Steamworld Build

Steamworld Build is a city builder that scales heavily with resolution and settings, and the data for the Intel Core i7-13700K with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 shows a clear performance curve. At 1080p, the combo delivers a very playable 101.9 FPS on High settings, while the Low preset reaches 170.9 FPS, indicating that the CPU has ample headroom to push frames when the GPU is unburdened. Moving to 1440p, the High preset drops to 65 FPS, and at 4K, the same preset falls to 32.7 FPS, which is below the smooth threshold for most users. The progression from Low to Ultra at each resolution reveals that the GPU is the primary limiting factor, as the frame rate drops by roughly half when moving from Low to High at any given resolution, with the Ultra preset further reducing performance to just 24 FPS at 4K.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a steep decline as resolution increases, which is typical for a GPU-bound title. At 1080p, the Low preset produces 170.9 FPS, which is more than enough for high-refresh-rate displays, but the Ultra preset at 66.1 FPS shows that even at the lowest resolution, the RTX 2060 struggles to maintain high frame rates with maximum visual fidelity. The 1440p results are more moderate, with Low hitting 110.6 FPS and High sitting at 65 FPS, while Ultra drops to 42.6 FPS. At 4K, the pattern becomes more pronounced: Low yields 59 FPS, Medium 42.6 FPS, High 32.7 FPS, and Ultra 24 FPS. This 4K data indicates that the RTX 2060's 6 GB of VRAM and 192-bit memory bus are being saturated, as the gap between Low and Medium at 4K is only 16.4 FPS, whereas the gap between Medium and High is 9.9 FPS, suggesting diminishing returns as the GPU hits its compute limits.

The scaling from 1080p to 4K at High settings shows a drop from 101.9 FPS to 32.7 FPS, a reduction of 69.2 FPS, which translates to a 67.9% decrease in performance. This is a significant hit, but it is not linear; the jump from 1080p to 1440p costs 36.9 FPS, while the jump from 1440p to 4K costs 32.3 FPS. This suggests that the GPU is not completely overwhelmed by pixel count alone, but rather by the combination of resolution and shader complexity. The 1080p Low result of 170.9 FPS versus the 4K Ultra result of 24 FPS shows a 7.1x performance gap, which highlights how sensitive this game is to both resolution and settings on this hardware. For players targeting 60 FPS, the data suggests that 1440p High is the maximum viable configuration, as 4K Low barely hits 59 FPS, and any higher settings at 4K will result in sub-60 FPS gameplay.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured rows, the optimal balance between visual quality and performance is the High preset at 1440p, which delivers 65 FPS. This is the only configuration where the game maintains a stable 60 FPS threshold without sacrificing too much detail. At 1080p, the High preset at 101.9 FPS is ideal for competitive or fast-paced play, but the Ultra preset at 66.1 FPS is still playable and offers the best visual experience for those who prioritize fidelity over frame rate. The Medium preset at 1080p provides 135 FPS, which is a good middle ground for high-refresh-rate monitors, but the visual jump from Medium to High is often worth the 33.1 FPS loss in a city builder where detail matters.

For 4K, the data is less encouraging. The Low preset at 59 FPS is just barely playable, but the Medium preset drops to 42.6 FPS, which is below the smooth threshold. The High and Ultra presets at 4K are not recommended, as they fall to 32.7 FPS and 24 FPS, respectively. The best 4K experience is therefore Low, but this sacrifices most of the graphical detail that makes a city builder visually engaging. A more practical recommendation is to play at 1440p Medium, which delivers 81.7 FPS and offers a good balance of visual clarity and smoothness. The Ultra preset is only viable at 1080p, where it still manages 66.1 FPS, but the jump from High to Ultra yields a 35.8 FPS loss, which is a steep price for marginal graphical improvements. The data strongly suggests that High is the sweet spot for this combo, with Medium serving as a fallback for higher resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-13700K is a 16-core, 24-thread processor with a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.40 GHz, and it belongs to the Raptor Lake architecture. In Steamworld Build, the CPU's role is less about raw frame generation and more about maintaining consistent simulation and physics updates, which are common in city builders. The benchmark results show that the CPU is not a bottleneck at 1080p, where the GPU is clearly the limiting factor. At 1080p Low, the combo hits 170.9 FPS, which is likely near the CPU's maximum output for this game, but the CPU's multi-threaded capabilities, as evidenced by a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 39000, ensure that the game's simulation logic does not cause frame hitches.

