Road 96

Road 96 is an adventure title from 2021 that exhibits unusual scaling behavior with the Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER combination. The measured frame rates across resolutions and settings reveal a system that is heavily front-end bound at lower resolutions, while the GPU takes over as the primary constraint only at 4K with higher quality presets. The data indicates that this pairing is exceptionally strong for high-refresh-rate gameplay, though the scaling pattern suggests that the CPU is doing more of the heavy lifting than one might expect from a modern mid-range graphics card.

Resolution Scaling

The performance drop from 1080p to 4K is dramatic but not uniform across settings. At Low settings, the average frame rate falls from 311.2 FPS at 1920x1080 to 197.6 FPS at 2560x1440, then to 106 FPS at 3840x2160. This represents a 66% reduction from 1080p to 4K at Low settings. The scaling at Ultra settings is steeper in absolute terms but similar in percentage: 144.9 FPS at 1080p drops to 90.2 FPS at 1440p and then to 49.4 FPS at 4K, a 66% decrease overall. The consistency of this percentage drop across settings suggests that the limiting component changes predictably with resolution.

At High settings, the frame rate goes from 180.7 FPS at 1080p to 115.3 FPS at 1440p and 63 FPS at 4K. The Medium preset shows 227.5 FPS at 1080p, 146.2 FPS at 1440p, and 74.4 FPS at 4K. The pattern here is telling: the relative drop from 1440p to 4K is steeper (around 45-50% reduction) than the drop from 1080p to 1440p (around 35-40% reduction). This indicates that at 1080p and even 1440p, the system is not purely GPU-limited; the scaling is compressed because the CPU is holding back the frame rate. At 4K, the GPU becomes the clear bottleneck, and the scaling becomes more linear with pixel count.

The data shows that 1440p is the sweet spot for this combination on Road 96. At High settings, 115.3 FPS is well above the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay, and even Ultra at 90.2 FPS remains highly playable. The 4K results are more modest, with only the Low preset (106 FPS) providing a truly high frame rate experience. This resolution scaling profile is characteristic of a game that is not particularly demanding on GPU resources, allowing the CPU's capabilities to shine through at lower resolutions.

CPU Role

The Intel Core i7-12700KF is an Alder Lake-S processor with 12 cores and 20 threads, running at a base clock of 3.60 GHz and a boost clock of 5.00 GHz. Its benchmark results are strong, with a Cinebench R23 multicore score of 28979 and a single-core score of 4091. The Geekbench multicore score of 13596 and single-core score of 2526 further reinforce its position as a high-end desktop part. The processor sits in the 89th percentile versus all CPUs, indicating that it outperforms the vast majority of available processors.

The CPU's nearest rivals in the benchmark database include the Intel Core i5-14400 with an average score of 35336 (a delta of 0.1% from the i7-12700KF's 35355), the Intel Core i7-13800H at 35416 (delta of -0.2%), and the Intel Core i9-12900HX at 35289 (delta of 0.2%). These extremely tight deltas—all within 0.3% of the i7-12700KF's average score—demonstrate that the 12th-gen processor is still competitive with newer and mobile parts in raw compute performance.

In Road 96, the CPU's role is clearly significant given the frame rates observed. At 1080p Low settings, the 311.2 FPS result is exceptionally high, and this figure is only possible when the CPU can feed frames to the GPU faster than the GPU can render them. The 12 cores and 20 threads provide ample headroom for the game's logic, and the 25 MB of shared L3 cache helps maintain low latency for the frequently accessed game data. The 3.60 GHz base clock and 5.00 GHz boost clock ensure that single-threaded performance is also strong, which is important for an adventure game that may not be fully optimized for multi-core scaling.

The fact that the CPU's percentile rank is 89 and its average benchmark score is 35355, while its nearest rivals are within a fraction of a percent, indicates that this processor is consistently performing at a very high level. In a game like Road 96, where the CPU can push frame rates well beyond 200 FPS at lower resolutions, the i7-12700KF demonstrates that it is not a limiting factor for this title.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER is built on the Ada Lovelace architecture with 7168 shading units, 224 texture mapping units, and 80 raster output units. It features 12 GB of GDDR6X memory on a 192-bit bus, providing a memory bandwidth of 504.2 GB/s. The GPU operates at a base clock of 1980 MHz with a boost clock of 2475 MHz, and its memory runs at an effective speed of 21 Gbps. The 35.48 TFLOPS of FP32 performance places it as a strong mid-range to upper-mid-range card, with a percentile rank of 84 versus all GPUs.

In the benchmark database, the RTX 4070 SUPER's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA RTX A6000 (average score 42653, delta of -0.2% from the 4070 SUPER's 42576), the AMD Radeon RX 7650 GRE (42723, delta of -0.3%), and the AMD Radeon Pro 580X (41991, delta of 1.4%). The deltas here are also very small, suggesting that the 4070 SUPER is clustered with other high-performance cards in synthetic benchmarks.

