Assetto Corsa

The Intel Core i5-13400F paired with the Intel Arc B390 in Assetto Corsa delivers playable performance only at lower settings and resolutions, with the data showing a clear ceiling at 1080p Medium. This combination ranks in the bottom percentile of tested systems, making it suitable primarily for less demanding racing scenarios or esports-style play rather than high-fidelity simulation.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data reveals a stark performance hierarchy across the three settings presets available in the benchmark rows. At 1920x1080, the Low preset achieves an average of 118 FPS, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this combo in any configuration. This represents a 42% improvement over the Medium preset’s 83 FPS and a 90% improvement over High’s 62 FPS. For players prioritizing smoothness and responsiveness—critical in a racing simulation where input lag directly affects lap times—the Low preset at 1080p is the only configuration that consistently exceeds the 100 FPS threshold.

The Medium preset at 1920x1080, averaging 83 FPS with a minimum of 70 FPS and maximum of 95 FPS, offers a balanced compromise. This settings level provides a noticeable visual upgrade over Low while maintaining frame rates that remain above the 60 FPS playability standard for most of the measured range. The minimum of 70 FPS suggests that even during demanding scenes with multiple cars on track, the system avoids dropping below acceptable levels. For users who find Low too visually sparse, Medium at 1080p is the recommended choice, as it delivers 83 FPS average while keeping the minimum above 60 FPS.

The High preset at 1920x1080, averaging 62 FPS, sits at the edge of playability. While the average is technically above 60 FPS, the lack of a recorded minimum value in the data means there is no guarantee against dips below that threshold during complex race starts or heavy weather effects. The Ultra preset at the same resolution drops to 51 FPS, which is below the smoothness most racing enthusiasts expect. At higher resolutions, the situation deteriorates further: 2560x1440 Medium averages 58 FPS, and 3840x2160 Medium averages only 35 FPS. The data clearly indicates that the best experience per the measured rows is 1080p Medium, as it provides the highest visual quality while maintaining a minimum of 70 FPS, or 1080p Low for maximum frame rate headroom.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, manufactured on a 3 nm process. Its memory configuration is entirely system-shared, meaning the GPU draws from the same pool as the CPU, with bandwidth described as system dependent. The base clock is 300 MHz with a boost clock of 2500 MHz, delivering a pixel rate of 60.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 120.0 GTexel/s. The GPU’s FP32 performance is rated at 7.680 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 15.36 TFLOPS (2:1). These specifications place the Arc B390 in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, with its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1482 positioning it near entry-level discrete graphics from over a decade ago.

The data shows that the GPU’s performance scales predictably with resolution. At 1920x1080, the difference between Low and Ultra settings is 67 FPS (118 vs 51), while at 3840x2160, the same settings span is only 28 FPS (50 vs 22). This compression of performance at higher resolutions indicates that the system-shared memory bandwidth becomes a limiting factor, as the GPU cannot access sufficient bandwidth to maintain frame rates when pixel count increases dramatically. The VRAM situation is unique: there is no dedicated VRAM, and the memory size, type, and bus width are all listed as system shared. This means the Arc B390 competes with the CPU for the same memory resources, which is why the 3840x2160 Medium preset shows a minimum of 30 FPS and maximum of 40 FPS—a narrow band that suggests memory contention under load.

The RT cores numbering 12 and shading units of 1536 indicate modern architectural features, but the benchmark results show these do not translate into competitive gaming performance for this title. The nearest rivals in the GPU benchmark data are the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1.3% slower), GeForce 800M (1.5% slower), GT 625 OEM (2.5% slower), and GT 710 (2.7% slower). This places the Arc B390’s raw compute performance in the same class as those older GPUs, despite its modern feature set. In practical terms for Assetto Corsa, the GPU is the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions, as evidenced by the 2560x1440 Ultra preset averaging just 36 FPS compared to 51 FPS at 1920x1080 Ultra.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-13400F with the Intel Arc B390 ranks 2566 out of 2897 tested combos in Assetto Corsa, placing it in the bottom 11.4% of all systems measured for this game. This rank reflects the GPU’s severe performance limitation, as the CPU is a strong performer in its own right. The CPU ranks in the 77th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 25292, while the GPU ranks in the 9th percentile. This massive disparity between CPU and GPU capability means the system is heavily GPU-bound in nearly every configuration tested.

The combo rank of 2566 out of 2897 indicates that out of roughly 300 tested combinations, only about 331 perform worse. This positions the system in the bottom tier for Assetto Corsa specifically, where the game’s physics simulation and rendering demands expose the integrated GPU’s weaknesses. The data shows that even at the lowest settings and resolution, the system achieves only 118 FPS, which while playable, is far below what dedicated graphics solutions would deliver. The rank suggests that users with this combo should expect significant compromises in visual quality to achieve playable frame rates, and that the system is not suitable for competitive racing or high-fidelity visuals.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured frame rates show a clear progression across settings. Low averages 118 FPS, Medium averages 83 FPS with a range of 70 to 95 FPS, High averages 62 FPS, and Ultra averages 51 FPS. The gap between Low and Medium is 35 FPS, while the gap between Medium and High is 21 FPS, and between High and Ultra is 11 FPS. This diminishing returns pattern suggests that each step up in settings costs progressively less in performance, but the visual quality differences may not justify the frame rate loss at the higher tiers.

