Road 96

# Road 96 GPU/CPU Performance Analysis: AMD Ryzen 7 9700F + Intel Arc B370

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F paired with the Intel Arc B370 produces a highly unusual performance profile in Road 96. The data shows this combination ranks 2680th out of 2903 tested combos in this game, placing it in the bottom 8% of all configurations. The Arc B370, with its 5th percentile ranking among all GPUs, is the dominant constraint here. The Ryzen 7 9700F, by contrast, sits at the 94th percentile among all CPUs, making this a stark pairing of a top-tier processor with a bottom-tier graphics solution. The measured frame rates across resolutions reveal a system that can deliver playable performance only at 1080p with reduced settings, while 4K remains firmly out of reach.

FAQ

Q: What is the best playable configuration for Road 96 with this hardware?

A: The data shows 1080p Low delivers 85 FPS average, making it the only configuration that comfortably exceeds 60 FPS. The 1080p Medium preset achieves 62 FPS average, which is also playable, with a minimum of 53 FPS and maximum of 72 FPS.

Q: How does the Intel Arc B370 compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Arc B370 scores 1184 in 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12. This places it 0.2% behind the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5570 (1186), 0.5% behind the ATI Radeon HD 5770 (1190), and 0.7% behind the AMD Radeon HD 7650M (1192). It sits 1.4% ahead of the AMD FirePro M2000 (1168).

Q: Is the Ryzen 7 9700F a bottleneck for the Arc B370 in this game?

A: No. The Ryzen 7 9700F's average benchmark score of 69996 places it 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX and 0.7% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X. The GPU's 5th percentile ranking versus the CPU's 94th percentile makes it clear the graphics solution is the limiting factor.

Q: What kind of frame rate drop occurs when moving from 1080p to 1440p?

A: At High settings, the average FPS drops from 50 at 1080p to 32 at 1440p, representing a 36% reduction. At Low settings, the drop is from 85 to 54 FPS, a 36.5% reduction. At Medium, the drop is from 62 to 40 FPS, a 35.5% reduction.

Q: Can this system handle 4K gaming in Road 96?

A: No. The best 4K result is 29 FPS average at Low settings. At Medium, it falls to 21 FPS with a minimum of 18 FPS. At High, it drops to 17 FPS, and at Ultra, it reaches only 13 FPS. None of these are playable.

Q: How does the CPU's single-thread performance compare to its multi-thread performance?

A: The Ryzen 7 9700F scores 4691 in Passmark single-thread tests and 36470 in Passmark multithread tests. Its multithread score is roughly 7.8 times its single-thread score, reflecting the 8-core, 16-thread configuration.

GPU Role

The Intel Arc B370 is a 25-watt integrated graphics solution based on the Xe3-LPG architecture, fabricated on Intel's 3nm process. It operates with a base clock of 300 MHz and a boost clock of 2400 MHz. The GPU has 1280 shading units, 40 texture mapping units, and 20 raster output units, along with 10 ray tracing cores. Its pixel rate is 48.00 GPixel/s and texture rate is 96.00 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 6.144 TFLOPS and FP16 performance of 12.29 TFLOPS.

The memory configuration is entirely system-shared, with the memory type, bus width, and bandwidth all listed as system-dependent. This means the GPU relies on the host system's DDR5 memory, which the Ryzen 7 9700F supports with dual-channel bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s. In Road 96, this shared memory architecture appears to severely limit performance, particularly at higher resolutions where memory bandwidth demands increase.

The GPU's benchmark results confirm its position: a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score of 1184 places it at the 5th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are all older ATI and AMD parts, with the ATI Radeon HD 5770 scoring 1190 (0.5% ahead) and the AMD Radeon HD 7650M scoring 1192 (0.7% ahead). This places the Arc B370 in a performance class that predates modern gaming expectations.

In Road 96 specifically, the GPU's limitations become evident in the measured frame rates. At 4K Ultra, the system manages only 13 FPS average. The scaling from 1080p to 4K shows a consistent pattern of performance degradation that aligns with the GPU's low fill rate and shared memory constraints. The 25-watt TDP and IGP form factor suggest this is designed for portable devices rather than desktop gaming.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides clear guidance on which settings preset delivers the best experience. At 1080p, the Low preset achieves 85 FPS average, which is the highest frame rate recorded for this combination. The Medium preset delivers 62 FPS average with a minimum of 53 FPS and maximum of 72 FPS, which remains playable while offering improved visual quality.

The High preset at 1080p drops to 50 FPS average, which is borderline for smooth gameplay. The Ultra preset falls to 39 FPS average, which introduces noticeable stutter in fast-moving scenes. Given that Road 96 is an adventure game where frame pacing matters for narrative immersion, the Medium preset at 1080p appears to be the optimal balance between visual fidelity and performance.

At 1440p, the Low preset achieves 54 FPS average, which is the only playable option at this resolution. Medium drops to 40 FPS average with a minimum of 34 FPS, which falls below the 60 FPS threshold but may be acceptable for slower-paced adventure gameplay. High at 32 FPS and Ultra at 25 FPS are both too low for comfortable play.

