Steamworld Build

# Steamworld Build with Intel Core i5-13400F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080

This combination delivers a remarkably consistent experience across Steamworld Build's resolution and settings landscape, with the RTX 4080 proving capable of maintaining high frame rates even at 4K Ultra, though the scaling pattern reveals a system that is increasingly GPU-bound as resolution climbs. The measured data shows this pairing achieving a 276th place ranking out of 3,706 tested combos, placing it in the top 7.5% of all configurations tested for this game, with the CPU's 77th percentile standing and the GPU's 86th percentile ranking both contributing to a well-balanced overall package.

Resolution Scaling

The frame rate progression from 1080p to 4K reveals a classic GPU-bound scaling pattern, though with some notable anomalies that point to Steamworld Build's engine characteristics. At Low settings, the drop from 322 FPS at 1920x1080 to 253 FPS at 2560x1440 represents a 21.4% reduction, while the further drop to 134 FPS at 3840x2160 constitutes a 47% decrease from the 1440p figure. This steepening curve as resolution increases is the signature of a system transitioning from CPU-limited territory at lower resolutions to GPU-limited performance at higher ones.

The High settings preset shows a similar but slightly different pattern: 228 FPS at 1080p, 145 FPS at 1440p (a 36.4% drop), and 77 FPS at 4K (a 46.9% drop from 1440p). The consistency of the 1440p-to-4K percentage drops across Low and High settings suggests that at 4K, the RTX 4080's rendering workload is the dominant constraint regardless of quality preset. The 4K Ultra figure of 52 FPS versus 4K Low's 134 FPS demonstrates a 61.2% performance penalty from the lowest to highest quality settings at the same resolution, indicating that the Ultra preset imposes a substantial additional rendering load.

At 1080p, the differences between settings tell a different story. Low produces 322 FPS, Medium 293 FPS, High 228 FPS, and Ultra 154 FPS. The relatively modest gap between Low and Medium (only 9% difference) compared to the 24.2% gap between High and Ultra suggests that the Ultra preset introduces features that are particularly demanding. The 1080p Low figure of 322 FPS versus 1440p Low's 253 FPS shows a 27.3% reduction, while 1080p Medium's 293 FPS versus 1440p Medium's 194 FPS is a 33.8% drop, indicating that Medium settings scale less efficiently with resolution.

The data reveals that this combination is capable of exceeding 300 FPS only at 1080p Low, while 4K Ultra remains just above the 50 FPS threshold. The measured minimum frame rates, available only for Medium settings at each resolution (87 FPS at 4K, 165 FPS at 1440p, 249 FPS at 1080p), show that even the lowest captured frames remain comfortably playable, with the 4K Medium minimum of 87 FPS representing the only sub-100 FPS minimum in the entire measured dataset.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 serves as the primary performance determinant once resolution climbs past 1080p, with its 16 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 256-bit bus providing 716.8 GB/s of bandwidth. This memory configuration appears sufficient for Steamworld Build's city-building workloads, as evidenced by the absence of any catastrophic frame rate collapses at higher resolutions that would indicate VRAM capacity or bandwidth limitations. The GPU's 76 ray tracing cores and 304 tensor cores indicate architectural headroom that Steamworld Build likely does not fully exploit, given the game's genre and the measured frame rates.

The RTX 4080's clock behavior, with a 2205 MHz base and 2505 MHz boost, provides the computational foundation for the observed results. The GPU's 9728 shading units, 304 texture mapping units, and 112 render output units deliver a pixel rate of 280.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 761.5 GTexel/s, figures that align with the measured FPS at 4K resolutions. The FP32 throughput of 48.74 TFLOPS places this GPU in a performance tier where Steamworld Build's rendering demands are comfortably met at most settings.

The GPU's benchmark percentile of 86 places it above the vast majority of tested graphics cards, and its average benchmark score of 54,247 is nearly identical to the RTX 4080 SUPER's 54,209, showing a 0.1% delta that puts these two cards statistically tied. The nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X at 54,828 (-1.1% delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB at 55,698 (-2.6% delta), though these comparisons reflect synthetic benchmarks rather than Steamworld Build-specific performance.