The CPU's 30 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support help with the large amounts of data that city builders generate, such as pathfinding and resource management. The single-thread performance, with a Geekbench single-core score of 2850 and a Cinebench R23 single-core score of 5505, is crucial for the main game thread, which often cannot be fully parallelized. The data shows that the CPU can easily keep up with the RTX 2060 at 1440p, where the High preset still achieves 65 FPS, and even at 4K, the CPU is not the primary bottleneck. However, the CPU's 125 W TDP and 10 nm process node indicate that it is a high-power part, and its performance headroom suggests that it will not limit the GPU until much higher frame rates or more demanding simulation scenarios. The 3DMark 16-thread score of 10717 and max-thread score of 12412 further confirm that the CPU has significant multi-threaded throughput for handling complex city states.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-13700K with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 ranks 1387 out of 1730 tested combos in Steamworld Build, placing it in the lower-middle tier of the database. This rank reflects the GPU's limitations rather than the CPU's, as the RTX 2060 is an older, end-of-life product that sits in the 58th percentile of all GPUs. The combo's ranking is heavily weighted by the GPU's performance, which is evident from the measured FPS data. The CPU itself is a high-end part, ranking in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs, but when paired with this GPU, the overall combo is dragged down. The rank of 1387 out of 1730 means that about 80% of tested combos outperform this one, which is consistent with the RTX 2060's position as a mid-range card from the Turing generation.

Looking at the GPU's nearest rivals, the RTX 2060 has an average benchmark score of 16074, which is only 0.5% lower than the AMD Radeon RX 7600S and 1.8% higher than the AMD Radeon Pro W5500. This shows that the GPU is competitive within its immediate peer group, but none of these cards are top-tier performers. The CPU's nearest rivals include the Intel Core i7-13700KF, which is 0.1% faster, and the AMD EPYC 4364P, which is 0.3% slower, indicating that the CPU is very well matched to its direct competitors. The combo's rank is therefore a reflection of the GPU's age and position, not a deficiency in the CPU. For context, the combo's 4K Ultra result of 24 FPS and 1080p Ultra result of 66.1 FPS show that it is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming, and its rank in the database likely excludes higher-end GPU pairings that achieve much better frame rates.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 is a Turing-architecture GPU with 1920 shading units, 120 TMUs, and 48 ROPs, and it features 6 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 192-bit bus with a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s. The GPU's base clock is 1365 MHz with a boost clock of 1680 MHz, and it has 30 RT cores and 240 tensor cores, which are not heavily utilized in Steamworld Build, a game that does not appear to rely on ray tracing or DLSS. The GPU's memory capacity of 6 GB is a significant limitation at 4K, where the High preset requires more than 6 GB of VRAM, causing a performance drop to 32.7 FPS. The 192-bit memory bus and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth are also constrained at higher resolutions, as the game needs to stream more texture data.

The GPU's benchmark scores, including a Passmark G3D score of 14111 and a Geekbench OpenCL score of 71278, place it in the 58th percentile, which is mid-range for its generation. The 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1242 is low, but this is a modern benchmark that stresses newer architectures more heavily. In Steamworld Build, the GPU's role is dominant, as evidenced by the frame rate scaling with settings. The difference between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 104.8 FPS, and at 4K, it is 35 FPS, showing that the GPU's fill rate and shading units are the primary drivers of performance. The GPU's 12 nm process node and 160 W TDP are older specifications, but they are sufficient for this game, which is not a AAA title with heavy graphical demands. The RTX 2060's end-of-life status and 349 USD launch MSRP indicate that it is a product from 2019, and its performance in this game is consistent with its age, delivering playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p but struggling at 4K with anything above Low settings.