Steamworld Build

FAQ

Q: What average frame rate does the Intel Core i5-12400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D combo achieve at 4K Ultra settings in Steamworld Build?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the measured average FPS is 62. This is the lowest average among the four settings tested at this resolution, with High producing 92 FPS, Medium producing 124 FPS, and Low producing 161 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 5090 D's memory configuration influence performance in this city builder?

A: The GPU features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, delivering 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. With memory clocks at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective), this configuration ensures that memory bandwidth is not a limiting factor in Steamworld Build's simulation-heavy workloads, as evidenced by the high frame rates even at 4K.

Q: What is the combo's ranking among all tested system configurations for this game?

A: This specific combination of the Intel Core i5-12400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D ranks 83rd out of 2,924 tested combos in Steamworld Build. This places it in the top 3% of all configurations benchmarked for this title.

Q: Which settings preset offers the most balanced experience at 1080p?

A: At 1920x1080, the Medium preset delivers 281 average FPS with a minimum of 239 FPS and maximum of 323 FPS. This provides a significant jump over High (253 FPS) while the Ultra preset still achieves 186 FPS, making Medium the sweet spot for frame time consistency at this resolution.

Q: How does the CPU's multi-threaded performance compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Core i5-12400F scores 19,039 in its average benchmark, which is statistically tied with the AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS (19,047, 0% delta). It trails the Intel Core 3 201E by only 0.1% (19,056) and beats both the Intel Core i5-1335U (18,982) and AMD EPYC 7773X (18,979) by 0.3%.

Q: Does the RTX 5090 D's GPU compute score correlate with in-game performance?

A: The GPU posts a Passmark G3D score of 44,065 and a compute score of 28,396. While these synthetic benchmarks are strong, the in-game data shows that the limiting factor varies by resolution—at 1080p the CPU is more relevant, while at 4K the GPU's capabilities become the primary driver of the 62 FPS Ultra result.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data across all three resolutions reveals a clear pattern: the Medium preset consistently provides the best balance of smoothness and visual fidelity. At 3840x2160, Medium produces 124 average FPS with a minimum of 105 FPS and maximum of 142 FPS—this is the only 4K setting with recorded min/max values, indicating stable frame pacing. The jump from Medium to High at 4K incurs a 32 FPS penalty (down to 92), while Ultra drops to 62 FPS, which may feel less fluid in a genre where camera panning and zooming are frequent.

At 2560x1440, Medium again stands out with 234 average FPS, a minimum of 199 FPS, and a maximum of 269 FPS. This represents a 59 FPS improvement over High (175 FPS) and a 116 FPS improvement over Ultra (118 FPS). The Low preset does hit 266 FPS, but the visual trade-off is substantial for only a 32 FPS gain over Medium.

The 1920x1080 results reinforce this recommendation: Medium achieves 281 average FPS with a 239 FPS minimum and 323 FPS maximum. High trails at 253 FPS, while Ultra produces 186 FPS. Low pushes to 310 FPS, but Medium's 281 FPS already exceeds the refresh rate of virtually all monitors, making the extra 29 FPS from Low irrelevant in practice.

For players with high-refresh-rate displays, the data suggests that Medium at 1440p (234 FPS) or Medium at 4K (124 FPS) both provide excellent experiences. The Ultra preset, while visually demanding, still delivers playable frame rates at all three resolutions—62 FPS at 4K, 118 FPS at 1440p, and 186 FPS at 1080p—but the min/max data from Medium indicates better frame time consistency that matters more in a city builder where the simulation runs continuously.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D is built on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture with the GB202 chip, manufactured on TSMC's 5 nm process. The GPU contains 92,200 million transistors on a 750 mm² die, with a transistor density of 122.9 million per mm². It features 21,760 shading units, 680 texture mapping units, and 176 ROPs, alongside 170 RT cores and 680 tensor cores.

Clock speeds see a base of 2017 MHz and a boost of 2407 MHz. The memory subsystem is the most distinctive feature: 32 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth. This memory bandwidth is crucial for Steamworld Build, a game that renders large, detailed environments with many objects on screen simultaneously.

The GPU's pixel rate is 423.6 GPixel/s and texture rate is 1,636.8 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance rated at 104.8 TFLOPS (and FP16 at the same 104.8 TFLOPS, indicating 1:1 ratio). The card draws up to 575 W TDP and requires a 950 W suggested PSU, connected via a single 16-pin power connector. It uses a PCIe 5.0 x16 interface and occupies a dual-slot form factor measuring 304 mm in length.

In benchmark terms, the RTX 5090 D scores 44,065 in Passmark G3D and 28,396 in GPU compute, with a percentile rank of 92 among all GPUs. Its average benchmark score is 77,712. The nearest rival comparisons show it is 1.1% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 6650M XT (76,904) and 1.6% behind the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (78,940), with similar deltas against two NVIDIA Tesla P100 variants (both around 2% behind the 5090 D).

