Steamworld Build

Steamworld Build is a city builder that places unusual demands on a system, and the measured results for the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 paired with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 show a configuration that is overwhelmingly GPU-bound at higher resolutions but begins to expose CPU limits at 1080p. The data set covers four settings presets (Low, Medium, High, Ultra) across three resolutions (1920x1080, 2560x1440, 3840x2160), with average FPS captured for all twelve combinations and minimum/maximum FPS recorded only for the Medium preset at each resolution. This combination ranks 37th out of 2,924 tested combos for this game, placing it in the top 1.3% of all configurations, a strong result that reflects the raw power of both components. The following analysis breaks down what the numbers mean for settings selection, component roles, and scaling behavior, using only the measured data.

Settings Recommendations

For a 3840x2160 display, the High preset delivers an average of 87 FPS, which is the best balance of visual quality and performance in the measured set. The Ultra preset at this resolution drops to 58 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold that many users consider a baseline for smooth gameplay, while Medium sits at 116 FPS and Low reaches 151 FPS. The gap between High and Ultra is 29 FPS, a 33% reduction, which is substantial for a single settings tier, suggesting that Ultra introduces effects that are disproportionately expensive at 4K. Given that High offers 87 FPS, it is the recommended preset for 3840x2160 because it maintains fluidity while avoiding the steep penalty of Ultra.

At 2560x1440, the situation is more forgiving. High runs at 164 FPS, Medium at 219 FPS, and Low at 286 FPS, but Ultra still manages 111 FPS. Here, Ultra is the recommended choice because it clears the 100 FPS mark with room to spare, and the 53 FPS difference between Ultra and High (111 vs 164) is a 32% drop that is acceptable given the higher fidelity. For users prioritizing maximum frame rates, Medium at 219 FPS or Low at 286 FPS are viable, but Ultra provides a playable experience without compromise on this resolution.

For 1920x1080, all presets are exceptionally fast. Ultra averages 174 FPS, High 258 FPS, Medium 344 FPS, and Low 416 FPS. The recommendation here is Ultra, since even the most demanding preset remains far above typical refresh rates, and the 244 FPS difference between Low and Ultra (416 vs 174) is irrelevant for most displays. The minimum FPS data for Medium at 1080p is 293, which indicates that even in demanding scenes, the frame rate stays well above 200 FPS. Overall, the data suggests that users should default to Ultra at 1080p and 1440p, while High is the optimal choice at 4K unless the 58 FPS of Ultra is deemed acceptable for slower-paced city building.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 is the dominant component in this configuration, and its specifications explain the high frame rates observed. It features 32 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus, yielding a bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s, which is ample for Steamworld Build’s asset streaming and texture loads at any resolution. The GPU’s base clock is 2017 MHz with a boost clock of 2407 MHz, and it contains 21,760 shading units, 680 TMUs, and 176 ROPs. These numbers translate to a pixel rate of 423.6 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 1,636.8 GTexel/s, which are far above what a city builder requires, even at 4K.

The measured FPS data confirms that the RTX 5090 is not the limiting factor in most scenarios. At 1080p, the GPU produces 416 FPS on Low settings, but this number is likely constrained by the CPU rather than the GPU, given that the RTX 5090’s compute capability (104.8 TFLOPS FP32) is immense. At 4K Ultra, the 58 FPS result suggests that the GPU is finally being pushed, but even then, the drop from Medium (116 FPS) to Ultra (58 FPS) is a 50% reduction, indicating that the Ultra preset contains settings that heavily tax the GPU’s pixel and texture throughput. The RTX 5090’s memory bandwidth of 1.79 TB/s ensures that 4K textures do not cause stuttering, as evidenced by the Medium preset’s minimum FPS of 98 at 3840x2160, which is only 18 FPS below its average of 116.

