FPS average. High at 4K manages only 31 FPS, which is borderline for a city builder where menu navigation and precise placement benefit from smoother motion. Low at 4K hits 55 FPS but sacrifices the graphical richness that makes the game's art style appealing. Ultra at any resolution is not recommended, as it produces 21 FPS at 4K, 40 FPS at 1440p, and 63 FPS at 1080p, with the 4K result being essentially unplayable and even the 1080p result being worse than High.

Given the data, the optimal experience is Medium at 1080p or 1440p. This choice preserves visual quality while maintaining frame rates well above 60 FPS at 1080p and near 80 FPS at 1440p. For users prioritizing maximum smoothness over visuals, Low at 1440p provides a 103 FPS average, which is an excellent experience for competitive or high-refresh-rate play. The data suggests avoiding Ultra entirely unless you are at 1080p and value the highest settings over frame rate, but even then, the 63 FPS average makes it a marginal choice.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for this system?

A: Based on the measured data, 1920x1080 with Medium settings offers the best balance, providing a 124 FPS average with a 106 FPS minimum. For 1440p users, Medium at 79 FPS average with a 67 FPS minimum is the recommended choice, as it maintains smooth gameplay without the steep performance cost of High or Ultra.

Q: Can this combo handle 4K gaming in Steamworld Build?

A: The data shows that 4K is only marginally playable. At Medium settings, the system achieves a 42 FPS average with a 35 FPS minimum, which is playable but not ideal for a management game with lots of on-screen elements. The High preset drops to 31 FPS, and Ultra falls to 21 FPS, making these presets impractical for 4K.

Q: How does the Ultra preset compare to High in terms of performance?

A: The performance cost of Ultra over High is significant. At 1080p, Ultra delivers 63 FPS compared to High's 93 FPS, a 32% reduction. At 1440p, the gap widens with Ultra at 40 FPS versus High at 59 FPS, and at 4K, Ultra's 21 FPS is nearly half of High's 31 FPS.

Q: Is there a large difference between Low and Medium settings?

A: Yes, but the gap varies by resolution. At 1080p, Low (162 FPS) is 30% faster than Medium (124 FPS). At 1440p, Low (103 FPS) is 30% faster than Medium (79 FPS). At 4K, Low (55 FPS) is 31% faster than Medium (42 FPS), showing a consistent scaling pattern across resolutions.

Q: What minimum FPS can I expect at Medium settings?

A: The only recorded minimum FPS values are for the Medium preset. At 1080p, the minimum is 106 FPS; at 1440p, it is 67 FPS; and at 4K, it is 35 FPS. This suggests that Medium provides a more stable frame delivery compared to other presets, where minimum values are not available in the data.

Q: How does this combo rank among all tested systems for this game?

A: The combo ranks 2320 out of 2924 tested combinations, placing it in the 79th percentile from the bottom. This indicates that while it is not a top-tier performer, it is far from the lowest-performing systems and can still deliver a good experience at appropriate settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X and Intel Arc B570 achieves a rank of 2320 out of 2924 tested combos in Steamworld Build. This position places it in the lower half of the field, with approximately 79% of tested systems performing better. However, the ranking does not tell the whole story, as the measured FPS data shows this combo can be quite capable in the right conditions. The rank reflects the overall average performance across all tested settings and resolutions, which means the weaker 4K Ultra results (21 FPS) drag down the system's standing despite solid 1080p performance.

When examining the CPU's benchmark standings, the Ryzen 9 9900X sits at the 92nd percentile among all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 57498. Its nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 9015 (57555, 0.1% higher), the Intel Core i9-14900 (58115, 1.1% higher), and the AMD EPYC 7313 (57399, 0.2% lower). This indicates the processor is a strong performer, but the GPU's position in the 65th percentile among all GPUs with a score of 20556 suggests a bottleneck. The Arc B570's rivals are closely matched, including the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534, 0.1% lower) and the Intel Arc A750 (20582, 0.1% higher), showing the GPU is competitive with mid-range options but not a high-end part.

The disparity between the CPU's high percentile (92) and the GPU's mid-range percentile (65) explains why the combo does not rank higher. In a city builder like Steamworld Build, the GPU often becomes the limiting factor at higher resolutions and settings, which is evident in the significant FPS drops from 1080p to 4K. The rank of 2320 suggests that to improve performance, users would need a more powerful GPU, as the CPU has ample headroom to support faster graphics cards.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data reveals a clear performance hierarchy across resolutions and settings. At 1920x1080, the system shows its strongest results: Low settings produce 162 FPS average, followed by Medium at 124 FPS, High at 93 FPS, and Ultra at 63 FPS. The Medium preset also records a minimum of 106 FPS and a maximum of 143 FPS, providing the only full range of data in the dataset. This resolution is clearly where the combo excels, with even Ultra maintaining a playable frame rate.

Moving to 2560x1440, the performance scales down predictably. Low delivers 103 FPS average, which is still excellent for high-refresh-rate monitors. Medium achieves 79 FPS average with a 67 FPS minimum and 91 FPS maximum, making it the most viable option for 1440p gaming. High drops to 59 FPS, which is playable but approaches the threshold where some users might notice stutter in busy scenes. Ultra falls to 40 FPS, which is a significant compromise for the visual upgrade it provides.

