Road 96

The Intel Core i5-14400F is a 10-core, 16-thread processor from the Raptor Lake refresh generation, with a base clock of 2.50 GHz and a boost clock of 4.70 GHz. Its 20 MB of shared L3 cache and support for both DDR4 and DDR5 memory position it as a versatile desktop part. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU achieves a Cinebench R23 multi-core score of 21914 and a single-core score of 3093, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 11209. These results place it in the 88th percentile of all CPUs tested, indicating strong multi-threaded capability. However, in the context of Road 96, an adventure title that is not typically demanding on processor resources, the CPU’s role is less about raw throughput and more about maintaining consistent frame pacing. The data shows that at 1080p with Low settings, the combo reaches 188.3 FPS, which is a figure where the CPU’s single-thread performance and cache latency become more relevant than its multi-core muscle. The processor sits nearly level with the Intel Core i7-12800H in average benchmark score, with a deltaPct of 0, and is only 0.2% ahead of the AMD Ryzen 5 PRO 7645. This parity suggests that for games like Road 96, which rely on a few primary threads, the i5-14400F provides ample headroom, and the bottleneck at higher settings shifts decisively to the GPU.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, built on the Turing architecture with a TU104 chip, brings 8 GB of GDDR6 memory on a 256-bit bus, offering a bandwidth of 448.0 GB/s. Its base clock of 1605 MHz and boost clock of 1770 MHz, combined with 2560 shading units, deliver a FP32 performance of 9.062 TFLOPS. The GPU’s benchmark scores include a 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 result of 1651 and a Passmark G3D score of 18169, placing it in the 65th percentile of all GPUs. This is a mid-range performer in the current landscape, sitting just 0.5% behind the NVIDIA RTX A400 and 2.3% behind the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Mobile in average score. For Road 96, the GPU’s memory capacity and bandwidth are critical, as the game’s visual style, while stylized, still requires consistent texture streaming. The measured FPS data reveals a clear pattern: at 4K Ultra, the combo drops to 29.7 FPS, which is below the threshold for smooth gameplay. At 1440p High, it manages 67.5 FPS, showing that the GPU is capable of handling the game at mainstream resolutions with high detail, but its limitations become apparent at 4K, where even Medium settings only yield 45.4 FPS.

Settings Recommendations

The measured data provides a clear hierarchy of performance across the four presets tested: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. At 1080p, the differences between presets are significant but all remain playable. Low settings produce an average of 188.3 FPS, which is exceptionally smooth and more than sufficient for any display. Medium settings drop to 136.3 FPS, still well above the standard 60 FPS target, while High settings yield 109 FPS. Ultra settings, however, reduce the average to 87.7 FPS, which is still acceptable but represents a substantial 46.6% decrease from Low. The data suggests that High is the optimal preset for 1080p, as it offers a 20% improvement over Ultra in frame rate while providing a visually richer experience than Medium. Moving to 1440p, the picture changes. Low settings produce 119.3 FPS, which is excellent, but Medium settings drop to 87 FPS, and High settings to 67.5 FPS. At this resolution, High remains the best balance, offering a smooth experience without the performance penalty of Ultra, which falls to 54 FPS. The 4K results are more constrained. At 4K, even High settings only achieve 35.1 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS standard for comfortable play. Medium settings yield 45.4 FPS, and Low settings reach 61.4 FPS, barely crossing the threshold. Ultra at 4K is the worst case at 29.7 FPS, which is not recommended. Based on these measurements, the High preset at 1080p or 1440p provides the best experience, delivering frame rates above 67 FPS while maintaining visual fidelity. For users prioritizing smoothness over detail, Medium at 1440p is a viable alternative at 87 FPS, but High is the clear sweet spot for this hardware combination.

How This Combo Ranks

In the database of tested hardware combinations for Road 96, this pairing of the Intel Core i5-14400F and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER ranks 1045 out of 1684 total combos. This places it in the lower-middle portion of the rankings, indicating that while it is not a top-tier configuration, it is far from the bottom. The rank reflects the GPU’s mid-range positioning, as the RTX 2070 SUPER’s performance percentile of 65 is below the CPU’s 88th percentile. This mismatch suggests that the GPU is the limiting factor in most scenarios, a conclusion supported by the FPS data. Compared to the GPU’s nearest rivals, the RTX 2070 SUPER is only 0.5% ahead of the NVIDIA RTX A400 and 2.5% ahead of the AMD Radeon RX 5700, but it trails the RTX 4060 Mobile by 2.3%. This narrow margin means that the combo’s rank is sensitive to the specific game’s demands. For a title like Road 96, which is not heavily GPU-intensive, the combo manages to deliver playable frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, but the rank of 1045 suggests that many other combinations with more modern GPUs will outperform it. The CPU’s high percentile does not compensate for the GPU’s limitations in this context, as the game’s engine appears to scale more with graphics hardware than with processor cores. The rank is a holistic measure, and the data indicates that this combo is adequate for casual play but will struggle at higher resolutions, as detailed in the resolution scaling section. The placement in the 1045th position out of 1684 combos also implies that roughly 38% of tested configurations are slower, which is a reasonable outcome for a GPU released in 2019, but it is not a competitive score for modern standards.

Resolution Scaling

The measured FPS data across the three resolutions reveals a consistent pattern of performance degradation that points to the GPU as the primary bottleneck. At 1080p High, the combo achieves 109 FPS. Moving to 1440p High, the average drops to 67.5 FPS, a reduction of 38.1%. At 4K High, the frame rate falls to 35.1 FPS, which is a 67.8% decrease from the 1080p result. This scaling is characteristic of a GPU-limited scenario, where the increase in pixel count directly impacts the rendering workload. The same trend is visible at Low settings, where 1080p produces 188.3 FPS, 1440p drops to 119.3 FPS (a 36.6% reduction), and 4K falls to 61.4 FPS (a 67.4% reduction). The consistent drop of roughly two-thirds from 1080p to 4K across all presets indicates that the RTX 2070 SUPER’s raw compute and memory bandwidth are the limiting factors, rather than the CPU. The CPU’s performance, as measured by its Cinebench and Passmark scores, remains constant regardless of resolution, but the FPS does not scale proportionally with the pixel count. For instance, the jump from 4K Low (61.4 FPS) to 4K Medium (45.4 FPS) shows a 26% performance cost for the increased detail, while the jump from 1080p Low to 1080p Medium (188.3 to 136.3 FPS) costs 27.6%. This proportionality suggests that the GPU is working near its limits even at lower resolutions, and the additional pixel workload at 4K pushes it into sub-60 FPS territory for all presets except Low. The data also shows that the gap between Medium and High settings narrows as resolution increases, with a 33.6% difference at 1080p (136.3 vs 109 FPS) shrinking to a 30.5% difference at 4K (45.4 vs 35.1 FPS). This is consistent with the GPU becoming increasingly saturated at higher resolutions, where the incremental cost of High settings is relatively smaller. In summary, the resolution scaling analysis confirms that the RTX 2070 SUPER is the limiting component for this combo, and users seeking 4K gameplay must accept Low settings to achieve roughly 61 FPS, while High settings at 1440p offer the best balance of visual quality and performance.