At 2560x1440, the frame rates drop significantly. Low averages 82 FPS, Medium averages 58 FPS with a range of 49 to 67 FPS, High averages 44 FPS, and Ultra averages 36 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p at Low settings is 36 FPS (118 to 82), representing a 30.5% reduction. At Medium settings, the drop is 25 FPS (83 to 58), a 30.1% reduction. This consistent scaling indicates that the GPU’s performance is directly proportional to pixel count, with no unexpected bottlenecks emerging at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the results become marginal. Low averages 50 FPS, Medium averages 35 FPS with a range of 30 to 40 FPS, High averages 26 FPS, and Ultra averages 22 FPS. The drop from 1440p to 2160p at Low settings is 32 FPS (82 to 50), a 39% reduction. At Medium settings, the drop is 23 FPS (58 to 35), a 39.7% reduction. The minimum of 30 FPS at 2160p Medium indicates that the system can dip to barely playable levels, while the 22 FPS at Ultra is effectively unplayable for a racing simulation requiring precise timing.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average frame rate achievable with this combo in Assetto Corsa?

A: The highest measured average frame rate is 118 FPS, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: Is this system capable of maintaining 60 FPS at 1440p?

A: At 2560x1440, only the Low preset achieves an average above 60 FPS at 82 FPS. The Medium preset averages 58 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold, with a minimum of 49 FPS.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to its nearest GPU rivals in raw 3DMark performance?

A: The Arc B390 scores 1482 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, which is 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX, 1.5% higher than the GeForce 800M, 2.5% higher than the GT 625 OEM, and 2.7% higher than the GT 710.

Q: What is the frame rate range at 1080p Medium settings?

A: At 1920x1080 with Medium settings, the measured range is a minimum of 70 FPS and a maximum of 95 FPS, with an average of 83 FPS.

Q: Does the system perform better at Low settings than at Ultra settings in terms of frame rate consistency?

A: The data shows that at 1920x1080, Low averages 118 FPS versus 51 FPS for Ultra, representing a 67 FPS difference. At 3840x2160, the difference narrows to 28 FPS (50 vs 22), indicating that the GPU becomes more limited at higher resolutions.

Q: What is the total number of tested combos this system ranks against?

A: The combo ranks 2566 out of 2897 total tested combinations in Assetto Corsa, placing it in the lower performance tier.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-13400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor based on Raptor Lake architecture, manufactured on a 10 nm process. Its base clock is 2.50 GHz with a boost clock of 4.60 GHz, and it carries a 20 MB shared L3 cache. The CPU’s benchmark results show strong multi-threaded performance: Cinebench R23 multicore scores 22604, Geekbench multicore scores 11068, and Passmark multithread scores 25032. Single-thread performance is also respectable, with Cinebench R23 single-core scoring 3191 and Passmark single-thread scoring 3634. The CPU ranks in the 77th percentile of all processors, with an average benchmark score of 25292.

The nearest rivals in CPU performance are tightly clustered: the AMD Ryzen 9 6900HS scores 25284 (0% delta), the Intel Core 5 120 scores 25362 (-0.3% delta), the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X3D scores 25365 (-0.3% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 7 6800H scores 25201 (0.4% delta). This clustering indicates that the i5-13400F’s compute capability is essentially identical to these competitors, with less than 1% difference in average scores. The CPU’s 3DMark results show scaling from 960 in single-thread to 7314 in 16-thread tests, with a max-thread score of 7307, indicating excellent multi-threading efficiency.

In Assetto Corsa, the CPU’s role is significant at lower resolutions and settings where the GPU is less stressed. At 1080p Low, the system achieves 118 FPS, which is substantially higher than the 51 FPS at 1080p Ultra, suggesting that at Low settings, the CPU is capable of feeding frames faster than the GPU can render them. However, the data shows that even with the CPU’s strong single-thread performance (Passmark single-thread score of 3634), the system cannot exceed 118 FPS in this game, indicating that the GPU is the limiting factor even at the lowest settings. The CPU’s 10 cores and 16 threads provide ample headroom for the game’s physics simulation, but the integrated GPU’s performance ceiling prevents the system from fully utilizing the CPU’s capabilities at higher settings.

The CPU’s memory support for DDR4 and DDR5 with dual-channel configuration, combined with the GPU’s system-shared memory, means that memory bandwidth is shared between the two components. This is particularly relevant at 3840x2160, where the GPU’s memory demands increase significantly, potentially causing contention with CPU memory access. The data shows that at 4K Medium, the average FPS drops to 35 with a minimum of 30, which could be attributed to both GPU compute limits and memory bandwidth constraints. The CPU’s performance, while strong in synthetic benchmarks, does not translate to higher frame rates in this game due to the GPU bottleneck, making it clear that any upgrade path would need to prioritize the GPU component.