Cyberpunk 2077

Intel Core i5-11400F and Intel Arc B570 represent a pairing where the CPU’s 6-core, 12-thread Rocket Lake design—with a base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost of 4.40 GHz—delivers a 71st-percentile standing among all CPUs, while the Arc B570’s Xe2-HPG architecture, 2304 shading units, and 10 GB of GDDR6 on a 160-bit bus place it at the 65th percentile among GPUs. In Cyberpunk 2077, this combination lands at rank 2316 out of 2920 measured combos, a position that reflects a system tuned more for 1080p playability than for high-refresh 1440p or 4K dominance. The measured frame data shows a clear pattern: the Arc B570 is the primary constraint at higher resolutions, while the i5-11400F has enough headroom to keep pace at lower settings. This analysis breaks down the measured FPS across three resolutions and four settings presets, interprets what the scores mean relative to nearest rivals, and provides practical guidance on how to get the best experience from this specific hardware pairing.

CPU Role — cores, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Core i5-11400F is a 6-core, 12-thread processor from the Rocket Lake generation, built on Intel’s 14 nm process with a die size of 276 mm². Its base clock of 2.60 GHz and boost clock of 4.40 GHz are modest by modern standards, but the chip’s performance in synthetic benchmarks—such as a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14340 and a single-core score of 2024—places it in the 71st percentile of all CPUs. This percentile ranking means the i5-11400F outperforms roughly 71% of processors in the database, a solid mid-range result for a desktop part with a launch MSRP of $157.

In Cyberpunk 2077, the CPU’s role is secondary to the GPU at most settings, but its 12 threads and 12 MB of shared L3 cache are sufficient to avoid bottlenecking the Arc B570 at 1080p Low, where the combo achieves 76 FPS. At 1080p Ultra, the average drops to 39 FPS, a 49% reduction from Low, which suggests the GPU is increasingly strained rather than the CPU. The nearest rivals for the i5-11400F include the AMD EPYC 7H12 (avg score 17120, delta 0.3%) and the Intel Core i5-12450H (avg score 17239, delta -0.4%), indicating that the 11400F sits within a tight performance band—less than 1% difference from either direction. This proximity to mobile and server parts underscores that the CPU’s single-thread and multi-thread capabilities are balanced, but not exceptional.

The data also shows a 3DMark single-thread score of 868 and a 2-thread score of 1691, which are relevant for Cyberpunk’s game logic and AI systems, though the game is not heavily CPU-bound in the measured scenarios. The i5-11400F’s memory bandwidth of 51.2 GB/s (dual-channel DDR4) is adequate for feeding the GPU, and its PCIe Gen 4, 20 lanes (CPU only) provide sufficient bandwidth for the Arc B570’s PCIe 4.0 x8 interface. Benchmark results indicate that at 4K, the CPU’s performance is largely irrelevant—the FPS drops are driven entirely by GPU limits, as the same CPU with a faster GPU would produce higher frames, but the measured data shows the i5-11400F holding its own in the 1080p and 1440p Low presets where CPU headroom is most visible.

Settings Recommendations — which preset gives the best experience per the measured rows

Based on the measured FPS data, the optimal settings preset for this Intel Core i5-11400F + Intel Arc B570 combo depends heavily on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers 76 FPS average, which is the only measured preset that crosses the 60 FPS threshold—Medium hits 56 FPS, High 41 FPS, and Ultra 39 FPS. For a smooth, competitive experience at 1080p, Low is the clear choice, offering 76 FPS, which is 20 FPS higher than Medium and 37 FPS higher than Ultra. The Medium preset, with a minimum of 47 FPS and maximum of 64 FPS, provides a playable 56 FPS average but with noticeable dips below 50 FPS, which may cause stutter in dense scenes.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset drops to 56 FPS, still playable but with less headroom, while Medium falls to 42 FPS (min 35, max 48) and High to 31 FPS. Ultra at 1440p is only 29 FPS, which is below the 30 FPS threshold for most players. For 1440p, Low is the only preset that maintains a playable frame rate, but the 56 FPS average is marginal—players seeking visual fidelity over frame rate might accept Medium’s 42 FPS, but the data suggests that 1440p is a stretch for this combo. At 3840x2160, no preset achieves 30 FPS—Low is 37 FPS, Medium 27 FPS (min 23, max 32), High 20 FPS, and Ultra 19 FPS—so 4K is only viable on Low, and even then, the 37 FPS average is barely playable.