At 4K Ultra, the 52 FPS average suggests the GPU is working near its limits for this title, while the 4K Low figure of 134 FPS indicates substantial headroom when visual quality is reduced. The 1440p High result of 145 FPS shows that the RTX 4080 can handle mainstream high-refresh-rate gaming at this resolution, and the 1080p results exceeding 300 FPS at Low settings demonstrate that this GPU will not be the limiting factor for most users playing at standard resolutions.

Settings Recommendations

For those targeting 4K, the High preset at 77 FPS provides the best balance between visual fidelity and smoothness, as Ultra drops to 52 FPS while Medium only improves to 102 FPS. The jump from High to Ultra costs 25 FPS (a 32.5% reduction) for what is likely a marginal visual improvement in a city builder, making Ultra difficult to recommend at this resolution. Medium at 4K offers 102 FPS, which exceeds the 77 FPS High figure by 32.5%, but the visual quality difference between these presets typically justifies the High recommendation for players who prioritize image quality.

At 1440p, High's 145 FPS is the most compelling option, offering a 47 FPS advantage over Ultra's 98 FPS while remaining 49 FPS behind Medium's 194 FPS. The 1440p Ultra figure of 98 FPS is still perfectly playable, but the 47.9% performance gap between High and Ultra suggests diminishing returns. For users with 144Hz displays, Medium's 194 FPS provides the necessary overhead to maintain maximum refresh rates, though High's 145 FPS will also drive most high-refresh monitors effectively.

At 1080p, the situation is reversed: even Ultra's 154 FPS is well above the 60 FPS threshold, and High's 228 FPS or Medium's 293 FPS will satisfy any refresh rate currently available. The 1080p Low figure of 322 FPS is excessive for any practical display, making Low a poor choice given the visual compromises involved. The Medium preset at 1080p, with its minimum FPS of 249 and maximum of 337, provides the most consistent experience relative to its quality level.

The 4K Medium minimum of 87 FPS is the only measured minimum below 100 FPS, which recommends against Medium at 4K for users who experience frame rate dips during complex city-building moments. The 1440p Medium minimum of 165 FPS and 1080p Medium minimum of 249 FPS show that these configurations maintain substantial frame rate cushions. Overall, High at 1440p or 4K represents the strongest recommendation, with Medium as a viable alternative for users seeking higher refresh rates.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 3840x2160, the RTX 4080 paired with the i5-13400F produces the following averages: Low 134 FPS, Medium 102 FPS (with a minimum of 87 and maximum of 118), High 77 FPS, and Ultra 52 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 61.2% performance reduction, with each successive preset tier costing approximately 24-25 FPS on average. The 4K Medium minimum of 87 FPS represents the only sub-90 FPS measurement in the entire dataset, indicating that even at 4K, this configuration rarely drops below playable thresholds.

At 2560x1440, the measured averages are: Low 253 FPS, Medium 194 FPS (minimum 165, maximum 223), High 145 FPS, and Ultra 98 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 59 FPS (23.3%), while Medium to High costs 49 FPS (25.3%), and High to Ultra drops 47 FPS (32.4%). The 1440p Ultra figure of 98 FPS is interesting because it nearly matches the 4K Medium figure of 102 FPS, suggesting that the rendering load at 1440p Ultra is comparable to 4K Medium, which aligns with expectations for how resolution and quality settings interact.

At 1920x1080, the results are: Low 322 FPS, Medium 293 FPS (minimum 249, maximum 337), High 228 FPS, and Ultra 154 FPS. The 1080p Low to Medium gap is only 29 FPS (9%), which is the smallest relative difference between two settings tiers in the entire dataset. The 1080p Medium minimum of 249 FPS and maximum of 337 FPS show a 35.3% spread between minimum and maximum, indicating that even at this resolution, frame times can vary significantly during intense gameplay moments.

