Steamworld Build

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Steamworld Build with the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 show a predictable but steep decline as resolution increases. At 1920x1080 with High settings, the combo produces 194.3 FPS. Moving to 2560x1440 at the same preset drops the average to 119.8 FPS, a reduction of roughly 38%. At 3840x2160, the average falls further to 62.7 FPS, which is about 68% lower than the 1080p figure.

This scaling pattern reveals a system that becomes progressively more GPU-bound at higher resolutions. The RTX 5070, with its 12 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 192-bit bus delivering 672.0 GB/s of bandwidth, is the primary driver of these numbers. At 1080p, the frame rates are high enough that the CPU's role becomes more significant, but the data suggests the GPU still has headroom. At 4K, the pixel throughput demand (201.0 GPixel/s pixel rate) is the limiting factor, and the average FPS drops to a level that is still playable but far from the high refresh rates seen at lower resolutions.

The gap between Low and Ultra presets widens dramatically as resolution increases. At 1080p, Low yields 326.6 FPS versus 129.1 FPS on Ultra, a 2.5x difference. At 1440p, the spread is 211.9 FPS to 83.4 FPS. At 4K, Low produces 113.1 FPS while Ultra drops to 43.5 FPS. This widening delta indicates that the GPU's compute resources (30.87 TFLOPS FP32) are being saturated by the combination of higher resolution and more demanding graphical effects.

The 4K results are particularly telling. The jump from Medium (85.1 FPS) to High (62.7 FPS) is a 26% reduction, while High to Ultra (43.5 FPS) is another 30% drop. These are not linear reductions; they reflect the exponential cost of shadow quality, draw distances, and post-processing effects typical of a city builder where many on-screen elements must be rendered simultaneously.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data points to a clear sweet spot for this combination. At 3840x2160, the High preset delivers 62.7 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold commonly considered smooth for this genre. The Medium preset at 85.1 FPS offers more headroom for large cities with many agents and buildings, where frame times can spike. The Ultra preset at 43.5 FPS is below the playable threshold for most users, and the 30% penalty over High is not justified by the visual gains in a city builder context.

At 2560x1440, the situation is more comfortable. High settings produce 119.8 FPS, which is excellent for a management game where camera panning and zooming need to remain fluid. Medium at 165.7 FPS is overkill for most displays, but it provides substantial margin for late-game population growth and complex infrastructure. Ultra at 83.4 FPS is still smooth and represents the best balance of visual fidelity and performance for users with 144 Hz displays.

For 1920x1080 users, even Ultra is viable at 129.1 FPS. The High preset at 194.3 FPS is the recommended starting point, as it leaves enough GPU headroom to maintain frame rates during heavy simulation phases. The Low preset at 326.6 FPS is only relevant for competitive or high-refresh-rate scenarios, which are uncommon in this genre. The data indicates that the RTX 5070 is overqualified for 1080p in Steamworld Build, and users should prioritize visual quality over raw frame rate at this resolution.

The recommendation is to use High settings at 4K and 1080p, and Ultra at 1440p. The measured deltas between Medium and High at 4K (85.1 vs 62.7 FPS) suggest that High is the highest tier that maintains a stable 60+ FPS experience, while the 1440p Ultra number (83.4 FPS) stays comfortably above that line.

FAQ

Q: What is the average frame rate at 1080p with Ultra settings?

A: The combo achieves 129.1 FPS at 1920x1080 on the Ultra preset.

Q: How does the 4K High preset compare to the 1440p High preset?

A: The 4K High average is 62.7 FPS, while the 1440p High average is 119.8 FPS. The 4K figure is roughly 48% lower, illustrating the heavy pixel load at 3840x2160.

Q: Is the RTX 5070 capable of running this game at 4K smoothly?

A: Yes, at the High preset the average FPS is 62.7, which clears the 60 FPS line. The Medium preset offers 85.1 FPS for additional safety margin, but Ultra drops to 43.5 FPS.

Q: What is the frame rate difference between Low and Ultra at 1440p?

A: Low produces 211.9 FPS, while Ultra produces 83.4 FPS. The Ultra preset is roughly 61% slower than Low at this resolution.

