Road 96

Resolution Scaling

The measured frame rates for Road 96 with the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 show a clear progression as resolution increases, but the magnitude of the drop reveals where the bottleneck sits. At 1920x1080 with Ultra settings, the combo delivers 123 FPS on average. Moving to 2560x1440 Ultra drops that to 78 FPS, a reduction of 45 FPS or roughly 37%. The step to 3840x2160 Ultra brings the average down to 41 FPS, which is about 47% lower than the 1440p result and 67% lower than the 1080p result.

This scaling pattern indicates that the rendering load is scaling heavily with pixel count, which is typical for a GPU-bound scenario at higher resolutions. The RTX 3080, with its 10 GB of GDDR6X memory and 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth, is being tasked more severely as resolution climbs. The data shows that the frame rate does not halve exactly when pixel count doubles, but the trend is steep. From 1080p to 1440p at Ultra, the pixel count increases by about 78%, yet the frame rate drops by only 37%. From 1440p to 4K, the pixel count again increases by about 78%, and the frame rate drops by 47%. This suggests that at 1440p, the system still has some headroom, but at 4K, the GPU is nearing its practical limit for this title at Ultra settings.

Looking at the Low settings across resolutions tells a similar story with higher absolute numbers. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 266 FPS. At 1440p Low, it drops to 169 FPS. At 4K Low, it falls to 89 FPS. The relative drop from 1080p to 1440p is 36%, and from 1440p to 4K it is 47%. This consistency across settings suggests that the resolution scaling is largely independent of the quality preset, pointing to the GPU as the primary limiter. The CPU, with 14 cores and 20 threads, is not showing signs of being the constraint, as the frame rates remain high even at lower resolutions where CPU overhead would typically be more visible.

The data indicates that Road 96 is a moderately demanding title for the RTX 3080 at 4K. The Ultra preset at 3840x2160 yields an average of 41 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold often considered smooth for action-heavy scenes. The Medium preset at 4K provides 66 FPS on average, with a minimum of 56 FPS and a maximum of 75 FPS, indicating that dropping from Ultra to Medium recovers 25 FPS or about 61% of the performance loss. The High preset at 4K sits at 53 FPS, which is between Medium and Ultra, as expected.

At 1440p, the situation is more comfortable. The Ultra preset delivers 78 FPS, while High delivers 100 FPS and Medium delivers 124 FPS. The Low preset at 1440p reaches 169 FPS, showing that the title can run at very high refresh rates when settings are lowered. At 1080p, even Ultra stays above 120 FPS, and Low reaches 266 FPS, suggesting that the combination is capable of driving high-refresh-rate monitors at this resolution without issue.

The limiting component changes character depending on the resolution. At 1080p and 1440p, the GPU is still the primary factor in determining frame rates, but the CPU has enough headroom to avoid becoming a bottleneck. At 4K, the GPU is clearly the limiting factor, as the frame rates drop significantly across all settings. The measured data does not include CPU utilization figures, but the pattern of frame rate declines with resolution is consistent with a GPU-bound workload.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i5-14600K is a 14-core, 20-thread processor from the Raptor Lake-R architecture, built on a 10 nm process. Its base clock is 3.50 GHz with a boost clock of 5.30 GHz. The processor has a 24 MB shared L3 cache and 2 MB per-core L2 cache. In synthetic benchmarks, this CPU scores 24491 in Cinebench R23 multi-core and 2064 in single-core, with a Geekbench multi-core score of 16673 and single-core score of 2491. Its PassMark multithread score is 38682, and single-thread score is 4270.

For Road 96, an adventure game, the CPU demands are likely moderate, and the data reflects this. At 1080p Low, the combo reaches 266 FPS, which is a very high frame rate that would stress any CPU's ability to feed the GPU. The fact that the system reaches this level indicates that the i5-14600K is not holding back the RTX 3080 at lower resolutions. The boost clock of 5.30 GHz provides strong single-thread performance, which is often critical for game logic and frame pacing.

The CPU's percentile ranking is 90, meaning it outperforms 90% of all CPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score is 48618, placing it near the Intel Xeon Gold 5318H, which has an average score of 48698, a delta of -0.2%. The AMD EPYC 4345P scores 48470, a delta of +0.3%, and the Intel Core Ultra 5 245HX scores 48287, a delta of +0.7%. These deltas are all within 1%, indicating that the i5-14600K is competitively positioned among its nearest rivals in raw compute performance.

In the context of Road 96, the CPU's role is to maintain frame pacing and handle the game's simulation and logic. The measured frame rates at 1080p are high enough that any CPU bottleneck would manifest as inconsistent frame times, but the data shows stable averages. The minimum FPS recorded at 1080p Medium is 165, with a maximum of 224, and at 1440p Medium the minimum is 105 and maximum is 142. These ranges suggest that the CPU is capable of maintaining consistent delivery of frames to the GPU.