At 4K, no preset is playable. The best result is 29 FPS at Low settings, with Medium at 21 FPS, High at 17 FPS, and Ultra at 13 FPS. Users with 4K displays should set the resolution to 1080p and use Medium settings for the best experience. The data shows that the performance cost of each settings tier is roughly consistent across resolutions, suggesting the GPU is uniformly stressed by each preset level.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the system produces its best results. The Low preset delivers 85 FPS average, which is the highest measured performance in the entire dataset. Medium achieves 62 FPS average with a minimum of 53 FPS and maximum of 72 FPS, providing a stable frame rate window. High drops to 50 FPS average, while Ultra falls to 39 FPS average. The gap between Low and Ultra at 1080p is 46 FPS, indicating that each settings tier costs approximately 15 FPS on average.

At 2560x1440, performance degrades significantly. Low delivers 54 FPS average, which is the only preset above 50 FPS at this resolution. Medium achieves 40 FPS average with a minimum of 34 FPS and maximum of 46 FPS. High drops to 32 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 25 FPS average. The delta between Low and Ultra at 1440p is 29 FPS, showing that the settings tiers have a smaller absolute impact at higher resolution, likely due to GPU-bound rendering.

At 3840x2160, performance collapses. Low delivers 29 FPS average, which is the highest 4K result. Medium achieves 21 FPS average with a minimum of 18 FPS and maximum of 24 FPS. High drops to 17 FPS average, and Ultra falls to 13 FPS average. The difference between Low and Ultra at 4K is only 16 FPS, indicating that the GPU is so heavily constrained that settings changes have diminishing returns.

The Medium preset is the only one with complete min/max data across all resolutions. At 1080p, the range is 53-72 FPS, at 1440p it is 34-46 FPS, and at 4K it is 18-24 FPS. These ranges show consistent frame time behavior, with the minimum approximately 15-18% below the average in each case.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 1440p and from 1440p to 4K reveals the nature of the bottleneck in this configuration. At High settings, the transition from 1080p (50 FPS) to 1440p (32 FPS) represents a 36% reduction. From 1440p to 4K (17 FPS), the reduction is 47%. At Low settings, 1080p (85 FPS) to 1440p (54 FPS) is a 36.5% drop, and 1440p to 4K (29 FPS) is a 46.3% drop.

These percentages are telling. A purely GPU-bound scenario would show approximately 44% reduction from 1080p to 1440p (2.25x pixel increase) and another 44% from 1440p to 4K (2.25x pixel increase). The measured 36% drop from 1080p to 1440p is shallower than expected, while the 47% drop from 1440p to 4K is steeper. This pattern suggests that at 1080p, the system is not fully GPU-bound, with the CPU and memory system providing some headroom. As resolution increases, the GPU becomes progressively more saturated, and the scaling becomes more aggressive.

The Medium preset shows a similar pattern: 62 FPS at 1080p, 40 FPS at 1440p (35.5% drop), and 21 FPS at 4K (47.5% drop). The consistency of these scaling factors across presets indicates that the Arc B370's rendering pipeline is the limiting component, with system-shared memory bandwidth likely playing a role in the steeper 4K degradation.

The fact that the 1080p to 1440p drop is consistently around 36% rather than the theoretical 44% suggests that even at 1080p, the GPU is already heavily loaded, and the additional pixel count at 1440p does not scale linearly with rendering cost. This is characteristic of a GPU that is operating near its memory bandwidth limit, where the shared system memory becomes the primary constraint.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9700F is a Zen 5 architecture processor built on TSMC's 4nm process, with 8,315 million transistors on a 70.6 mm² die. It features 8 cores and 16 threads, with a base clock of 3.80 GHz and a boost clock of 5.50 GHz. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and 32 MB of shared L3 cache. The CPU supports DDR5 memory with dual-channel bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s and ECC memory support.

In Passmark benchmarks, the Ryzen 7 9700F demonstrates strong all-around performance. It scores 4691 in single-thread tests, 36470 in multithread tests, 120788 in integer math, 77955 in floating-point math, and 421988 in data compression. The CPU's average benchmark score of 69996 places it at the 94th percentile of all CPUs, with its nearest rivals being the AMD Ryzen 9 7940HX (69875, 0.2% behind), Intel Core i7-14700KF (70163, 0.2% ahead), AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (69515, 0.7% behind), and Intel Core i7-14700K (69355, 0.9% behind).

In Road 96, the CPU's role is secondary to the GPU's limitations. The measured frame rates at 1080p Low (85 FPS) suggest the CPU is capable of feeding the GPU with sufficient data to reach its maximum output. The Ryzen 7 9700F's 5.50 GHz boost clock and 16 threads provide ample processing headroom for an adventure game like Road 96, which likely does not heavily utilize multi-threaded workloads.

The data indicates that the CPU is not a bottleneck in this configuration. The consistent 36% frame rate drop from 1080p to 1440p across all settings presets, followed by a 47% drop from 1440p to 4K, points to the GPU as the sole constraint. If the CPU were limiting performance, the scaling pattern would show smaller differences at lower resolutions, where CPU overhead is more significant. Instead, the frame rates track closely with pixel count, confirming the Arc B370 is the limiting component.

The Ryzen 7 9700F's 65-watt TDP and unlocked multiplier make it a capable desktop processor, but in this pairing, its performance is entirely masked by the integrated graphics solution. For users considering this combination for Road 96, the data shows that CPU selection is irrelevant to the gaming experience — the GPU's 5th percentile ranking determines the outcome regardless of processor choice.