High On Life

The AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT paired with the Intel Arc B370 is a combination that targets playable frame rates in High On Life, but the data shows it is heavily constrained by the GPU component. Across all measured resolutions and settings, the system delivers average FPS figures that range from a low of 14 at 4K Ultra to a high of 70 at 1080p Low, with the CPU’s substantial multi-threaded headroom never becoming the primary bottleneck in this title. The Arc B370’s benchmark percentile rank of 5, combined with its nearest rival scores clustering around 1184 to 1192 in 3DMark Steel Nomad, indicates a graphics processor that sits at the very entry level of the performance spectrum, which directly explains the measured frame rates in this game.

FAQ

Q: What is the best preset to use at 1080p for a smoother experience?

A: The data shows that at 1920x1080, the Low preset delivers an average of 70 FPS, which is the highest measured average for this combination. Medium achieves 55 FPS average (with a 47 FPS minimum), High drops to 45 FPS, and Ultra falls to 34 FPS. For a target of consistent playability, Low at 1080p is the only preset that clears a 60 FPS average threshold.

Q: Can this combo handle 1440p gaming?

A: At 2560x1440, the best result is Low preset at 49 FPS average, followed by Medium at 38 FPS (33 FPS minimum), High at 32 FPS, and Ultra at 24 FPS. None of these averages reach 60 FPS, and the Low preset is the only one that stays above 30 FPS average, suggesting 1440p is only viable with minimal settings and tolerance for sub-60 FPS performance.

Q: How does the Ultra preset perform compared to Low at the same resolution?

A: At 1080p, Ultra averages 34 FPS versus Low’s 70 FPS, a drop of 36 FPS or roughly 51% lower performance. At 1440p, Ultra averages 24 FPS versus Low’s 49 FPS, a 25 FPS reduction. At 4K, Ultra averages 14 FPS versus Low’s 30 FPS, a 16 FPS reduction. The relative penalty of Ultra settings increases with resolution, confirming the GPU struggles with higher fidelity.

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 5800XT holding back the Arc B370 in this game?

A: Benchmark data places the Ryzen 7 5800XT in the 81st percentile among all CPUs, with multi-threaded scores like 23,794 in Cinebench R23 and 7,683 in 3DMark 16-thread tests. The GPU sits in the 5th percentile. Since the measured FPS scales strongly with resolution and settings changes—dropping from 70 FPS at 1080p Low to 19 FPS at 4K High—the limiting factor is clearly the graphics processor, not the CPU.

Q: What are the closest performance rivals for the Intel Arc B370 based on benchmark scores?

A: In the 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 test, the Arc B370 scores 1,184. Its nearest rivals are the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 at 1,186 (0.2% faster), the ATI Radeon HD 5770 at 1,190 (0.5% faster), and the AMD Radeon HD 7650M at 1,192 (0.7% faster). The AMD FirePro M2000 scores 1,168, which is 1.4% slower than the Arc B370.

*Q: Does the Arc B370 have enough memory for High On Life at higher settings?*

A: The Arc B370 uses System Shared memory, meaning its VRAM capacity and bandwidth are dependent on the host system’s RAM and memory configuration. The fact that average FPS drops from 45 at 1080p High to 32 at 1440p High, and further to 19 at 4K High, suggests that the shared memory bandwidth becomes a severe constraint as resolution increases, likely due to both GPU compute limits and memory subsystem pressure.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS data for this combination reveals a clear hierarchy of playability. At 1920x1080, the Low preset yields an average of 70 FPS, which is the only configuration in the entire dataset that reaches a 60 FPS average. Medium at 1080p provides 55 FPS average with a 47 FPS minimum, which may be acceptable for players who prioritize visual quality over a locked 60 FPS, but the margin is thin. High at 1080p averages 45 FPS, and Ultra drops to 34 FPS, making those presets difficult to recommend for any consistent action in an FPS title.

For 2560x1440, the situation worsens. Low averages 49 FPS, Medium 38 FPS (33 FPS minimum), High 32 FPS, and Ultra 24 FPS. None of these reach even 50 FPS average, so 1440p gaming with this pair requires significant compromise. The Low preset at 1440p is the only one that stays above 40 FPS average, but even that will feel less fluid than the 1080p Low experience. At 3840x2160, the results are largely unplayable for competitive or fast-paced play: Low averages 30 FPS, Medium 23 FPS (20 FPS minimum), High 19 FPS, and Ultra 14 FPS.

