Steamworld Build

Steamworld Build is not a typical GPU stress test, but the benchmark data for the Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 combination reveals a fascinating scaling pattern that defines this pairing. The measured frame rates across three resolutions and four quality presets show a system that is overwhelmingly powerful, yet the performance curve indicates that the game engine, rather than the hardware, imposes the ultimate ceiling.

Resolution Scaling

The transition from 1440p to 4K is where the most significant performance shift occurs, but the 1080p to 1440p jump is surprisingly mild in the lower settings. At Low settings, the average frame rate drops from 378 FPS at 1920x1080 to 290.2 FPS at 2560x1440, a reduction of roughly 23%. Moving from 1440p to 4K at the same Low preset brings the average down to 150.3 FPS, a more severe 48% drop. This pattern suggests that at 1080p and 1440p, the CPU and engine logic are the primary bottlenecks, while the GPU begins to take over the workload as pixel count increases.

The High settings tell a similar story with different magnitudes. At 1080p High, the combo produces 260.2 FPS, which falls to 167.4 FPS at 1440p. The 4K High result of 85.1 FPS represents a 49% decrease from the 1440p figure, nearly identical to the percentage loss seen at Low settings. This consistency implies that the RTX 5090's massive memory bandwidth and compute resources are being utilized more efficiently as resolution scales, but the game's simulation logic still creates a performance floor that prevents the frame rate from scaling linearly with the GPU's raw power.

Ultra settings expose the heaviest load, with 4K averaging just 56.4 FPS. This is a 68% reduction from the 1440p Ultra result of 110.3 FPS, and a 68% drop from the 1080p Ultra figure of 176.5 FPS as well. The data indicates that at Ultra, the game's visual effects and object density create a scenario where the GPU is fully engaged, and the 4K resolution becomes the dominant factor. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at Ultra is a 37% performance loss, while the 1440p to 4K step is a more pronounced 49% loss, showing that the rendering pipeline becomes increasingly pixel-bound at the highest quality level.

How This Combo Ranks

Within the database of tested combinations, this specific pairing of the Core i7-14700F and RTX 5090 achieves a rank of 8 out of 1730 combos for Steamworld Build. This places the system in the top 0.5% of all configurations tested, which is an exceptional result for a city builder title that typically does not reward extreme hardware investments. The rank reflects the combined capability of both components, but the benchmark results suggest that the CPU is doing more of the heavy lifting than in a typical AAA shooter.

The high rank is particularly notable given that Steamworld Build is not a graphically demanding title by modern standards. The fact that this combo sits at rank 8 indicates that the processor's strong single-thread performance and the GPU's brute force both contribute to maintaining high frame rates even when the simulation complexity grows with large cities. The rank also implies that configurations with faster CPUs or more specialized gaming GPUs might edge ahead, but the delta between this combo and the top spot is likely small given the game's engine constraints.

The percentile data for the individual components reinforces this ranking. The CPU sits in the 94th percentile against all processors, while the GPU also holds a 94th percentile position. This symmetry suggests a balanced pairing where neither component is holding back the other, allowing the game to run at its full potential. The rank of 8 out of 1730 is a direct consequence of this balance, as the system avoids the bottleneck scenarios that plague less matched combinations.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 brings an enormous amount of graphical horsepower to this pairing, and the benchmark data shows how that power is utilized in Steamworld Build. The GPU features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s. This memory configuration is far beyond what a city builder requires, but it ensures that texture streaming and asset loading never become a bottleneck, even at 4K Ultra where the game's smallest details are rendered.

The clock speeds of 2017 MHz base and 2407 MHz boost are relatively conservative for such a high-end card, but the sheer scale of the chip compensates. With 21,760 shading units and 176 ROPs, the RTX 5090 can process massive amounts of geometry and pixel data simultaneously. The measured results show that the GPU's role becomes more critical as resolution increases. At 1080p Low, the frame rate of 378 FPS is likely limited by the CPU's ability to feed the render thread, but at 4K Ultra, the 56.4 FPS figure reflects the GPU being pushed to its limits by the combination of high resolution and maxed-out settings.

The GPU's benchmark scores place it in the 94th percentile of all graphics cards, with an average score of 84,306. Its nearest rival in the synthetic benchmarks is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D, which posts a nearly identical score with a delta of just 0.1%. This indicates that the RTX 5090 is operating at the very top of the performance spectrum, and any frame rate limitations in Steamworld Build are not due to a lack of GPU capability. The 32 GB memory capacity is particularly relevant for a city builder where long play sessions can accumulate a large amount of simulation data, and the high bandwidth ensures that this data can be accessed quickly.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo delivers exceptional performance across all settings. Low settings produce an average of 378 FPS, which is high enough to saturate any display. Medium settings reduce the average to 344 FPS, a modest 9% drop, while High settings bring it down to 260.2 FPS. Ultra settings at 1080p yield 176.5 FPS, which still provides a smooth experience on high refresh rate monitors. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 53%, showing that the game's quality presets have a significant impact even at this resolution.

The 2560x1440 results show a similar pattern with lower absolute numbers. Low settings average 290.2 FPS, Medium hits 222 FPS, and High delivers 167.4 FPS. Ultra at 1440p drops to 110.3 FPS, which is a 62% reduction from Low. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p at each setting is roughly consistent, with losses ranging from 23% at Low to 37% at Ultra. This consistency indicates that the GPU is handling the increased pixel count efficiently, but the CPU's simulation overhead becomes a larger percentage of the total frame time as the GPU gets faster.

At 3840x2160, the frame rates become more moderate but remain playable. Low settings average 150.3 FPS, Medium drops to 115.6 FPS, and High reaches 85.1 FPS. Ultra at 4K is the most demanding configuration, producing an average of 56.4 FPS. The drop from High to Ultra at 4K is 34%, which is the largest relative difference between any two adjacent settings at the same resolution. This suggests that the Ultra preset introduces effects that are particularly taxing on the GPU's pixel processing pipeline.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700F is a 20-core processor with 28 threads, based on the Raptor Lake architecture. Its base clock of 2.10 GHz and boost clock of 5.40 GHz provide the single-thread performance that city builders rely on for game logic and simulation updates. The CPU's benchmark scores are impressive, with a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 35,443 and a single-core score of 5,003. These figures place the CPU in the 94th percentile of all processors, and its nearest rival in the synthetic benchmarks is the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X, which scores only 0.6% higher on average.

In Steamworld Build, the CPU's role is evident in the 1080p results. The fact that the frame rate at 1080p Low (378 FPS) is more than double the 4K Low result (150.3 FPS) indicates that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU far faster than the GPU can render at high resolutions. However, the 1080p Ultra result of 176.5 FPS being lower than the 1440p Low result of 290.2 FPS shows that the game's settings have a direct impact on CPU load as well, likely through increased object counts and simulation complexity.

The CPU's 33 MB of shared L3 cache and dual-channel memory support help maintain smooth frame pacing during large city builds. The 65 W TDP is surprisingly low for a 20-core processor, but the boost clock of 5.40 GHz allows it to deliver high single-thread performance when needed. The benchmark results show that the CPU is not the limiting factor in this combo, as the frame rates at 1080p are high enough to suggest that the game engine itself caps performance well before the processor runs out of headroom.