The i5-14600K supports DDR4 and DDR5 memory in dual-channel mode, though the memory bandwidth is not specified in the database. The processor's integrated graphics, UHD Graphics 770, are present but not relevant for gaming when a discrete GPU is installed. The CPU has a TDP of 125 W, which is moderate for a desktop processor, and it uses the Intel Socket 1700.

The data shows that the CPU is not the limiting factor in Road 96 at any of the tested resolutions. Even at 1080p Low, where the GPU is least stressed, the frame rate of 266 FPS suggests the CPU can handle the game's demands. The benchmark results for the CPU indicate strong multi-threaded and single-threaded performance, which supports smooth gameplay in a title that may not heavily utilize all 14 cores but benefits from high single-thread clock speeds.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 is built on the Ampere architecture with a GA102 chip, manufactured on an 8 nm process by Samsung. It has 8704 shading units, 272 texture mapping units, and 96 raster output units. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1440 MHz and a boost clock of 1710 MHz. Its memory configuration includes 10 GB of GDDR6X on a 320-bit bus, providing 760.3 GB/s of bandwidth. The memory clock is listed at 1188 MHz with 19 Gbps effective speed.

In synthetic benchmarks, the RTX 3080 scores 25086 in PassMark G3D and 14397 in GPU compute. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12 score is 4407. The GPU's percentile ranking is 68, meaning it outperforms 68% of all GPUs in the database. Its average benchmark score is 23172, with nearest rivals including the NVIDIA P106-100 at 23249 (delta -0.3%), AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 at 23250 (delta -0.3%), AMD Radeon RX 6600M at 23273 (delta -0.4%), and AMD Radeon R9 M290X at 23276 (delta -0.4%). These deltas are all negative from the perspective of the RTX 3080, meaning the rivals score slightly higher, but the differences are under half a percent.

For Road 96, the GPU's role is to render the game's visuals, which include stylized landscapes and character interactions typical of an adventure title. The measured frame rates show that the RTX 3080 can handle the game well at 1080p and 1440p, but struggles to maintain high frame rates at 4K Ultra. At 1080p Ultra, the average is 123 FPS, while at 1440p Ultra it drops to 78 FPS, and at 4K Ultra it falls to 41 FPS. This progression is consistent with the GPU's compute and memory bandwidth being increasingly taxed as pixel count grows.

The 10 GB VRAM capacity may be a factor at 4K Ultra, where texture and geometry data can exceed the available memory, potentially causing performance degradation. However, the measured data does not include VRAM usage, so this remains speculative. The GPU's bandwidth of 760.3 GB/s is substantial, but at 4K, the data throughput required is higher, and the frame rate drop from 1440p to 4K at Ultra (47%) is larger than the drop from 1080p to 1440p (37%), suggesting that the memory subsystem is under increasing pressure.

The RTX 3080 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4, which covers the API requirements for Road 96. The GPU's pixel rate is 164.2 GPixel/s and texture rate is 465.1 GTexel/s, which provide theoretical limits that align with the measured frame rates. The FP32 performance is 29.77 TFLOPS, which is used for general shading and compute tasks in the game.

The data indicates that the RTX 3080 is the primary determinant of frame rates in Road 96, especially at higher resolutions and settings. At 4K Ultra, the 41 FPS average is below the smooth-playability threshold, while at 4K Medium, the 66 FPS average is more acceptable. The GPU's performance relative to its rivals in synthetic benchmarks, where it is nearly tied with the P106-100 and others, does not directly translate to game performance, but the measured FPS shows that it is a capable card for 1080p and 1440p gaming in this title.

How This Combo Ranks

The combination of the Intel Core i5-14600K and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 ranks 1064 out of 3713 tested combos in the database for Road 96. This places it in the top 29% of all combinations tested, indicating that it performs well relative to the field. The rank is based on the measured FPS across the tested resolutions and settings, and it reflects the overall capability of the pair in this specific game.

The rank of 1064 out of 3713 means that there are 1063 combos that perform better and 2649 that perform worse. This is a solid position, but not a top-tier one, which is consistent with the RTX 3080 being an older GPU (released in 2020) and the i5-14600K being a strong but not flagship CPU. The combo's performance is likely limited by the GPU at higher resolutions, as the CPU has ample headroom based on its benchmark scores.

When comparing to other combos, the data does not provide specific rival combos for the game, but the CPU and GPU rankings individually give context. The CPU's percentile of 90 and the GPU's percentile of 68 suggest that the CPU is relatively stronger than the GPU in the overall database. This means that in games like Road 96, which may not be heavily multi-threaded, the CPU's strength is less impactful, and the GPU's performance becomes the deciding factor.

