Dave The Diver

Dave The Diver is a 2D adventure title that rarely stresses high-end hardware, but the Intel Core i7-14700K and Intel Arc B570 pairing shows a clear pattern of GPU-bound scaling as resolution climbs. At 1080p, the combo pushes well past 100 FPS on every preset, indicating headroom, but the drop to 4K reveals the Arc B570 as the limiting factor.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data shows a predictable decline as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop is more severe than typical for this genre. Moving from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440 on High settings, the average FPS falls from 124 to 94, a 24% reduction. The jump to 3840x2160 on the same preset brings the average down to 63, which is 49% lower than the 1080p result. This scaling pattern points directly at the GPU as the bottleneck; the CPU is not the constraint here.

The Low preset tells a similar story. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 167 FPS average, which drops to 125 at 1440p and further to 84 at 4K. The 4K Low result is exactly half the 1080p Low figure, a strong indicator that pixel throughput is the limiting factor. In a lighter title like Dave The Diver, the Intel Core i7-14700K with its 20 cores and 28 threads is more than capable of feeding frames at any resolution; the data shows the Intel Arc B570's 10 GB of GDDR6 memory and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth are what determine the ceiling.

The Medium preset provides the only rows with min and max FPS data. At 1080p Medium, the average is 139 FPS with a min of 118 and max of 160. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 105 with min 89 and max 121. At 4K Medium, the average falls to 70 with min 60 and max 81. The spread between min and max remains roughly consistent across resolutions, suggesting frame pacing is stable even when the GPU is under heavier load. The 4K Medium min of 60 FPS is notable because it is exactly the threshold for smooth gameplay on many displays.

Ultra settings show the steepest decline. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 110 FPS. At 1440p Ultra, it drops to 83 FPS. At 4K Ultra, it falls to 55 FPS. The 4K Ultra result is the only measured row below 60 FPS average, making it the only configuration where the combo fails to maintain a playable framerate by most standards. The gap between 1080p Ultra and 4K Ultra is exactly 50%, which again emphasizes how resolution-dependent this pairing is.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-14700K is a 20-core, 28-thread processor based on the Raptor Lake architecture, built on Intel's 10 nm process. It has a base clock of 3.40 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with 33 MB of shared L3 cache. In Dave The Diver, these specifications are far beyond what the game requires, and the benchmark results confirm the CPU is not a bottleneck at any resolution or settings level.

The processor's benchmark scores support this interpretation. In Cinebench R23, it scores 33440.5 in multi-core and 2160 in single-core. Its Geekbench scores are 20767 multi-core and 2569 single-core. The PassMark multithread score is 52392, and the single-thread score is 4472. These numbers place the CPU in the 94th percentile of all tested processors, meaning it is faster than 94% of CPUs in the database. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X with an average score of 69515 (0.2% higher) and the AMD Ryzen 7 9700F with an average score of 69996 (0.9% higher). The i7-14700K's average benchmark score of 69355 is essentially tied with the AMD EPYC 9115 at 69288 (0.1% difference).

In practical terms for Dave The Diver, the CPU's 28 threads are largely idle. The game's 2D presentation and simple physics do not scale with core count. The single-core performance is what matters most, and the 2160 Cinebench R23 single-core score is more than sufficient to keep the Arc B570 fed. The data shows that even at 1080p Low, where the GPU is least stressed, the combo achieves 167 FPS average, which is likely near the game's engine limit or the GPU's raw rasterization ceiling rather than a CPU constraint. There is no row in the measured data where the FPS is low enough to suspect CPU limitation.

GPU Role

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. It has a base and boost clock of 2500 MHz, 2304 shading units, 144 TMUs, and 80 ROPs. The memory subsystem consists of 10 GB of GDDR6 on a 160-bit bus, yielding 380.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GPU's FP32 performance is 11.52 TFLOPS, and it supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, Vulkan 1.4, and OpenGL 4.6.

The GPU's benchmark scores show it sits in the 65th percentile of all GPUs, with an average benchmark score of 20556. Its nearest rivals are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Mobile at 20534 (0.1% lower), the Intel Arc A750 at 20582 (0.1% higher), the NVIDIA Quadro M4000M at 20480 (0.4% lower), and the AMD Radeon R9 M390X at 20662 (0.5% higher). These deltas are tiny, meaning the Arc B570 is essentially performance-equivalent to a mobile RTX 3070 in synthetic benchmarks, though game-specific results can vary.