In terms of the GPU’s overall standing, its average benchmark score is 79,842, placing it in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA Tesla P100 PCIe 16 GB (score 79,605, delta 0.3%) and the AMD Radeon RX 6850M XT (score 78,940, delta 1.1%), but these are not gaming-focused comparisons; the RTX 5090’s gaming performance is clearly superior based on the measured FPS. The GPU’s 32 GB VRAM is more than sufficient for Steamworld Build, which is not a VRAM-intensive title, so the memory capacity is unlikely to ever be a constraint in this game.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 ranks 37th out of 2,924 tested combos for Steamworld Build, placing it in the top 1.3% of all configurations. This rank is impressive given that the CPU is not a top-tier enthusiast part; it sits in the 93rd percentile of all CPUs with an average benchmark score of 64,640. The GPU, however, is in the 92nd percentile of all GPUs, and the pairing of two high-percentile components yields a result that is near the top of the database.

The rank of 37 out of 2,924 means that 2,887 other combos performed worse, while only 36 performed better. Those superior combos likely feature even more powerful CPUs (such as flagship models with higher core counts) or are tested at settings where the CPU matters more. Given that Steamworld Build is a city builder, it can be CPU-heavy during simulation phases, but the measured FPS data shows that the GPU is the primary driver of frame rates at most settings. The CPU’s nearest rivals include the AMD EPYC 4464P (score 64,823, delta -0.3%), the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F (score 64,438, delta 0.3%), and the AMD EPYC 9124 (score 65,104, delta -0.7%), all of which are within 1% of the Ultra 7 265’s average score, indicating that the CPU itself is not uniquely positioned.

For gamers, this rank means that the combo delivers top-tier performance, but it is not the absolute best. The 36 combos ahead of it likely include CPUs with higher single-thread performance or more cache, which can matter in simulation-heavy scenes. However, the measured FPS data shows that even at 1080p Ultra (174 FPS), the system is far from struggling, so the rank is more a reflection of theoretical peak performance than real-world limitations in this game.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the average FPS ranges from 416 (Low) to 174 (Ultra). The Medium preset records an average of 344 FPS with a minimum of 293 and a maximum of 396. High sits at 258 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra shows a 58% reduction in frame rate (416 to 174), which is a typical scaling curve for a GPU-bound scenario, but the absolute numbers are so high that even the lowest average exceeds any standard display refresh rate.

At 2560x1440, the averages are 286 (Low), 219 (Medium), 164 (High), and 111 (Ultra). The Medium preset’s minimum is 186 FPS and maximum is 252 FPS, showing a 66 FPS spread that indicates some scene-to-scene variance. The drop from Low to Ultra is 175 FPS, a 61% reduction, which is similar to 1080p’s scaling, confirming that the GPU is still the primary driver at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the averages are 151 (Low), 116 (Medium), 87 (High), and 58 (Ultra). The Medium preset’s minimum is 98 FPS and maximum is 133 FPS. The transition from High to Ultra is the most severe in the entire data set, with a 29 FPS drop (87 to 58), a 33% reduction that is larger than the 27 FPS drop from Medium to High (116 to 87). This suggests that Ultra at 4K introduces effects that are disproportionately expensive, possibly related to shadows or draw distances, which hammer the GPU’s ROPs and TMUs.

The data also shows that the minimum FPS for Medium presets scales well with resolution: 293 at 1080p, 186 at 1440p, and 98 at 4K. These minimums are all above 60 FPS, meaning that even the least favorable scenes remain playable. For High and Ultra presets, no minimum FPS was recorded, but the averages suggest that 4K Ultra (58 FPS) might dip below 50 in heavy scenes, which is a risk for users who want consistent frame pacing.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160 is significant but not uniform across presets. For Low settings, the average drops from 416 FPS at 1080p to 151 FPS at 4K, a 64% reduction. For Medium, it drops from 344 to 116, a 66% reduction. For High, it drops from 258 to 87, a 66% reduction. For Ultra, it drops from 174 to 58, a 67% reduction. These percentages are remarkably consistent, hovering around 65% for all presets, which indicates that the scaling is purely resolution-driven and not affected by settings complexity.

The fact that the percentage drop is nearly identical across presets (64-67%) suggests that the limiting component is the same at all settings: the GPU’s pixel throughput. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect the drop to be smaller at higher resolutions, because the GPU would have more work per frame, reducing the CPU’s influence. Instead, the consistent 65% drop indicates that the RTX 5090’s pixel rate (423.6 GPixel/s) and texture rate (1,636.8 GTexel/s) are being fully utilized, and the CPU is not holding back the GPU at any resolution.

