Dave The Diver

# Dave The Diver — Intel Core i7-12700K + Intel Arc B390

The Intel Core i7-12700K paired with the Intel Arc B390 produces a playable but heavily GPU-limited experience in Dave The Diver, with the combo ranking 2538th out of 2867 tested configurations. The Arc B390, scoring in the 9th percentile of all GPUs, is the clear bottleneck at every resolution, while the i7-12700K—sitting in the 84th percentile of all CPUs—has ample headroom. The data shows a playable 1080p experience at Medium settings (91 FPS average) and a progressively steeper performance cliff as resolution climbs, with 4K Ultra dipping to 36 FPS.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is severe and consistent, indicating the Arc B390 is the limiting component throughout. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 108 FPS at 1920x1080 to 82 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 55 FPS at 3840x2160—a cumulative 49% reduction from 1080p to 4K. The scaling is nearly linear with pixel count, which is the signature of a GPU-bound scenario.

At High settings, the pattern repeats: 81 FPS at 1080p, 61 FPS at 1440p, and 41 FPS at 4K. That is a 49% drop from 1080p to 4K, almost identical to the Low-setting percentage. When a game scales this predictably with resolution, the CPU is not the constraint; the GPU's fill rate and shading throughput are being saturated.

The Medium preset tells the same story with more granularity. The average FPS goes from 91 at 1080p to 68 at 1440p (a 25% reduction), then to 46 at 4K (a 32% reduction from 1440p). The min FPS values—77, 58, and 39 respectively—scale proportionally, confirming that frame time consistency degrades in lockstep with resolution.

Ultra settings are the most demanding, and the Arc B390 struggles hardest there: 72 FPS at 1080p, 54 FPS at 1440p, and 36 FPS at 4K. The 4K Ultra result is a 50% drop from 1080p Ultra, and the absolute number is below the 40 FPS threshold that most players would consider minimally acceptable for a smooth experience.

The data suggests that the i7-12700K's 12 cores and 20 threads are never the limiting factor in this game. Even at 1080p Low, where the CPU would normally be taxed most, the system delivers 108 FPS—a figure that points to the GPU still being the ceiling. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see diminishing returns as resolution drops, but instead the FPS scales almost perfectly with pixel count at every preset.

FAQ

Q: Is the Intel Arc B390 capable of running Dave The Diver at 4K?

A: Only at Low settings, where it averages 55 FPS. At Medium, the average drops to 46 FPS, and at High it falls to 41 FPS. Ultra at 4K is the worst case at 36 FPS, which is below the 40 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay.

Q: What is the best resolution for this combo?

A: 1920x1080 is the only resolution where every preset stays above 70 FPS. The lowest 1080p result is Ultra at 72 FPS, while the highest is Low at 108 FPS. At 1440p, only Low (82 FPS) and Medium (68 FPS) remain comfortably playable.

Q: How does the Arc B390 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Arc B390's average benchmark score is 1482, which is 1.3% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520MX (1463), 1.5% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce 800M (1460), 2.5% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 625 OEM (1446), and 2.7% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce GT 710 (1443). This places it in the 9th percentile of all GPUs.

Q: Does the i7-12700K bottleneck the Arc B390?

A: No. The i7-12700K sits in the 84th percentile of all CPUs, and the FPS scaling from 1080p to 4K is nearly linear with pixel count, which indicates GPU limitation. The CPU's 3DMark scores—9979 at max threads and 1043 single-thread—show no signs of being a constraint.

Q: What frame rates can I expect at 1440p Medium?

A: The measured average is 68 FPS, with a minimum of 58 FPS and a maximum of 78 FPS. This is a playable experience, though the min FPS is close to the 60 FPS target and may be noticeable in fast-paced scenes.

Q: Is the Arc B390's performance consistent across settings?

A: The data shows consistent scaling. At 1080p, the spread from Low (108 FPS) to Ultra (72 FPS) is 36 FPS. At 1440p, the spread is 28 FPS (82 to 54). At 4K, the spread is 19 FPS (55 to 36). The gaps narrow at higher resolutions because the GPU becomes more uniformly saturated.

Settings Recommendations

The best experience for this combo is 1080p Medium, which delivers 91 FPS average with a minimum of 77 FPS. This preset offers a strong balance: it is 17 FPS faster than High (81 FPS) and only 17 FPS slower than Low (108 FPS), but it provides significantly better visual quality than Low. The min FPS of 77 at Medium is higher than the average FPS of High (81 FPS), meaning the frame pacing at Medium will feel smoother in practice.

For players who prioritize visual fidelity, 1080p High at 81 FPS is a reasonable choice, but the 10 FPS penalty versus Medium is not justified by the marginal visual uplift in a game like Dave The Diver, which has a stylized art style. 1080p Ultra at 72 FPS is playable but represents a 21% reduction from Medium, and the extra effects are unlikely to be noticeable during gameplay.

At 1440p, Medium at 68 FPS is the only preset that balances playability with quality. Low at 82 FPS is smoother, but the visual downgrade is significant. High at 61 FPS and Ultra at 54 FPS are both below the 60 FPS target and should be avoided unless the player is willing to accept occasional frame rate dips.