The recommended preset for the best experience is 1080p Low, as it delivers the highest average FPS (70) and avoids the sub-50 FPS territory that dominates other configurations. If visual fidelity is more important than frame rate, 1080p Medium at 55 FPS average (47 FPS minimum) is the next best option, as it keeps the minimum above 45 FPS, which is generally acceptable for a single-player title like High On Life. Avoid Ultra at any resolution, as the average FPS never exceeds 34 and drops to as low as 14 at 4K. The data strongly suggests that this combo is best suited for 1080p gaming with Low or Medium settings, with a hard ceiling on higher resolutions.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic and reveals the nature of the bottleneck. At Low settings, the average FPS goes from 70 at 1920x1080 to 49 at 2560x1440 (a 30% reduction) and then to 30 at 3840x2160 (a 39% reduction from 1440p, and a 57% reduction from 1080p). At Medium settings, the progression is 55 FPS (1080p) to 38 FPS (1440p) to 23 FPS (4K), representing a 31% drop from 1080p to 1440p and a 39% drop from 1440p to 4K. High settings show 45 FPS at 1080p, 32 FPS at 1440p (a 29% drop), and 19 FPS at 4K (a 41% drop from 1440p). Ultra settings follow the same pattern: 34 FPS at 1080p, 24 FPS at 1440p (a 29% drop), and 14 FPS at 4K (a 42% drop from 1440p).

These scaling patterns indicate that the GPU is the primary limiting component. The consistent 29-31% FPS reduction when moving from 1080p to 1440p, and the larger 39-42% reduction from 1440p to 4K, aligns with the pixel count increases—1440p has 1.78 times the pixels of 1080p, and 4K has 2.25 times the pixels of 1440p. If the CPU were the bottleneck, the FPS would remain relatively flat across resolutions, as the CPU workload per frame would not change significantly with resolution. Instead, the FPS drops proportionally to the pixel load, confirming that the Arc B370’s compute and memory bandwidth are exhausted well before the Ryzen 7 5800XT’s capabilities are tested.

The fact that the Low preset at 4K (30 FPS) is lower than the Ultra preset at 1080p (34 FPS) further underscores the resolution sensitivity. The GPU’s 6.144 TFLOPS FP32 performance and 48.00 GPixel/s pixel rate are simply insufficient for high-resolution rendering. The system shared memory, with bandwidth described as “System Dependent,” likely compounds the issue at 4K, as the GPU must contend with system RAM for both texture storage and frame buffer operations. The data shows that High On Life at 4K is not a viable target for this combination, regardless of settings, with the best case being 30 FPS average on Low.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested combinations for High On Life, this specific pairing of the AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT and Intel Arc B370 ranks 2,715 out of 2,958 combos. This places it in the bottom 8% of all tested configurations, which aligns with the GPU’s lowly 5th percentile ranking among all GPUs. The CPU, by contrast, ranks in the 81st percentile among all CPUs, indicating a massive imbalance between the two components.

The combo rank suggests that the vast majority of other CPU-GPU pairings deliver better frame rates in this game. The nearest CPU rivals for the Ryzen 7 5800XT—such as the AMD Ryzen 7 7840H (average score 29,868, 0% delta), the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS (29,955, -0.3% delta), and the AMD Ryzen 5 9600X (29,713, 0.6% delta)—all have similar overall CPU benchmark scores, but the FPS in High On Life is dominated by the GPU. Since the Arc B370’s nearest rivals in GPU benchmarks are legacy parts like the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1,190 score, 0.5% faster) and the AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1,192 score, 0.7% faster), the expected performance is that of a decade-old discrete GPU, which explains the low combo rank.