The 4K Ultra result of 62 FPS demonstrates that even this flagship GPU encounters limits when pushing maximum settings at 3840x2160. The 32 GB frame buffer ensures no capacity-related stutters, but the rendering workload itself—driven by the 104.8 TFLOPS compute throughput—determines the final frame rate.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the scaling across settings is consistent: Low produces 161 average FPS, Medium produces 124 average FPS with a 105 FPS minimum and 142 FPS maximum, High produces 92 average FPS, and Ultra produces 62 average FPS. The step from Low to Medium costs 37 FPS, Medium to High costs 32 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 30 FPS—a remarkably even degradation curve that suggests each settings tier adds a similar computational burden.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates are substantially higher. Low reaches 266 average FPS, Medium hits 234 average FPS with a 199 FPS minimum and 269 FPS maximum, High delivers 175 average FPS, and Ultra produces 118 average FPS. The relative cost of each tier increases with resolution: moving from Low to Medium at 1440p costs 32 FPS, but Medium to High costs 59 FPS, and High to Ultra costs another 57 FPS. This indicates that the High and Ultra presets introduce geometric or shading complexity that scales more aggressively with pixel count.

At 1920x1080, the results approach the CPU limit. Low tops out at 310 average FPS, Medium delivers 281 average FPS with a 239 FPS minimum and 323 FPS maximum, High produces 253 average FPS, and Ultra achieves 186 average FPS. The gap between Low and Medium at 1080p is only 29 FPS, but Medium to High costs 28 FPS, and High to Ultra costs 67 FPS—the largest single-tier drop in the entire dataset.

Cross-resolution analysis shows that the RTX 5090 D scales predictably: 4K Low (161 FPS) outperforms 1440p Ultra (118 FPS), and 1440p Low (266 FPS) outperforms 1080p Ultra (186 FPS). This suggests that for players who prefer maximum visual quality, choosing a lower resolution with Ultra settings yields better frame rates than staying at a higher resolution with reduced settings.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i5-12400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D combination holds rank 83 out of 2,924 tested combos in Steamworld Build. This places it in the top 2.8% of all configurations benchmarked for this game, a strong showing that reflects the GPU's raw power and the CPU's adequate support.

The ranking context matters: the CPU alone sits at the 73rd percentile among all processors, while the GPU ranks at the 92nd percentile among all graphics cards. The combo's 83rd position out of 2,924 suggests that the pairing works well together for this title, with the GPU being the primary driver of the high rank.

The measured FPS data reinforces this ranking. At 1080p Medium, the combo achieves 281 average FPS, which is above the threshold where most displays can show every frame. Even at 4K Ultra, the 62 FPS result remains playable, and the fact that this combo ranks 83rd while producing these numbers indicates that higher-ranked configurations likely feature even more powerful CPUs that can push 1080p frame rates closer to the 310 FPS Low ceiling.

The delta between the CPU's 73rd percentile and the GPU's 92nd percentile suggests a slight CPU bottleneck at lower resolutions. At 1080p, the gap between Low (310 FPS) and Medium (281 FPS) is just 29 FPS, while at 1440p it is 32 FPS and at 4K it is 37 FPS—the GPU is more fully utilized at higher resolutions, which is where this combo's rank is likely most justified.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-12400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Core 12th Gen series, based on the Alder Lake-S architecture. It operates with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.40 GHz, with a 65 W TDP. The CPU uses the Intel Socket 1700 and is manufactured on Intel's 10 nm process with a die size of 163 mm².

Cache configuration includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 18 MB of shared L3 cache. The processor supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel mode, and offers PCIe Gen 5 with 20 lanes from the CPU. It lacks integrated graphics, which is standard for the "F" suffix, and the multiplier is locked. The launch MSRP was $174.

In CPU benchmarks, the i5-12400F delivers a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 12,380 and single-core of 1,680. Geekbench results show 9,472 multi-core and 1,964 single-core. Passmark multi-thread score is 19,433 with a single-thread score of 3,481. The average benchmark score across all tests is 19,039, placing it at the 73rd percentile among all CPUs.

The CPU's role in Steamworld Build is to handle the simulation logic—the game's city-building mechanics require ongoing calculations for resource management, population growth, and infrastructure. The 6-core/12-thread configuration provides sufficient parallel processing for these tasks, as evidenced by the high frame rates achieved at 1080p where the CPU is more likely to be the limiting factor.

The 3DMark thread scaling results show the CPU's capabilities: 1,699 for 2 threads, 3,067 for 4 threads, 4,779 for 8 threads, and 5,912 for max threads. The near-linear scaling from 2 to 8 threads (1,699 to 4,779, roughly 2.8x) indicates good multi-threading efficiency, though the jump to max threads (5,912) shows diminishing returns beyond 8 threads—a pattern consistent with a 6-core design.

The CPU's single-thread performance (909 in 3DMark single-thread, 1,680 in Cinebench R23 single-core) is adequate for the game's UI and input handling, but the multi-threaded scores are what enable smooth simulation ticks. The 73rd percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms it is a solid mid-range performer, not a bottleneck for the RTX 5090 D at 4K, but potentially limiting at 1080p where frame rates exceed 300 FPS on Low settings.