The measured rows indicate that the best experience for most users is 1080p Low (76 FPS) for a smooth frame rate, or 1080p Medium (56 FPS) for a balance of quality and performance. The Medium preset at 1080p offers a 47 FPS minimum, which is acceptable for a single-player action RPG, but the 76 FPS at Low provides a 36% improvement over Medium. Benchmark results suggest that the Arc B570’s 10 GB VRAM is not the limiting factor at 1080p, as even Ultra (39 FPS) runs without crashes, but the GPU’s raw compute limits frame rates at higher presets. For players prioritizing visual quality over frame rate, 1080p High (41 FPS) is a compromise, but the data favors Low or Medium for consistent performance.

Resolution Scaling — how FPS drops from 1080p to 4K and what it says about the limiting component

The measured FPS data shows a predictable scaling pattern as resolution increases from 1920x1080 to 3840x2160, with the Arc B570 becoming the dominant bottleneck. At Low settings, the average FPS drops from 76 at 1080p to 56 at 1440p (a 26% reduction) and then to 37 at 4K (a 51% reduction from 1080p). This steep decline indicates that the GPU is the primary limiting component, as the i5-11400F’s CPU performance does not change with resolution. The same pattern holds across all presets: Medium drops from 56 FPS at 1080p to 42 FPS at 1440p (25% reduction) and 27 FPS at 4K (52% reduction), while High falls from 41 to 31 to 20 FPS (24% and 36% reductions, respectively).

The 4K to 1440p scaling is particularly telling—at Low, the drop from 56 to 37 FPS (34% reduction) is steeper than the 1440p to 1080p drop (26%), which suggests that the Arc B570’s 10 GB memory and 160-bit bus are strained at 4K, where pixel fill rate and bandwidth demand increase quadratically. The GPU’s pixel rate is 200.0 GPixel/s and texture rate is 360.0 GTexel/s, but at 4K (8.3 million pixels per frame), these rates are insufficient to maintain 30 FPS on High or Ultra. The memory bandwidth of 380.0 GB/s is also a factor—at 4K, the game’s texture streaming and geometry processing require more bandwidth than at lower resolutions, and the 160-bit bus is narrower than many rivals.

The limiting component is clearly the GPU, as evidenced by the fact that the i5-11400F’s passmark single-thread score of 2981 and multi-thread score of 16908 are more than adequate for the game’s CPU demands—even at 1080p High, the CPU is not the bottleneck, since the FPS (41) is 35 FPS lower than Low (76), which is a GPU-driven difference. If the CPU were the limit, the FPS would remain constant across settings at a given resolution, but the data shows a 37 FPS spread at 1080p between Low and Ultra, confirming that the Arc B570 is the limiting factor from 1440p upward. At 1080p Low, the 76 FPS result suggests the CPU can still push higher frames, but the GPU’s compute (11.52 TFLOPS FP32) and rasterization limits cap the performance.

FAQ

Q: What is the best resolution for this CPU+GPU combo in Cyberpunk 2077?

A: Based on measured FPS, 1920x1080 is the only resolution where any preset achieves a playable frame rate above 60 FPS—Low settings hits 76 FPS. At 1440p, Low drops to 56 FPS, and at 4K, even Low is only 37 FPS, so 1080p is the recommended resolution.

Q: Can this combo run Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K Ultra?

A: No. The measured 4K Ultra average is 19 FPS, which is below the 30 FPS threshold for playability. Even 4K Low (37 FPS) is marginal, so 4K is not viable for this hardware, with the GPU being the limiting factor.

Q: How does the Arc B570 compare to its nearest rivals in overall GPU performance?

A: The Arc B570’s average benchmark score is 20556, placing it at the 65th percentile. It is 0.1% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (20534) and 0.1% behind the Intel Arc A750 (20582), indicating near-identical performance within a 0.5% band.

Q: Is the i5-11400F a bottleneck for the Arc B570 at 1080p Low?

A: The data suggests no—at 1080p Low, the combo achieves 76 FPS, which is the highest measured result. The CPU’s Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 14340 and single-core score of 2024 provide enough headroom, as evidenced by the FPS dropping to 41 at High settings, a GPU-driven change.

Q: What settings preset provides the best balance of FPS and quality at 1080p?

A: Medium settings at 1080p deliver 56 FPS average (min 47, max 64), which is 20 FPS lower than Low (76) but offers better visuals. For a consistent 60+ FPS experience, Low is the only option, but Medium is viable for players who prioritize visuals over frame rate.

Q: How does the i5-11400F’s CPU performance compare to the AMD EPYC 7H12?

A: The i5-11400F has an average benchmark score of 17177, which is 0.3% higher than the AMD EPYC 7H12’s 17120. This negligible difference indicates that the i5-11400F performs equivalently to a server-class EPYC in synthetic benchmarks, despite being a consumer desktop part.

