Steamworld Build

Steamworld Build is a city builder that places a premium on simulation depth, yet the benchmark data for the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 reveals a configuration that scales impressively across resolutions. The measured frames per second paint a clear picture of a system that is capable at 4K but truly excels when the resolution is lowered to prioritize fluidity. The analysis below breaks down how this specific pairing handles the game’s demands, based exclusively on the measured performance data.

Settings Recommendations

The benchmark results offer a clear hierarchy of performance across four presets, with the data showing that the most balanced experience is achieved at the Medium preset across all tested resolutions. At 4K, the Medium setting delivers an average of 80 FPS, which is a significant jump from the 60 FPS average seen at High settings. The jump from High to Medium is a 33% increase in frame rate, making it a worthwhile trade-off for visual fidelity, as the game remains playable and smooth. The Low preset pushes the 4K average to 104 FPS, but this comes at the cost of visual quality that is typically undesirable for a city builder where detail matters.

At the more common 1440p resolution, the Medium preset provides an average of 151 FPS, with a minimum of 129 FPS and a maximum of 174 FPS. This is a superior choice to High, which only averages 113 FPS, and it offers a substantial margin over Ultra, which drops to 76 FPS. The data indicates that Medium at 1440p is the sweet spot, offering high frame rates while maintaining enough graphical headroom to render the game’s buildings and environment effectively.

For 1080p users, the story is similar but with more headroom. The Medium preset achieves an average of 238 FPS, with a minimum of 202 FPS, ensuring a buttery-smooth experience on high refresh rate monitors. While the High preset at 178 FPS is also excellent, the Medium preset’s 60 FPS advantage over High makes it the superior choice for competitive or highly responsive play. The Ultra preset at 1080p still manages 120 FPS, but it is not recommended because the Medium preset provides nearly double the frame rate with only a modest reduction in graphical effects. The measured data consistently points to Medium as the optimal preset, balancing frame rate and visual quality for this specific CPU and GPU combination.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 is the primary driver of frame rates in Steamworld Build, and its specifications directly correlate with the measured performance. The GPU’s 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s, is sufficient for the game’s asset streaming at all tested settings. The data shows that the GPU is not bottlenecked by memory capacity at 4K Ultra, where the average frame rate drops to 40 FPS, indicating that the rendering load is the limiting factor rather than memory spillover.

The GPU’s clock speeds, with a base of 1920 MHz and a boost of 2475 MHz, are high enough to sustain the frame rates seen in the benchmark. Its raw compute power, rated at 29.15 TFLOPS FP32, is substantial, and the performance scaling from 1080p to 4K suggests that the GPU is being fully utilized at higher resolutions. For instance, at 1080p High, the system produces 178 FPS, but at 4K High, it drops to 60 FPS, a 66% reduction. This indicates that the RTX 4070’s rendering capabilities are the primary constraint as resolution increases.

The GPU’s benchmark percentile of 81 out of all GPUs and its average score of 37648 place it in a solid mid-to-high tier. Compared to its nearest rivals, it performs nearly identically to the NVIDIA Tesla P4, with a deltaPct of 0.1, and is slightly ahead of the AMD Radeon RX Vega 56 by 0.4%. It trails the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 Mobile by -1.3%, but this is a mobile part with different power characteristics. The data suggests that the RTX 4070 is well-matched for a game like Steamworld Build, where its compute and memory resources are sufficient to handle the simulation and rendering demands at high frame rates, especially at lower resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data reveals a predictable pattern of scaling as resolution increases, which provides insight into the system’s limiting components. At the Medium preset, the frame rate drops from 238 FPS at 1080p to 151 FPS at 1440p, a 37% decrease, and then further to 80 FPS at 4K, a 47% decrease from the 1440p figure. This scaling indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, as the CPU’s role in simulation and logic remains constant regardless of pixel count.

The data shows that the system is heavily GPU-bound at 4K. At 4K Ultra, the frame rate plummets to 40 FPS, which is a 67% drop from the 120 FPS seen at 1080p Ultra. This severe reduction at the highest settings underscores the GPU’s limitations when pushing a large number of pixels with maximum graphical effects. Conversely, at 1080p Low, the system achieves 311 FPS, suggesting that the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU far more frames than it can render at higher resolutions.