In Dave The Diver, the GPU's role is dominant. The 4K High average of 63 FPS and 4K Ultra average of 55 FPS are both below the 60 FPS threshold, while the 4K Low and Medium presets clear it at 84 and 70 FPS respectively. The GPU's 10 GB VRAM is not a limiting factor here; the game is not memory-hungry. Instead, the 160-bit memory bus and 380.0 GB/s bandwidth are likely the constraint at 4K, as pixel fill rate and texture throughput become more demanding. The 200.0 GPixel/s pixel rate and 360.0 GTexel/s texture rate are modest figures, and the data suggests they cap performance at high resolutions.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combo is comfortably fast across all settings. Low averages 167 FPS, Medium 139 FPS (min 118, max 160), High 124 FPS, and Ultra 110 FPS. The spread from Low to Ultra is 57 FPS, which is a 34% drop. Even at Ultra, the average is well above 100 FPS, making 1080p a non-issue for this pairing.

At 2560x1440, performance remains playable but the scaling begins to show. Low averages 125 FPS, Medium 105 FPS (min 89, max 121), High 94 FPS, and Ultra 83 FPS. The drop from 1080p to 1440p on each preset is roughly 24-25%, consistent across settings. The Ultra preset at 1440p still holds 83 FPS, so all configurations clear 60 FPS easily.

At 3840x2160, the picture changes. Low averages 84 FPS, Medium 70 FPS (min 60, max 81), High 63 FPS, and Ultra 55 FPS. The Ultra preset is the only one that falls below 60 FPS average. The High preset at 63 FPS is borderline, and the Medium preset's min of 60 FPS suggests occasional dips to the threshold. Low at 84 FPS is the only 4K preset with comfortable headroom above 60 FPS.

The Medium preset rows are the only ones with min and max data, and they show a consistent pattern: at 1080p, min 118 and max 160; at 1440p, min 89 and max 121; at 4K, min 60 and max 81. The delta between min and max shrinks from 42 FPS at 1080p to 32 FPS at 1440p to 21 FPS at 4K, indicating that as the GPU becomes more loaded, frame variance compresses.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo ranks 2282 out of 2867 tested combinations in Dave The Diver, placing it in the bottom 20% of all pairings. This low rank is surprising given the individual component scores, but it reflects the fact that the Arc B570 is a mid-range GPU in a game that is not demanding. Many combos with weaker CPUs but stronger GPUs will rank higher because the game is GPU-bound.

The CPU's 94th percentile ranking and the GPU's 65th percentile ranking do not translate to a high combo rank because the game's low requirements mean even modest hardware can achieve high FPS. The bottleneck is the GPU, and the Arc B570's synthetic benchmark scores, while competitive with the RTX 3070 Mobile and Arc A750, are not enough to push the combo into the upper ranks of the database. The rank of 2282 out of 2867 indicates that 585 combos perform worse, but the vast majority perform better in this specific title.

The deltaPct values for the GPU's nearest rivals suggest that swapping to an Arc A750 or RTX 3070 Mobile would yield nearly identical performance, as the differences are within 0.5%. This means the combo's rank is not an outlier due to driver issues or architecture quirks; it is simply a mid-pack GPU in a game that favors higher-end graphics cards.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the best experience for this combo depends on the target resolution. At 1920x1080, any preset works, but the Ultra preset at 110 FPS average offers the best visual quality without sacrificing smoothness. The 1080p Medium preset's min of 118 FPS and max of 160 FPS show there is plenty of headroom, so pushing to Ultra is safe.

At 2560x1440, the High preset at 94 FPS average is the sweet spot. It provides a 31 FPS improvement over Ultra's 83 FPS while retaining most visual fidelity. The Medium preset at 105 FPS is also viable if the user prefers higher framerates, but High offers a better balance. The Ultra preset at 83 FPS is still playable, but the drop from High is noticeable in the average.

At 3840x2160, the Low preset at 84 FPS is the only configuration that provides comfortable headroom above 60 FPS. The Medium preset at 70 FPS average with a min of 60 FPS is acceptable but runs close to the threshold. The High preset at 63 FPS is borderline, and the Ultra preset at 55 FPS is not recommended for smooth gameplay. For 4K users, Low settings are the practical choice, with Medium as a compromise if the display supports VRR.

The data indicates that this combo is best suited for 1080p and 1440p gaming. At 4K, the GPU becomes the limiting factor, and the user must drop to Low or Medium settings to maintain playable framerates. The i7-14700K's capabilities are never fully utilized, but the pairing is well-balanced for 1440p High, which delivers 94 FPS average and a smooth experience.