GPU Role — VRAM, clocks, and how they relate to this game's results

The Intel Arc B570 is built on the Xe2-HPG architecture (Battlemage generation) using TSMC’s 5 nm process, with 19,600 million transistors on a 272 mm² die. Its 10 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 160-bit bus provides 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth, which is a significant factor in Cyberpunk 2077’s performance—the game’s open-world environments and dense texture work demand substantial memory throughput. The GPU’s base and boost clocks are both 2500 MHz, with memory running at 2375 MHz (19 Gbps effective), and it packs 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 80 ROPs, along with 18 ray tracing cores. The FP32 throughput is 11.52 TFLOPS, and the texture rate is 360.0 GTexel/s, which are modest figures that explain the GPU’s 65th-percentile ranking (average benchmark score 20556).

In Cyberpunk 2077, the Arc B570’s performance is closely tied to its VRAM capacity and bandwidth. At 1080p Low, the 76 FPS result shows that the GPU can handle the game’s basic load, but at 4K, the 10 GB VRAM is strained—the 4K Low average of 37 FPS is only 49% of the 1080p Low result, a drop that correlates with the increased memory pressure. The GPU’s nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile (avg score 20534, delta 0.1%) and the Intel Arc A750 (avg score 20582, delta -0.1%), meaning the B570 is nearly identical to these parts in synthetic benchmarks, but in Cyberpunk, the B570’s 160-bit bus may be a disadvantage at high resolutions. The pixel rate of 200.0 GPixel/s and texture rate of 360.0 GTexel/s are adequate for 1080p but insufficient for 4K Ultra, where the game’s effects and geometry exceed the GPU’s fill rate.

The GPU’s 18 RT cores are present but not heavily utilized in the measured presets, as the FPS data shows no ray tracing-specific settings. The Arc B570’s 10 GB VRAM is the likely reason why 4K Ultra (19 FPS) and 4K High (20 FPS) perform so poorly—at these settings, the game may exceed the VRAM capacity, causing thrashing. However, the data does not specify VRAM usage, so this is an inference from the FPS scaling. The GPU’s average benchmark score of 20556, with a passmark G3D score of 14195 and Geekbench Vulkan score of 96844, indicates that the B570 is a solid mid-range part, but Cyberpunk 2077’s heavy GPU demands require lower resolutions and settings to achieve playable frame rates with this i5-11400F pairing.

Measured FPS Breakdown — resolution by resolution, settings by settings, exact numbers

The measured FPS data provides a comprehensive view of the Intel Core i5-11400F + Intel Arc B570 combo in Cyberpunk 2077, with 12 distinct configurations across three resolutions and four settings presets. At 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers the highest average FPS at 76, with no minimum or maximum recorded. Medium at 1080p averages 56 FPS, with a minimum of 47 and maximum of 64, showing a 20 FPS drop from Low. High at 1080p averages 41 FPS, and Ultra averages 39 FPS—a narrow 2 FPS gap between the two highest presets, indicating that the GPU struggles similarly with both. The spread from Low to Ultra at 1080p is 37 FPS, from 76 to 39, which highlights the GPU’s sensitivity to settings.

At 2560x1440, the Low preset averages 56 FPS, which is a 26% reduction from 1080p Low (76 FPS). Medium at 1440p averages 42 FPS, with a minimum of 35 and maximum of 48, providing a 14 FPS drop from Low. High at 1440p averages 31 FPS, and Ultra averages 29 FPS—again, a small gap between High and Ultra. The 1440p spread from Low to Ultra is 27 FPS (56 to 29), which is narrower than the 1080p spread, suggesting that the GPU is hitting a performance ceiling at higher resolutions. The minimum FPS of 35 at Medium indicates that the game can dip below 30 FPS in heavy scenes, making Medium at 1440p a risky choice for consistent playability.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset averages 37 FPS, which is the only 4K setting above 30 FPS. Medium at 4K averages 27 FPS, with a minimum of 23 and maximum of 32, showing that the game is barely playable on Medium with frequent dips. High at 4K averages 20 FPS, and Ultra averages 19 FPS—a negligible difference. The 4K spread from Low to Ultra is 18 FPS (37 to 19), which is the smallest relative spread, indicating that the GPU is completely saturated at this resolution. The data shows a clear trend: the Arc B570 loses approximately 50% of its 1080p performance when moving to 4K at the same settings (e.g., Low drops from 76 to 37 FPS, Medium from 56 to 27 FPS), which aligns with the quad-pixel count increase. These exact numbers confirm that the GPU is the bottleneck at 1440p and 4K, while the i5-11400F provides sufficient CPU headroom for the game’s logic and rendering tasks.