The GPU's measured performance in Road 96 shows a clear pattern. At 4K Ultra, the average frame rate is 49.4 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. This is the only configuration where the GPU appears to be the sole limiting factor, as the frame rate scales proportionally with the pixel count. At 4K High, the 63 FPS result is barely playable, while 4K Medium (74.4 FPS) and 4K Low (106 FPS) are more comfortable. The 12 GB of VRAM is likely sufficient for Road 96 even at 4K Ultra, as the game is not known for heavy texture usage, but the GPU's compute throughput is what limits performance at this resolution.

The RTX 4070 SUPER's 80 ROPs and 224 TMUs are more than adequate for Road 96's rendering needs at lower resolutions. The data supports this: at 1080p, the frame rates are so high (311.2 FPS at Low) that the GPU is clearly not the bottleneck. At 1440p, the scaling is still favorable, with 197.6 FPS at Low and 90.2 FPS at Ultra. This suggests that the GPU's role becomes more pronounced as resolution increases, but it is only at 4K that it becomes the definitive limiting component.

How This Combo Ranks

The Intel Core i7-12700KF and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER combination ranks 300th out of 1684 tested combos in Road 96, placing it in the top 17.8% of all configurations. This is a strong result, though not exceptional given the high-end nature of both components. The rank reflects the fact that Road 96 is a relatively light game, and many combinations can achieve high frame rates. However, the 300th position out of 1684 indicates that this pairing is well above average, with only 299 other combos performing better in this title.

The ranking is likely influenced by the CPU's strong single-threaded performance, which is critical for an adventure game that may not utilize all 12 cores efficiently. The i7-12700KF's Cinebench R23 single-core score of 4091 and 3DMark single-thread score of 1043 indicate that it can handle the game's main thread with ease. The GPU's role in the ranking is less significant at lower resolutions, but at 4K Ultra, the 49.4 FPS result shows that the RTX 4070 SUPER is adequate but not overkill for this title.

Compared to other combos in the database, this pairing sits in a comfortable position. The top 300 combos likely include CPUs with even higher single-thread scores or GPUs with more raw compute power, but the i7-12700KF and RTX 4070 SUPER offer a balanced profile that performs well across all tested settings. The rank of 300 out of 1684 suggests that this is a solid, reliable combination for Road 96, capable of delivering high frame rates at 1080p and 1440p, with playable performance at 4K on all but the most demanding settings.

Measured FPS Breakdown

At 1920x1080, the combination delivers exceptional performance across all settings. The Low preset achieves an average of 311.2 FPS, which is more than enough for any high-refresh-rate monitor. The Medium preset follows at 227.5 FPS, and High settings produce 180.7 FPS. Even the Ultra preset, which is the most demanding, maintains an average of 144.9 FPS at 1080p. These numbers indicate that at 1080p, the system is almost entirely CPU-limited, as the GPU has ample headroom to render frames as fast as the CPU can submit them.

Moving to 2560x1440, the frame rates remain very high but show more variation between settings. The Low preset averages 197.6 FPS, which is still well above 144 Hz refresh rates. Medium settings produce 146.2 FPS, while High settings yield 115.3 FPS. The Ultra preset drops to 90.2 FPS, which is still above the 60 FPS standard but begins to show the GPU's increasing workload. The scaling from 1080p to 1440p is relatively smooth, with the Low preset dropping by 36.5%, Medium by 35.7%, High by 36.2%, and Ultra by 37.8%. This consistency suggests that neither the CPU nor GPU is a hard bottleneck at this resolution.

At 3840x2160, the GPU becomes the limiting factor. The Low preset averages 106 FPS, which is still playable but represents a 46.4% drop from 1440p. The Medium preset drops to 74.4 FPS, and High settings produce 63 FPS. The Ultra preset falls to 49.4 FPS, which is below the 60 FPS threshold for smooth gameplay. The scaling from 1440p to 4K is steeper than the scaling from 1080p to 1440p, with drops ranging from 46.4% (Low) to 45.2% (Ultra). This indicates that the GPU's rendering capabilities are now the primary constraint, and the frame rates are more directly tied to the pixel count and settings quality.

The measured data shows a clear hierarchy: at 1080p, the CPU dominates; at 1440p, the system is balanced; at 4K, the GPU takes over. The RTX 4070 SUPER's 12 GB of VRAM and 504.2 GB/s bandwidth are sufficient for Road 96 at all settings, but the 35.48 TFLOPS of compute throughput is the limiting factor at 4K Ultra. The i7-12700KF's performance ensures that the CPU never holds back the system, even at the highest frame rates observed.