Q: Does the CPU bottleneck the GPU at any resolution?

A: At 1080p Low, the average is 326.6 FPS, which is high enough that CPU limitations could become relevant, but the data does not show a plateau. The CPU's 10 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz, appear sufficient to feed the GPU at all tested settings.

Q: What is the best preset for a 60 Hz 4K display?

A: The High preset at 62.7 FPS is the best choice, as it stays above 60 FPS while providing better visual quality than Medium (85.1 FPS) without the steep cost of Ultra (43.5 FPS).

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 ranks 326th out of 1730 tested combos in Steamworld Build. This places it in the top 19% of all configurations, a strong showing for a mid-range CPU paired with a high-end GPU. The percentile data for the individual components supports this: the CPU sits at the 88th percentile among all CPUs, while the GPU is at the 83rd percentile among all GPUs.

The ranking is notable because the CPU and GPU are not evenly matched in synthetic benchmarks. The i5-14400F has an average benchmark score of 32508, with its nearest rival being the Intel Core i7-12800H at 32513 (a 0% delta). The RTX 5070 has an average score of 41687, with the AMD Radeon Pro 5300 at 41610 (0.2% delta) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 at 41441 (0.6% delta). The GPU's synthetic score is higher relative to its rivals than the CPU's, yet the combo ranking suggests the game is well-balanced between the two.

The 326th position out of 1730 combos indicates that this pairing is more capable than the vast majority of systems tested for this game. In a city builder, where simulation logic often taxes the CPU during late-game states, the i5-14400F's strong multi-threaded performance (21914 in Cinebench R23 multicore) helps maintain consistency. The GPU's 83rd percentile ranking, meanwhile, ensures that visual settings can be pushed without compromising simulation speed.

The delta between the combo's rank and the individual component percentiles suggests that Steamworld Build is not extremely demanding on either component in isolation. The 4K Ultra result of 43.5 FPS is the only data point that approaches a hard limit, and even that is playable with adjustments. The rank of 326 reflects a system that is comfortably above average but not at the extreme top tier, where more expensive CPUs and GPUs would land.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. Its base clock is 2.50 GHz with a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. The CPU has 20 MB of shared L3 cache and 1.25 MB of L2 cache per core. These specifications are relevant to Steamworld Build because the game's simulation layer—tracking resources, worker paths, and building states—scales with thread count and cache efficiency.

In synthetic benchmarks, the i5-14400F shows strong single-thread performance with a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 3093, which is crucial for the game's main thread that handles UI and input. The multi-core score of 21914 reflects the benefit of 10 cores, which matters when the game spreads population and production logic across threads. The Passmark multithread score of 25783 and Geekbench multicore score of 11209 corroborate this capability.

The nearest CPU rivals in the database are the Intel Core i7-12800H (32513 avg score, 0% delta), AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645 (32446, 0.2% delta), AMD Ryzen 7 250 (32584, -0.2% delta), and Intel Core i7-13705H (32586, -0.2% delta). The i5-14400F's score of 32508 places it squarely in the middle of this group, within 0.2% of each competitor. This means that in CPU-bound scenarios, swapping to any of these alternatives would produce nearly identical frame rates in Steamworld Build.

The CPU's 65 W TDP and dual-channel memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 mean it can be paired with a wide range of platforms. The L3 cache of 20 MB is shared across all cores, which helps with the game's data-heavy operations like pathfinding across large maps. The boost clock of 4.70 GHz on a single core provides the low-latency response needed for camera movement and building placement, while the 10 cores handle background simulation.

In the measured FPS data, the CPU's role becomes apparent at 1080p Low, where the frame rate reaches 326.6 FPS. This is near the practical ceiling for many game engines, and the fact that the CPU can drive the GPU to this level indicates it is not a bottleneck in this title. At 4K Ultra, the CPU's influence diminishes as the GPU becomes the limiting factor, but the consistent scaling from Low to Ultra across all resolutions suggests the i5-14400F maintains a steady feed of draw calls and simulation updates without introducing stutter or frame pacing issues.