Road 96

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Road 96 with the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 and AMD Radeon RX 9060 show a clear and predictable pattern of performance degradation as resolution increases. At 1080p with Ultra settings, the combo delivers 86 FPS average. Moving to 1440p Ultra drops this to 55 FPS, a reduction of 31 FPS or roughly 36% lower performance. At 4K Ultra, the average falls further to 29 FPS, which represents a 66% decrease from the 1080p Ultra result. This steep decline indicates that the rendering load scales heavily with pixel count, and the GPU becomes the primary bottleneck at higher resolutions.

The scaling behavior across the other settings presets follows a similar trajectory. At High settings, the transition from 1080p (110 FPS) to 1440p (70 FPS) costs 40 FPS, and the jump to 4K (37 FPS) costs another 33 FPS. The Medium preset shows 137 FPS at 1080p, 87 FPS at 1440p, and 46 FPS at 4K. Low settings are the most forgiving, with 186 FPS at 1080p, 119 FPS at 1440p, and 63 FPS at 4K. The consistent pattern across all settings suggests that the RX 9060's 8 GB of GDDR6 memory and 128-bit bus are not the sole limiting factors; rather, the raw shading throughput and memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s are being taxed progressively harder as resolution increases.

The data indicates that at 1080p, the CPU still has headroom to feed the GPU, as evidenced by the large FPS deltas between Low and Ultra settings. At 4K, the spread between Low (63 FPS) and Ultra (29 FPS) narrows to 34 FPS, whereas at 1080p the spread is 100 FPS (186 vs 86). This compression of performance at higher resolutions is a classic sign that the GPU is becoming the limiting component. The 4K Ultra result of 29 FPS is below the generally accepted playable threshold, and even 4K High at 37 FPS is marginal. The 4K Medium result of 46 FPS is the first playable tier at that resolution, though it still lacks the smoothness of lower-resolution options.

Settings Recommendations

For the best measured experience, the data points to 1440p High as the sweet spot for this combination. At that resolution and preset, the average FPS is 70, which provides a solid balance between visual fidelity and smoothness. The 1440p Medium preset delivers 87 FPS, which is smoother but sacrifices some graphical quality. For players prioritizing frame rate above all else, 1080p Medium at 137 FPS is the highest average with a full measurement set, though 1080p Low at 186 FPS is the absolute peak measured performance.

At 4K, the choices are more constrained. The only 4K preset that averages above 60 FPS is Low, at 63 FPS. 4K Medium at 46 FPS is playable but not ideal for fast-paced scenes, and 4K High (37 FPS) and 4K Ultra (29 FPS) fall below the 30 FPS threshold that many consider the minimum for a cinematic experience. The measured minimum FPS values, available only for the Medium preset, show that at 1080p the minimum is 116 FPS, at 1440p it is 74 FPS, and at 4K it is 39 FPS. These minimums indicate that even the lowest frames in the Medium preset remain relatively stable, with the 4K minimum still above the average of the 4K High preset.

Based on the measured rows, the recommendation is to use 1440p High for a balanced experience, or 1080p Medium if higher refresh rates are the priority. The 4K resolution should only be attempted with Low or Medium settings, as the higher presets do not provide sufficient frame rates for a responsive experience. The 4K Ultra preset, at 29 FPS average, is the least recommended configuration from the data, as it combines the highest visual load with the lowest playability.

How This Combo Ranks

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 paired with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 holds the 1664th position out of 2903 tested combinations for Road 96. This places the combo in the upper-middle portion of the database, at roughly the 57th percentile of all tested systems. The ranking reflects the balance between the CPU and GPU in this specific game, where the RX 9060's performance is adequate but not exceptional, and the Ryzen 7 7700 provides sufficient processing power to avoid major bottlenecks at lower resolutions.

The GPU's individual ranking helps contextualize this combo's position. The RX 9060 sits at the 59th percentile among all GPUs in the database, with an average benchmark score of 16014. Its nearest rival is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, which scores 16129, a delta of -0.7% meaning the RX 9060 is slightly behind. The AMD Radeon R9 370X and AMD Radeon RX 7700 score 15862 and 15852 respectively, putting them 1% behind the RX 9060. The AMD Radeon Pro W5500 is 2.1% behind at 15679. This tight clustering of scores around the RX 9060 indicates that it is competitively positioned against older and mid-range cards, but not a class leader.

The CPU's ranking is notably higher. The Ryzen 7 7700 is at the 87th percentile of all CPUs, with an average benchmark score of 40081. Its nearest rivals include the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 at 40048 (0.1% behind), the Intel Core 5 221E at 40144 (0.2% ahead), the AMD Ryzen 9 270 at 40246 (0.4% ahead), and the Intel Core i9-13905H at 40313 (0.6% ahead). This indicates that the CPU is performing at a high level, but its contribution to the game's overall combo ranking is limited by the GPU's more modest standing. The combo rank of 1664 out of 2903 suggests that while the CPU is a strong component, the GPU holds the system back from higher placements in this title.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured FPS data covers three resolutions and four settings presets, yielding twelve distinct configurations. At 3840x2160 (4K), the Ultra preset produces an average of 29 FPS, High produces 37 FPS, Medium produces 46 FPS with a minimum of 39 and maximum of 53, and Low produces 63 FPS. The progression from Low to Ultra at 4K shows a steady decline, with each step up in quality costing approximately 8-9 FPS on average.