4K is not recommended for this combo except at Low settings (55 FPS). Medium at 46 FPS, High at 41 FPS, and Ultra at 36 FPS all fall below the 40-50 FPS range that most players would consider acceptable for a relaxing adventure game. If 4K is a priority, the Arc B390 is not the right GPU for the task.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured results show a clear hierarchy across the four presets. Low settings produce the highest average at 108 FPS. Medium follows at 91 FPS, with a minimum of 77 FPS and a maximum of 104 FPS. High settings average 81 FPS. Ultra is the slowest at 72 FPS. The 36 FPS spread between Low and Ultra at 1080p indicates that the Arc B390 has enough headroom at this resolution to accommodate all presets, though Ultra's 72 FPS average is the only one that dips below the 75 FPS mark that would be considered "very smooth."

At 2560x1440, the performance drops are noticeable but still playable on lower presets. Low averages 82 FPS. Medium averages 68 FPS, with a minimum of 58 FPS and a maximum of 78 FPS. High averages 61 FPS. Ultra averages 54 FPS. The 28 FPS spread from Low to Ultra is narrower than at 1080p, showing that the GPU is beginning to saturate. The Medium preset's minimum of 58 FPS is a warning sign that frame dips below 60 FPS will occur in demanding scenes.

At 3840x2160, the Arc B390 is clearly overmatched. Low averages 55 FPS. Medium averages 46 FPS, with a minimum of 39 FPS and a maximum of 53 FPS. High averages 41 FPS. Ultra averages 36 FPS. The 19 FPS spread from Low to Ultra is the smallest of any resolution, confirming that the GPU is fully saturated even at Low settings. The Medium minimum of 39 FPS is below the 40 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and the Ultra average of 36 FPS is barely above slideshow territory.

The data reveals a consistent pattern: at every resolution, the gap between Low and Ultra shrinks as resolution increases. This is the expected behavior for a GPU-bound system, as the pixel throughput becomes the dominant cost and the settings' incremental effects on shading and texture work become proportionally less significant.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B390 is an integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on a 3 nm process. It has 1536 shading units, 48 texture mapping units, and 24 render output units, along with 12 ray tracing cores. Its base clock is 300 MHz, boosting to 2500 MHz. The GPU's memory is system shared, meaning its bandwidth is system dependent—a significant limitation for a game like Dave The Diver that benefits from fast texture access.

The measured 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 1482, which places the Arc B390 in the 9th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are all NVIDIA parts from the GT 500M and GT 600M/700M era, with the Arc B390 leading the GeForce GT 520MX by 1.3%, the GeForce 800M by 1.5%, the GeForce GT 625 OEM by 2.5%, and the GeForce GT 710 by 2.7%. These are all low-end or legacy parts, and the performance deltas are small, indicating that the Arc B390 is at the very bottom of the GPU performance ladder.

The GPU's pixel rate is 60.00 GPixel/s, and its texture rate is 120.0 GTexel/s. The FP32 throughput is 7.680 TFLOPS, with FP16 at 15.36 TFLOPS (2:1). These figures, while not directly comparable to the measured FPS, are indicative of a part that can handle light 2D and simple 3D workloads but will struggle with modern titles at high resolutions.

The FPS data confirms this assessment. The fact that the combo only reaches 108 FPS at 1080p Low—a very light setting for a game with Dave The Diver's art style—suggests that the Arc B390 is not just the bottleneck but a severe one. The system-shared memory architecture likely contributes to this, as the GPU must compete with the CPU for memory bandwidth, which is system dependent and not a fixed specification.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700K is a 12-core, 20-thread processor based on the Alder Lake architecture, built on a 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1.25 MB of L2 per core, and 25 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in a dual-channel configuration and has 20 PCIe Gen 4 lanes. It includes integrated UHD Graphics 770, though the Arc B390 is the active graphics solution.

The CPU's benchmark scores are strong. In Cinebench R23, it scores 19784 multi-core and 1850.5 single-core. In Geekbench, it scores 15790 multi-core and 2308 single-core. The 3DMark scores show scaling from 2065 at 2 threads to 9979 at max threads, indicating good thread scaling. The PassMark multi-thread score is 34404, and the single-thread score is 4013.

The i7-12700K sits in the 84th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 35287. Its nearest rivals are extremely close: the Intel Core i5-13600T is 0.1% slower, the Intel Core i7-12700KF is 0.2% slower, the Intel Core i7-13700T is 0.3% slower, and the Intel Core 5 213PE is 0.4% slower. These deltas are within noise, meaning the i7-12700K is a mid-to-high-tier CPU that is not holding back the system.

In Dave The Diver, the CPU's role is minimal because the game is not computationally demanding. The measured FPS scaling with resolution is nearly perfectly linear, which would not be the case if the CPU were a constraint. At 1080p Low, the combo produces 108 FPS, but the GPU's low benchmark percentile suggests that even this number is limited by the Arc B390 rather than the i7-12700K. If the CPU were the bottleneck, we would expect to see higher FPS at lower resolutions with diminishing returns, but the data shows the opposite—performance drops consistently as resolution rises.