Given that the combo rank is 2,715 out of 2,958, the data indicates that users seeking better High On Life performance should prioritize upgrading the GPU first, as the CPU has ample headroom. The Ryzen 7 5800XT’s multi-threaded scores (e.g., 23,794 in Cinebench R23, 9,993 in Cinebench R20) are far beyond what this game requires at these frame rates, so the bottleneck is unequivocally the Arc B370. The measured FPS figures (maximum 70 FPS average at 1080p Low) are consistent with a GPU that scores 1,184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad, which is a very low baseline for modern gaming.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is an integrated graphics processor based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, built on Intel’s 3 nm process. It has 1,280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 raster output units, along with 10 ray tracing cores. Its base clock is 300 MHz, with a boost clock of 2,400 MHz, yielding a pixel rate of 48.00 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 96.00 GTexel/s. The FP32 performance is 6.144 TFLOPS, and FP16 is 12.29 TFLOPS (2:1). Its TDP is 25 W, and it uses system shared memory, meaning no dedicated VRAM is available.

In the context of High On Life, the GPU’s role is decisive. The measured FPS at 1080p High (45 FPS average) and 1080p Ultra (34 FPS average) show that even at the lowest resolution, the GPU cannot maintain high frame rates with elevated settings. The 2,400 MHz boost clock is not enough to overcome the limited shading units (1,280) and texture units (40), especially compared to typical discrete GPUs. The shared memory architecture further hampers performance, as the “System Dependent” bandwidth means the GPU must share the system’s DDR4 memory with the CPU, which is a severe limitation for a game like High On Life that loads many assets.

The GPU’s benchmark score of 1,184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 places it in the 5th percentile of all GPUs, with nearest rivals being the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1,186 score, 0.2% faster), ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1,190 score, 0.5% faster), and AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1,192 score, 0.7% faster). This means the Arc B370 performs at the level of graphics cards from over a decade ago. The measured FPS data reflects this: the 70 FPS at 1080p Low is achieved only because High On Life at Low settings reduces the rendering workload substantially, but the GPU still cannot break past 70 FPS average even in the best case. The lack of dedicated VRAM means that texture-heavy scenes at Higher settings cause frame rate drops, as seen in the Medium preset’s minimum FPS of 47 at 1080p versus a 55 FPS average, indicating frame time spikes when memory bandwidth is saturated.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the measured average FPS values are as follows: Low preset averages 70 FPS, Medium averages 55 FPS (with a minimum of 47 FPS and maximum of 63 FPS), High averages 45 FPS, and Ultra averages 34 FPS. The 20 FPS gap between Low and Medium (70 to 55) is significant, and the further drop to High (45 FPS) and Ultra (34 FPS) shows that each step up in settings costs roughly 10-11 FPS on average. The minimum FPS of 47 for Medium indicates occasional dips, but it stays above 45, which is a reasonable floor for a slower-paced FPS.

At 2560x1440, the FPS drops considerably. Low averages 49 FPS, Medium averages 38 FPS (33 FPS minimum, 44 FPS maximum), High averages 32 FPS, and Ultra averages 24 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 33 FPS is approaching the edge of playability, and the gap between Low and Ultra is 25 FPS (49 to 24). The 1440p results suggest that only Low is marginally acceptable for consistent action, while Medium and above will feel choppy during busy scenes.

At 3840x2160, the performance is largely unusable for an FPS. Low averages 30 FPS, Medium averages 23 FPS (20 FPS minimum, 27 FPS maximum), High averages 19 FPS, and Ultra averages 14 FPS. The Medium preset’s minimum of 20 FPS is below the threshold for smooth motion, and even Low at 30 FPS average is borderline for a game that benefits from higher frame rates. The 4K Ultra result of 14 FPS is essentially a slideshow.

Comparing across settings, the Low preset is the most consistent performer, with a 70 FPS average at 1080p, 49 FPS at 1440p, and 30 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset’s minimum FPS (47 at 1080p, 33 at 1440p, 20 at 4K) shows that the GPU’s resource limits cause frame drops that are more pronounced at higher resolutions. The High and Ultra presets never achieve a 60 FPS average at any resolution, and at 4K they fall below 20 FPS. The data is unambiguous: this combo’s sweet spot is 1080p Low, with 1080p Medium as a fallback for those who prioritize visuals over a 60 FPS average. Any higher resolution or settings preset results in average FPS that are below 50, and often below 30, making the experience suboptimal for a genre that rewards smoothness and responsiveness.