At 3840x2160, the system struggles to maintain high frame rates. Low is the only preset that breaks 50 FPS, achieving 55 FPS average. Medium manages 42 FPS average with a 35 FPS minimum and 48 FPS maximum, making it the only 4K preset with a recorded minimum FPS. High falls to 31 FPS, and Ultra plummets to 21 FPS, both of which are below the threshold for smooth gameplay in a management genre where precise cursor placement matters. The data suggests that 4K is only viable at Low or Medium settings, and even then, the experience will be suboptimal compared to lower resolutions.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Medium settings shows a 36% FPS drop (124 to 79), while the jump from 1440p to 4K at Medium shows a 47% drop (79 to 42). This non-linear scaling indicates that the GPU is increasingly stressed at higher resolutions, with the 4K resolution requiring substantially more graphics processing power than the system can provide for high settings.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data demonstrates a clear pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases, which reveals important information about the system's bottleneck. At Medium settings, the average FPS drops from 124 at 1080p to 79 at 1440p, a 36% reduction. This is a typical scaling factor for a mid-range GPU, as the pixel count increases by 78% (from 2.07 million to 3.69 million pixels) but the frame rate only drops by 36%, indicating some headroom in the GPU's processing capabilities.

The scaling from 1440p to 4K is more severe. At Medium settings, the FPS drops from 79 to 42, a 47% reduction, while the pixel count increases by 125% (from 3.69 million to 8.29 million pixels). This disproportionate drop suggests that the GPU is reaching its memory bandwidth or compute limits at 4K. The Intel Arc B570's 10 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 160-bit bus and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth may be insufficient for the higher texture and geometry demands of 4K, even at Medium settings.

At Low settings, the scaling is similar: 162 FPS at 1080p, 103 FPS at 1440p (36% drop), and 55 FPS at 4K (47% drop from 1440p). This consistency across settings indicates that the resolution scaling is primarily a GPU limitation, not a CPU or memory constraint. The Ryzen 9 9900X, with its 12 cores and 24 threads, is unlikely to be the limiting factor at any resolution, as city builders are not typically CPU-bound at high frame rates when the GPU is stressed.

The data implies that for this combo, 1440p is the sweet spot where the GPU can still deliver high frame rates (79 FPS at Medium) without the severe performance penalty seen at 4K. The 4K results suggest that users with 4K displays should either stick to Low settings or consider a more powerful GPU, as the Arc B570 struggles to maintain playable frame rates at higher quality presets.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 9 9900X is a high-end desktop processor based on the Zen 5 architecture (Granite Ridge), featuring 12 cores and 24 threads. Its base clock of 4.40 GHz and boost clock of 5.60 GHz provide substantial single-thread performance, which is crucial for city builders that often have a primary simulation thread. The CPU's benchmark scores support this: a single-thread score of 1286 in 3DMark and 2253 in Cinebench R23, placing it in the 92nd percentile among all CPUs.

In Steamworld Build, the CPU's role is to handle the game's simulation logic, including citizen pathfinding, resource distribution, and building efficiency calculations. The measured FPS data shows that at 1080p Low settings, the system achieves 162 FPS, which is likely close to the game's engine limit or the GPU's maximum output. The fact that the CPU can feed the GPU at such high frame rates indicates that it is not a bottleneck at lower resolutions. The multi-threaded performance (32172 in Cinebench R23) also ensures that background tasks, such as operating system processes and other applications, do not interfere with game performance.

However, the CPU's high performance does not overcome the GPU's limitations at higher resolutions. The 4K results, where the CPU has even less relative workload per frame, show that the system is clearly GPU-bound. The 12-core, 24-thread configuration provides ample headroom for future game updates or more demanding city sizes, and the 64 MB of L3 cache helps with data locality for the simulation's many objects. The CPU's 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth and DDR5 support also ensure that memory access is not a bottleneck, allowing the simulation to run efficiently.

The data suggests that the Ryzen 9 9900X is a capable partner for the Arc B570, providing enough processing power to ensure that the GPU is the primary determinant of frame rate. In a game like Steamworld Build, where CPU performance can become critical in late-game cities with thousands of entities, this processor offers substantial headroom to maintain playable frame rates even as the simulation complexity grows.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B570 is a mid-range graphics card based on the Xe2-HPG architecture (Battlemage), featuring 2304 shading units, 144 texture mapping units, and 80 render output units. Its boost clock of 2500 MHz and 10 GB of GDDR6 memory with a 160-bit bus provide a bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s. The GPU's benchmark performance places it in the 65th percentile among all GPUs, with an average score of 20556, making it competitive with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile and Intel Arc A750.

In Steamworld Build, the GPU's role is to render the 3D graphics, including the isometric view of the city, building models, and environmental effects. The measured FPS data shows that the GPU is the limiting factor at higher resolutions. At 4K, the GPU's 10 GB of VRAM may be sufficient for the game's textures, but the 160-bit memory bus and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth are likely insufficient for the high pixel fill rate required. The GPU's pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s are mid-range figures, which explains why 4K High (31 FPS) and Ultra (21 FPS) perform poorly.

The GPU's performance at 1080p is much stronger, with 162 FPS at Low settings and 124 FPS at Medium. This indicates that the GPU has enough compute power for lower resolutions, but the scaling to 1440p and 4K reveals its limitations. The 47% FPS drop from 1440p to 4K at Medium settings suggests that the GPU's memory bandwidth becomes a bottleneck, as the increased resolution requires more data to be fetched from VRAM. The 18 ray tracing cores are present but not likely utilized in this game, as city builders rarely use RT effects.

The GPU's 150 W TDP and 450 W suggested PSU indicate it is a power-efficient card, but its performance in this game is constrained by its mid-range positioning. The data shows that users should target 1080p or 1440p with Medium settings to get the best experience, as the GPU's capabilities are stretched at 4K. The close benchmark scores of its rivals (all within 0.5% of each other) suggest that the Arc B570 is a solid performer in its class, but it is not designed for high-resolution, high-settings gaming in demanding titles like this one.