The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at each setting shows: Low 21.4% reduction, Medium 33.8% reduction, High 36.4% reduction, and Ultra 36.4% reduction. The scaling from 1440p to 4K shows: Low 47% reduction, Medium 47.4% reduction, High 46.9% reduction, and Ultra 46.9% reduction. The consistency of the 1440p-to-4K reductions across all settings reinforces that resolution scaling is the dominant factor at these higher resolutions, while the varying 1080p-to-1440p reductions suggest that settings-dependent effects have different resolution scaling behaviors.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-13400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 achieves a rank of 276 out of 3,706 tested combinations in Steamworld Build, placing it in the top 7.5% of all configurations evaluated. This ranking reflects the strength of both components: the CPU's 77th percentile standing among all tested processors and the GPU's 86th percentile among all tested graphics cards. The CPU's average benchmark score of 25,292 places it in close competition with several notable rivals, including the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS (25,284, 0% delta), Intel Core 5 120 (25,362, -0.3% delta), AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D (25,365, -0.3% delta), and AMD Ryzen 7 6800H (25,201, 0.4% delta).

The GPU's average benchmark score of 54,247 is nearly indistinguishable from the RTX 4080 SUPER's 54,209, with a 0.1% delta that puts the two cards in a statistical tie. The AMD Radeon Pro W5700X (54,828, -1.1% delta) and AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB (55,698, -2.6% delta) are the other nearest rivals, though these synthetic benchmark comparisons do not directly translate to Steamworld Build performance. The 276th rank out of 3,706 suggests that only a small fraction of tested configurations outperform this pairing in this specific game.

The CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads, with a 2.50 GHz base clock and 4.60 GHz boost clock, provide the processing headroom that Steamworld Build's city-building simulation requires. The 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 80 KB L1 cache per core support the CPU's performance profile, while the 16 threads enable efficient handling of the game's background simulation tasks. The CPU's nearest rival comparisons show that the i5-13400F sits in a tightly contested performance band, with all four nearest rivals within 0.4% of its average score, indicating that the CPU is well-matched to its competitive set.

The GPU's 16 GB of GDDR6X memory and 716.8 GB/s bandwidth provide ample resources for Steamworld Build's rendering requirements, and the 45,900 million transistors on a 379 mm² die represent a substantial hardware investment. The GPU's 86th percentile ranking means it outperforms 86% of all tested graphics cards, and its combination with the i5-13400F creates a system that ranks in the top 7.5% for this game. The measured FPS data confirms that this ranking is deserved, with the combination delivering playable performance even at the most demanding 4K Ultra settings.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this combination in Steamworld Build?

A: At 1440p High, this combo delivers 145 FPS average, which provides excellent smoothness without the 32.4% frame rate penalty seen when moving from High to Ultra. At 4K, the High preset at 77 FPS is the best balance, while 1080p at any setting above Low exceeds 150 FPS.

Q: How does the RTX 4080 compare to its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 4080's average benchmark score of 54,247 is within 0.1% of the RTX 4080 SUPER's 54,209, while the AMD Radeon Pro W5700X scores 54,828 (-1.1% delta) and the AMD Radeon RX 6750 GRE 12 GB scores 55,698 (-2.6% delta).

Q: Is the i5-13400F a bottleneck for the RTX 4080 in this game?

A: The data indicates the CPU is not a significant bottleneck at higher resolutions, as the 1440p-to-4K frame rate reductions are consistent across all settings (approximately 47%), suggesting GPU-bound performance. At 1080p Low, the 322 FPS figure suggests some CPU limitation, but this is beyond typical display refresh rates.

Q: What is the lowest measured frame rate for this combination?

A: The lowest minimum FPS recorded in the dataset is 87 FPS, occurring at 4K Medium settings. The 4K High and Ultra presets have no reported minimum FPS values, but their averages of 77 and 52 FPS respectively indicate these are the most demanding configurations.

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

A: This pairing ranks 276th out of 3,706 tested combinations in Steamworld Build, placing it in the top 7.5% of all configurations. The GPU's 86th percentile and CPU's 77th percentile rankings both contribute to this strong overall position.

Q: What framedrops can be expected at Medium settings across resolutions?

A: At Medium settings, the minimum FPS values are 249 at 1080p, 165 at 1440p, and 87 at 4K, with corresponding averages of 293, 194, and 102 FPS. The gap between minimum and average FPS widens with resolution, from 15% at 1080p to 14.9% at 1440p and 14.7% at 4K.