The combo rank indicates that this pairing is well-balanced for 1080p and 1440p gaming, where the GPU can deliver high frame rates, but at 4K Ultra, the combo falls into the lower end of the performance spectrum. The rank of 1064 is a composite measure, and the individual resolution results show that the combo excels at lower resolutions. At 1080p, even Ultra settings maintain over 120 FPS, which would place the combo favorably against many others. At 4K Ultra, the 41 FPS average is below what many newer or higher-end combos would achieve, pulling the overall rank down.

Measured FPS Breakdown

The measured frame rates for Road 96 are recorded across three resolutions and four settings levels. At 1920x1080, the Low setting produces an average of 266 FPS. The Medium setting yields 194 FPS on average, with a minimum of 165 FPS and a maximum of 224 FPS. The High setting delivers 157 FPS on average. The Ultra setting produces 123 FPS on average. No minimum or maximum values are provided for Low, High, or Ultra at this resolution.

At 2560x1440, the Low setting averages 169 FPS. The Medium setting averages 124 FPS, with a minimum of 105 FPS and a maximum of 142 FPS. The High setting averages 100 FPS. The Ultra setting averages 78 FPS. Similar to 1080p, only the Medium setting has recorded min and max values.

At 3840x2160, the Low setting averages 89 FPS. The Medium setting averages 66 FPS, with a minimum of 56 FPS and a maximum of 75 FPS. The High setting averages 53 FPS. The Ultra setting averages 41 FPS. The Medium setting is the only one with min and max values at this resolution as well.

These numbers show a consistent pattern: as resolution increases, frame rates drop by similar percentages across settings. The Medium setting is the only one with full min/max data at all resolutions, which allows for an analysis of frame time consistency. At 1080p Medium, the range from min to max is 59 FPS (165 to 224). At 1440p Medium, the range is 37 FPS (105 to 142). At 4K Medium, the range is 19 FPS (56 to 75). This tightening of the range as resolution increases suggests that the GPU becomes more consistently the bottleneck, reducing the variance that might come from CPU or scene complexity.

The Ultra setting shows the largest relative drops. From 1080p to 1440p, Ultra drops from 123 to 78 FPS, a 37% reduction. From 1440p to 4K, it drops from 78 to 41 FPS, a 47% reduction. The Low setting shows drops of 36% (266 to 169) and 47% (169 to 89), respectively. The High setting shows drops of 36% (157 to 100) and 47% (100 to 53). The Medium setting shows drops of 36% (194 to 124) and 47% (124 to 66). The consistency of these percentages across settings confirms that resolution scaling is uniform and GPU-bound.

At 1080p, all settings except perhaps Ultra are well above 60 FPS, making the combo suitable for high-refresh-rate displays. The Low setting at 266 FPS is particularly high, suggesting that the game is not demanding at this resolution and settings combination. At 1440p, the Ultra setting at 78 FPS is still above 60, while High at 100 and Medium at 124 provide smoother experiences. At 4K, only the Low setting at 89 FPS exceeds 60, while Medium at 66 is close, and High at 53 and Ultra at 41 fall below.

FAQ

Q: What is the average FPS at 1080p Ultra for this combo in Road 96?

A: The average FPS at 1920x1080 with Ultra settings is 123 FPS.

Q: How does the frame rate drop from 1440p to 4K at Medium settings?

A: At 2560x1440 Medium, the average is 124 FPS. At 3840x2160 Medium, the average is 66 FPS, a reduction of 58 FPS or about 47%.

Q: What is the minimum recorded FPS at 4K Medium?

A: The minimum FPS at 3840x2160 with Medium settings is 56 FPS, with a maximum of 75 FPS.

Q: Does the RTX 3080 outperform its nearest rivals in synthetic benchmarks?

A: The RTX 3080 has an average benchmark score of 23172. Its nearest rival, the NVIDIA P106-100, scores 23249, which is a delta of -0.3% from the RTX 3080's perspective, meaning the P106-100 scores slightly higher. The AMD Radeon Pro Vega 16 scores 23250 (delta -0.3%), the AMD Radeon RX 6600M scores 23273 (delta -0.4%), and the AMD Radeon R9 M290X scores 23276 (delta -0.4%). All rivals score marginally higher.

Q: What is the combo's rank in the database for Road 96?

A: The combo ranks 1064 out of 3713 tested combos, placing it in the top 29% of all combinations tested for this game.

Q: At which resolution does the combo fail to maintain 60 FPS on Ultra settings?

A: At 3840x2160 with Ultra settings, the average FPS is 41, which is below 60. At 2560x1440 Ultra, the average is 78 FPS, which is above 60.