However, the absolute FPS numbers tell a different story at 1080p. At 416 FPS on Low, the GPU is producing frames at a rate that far exceeds what any CPU can feed. The Intel Core Ultra 7 265, with its 20 cores and 20 threads, has a boost clock of 5.30 GHz, but even that cannot sustain frame rates above 400 FPS in a city builder. The fact that 1080p Low (416 FPS) is only 45% faster than 1440p Low (286 FPS), while 1440p Low is 89% faster than 4K Low (151 FPS), suggests that the CPU is becoming a limiting factor at 1080p, preventing the GPU from reaching its full potential. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, as the frame rates drop proportionally with pixel count.

CPU Role

The Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is a 20-core, 20-thread processor based on the Arrow Lake architecture, with a base clock of 2.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. It has 30 MB of shared L3 cache and 3 MB of L2 cache per core, along with 192 KB of L1 per core. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with a dual-channel bus and a bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s. Its benchmark scores include a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 42,216 and a single-core score of 5,960, along with a PassMark single-thread score of 4,689. These numbers indicate strong single-thread performance, which is critical for city builders that rely on simulation logic running on one or two threads.

In Steamworld Build, the CPU’s role becomes apparent at 1080p, where the frame rates exceed 250 FPS on most presets. At 1080p Low, the average is 416 FPS, which is far above what the GPU can render if the CPU were not feeding it quickly enough. The fact that the FPS at 1080p Low (416) is higher than at 1440p Low (286) by 45% suggests that the GPU is being underutilized at 1080p, because the CPU cannot issue draw calls fast enough to saturate the RTX 5090’s massive compute capability. This is a classic CPU-bound scenario, where the processor’s single-thread performance (Cinebench R23 single-core score of 5,960) limits the frame rate.

At 4K, the CPU is no longer the bottleneck. The FPS drops from 151 (Low) to 58 (Ultra), and the GPU’s pixel rate becomes the limiting factor. The CPU’s 20 cores are likely underutilized in this game, as city builders typically do not scale well beyond 4-8 threads, but the high boost clock of 5.30 GHz ensures that the primary simulation thread is handled efficiently. The CPU’s L3 cache of 30 MB is adequate for the game’s data, and the memory bandwidth of 102.4 GB/s is sufficient for a game that does not stream massive amounts of data. Compared to its nearest rivals, the Core Ultra 7 265’s average benchmark score of 64,640 is within 1% of the AMD EPYC 4464P (64,823, delta -0.3%) and the Intel Core Ultra 7 265F (64,438, delta 0.3%), but these are server or derivative parts, not typical gaming CPUs. The CPU’s 93rd percentile ranking among all CPUs confirms that it is a high-performing part, but it is not the absolute best for gaming, as indicated by the 37th combo rank.

FAQ

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

A: The High preset at 3840x2160 delivers an average of 87 FPS, which is the recommended choice. Ultra drops to 58 FPS, which is below a 60 FPS target, while Medium runs at 116 FPS.

Q: Is the RTX 5090 or the Core Ultra 7 265 the bottleneck in this game?

A: At 4K, the GPU is clearly the bottleneck, as frame rates scale consistently with resolution (65% drop from 1080p to 4K across all presets). At 1080p, the CPU becomes the limiting factor, evidenced by the 416 FPS on Low settings, which exceeds the GPU’s ability to be fed.

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

A: This combo ranks 37th out of 2,924 tested combos for Steamworld Build, placing it in the top 1.3% of all configurations. Only 36 other combos performed better.

Q: What is the minimum FPS for the Medium preset at 1440p?

A: The Medium preset at 2560x1440 has a minimum FPS of 186, with an average of 219 and a maximum of 252.

Q: Does the 32 GB VRAM of the RTX 5090 matter for Steamworld Build?

A: The 32 GB GDDR7 memory on a 512-bit bus provides 1.79 TB/s of bandwidth, which is far more than Steamworld Build requires. The memory capacity is not a constraint, as the game does not need more than a fraction of this VRAM.

Q: How much slower is 4K Ultra compared to 1080p Ultra?

A: At 1080p Ultra, the average FPS is 174, while at 4K Ultra, it is 58. This is a 67% reduction in performance, consistent with the resolution scaling seen across all presets.