High On Life

# GPU Benchmark Analysis: High On Life with Intel Core i7-14700F + NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060

This combination of an Intel Core i7-14700F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 lands at rank 877 out of 1732 tested combos in High On Life, placing it in the middle of the field. The CPU sits in the 94th percentile among all processors with an average benchmark score of 54097, while the GPU reaches the 73rd percentile with an average score of 30109. That gap between CPU and GPU percentiles hints at a pairing where the processor has more headroom than the graphics card can exploit, a pattern that becomes clearer when examining frame rates across resolutions and settings in this FPS title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo's mid-pack position (877th of 1732) reflects a balanced but not exceptional pairing for High On Life. The CPU's synthetic benchmarks tell a story of strong multi-threaded capability: Cinebench R23 multi-core scores 35443, which is 0.6% below the AMD Ryzen 9 9900X's average of 54450 in that metric, though that rival comparison uses the aggregate average score rather than the specific Cinebench test. The i7-14700F's 20 cores and 28 threads deliver a PassMark multi-thread score of 41765, and its single-thread PassMark result of 4261 places it well above most desktop processors. In gaming terms, the CPU's 94th percentile ranking suggests it is rarely the bottleneck, but the GPU's 73rd percentile indicates the RTX 5060 is the limiting factor in demanding scenes.

The GPU's nearest rivals include the AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT with a deltaPct of 0, meaning the two are statistically identical in average benchmark score (30097 vs 30099). The NVIDIA Tesla M60 trails by 0.5%, and the RTX 5070 Mobile is 0.6% behind. This near-tie with the RX 7700 XT and the fact that the RTX 5060 outperforms the older RX 570 by only 0.2% in aggregate benchmarks suggests that High On Life's frame rates are constrained more by the GPU's raw throughput than by any architectural advantage. The measured FPS data confirms this: the combo never exceeds 176.1 FPS even at 1080p Low, which is well within the CPU's capability given its single-core strength.

GPU Role

The RTX 5060 carries 8 GB of GDDR7 memory on a 128-bit bus, delivering 448.0 GB/s of bandwidth. Its base clock runs at 2280 MHz with a boost of 2497 MHz, and the memory operates at 1750 MHz (28 Gbps effective). These specifications are modest for a 50-series card, and the 73rd percentile ranking reflects that. The GPU's PassMark G3D score of 20891 and DirectX 12 score of 77 indicate solid but not flagship-level DirectX performance, which matters for High On Life's Unreal Engine-based rendering.

In this game, the GPU's 8 GB VRAM capacity is sufficient at 1080p and 1440p, but the bandwidth and shader count (3840 shading units) become the limiting factors at 4K. The texture rate of 299.6 GTexel/s and pixel rate of 119.9 GPixel/s are adequate for the game's stylized art style, but the 48 ROPs are relatively few for a card targeting high refresh rates. The measured data shows the GPU's influence scales predictably: at 1080p Ultra, the card produces 82.9 FPS, while at 4K Ultra it drops to 35.6 FPS — a 57% reduction that points to the GPU being the primary constraint at higher resolutions. The CPU's 33 MB of L3 cache and 5.40 GHz boost clock are never challenged by this workload, as evidenced by the fact that even at 1080p Low (176.1 FPS), the frame rate does not approach CPU limitations.

Settings Recommendations

The measured FPS rows provide a clear hierarchy for optimal settings. At 1080p, Medium delivers 136.2 FPS, which is 60% higher than High's 112.6 FPS and 64% higher than Ultra's 82.9 FPS. For players targeting 144Hz displays, Medium is the sweet spot: it stays above 120 FPS while offering better visual fidelity than Low's 176.1 FPS, which is overkill for most monitors. At 1440p, Medium yields 97.9 FPS, which is comfortably above 60 FPS and only 21% below High's 77.4 FPS. Ultra at 1440p drops to 61.1 FPS, which is playable but leaves little headroom for dips.

For 4K, the data suggests Medium (56.2 FPS) is the highest playable preset, though it sits below the 60 FPS threshold. High at 4K yields 45.7 FPS and Ultra drops to 35.6 FPS, both of which are suboptimal for a fast-paced FPS. Low at 4K produces 75 FPS, which is playable but sacrifices too much visual detail for this game's vibrant environments. The recommended approach is Medium at 1080p or 1440p for the best balance of frame rate and image quality, with 4K reserved for players who prioritize resolution over smoothness and can tolerate frame rates in the 50s.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the frame rates scale linearly with settings intensity. Low produces 176.1 FPS, Medium drops to 136.2 FPS (a 22.7% reduction), High delivers 112.6 FPS (a 36.1% reduction from Low), and Ultra falls to 82.9 FPS (a 52.9% reduction). This scaling pattern indicates that each settings tier adds meaningful GPU workload, and the 1080p results are all well above playable thresholds, with even Ultra exceeding 60 FPS by a wide margin.

Moving to 2560x1440, the same settings hierarchy holds but with larger absolute drops. Low yields 123.8 FPS, which is 41.5% below the 1080p Low result. Medium produces 97.9 FPS (28.1% below 1080p Medium), High delivers 77.4 FPS (31.3% below 1080p High), and Ultra drops to 61.1 FPS (26.3% below 1080p Ultra). The 1440p results show that Medium and High remain playable, while Ultra sits right at the 60 FPS threshold.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck. Low produces 75 FPS, which is 57.4% below the 1080p Low result. Medium drops to 56.2 FPS, High falls to 45.7 FPS, and Ultra bottoms out at 35.6 FPS. The 4K results show that only Low achieves the 60 FPS target, and even then with a margin of only 15 FPS. The gap between 1440p Medium (97.9 FPS) and 4K Medium (56.2 FPS) is 42.6%, illustrating the GPU's inability to maintain performance as pixel count increases.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS drop from 1080p to 4K reveals the GPU's limitations clearly. At Low settings, the transition from 1920x1080 (176.1 FPS) to 3840x2160 (75 FPS) represents a 57.4% reduction, which is slightly less than the theoretical 4x pixel count increase would suggest, indicating some CPU involvement at lower settings. At Medium, the drop is from 136.2 to 56.2 FPS, a 58.7% reduction. At High, it falls from 112.6 to 45.7 FPS, a 59.4% reduction. At Ultra, the drop is from 82.9 to 35.6 FPS, a 57.0% reduction.

These percentages cluster tightly around 57-59%, which is notable because a purely GPU-bound scenario would typically show a larger drop given the 4x pixel count increase. The consistency across settings suggests the RTX 5060's memory bandwidth (448.0 GB/s) and 128-bit bus are the limiting factors — the card cannot feed its shaders fast enough at 4K regardless of quality preset. The 8 GB VRAM capacity is not being exceeded (the game's art style is not VRAM-hungry), so the issue is raw throughput.

The scaling also reveals that the CPU is not a meaningful constraint at any resolution. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 176.1 FPS, which is a high frame rate but not CPU-limited for a 20-core processor. The i7-14700F's single-thread Cinebench R23 score of 5003 and Geekbench single-core of 2711 are more than sufficient for High On Life's physics and AI. The limiting component is unambiguously the GPU, particularly at 1440p and 4K where the pixel fill rate (119.9 GPixel/s) and texture rate (299.6 GTexel/s) are stretched thin. Players seeking higher 4K performance would need a GPU with greater bandwidth, but within this pairing, the measured data shows the RTX 5060 delivers its best results at 1080p Medium or High, where it can leverage its 2497 MHz boost clock without hitting memory bottlenecks.