The scaling pattern also highlights the efficiency of the CPU. At 1080p Low, the system produces 311 FPS, which is a massive workload for the CPU to handle for game logic. This high frame rate at low resolution suggests that the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 is not a limiting factor in most scenarios. The primary takeaway is that the RTX 4070 is the determinant of performance at 1440p and above, while the CPU has sufficient headroom to handle lower resolutions without becoming a bottleneck, as evidenced by the high frame rates at 1080p.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 combination ranks 614th out of 2924 tested combos in Steamworld Build. This places the configuration in the top 21% of all systems tested, which is a strong showing for a modern mid-range pairing. The rank indicates that this system outperforms a vast majority of other configurations, but it is not at the absolute top tier, where more powerful GPUs and CPUs would reside.

This ranking is consistent with the component-level benchmarks. The CPU’s average benchmark score of 48995 puts it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, while the GPU’s average score of 37648 places it in the 81st percentile of all GPUs. The combination of a high-percentile CPU with a slightly lower-percentile GPU results in a system that is well-balanced, but the GPU is more likely to be the limiting factor in this game. The data shows that the combo rank is a holistic measure, and while it is not in the top 10%, it represents a very capable system for a city builder that does not demand the absolute highest-end hardware.

The ranking also reflects the data’s measured nature, meaning it is a real-world assessment of this specific pairing rather than a theoretical estimate. The performance is strong enough to place it well above the median, and the benchmark results indicate that this combo can deliver a playable experience even at 4K, albeit with settings adjustments. For a game like Steamworld Build, this rank suggests that users can expect a smooth experience at high refresh rates in 1080p and 1440p, with 4K being playable at medium settings, which aligns with the data discussed in the settings recommendations.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 5 245 plays a crucial role in ensuring the simulation runs smoothly, even if it is not the primary driver of frame rate in all scenarios. With 14 cores and 14 threads, the CPU has a high core count, but notably lacks hyper-threading, which is typical for this series. Its base clock of 3.50 GHz and boost clock of 5.10 GHz provide strong single-threaded performance, which is evident in its Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4648.

In Steamworld Build, a city builder, the CPU is responsible for processing game logic, unit pathfinding, and resource management. The benchmark data indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck at 4K, where the GPU is clearly the limiting factor. However, at 1080p Low, the system achieves 311 FPS, which demonstrates that the CPU has ample headroom to handle the game’s simulation demands. The CPU’s Passmark single-thread score of 4394 is robust, and its multithread score of 38706 indicates that it can handle multi-threaded tasks effectively, which is beneficial for a game that may use multiple cores for different simulation aspects.

The CPU’s performance in benchmarks places it in the 90th percentile of all CPUs, and it is closely matched with rivals like the AMD Ryzen 9 7900, with a deltaPct of -0.5, and the Intel Core i5-14600K, with a deltaPct of 0.8. This indicates that the Core Ultra 5 245 is a highly capable processor for gaming. Its 24 MB of shared L3 cache and support for DDR5 memory with a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s ensure that data can be fed to the GPU and processed efficiently. In the context of this game, the CPU’s role is to maintain a stable simulation state, allowing the GPU to render frames without waiting on logic calculations, which is evidenced by the high frame rates at lower resolutions.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset to use with this CPU and GPU combo for a balance of quality and performance?

A: The measured data shows that the Medium preset provides the best balance across all resolutions, with average FPS of 80 at 4K, 151 at 1440p, and 238 at 1080p.

Q: Can this system run the game at 4K resolution smoothly?

A: Yes, it can. The benchmark results show that at 4K with Medium settings, the system achieves an average of 80 FPS, which is above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: Is the GPU or the CPU more likely to be the bottleneck in this game?

A: The data indicates that the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions. The frame rate drops significantly from 1080p to 4K, while the CPU demonstrates high performance at low resolutions, such as 311 FPS at 1080p Low.

Q: How does this combo rank compared to other systems tested?

A: This specific combination of the Intel Core Ultra 5 245 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ranks 614th out of 2924 tested combos, placing it in the top 21% of all systems.

Q: What is the maximum frame rate achievable at 1080p with this setup?

A: The highest average frame rate recorded is 311 FPS, which was achieved at 1080p with the Low preset.

Q: Is the CPU’s single-threaded performance sufficient for this game?

A: Yes, the CPU’s single-thread score of 4648 in Cinebench R23 and 4394 in Passmark indicates strong performance, which is essential for handling the game’s core simulation logic, contributing to the high frame rates seen at 1080p.