At 2560x1440 (1440p), the results are substantially higher. The Low preset averages 119 FPS, Medium averages 87 FPS with a range of 74 to 100 FPS, High averages 70 FPS, and Ultra averages 55 FPS. The step from Ultra to High at 1440p is a 15 FPS gain, while the step from High to Medium is a 17 FPS gain, and from Medium to Low is a 32 FPS gain. This shows that the Low preset offers a disproportionately large performance increase at 1440p compared to the higher presets.

At 1920x1080 (1080p), the performance is the highest across all configurations. The Low preset delivers 186 FPS average, which is the fastest measured result in the entire dataset. Medium follows at 137 FPS with a minimum of 116 and maximum of 157 FPS. High averages 110 FPS, and Ultra averages 86 FPS. The deltas at 1080p are larger than at other resolutions: the jump from Ultra to High is 24 FPS, from High to Medium is 27 FPS, and from Medium to Low is 49 FPS. This pattern indicates that at 1080p, the GPU has enough headroom that preset changes have a more pronounced effect on frame rates.

GPU Role

The AMD Radeon RX 9060 is built on the RDNA 4.0 architecture with the Navi 44 chip, manufactured on a 4 nm process by TSMC. The GPU contains 1792 shading units, 112 texture mapping units, and 64 render output units, along with 28 ray tracing cores. Its peak FP32 performance is 21.43 TFLOPS, which is identical to its FP16 performance, indicating a 1:1 ratio that is common in recent architectures. The pixel rate is 191.4 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 334.9 GTexel/s.

The memory subsystem consists of 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 128-bit bus, providing a bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s. The memory clock runs at 2250 MHz with an effective data rate of 18 Gbps. For Road 96, an adventure game that does not typically require massive memory pools, the 8 GB capacity is sufficient, and the measured FPS data does not show signs of memory capacity being a limiting factor. The GPU clocks are notably high, with a base of 1700 MHz, a game clock of 2400 MHz, and a boost clock of 2990 MHz. The boost clock of nearly 3 GHz is a significant factor in the GPU's ability to maintain playable frame rates at lower resolutions.

The GPU's benchmark results show strong performance in compute and graphics tests. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 3322, and its Geekbench OpenCL score is 88183. The Vulkan score is 39476. The Passmark G3D score is 17631, with a G2D score of 1002. The GPU compute score is 9919. These results, combined with the measured FPS in Road 96, indicate that the RX 9060 is a capable mid-range card that handles 1080p and 1440p well but struggles at 4K with high presets. The 4K Ultra result of 29 FPS suggests that the GPU's 21.43 TFLOPS of compute power is insufficient for the pixel count at that resolution with maximum quality settings.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 is an 8-core, 16-thread processor based on the Zen 4 architecture, codenamed Raphael. It operates on the AMD Socket AM5 platform and is built on a 5 nm process by TSMC. The base clock is 3.80 GHz, and the boost clock reaches 5.30 GHz, which is a substantial 1.5 GHz boost range. The CPU has a 65 W TDP, which is modest for an 8-core part, and supports DDR5 memory in dual-channel configuration with a bandwidth of 83.2 GB/s. It also supports ECC memory, which is unusual for a desktop chip.

The cache hierarchy includes 64 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. This gives a total of 8 MB of L2 and 32 MB of L3, which is adequate for feeding the 8 cores in gaming workloads. The CPU's benchmark results are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 18760 and a single-core score of 1930. The Geekbench multicore score is 15371 and single-core is 2525. The 3DMark multi-threaded tests show 8484 for 16 threads and 8479 for max threads, indicating excellent scaling.

In Road 96, the CPU's role is to feed the GPU with draw calls and game logic. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 186 FPS, which suggests that the CPU is not a bottleneck at that setting. The 3DMark single-thread score of 1049 and the Passmark single-thread score of 4063 indicate strong single-core performance, which is important for games that rely heavily on a few threads. The Ryzen 7 7700's 5.30 GHz boost clock and 8 cores provide ample processing headroom for this adventure title. The CPU's percentile ranking of 87th among all CPUs confirms that it is a high-performing part, and the measured FPS data shows that it does not limit the system until the GPU is fully saturated at 4K.

FAQ

Q: What is the highest average FPS measured for this combo in Road 96?

A: The highest average FPS is 186, achieved at 1920x1080 resolution with the Low settings preset.

Q: Is the AMD Radeon RX 9060 capable of playable frame rates at 4K in Road 96?

A: The data shows that only the Low preset at 4K averages above 60 FPS, at 63 FPS. The Medium preset averages 46 FPS, which is playable, but High (37 FPS) and Ultra (29 FPS) fall below the 30 FPS threshold.

Q: How does the Ryzen 7 7700 compare to its nearest rival in terms of average benchmark score?

A: The Ryzen 7 7700 scores 40081, which is 0.1% higher than the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 and 0.2% lower than the Intel Core 5 221E. It is also 0.4% lower than the AMD Ryzen 9 270 and 0.6% lower than the Intel Core i9-13905H.

Q: What is the difference between the 1080p Ultra and 1440p Ultra average FPS?

A: The 1080p Ultra preset averages 86 FPS, while the 1440p Ultra preset averages 55 FPS. This represents a 31 FPS reduction, or approximately 36% lower performance at 1440p.

Q: Does the RX 9060's memory bandwidth affect the 4K results?

A: The RX 9060 has a memory bandwidth of 288.0 GB/s over a 128-bit bus with 8 GB of GDDR6. The 4K results show a significant drop from 1440p, which is consistent with the GPU's shading units and memory bandwidth being taxed heavily at higher pixel counts.

Q: What is the combo's rank among all tested systems for Road 96?

A: The AMD Ryzen 7 7700 with the AMD Radeon RX 9060 ranks 1664 out of 2903 tested combinations for Road 96, placing it in the upper-middle portion of the database.